Cabbage Patch Kids

The heat was getting to all of us.

It had been in the high 90s all day, with the sort of humidity that makes the air feel like hot pea soup shot through a gourmet oil mister, so by the time we’d walked the four blocks from the parking lot to the ticket window, it mattered not that I was wearing my Russell Athletic Dri-Power t-shirt with moisture management technology -- I was definitely no longer dri.

And after navigating the weaving promenades and steep steps leading to our seats in the 300 level of Busch Stadium -- seats the St. Louis Cardinals call “Upper Terrace Reserved,” presumably because “These Seats May Induce Vertigo” doesn’t carry quite the same marketing cachet -- I was so hot and sticky I would’ve gladly paid seven bucks just for a cold lemonade.

Imagine my delight when I found out the lemonade was only $6.25.

But when you’re 700 feet from home plate and each single-degree drop in temperature posted on the stadium scoreboard inspires celebratory high fives, there is only so much cooling off a $6.25 lemonade can provide.

So between silent prayers for cool breezes, we watched the tiny dots in Cardinals and Pirates uniforms run around the field, and did our best not to pass out.

The guy next to us evidently wasn’t trying as hard as we were.  I suppose part of it had to do with the fact that he was drunk enough to have held a conversation with an All-Star ballot, but whether it was that or the heat, shortly after he sat down, he passed out.  But more on him later.

Meanwhile, a few fresh-faced college kids in our section tried to start the wave.

Now, in theory, the wave can be kind of fun.  I mean, sure, it’s totally cliché, and highly unlikely to have any impact on the outcome of the game, but seeing 40,000 people move in unison is still a cool thing.

It is not, however, cooling, and when standing up to do the wave means both unsticking yourself from your plastic seat and exerting energy that will generate sweat that will contribute to your resticking, the motivation to participate in such human movement experiments is tough to summon.

As such, the wave attempts failed miserably.

A little bit later, in the bottom of the fifth inning, the game just sort of stopped.  Most of the players inexplicably left the field.  No announcement was made, and since we were in right field, out of sight of the Jumbotron, and nobody in our section had a radio, none of us had any idea what was going on.  Did one of the umpires . . . have to go potty?  That was the best suggestion any of us had.  And frankly, none of us knew -- what if you’re an umpire, and you maybe had a bad burrito before the game, and in the middle of the fifth inning, you really, really have to go?

As we sat and pondered (and sweated), I had a sudden realization -- I could use my phone to check the web, and maybe figure out what was happening.  (This qualified as a realization because I only recently acquired wireless web on my phone, and only then as part of a free trial I was forced to accept to get the rebate on my new phone, and . . .)

With the World Wide Web in the palm of my hand, I zipped over to the Fox Sports website, and to their Major League Baseball page, where I spied this headline:  “South Korea bans wearing cabbage leaves.”

It wasn’t quite the umpire-stuck-in-bathroom-stall-at-Busch-Stadium headline I was looking for, but it wasn’t something I could just skip over, either.

“South Korea's love for the cabbage -- the key ingredient in its national dish, kimchi -- apparently doesn't extend to the baseball field,” the article began.  It went on to explain that the Korea Baseball Organization had ruled that players may no longer wear frozen cabbage leaves inside their baseball caps to keep them cool during a game.  The decision came after a Doosan Bears player’s cap fell off twice in a game, revealing the aforementioned vegetable.

"What will we do if another team argues that because the cabbage leaf fell just as the pitcher was pitching, the batter got confused?" asked league rules committee chair Heo Koo-youn, according to South Korea's Yonhap News Agency.

Indeed, whatever will they do?  I’ll never know, because all I could think about was how good a frozen cabbage leaf would’ve felt right then on my noggin.

And then, right as I was wondering how much a guy could make roaming the stadium and selling frozen cabbage leaves (I can’t even begin to guess the going rate, but if a lemonade is six and a quarter, you should be able to get a five spot for a frozen cabbage leaf, easy), the college kids tried starting the wave again.

Apparently boredom trumps heat stroke, because this time -- with the game still in an inexplicable delay -- people were actually getting into it.  By the time the wave had built up enough momentum to make it halfway around the stadium, the missing ump finally emerged from the tunnel, and the crowd cheered.

The ump probably thought the cheers were sarcastic, but I’d like to think the fans were just excited about the wave.

Anyway, once the game finally got going again, it almost immediately got out of hand.  In the top of the sixth, the Pirates piled on another five runs to extend their lead to 11-2, and the Cardinals couldn’t respond in kind.  At the seventh inning stretch, many fans decided it was time to go home.

This included the friends of the dude passed out next to us.  Only problem was, their friend was passed out, and not responding to standard wake-up efforts.

So, of course, they started slapping him.  In the face.  This was very funny to them, because it wasn’t working.

Finally, a combination of vigorous face-slaps and cold-water splashes woke the man from his deep, deep slumber, and they left.

We didn’t need to get slapped in the face.  We just needed to look at the score on the scoreboard and the sweat stains on our shorts, and we knew it was time to go, home to cold showers, chilly air conditioning, and cool sheets.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, the umpire wasn’t stuck in the bathroom.  Turns out the home plate ump had been hit in the head by a foul ball, complained of dizziness and headaches, and was sent to the hospital for observation.  The delay was for the second-base ump to put on gear and move behind the plate.

Still, I wonder what happens if an ump gets a bad burrito.