Storming the Murph

By David Marasco

Anthony and I were cruising San Diego looking for a place to eat. Being lazy college students, this was one of our favorite pastimes. That night must have been at the end of a long day, because we couldn't agree of a place to eat. When we were in a good mood, we would generally eat at the first place that promised us enough fat and carcinogens to kill a horse. When we were all dogged out, open road and good food were the cure-alls we craved. As we drove through Mission Valley Gorge, I noticed the lights were on at Jack Murphy Stadium. Then I recalled the Padres had opened their season earlier that week.

"Hey, how about we catch the Padres"?

"Game's already started, besides, I'm not in the mood for hot dogs."

Anthony and I settled on a steak restaurant. Inside we opened our wallets and decided upon salad. "Did you really want to see the Padres?", he asked. "Well, not that it broke my heart or anything, but I did want to catch the game." Anthony slipped deep into thought. This was during the Werner Regime, when San Diego baseball fans had been subjected to Roseanne's singing and the dimantlement of the franchise. For me to want to see the Padres was just about enough evidence to get me committed. Anthony's brow relaxed, he had lived with me long enough to know that I was crazy. He had reached a decision, "Why don't we go and buy tickets for this weekend?" It was a plan.

We drove towards the Murph. On the way, Anthony was concerned that we would have to pay for parking, but we decided that the parking people would let us in for free once we explained what we were doing. When we pulled into the parking lot, there was no attendant on duty. "It must be far enough into the game that they yanked him," we reasoned. It was then that an idea flashed into my mind. If they had pulled the parking guy, maybe there were no guards at the stadium gates! Another plan was set into action. We were going to storm the Murph.

I told Anthony my idea and he liked it. But when we approached the first entrance, there was a security person in a foul mood. He told us that since the game was an hour old, we would have to go to the main ticket office to buy tickets for future games. We would have to walk to the other side of the stadium. Along the way there was a guard at every gate. No luck yet. We arrived at the main ticket office and made our purchase for the upcoming weekend. As we were about to leave, Anthony turned back towards the direction from which we had come. He had given up on tonight's game. One problem--I hadn't. "Wait," I spit out, "we know that we can't get in that way, maybe we can the other way." On top of knowing that I was crazy, Anthony also knew I was stubborn. He turned around and followed me.

Things were looking bleak. At each new gate there was an attentive guard posted. After a while we came upon a long stretch between gates. Just as Anthony was telling me how plumb loco I was, I saw a padlocked fence. However, the lock was dangling open. I looked at Anthony. Anthony looked at me. We both looked at the lock. We looked to our left and to our right, not a person in sight. I took off the lock and pushed open the fence. I peeked inside. The coast was clear. I slid inside and Anthony followed. We were in like Flynn!

Anthony started walking down the tunnel to the nearest seats. "Wait, you lop!", I cried out, "Look, we are in straight-away center field! If we go wandering down there to look for seats, there won't be anybody for three sections to either side. We'll be dead meat! Security will get us in a second." Anthony nodded in agreement and we headed for a more populated region.

We eventually settled into the section of seats right at the edge of the crowd. There was a sprinkling of fans, so we sat down feeling pretty sure that nobody would challenge us for the seats. As it turned out, the Pirates were in town. It was the fourth or the fifth and, predictably, the Padres were down. Still, Anthorty and I were having a great time. Neither the Pads nor the Pirates were very impressive, but we found plenty of things to amuse us. Among others, there were the two guys who had found our back door in. Anthony directed my attention to the center field bleachers. There were two men walking down one of the aisles. One of them had his arm pointed in the direction of home plate, and the other had his lips puckered as if was saying "oohhhh." We laughed as security converged upon them. One of us made a comment about survival of the fittest.

"Excuse me, but do you have tickets for this section?" Uh oh. Anthony and I turned to see a very big person in uniform. "Uh. Dave", asked Anthony, "do we have tickets for this section?" Anthony had seen the way out as soon as I had. He could be really sneaky at times. "No", I replied, "not for this section." The guard cracked a smile and said, "That's what I thought. This part is reserved for off-duty security only." We quickly explained that we would find our way back to our proper seats. As we were leaving that section, Anthony suggested that we had seen enough baseball for the night. Since he had the wheels, I agreed. That weekend we saw the Cardinals, but somehow it wasn't the same.