The Occasional Odd Crop

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Where: Petco Park, San Diego

When: May 26, 2007, in the last couple innings of the Padres' 6-3 win over the Milwaukee Brewers

Notes: You'll notice that these kids have quite a bit of room. That's because the previous occupants of these four seats left the game early. They weren't trying to beat the traffic. They were thrown out for being jerks.

Well, not technically. Technically, they got tossed because they were high school boys drinking beer. I assume they bought the beer at a concession stand, and they were ejected a few minutes after they sat back down.

I'm not sure how they got busted, but I do know that I've never been happier to see anybody leave a sporting event in my life.

From the moment these guys sat down and started drinking the booze they'd sneaked in, they were obnoxious loudmouths. They all had these foghorn voices that they used, for example, to call the Brewers' husky Prince Fielder "Fatty McFatfat." And to yell at some fan wearing a Milwaukee jersey, "Nice shirt! Brewers suck!"

Clever things like that, all of it at the top of their lungs. And they never shut up.

We were sitting in the row behind them, and at one point, I asked my wife, "Did you ever see that movie 'Big'? Where a 12-year-old is magically turned into a grown man, but just physically?" She nodded. "Yeah," I said. "Can't imagine why I'm thinking of that now."

Before they were ejected, these geniuses got the attention of the staff at the ballpark a.) for the booze, which was confiscated, except for what the staff didn't see, b.) because one of them dropped an f-bomb at about 80 decibels and c.) for general rudeness.

I can't help wondering whether, if they'd acted not quite so much like Neanderthals on a bender, these children could have made it to the end of the game. We'll never know.