6/19/2006

 

Meeting (And Thanking) Al

I had a somewhat sobering thought at the ballpark on Friday. And considering the fact that I was three big beers and a bottle of champagne (don’t ask) deep, a sobering thought was rather hard to come by.

But, sometime around the sixth inning, as The Lady Friend and I set out in search of the perfect hot dog (it was located on the lower concourse, first base side, next to some Bank of America ATMs – just a tremendous hot dog stand), I noticed a whole lot of mustard lying around on the concourse floor.

As most of you already know, piles of mustard don’t clean themselves up, so there to do the dirty work was a gentleman by the name of Al. TLF (who, by nature is down right curious) stopped and asked Al how in the hell all of that mustard got there. “It’s hot. It’s humid. Mustard explodes,” Al informed us.

I thanked Al for all of his hard work. With all due respect to Scott Rolen, Jim Edmonds, and the rest of the millionaires on the field, it’s the hard working men and women like Al that make the experience of going to a Cardinals game so damn nice. The people who get paid not nearly enough to sell squishy yards, take out the trash, and to clean up the many mustard explosions which have plauged Busch Stadium lo these past few months… now they deserve a curtain call.

I asked Al if I could get a picture with him and told him that I’d like to tell his story. He wanted no part of it. His was a thankless job, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to start asking for thanks now. When my lady friend told him I write about the Cardinals for a website, he replied “When are you going to do some real work?”

Touché, Al. Touché.

And thanks for all of your hard work.

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