Pittsburgh Pirates: A Fan, A Foul Ball, and His Nachos

A Pittsburgh Pirates fan holding nachos and beer at a ballgame in Pittsburgh attempts to catch a foul ball and it doesn’t work out well for him.

A man went to a baseball game. He was a simple man. He was a Pittsburgh Pirates fan. He wore denim blue jeans and a plain white t-shirt. It was a no-nonsense outfit designed for comfort, not style. The man was in Pittsburgh, after all, which is a no-nonsense town that has long been known for its blue-collar workers even though the ‘Burg has actually transformed itself into more of a blue-collar/white-collar mix over the last 30 years.

People think Pittsburgh is like Cleveland, but it’s more like Cincinnati; not-so-much Oakland as San Francisco. Still, the image of hard working truckers and shift workers going into Primanti Bros for a sandwich filled with capicola ham, provolone cheese, tomato, coleslaw, and French fries stuffed in between thick slices of Italian bread is hard to forget. Old stereotypes die hard.

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This man was watching a baseball game. The hometown Pirates were hosting the San Diego Padres. While he may have been enjoying baseball at the moment, he was likely just passing time until football season starts and the Steelers become the focus of sports fans throughout the city. At its heart, Pittsburgh is a football town.

It was the fifth inning and the Padres’ Edwin Jackson was facing Jung-ho Kang. The man was sitting in prime foul ball location on the first base side. He had recently returned from the concession stand and was eagerly anticipating a veritable ballpark feast.

He had a plate of what look to be super nachos, estimated cost–$12. It appears a Miller Lite was his beverage of choice to wash down the nachos. According to this article from last summer, when compared to other stadiums a 16-ounce beer at PNC Park is a relative bargain at $5.50.

Then it happened. On a 3-2 pitch, Jung-ho Kang fouled the ball off to the right side. The man could see it coming his way. He already had the nachos. He already had the beer. Could he make it a trifecta? Could he keep the nachos, and the beer, and add a foul ball to achieve ultimate baseball fan glory?

He stood up and deftly cradled the nachos and beer in his right arm while reaching up high, as high as he could reach, with his left arm stretched towards the sky. Like George Constanza before him, this man would attempt the trifecta.

Deep down inside, we’re all dreamers. We want to live the best possible life we can imagine. We want the dream job, the wonderful home, and to end up with the love of our life. But sometimes fate gets in the way. Fate may allow a man at a ballgame to have an appealing plate of super nachos. Fate may even allow that man to accompany those nachos with an ice cold Miller Lite. But when you ask for too much, fate can be fickle. When you strive to add a foul ball to your armful of nachos and beer, sometimes fate wags its little finger at you and says, no sir, not today. Today is not your day.

This man attempted the trifecta. It was bold, it was gutsy, a lesser man would have shielded his nachos and beer and ducked away from the incoming projectile. But not this man. He reached for glory, like only the boldest of us do. Ultimately, though, fate told him, “No sir, not today. Today is not your day.”

The man leaned back with his Pittsburghian body and his right arm full of nachos and beer and his left arm outstretched and . . . the ball just missed his fingertips and landed behind him. In his efforts, he lost control of everything. The beer sailed off to the right, like a miniature dirigible, and the nachos flew right into his face, covering his forehead with a hideous mix of brown and yellow, not unlike the Padres uniforms of the 1970s.

It would be easy to mock and laugh at this man. He did end up with a face full of nachos, after all, and a white t-shirt that was no longer pristine. If it were a Red Sox game in years past, Don Orsillo and Jerry Remy might have spent the next half inning analyzing the play, like they once did with the “Here Comes the Pizza” affair at Fenway park:

But we should not mock this man. He’s a better man than we are. He sought greatness. He aimed higher. He could have settled for nachos and beer, but he went for the trifecta. He is the man about whom Teddy Roosevelt spoke in this excerpt from a 1910 speech:

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena,

whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood;

who strives valiantly;

who errs, who comes short again and again,

because there is no effort without error and shortcoming;

but who does actually strive to do the deeds;

who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions;

who spends himself in a worthy cause;

who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement,

and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly,

so that his place shall never be with those cold

and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

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This man failed while daring greatly. He should be praised for his efforts. Well done, simple man from Pittsburgh in blue jeans and a brown-and-yellow stained t-shirt. Your next plate of super nachos and Miller Lite are on me. Well, not literally.

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