On June 17, 2009, three nefarious Canadians committed the foulest of crimes in Cincinnati’s home of the Reds: The Great American Ballpark. Their crime? Buying Beer… as Canadians! This is part three of their story.
Canadian Gerald, pictured above (he’s the one wearing shorts, some sort of Reds merchandise, and holding an illegal beer), is a baseball encyclopedia. Ask him who played center field for the Texas Rangers in 1985. While most people would answer, “who cares?”, Gerald will tell you it was Oddibe McDowell, who was also the first Ranger to hit for the cycle… and he also sported a slick pencil ‘stache.
Gerald was the second of the Canadian Three that 7th Inning Stache was able to contact and interview for his side of the story regarding the international incident that was created when he and his friends had the audacity to buy beer, as Canadians, in Cincinnati’s Great American Ballpark.
7th Inning Stache: First of all, thanks for sitting down with us, Gerald.
Gerald: Thanks. It was just us three amigos that suffered through the humiliating/dumbfounded “those Ba$tards won’t sell us alcohol.”
7IS: I understand you went through different stages of disbelief and confusion when, due to your Canadian citizenship, you were first denied beer at The Great American Ballpark. If it doesn’t still hurt too much, could you take us through though stages again?
Gerald:Mostly disbelief. I think I was 16 when I was last refused a drink. My thoughts on the reasoning of this policy from the staff had to be one of the following:
- Was it “we have this beautiful ballpark, the great AMERICAN ballpark BTW, but our team really sucks. I blame that Joey Votto guy (wasn’t he out with some ear infection at the time?) and he’s CANADIAN. ALL CANADIANS will face the wrath of the beer booths!”
- Did this booth suffer one “this is the final straw, I can’t stand those polite Canadians, they’re so smug with their Thank-yous and Pleases all the time, I really hate them. No BEER for you!!!”
- Are they just messing with us, aka revenge for Borat on all Foreigners?
- They were RETARDED!!! The offspring of generations of inbreeding (remember we were right on the Kentucky border). “You may spend hundreds of dollars in our gift shop, buy the most expensive seats your funny [Canadian] money will allow, buy all the $1 hot dogs and peanuts any obese person would every desire, but your silly PASSPORT is no good here.” How the [expletive deleted] did you think we happened to get in the country if our Passports are fake?!?!? What, we flew to Mexico and crossed the border, then hopped on a freight train to Cincinnati and decided to really press our luck and dare to purchase beer?!?!?!
7IS: Wow, obviously the wounds of that day still run deep, even though you and your fellow Canadians did eventually get some beer, right?
Gerald: Not right away. I happened by after [my fellow Canadians] were already first denied (at first I didn’t believe [them], they must be changing the taps right), so I thought I would just whip out my passport and they would stop hassling us and apologize profusely for the delay. BUT NOOOOOOOOOOO…..!!!! They’re NOT [expletive deleted] kidding. AND they think they’re being reasonable people. Enough was enough, so when we asked for the manager in the hope that this nightmare would end, out comes Manager Guy straight out The Simpsons and then that part of me died. We just had to walk away. Crushed, bewildered. No beer? At a baseball game. No beer. Can’t be happening. EVERYBODY is enjoying sweet, sweet beer but us. So sad.
7IS: But we’ve already talked to your compatriot Chris and we’ve seen the photo, so we know you eventually were able to obtain some beer in Cincinnati.
Gerald:Like I said I hadn’t been denied purchasing beer for almost 20 years, I didn’t know how to handle the situation. So, when Chris comes around the corner with the biggest smile this side of Guy Smiley it brought me back to that teenage mentality. “Really, they sold you a beer? [expletive deleted] eh!” Going up to the counter and asking the kid (who only could dare to dream he could one day grow a beard as sweet as Dustin Pedroia, since he hadn’t quite reached puberty yet. As Chris said, the guy looked really young) “Yes, I would like a Draught beer please.” I was actually thinking the only way this evening could get worse was if Chris and Kevin [the third Canadian, to be interviewed later] got beers, then the kid says to me “Excuse me sir, can I see some ID?” and I spend the evening beerless and hearing “Usually I’m not a fan of American beer, but this one tastes GREAT!!!!.. Too bad, Gerald, that you didn’t get one yourself. Too bad.” Until I had that plastic cup in my hand I was a little nervous. Again a feeling I haven’t felt in 20 years of beer purchasing. The first sips were my equivalent of sipping from the Stanley Cup for players, it was THAT sweet. Perfect evening, not a cloud in the sky, in a gorgeous ballpark, there with the Boys, a moment not to be spoiled, and when we got our beers it was perfect.
7IS: So from tragedy came triumph. This is truly a moving story, so we thank you for sharing with us. Do you have anything else you want to add?
Gerald: Like I said above. Drinking those first few mouthfuls was VICTORY. After what we suffered through, there was no way I was allowing my brain to convince me that this wasn’t the best beer ever. Drinking as much as we did the previous 96 hours might have had something to do with my brain not winning that battle.
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Readers, join us next time for Part 4 of this continuing series as we use yet another Canadian contact (do you know Will in Blackfalds? F’in’ Eh!) to get to the bottom of one of the hottest baseball crimes in the history of Cincinnati.
Also see: Beerless in Cincinnati: Part 1 and Part 2
