As mentioned in an earlier post, I went to the San Diego Sockers game at the Del Mar Fairgrounds on Friday night with Tom, Joel and Chris. The arena is in the main parking lot of the fairgrounds, on the right side. They have a full indoor arena set up there, and tickets ran from $7.00-$19.50. We decided to be the high-rollers of the evening, so we splurged for the high-end "Field Box" seats. These are the seats right at the wall of the field.
CAPTION: If you look in the bottom right hand corner, there are two people in black standing up right above the yellow guard-rail. I am the one on the right. Random photo taken by a friend I didn't even know was there (nor did he know I was there when he took this photo).Now, let me just tell you...the San Diego Sockers don't exactly attract your "ordinary" sports crowd. Some of the highlights from the game:
-I saw an 80-year old woman get kicked out of the game, who then proceeded to hit the Elite Security guard in the shin with her cane. Apparently they asked her twice not to use her air-horn, and she did not acquiesce, so they escorted her (or "evicted", as the extremely intelligent security guard put it) off the premises, which is when the said shin-bashing occurred (more on this later).
-The halftime show was comprised of the following: 4 people, a soccer ball, and a bike rack. They divided into two teams, put the bike rack between them, and then proceeded to play volleyball, only using their feet instead of their hands. I'm not anyone else in the ARENA knew it was going on either.
-After the aforementioned shin-bashing granny was booted from her box seats next to us, we promptly took those seats. I mean hey, they were in the box next to the Tijuana Revolucion bench, with no barrier, and our view to the field was no longer separated by a plexiglass wall (like hockey). So to that shin-bashing, security-abusing granny out there...thank you.
-The third/fourth quarter break introduced an interactive fan element. If you wanted, before the game you could buy a small yellow frisbee for $1.00 (proceeds of which went to Haiti relief). You were then, during the 3rd/4th quarter break, to toss this frisbee from your seats into a tire set up at midfield. If you got it in, you win half the money donated (which I found weird they were raising money for Haiti, but giving half of it to a frisbee extraordinaire). Anyway, let's just say nobody got CLOSE (including yours truly, despite my frisbee expertise), and I'm sure plenty of people got smashed in the face during the onslaught of yellow frisbee rain.
-After every goal scored by the Sockers, the team kicks a soccer ball into the crowd, which of course then instigates a huge melee where everyone fights for the ball. Luckily, our night the Sockers scored 12 times, so we had plenty of soccer balls to go around.
-At one point, a player kicked a ball into the stands, hit a woman in her hands, she dropped it...and it went 30 rows away where a little kid grabbed it and had a huge smile on his face. Then all of a sudden, the woman whose hands it hit came running down, said something to the boy, and took the ball! Poor kid was devastated. The whole place booed the lady, and she couldn't care less. So being the knights in shining armor that we are, we got the kid a frisbee.
-Towards the end of the game, the fans across from us were starting to feel the effects of their red-bull and vodka (just a guess). They had been heckling all game long, and as the game was well out of reach for the team from TJ, and the Sockers kept scoring, it got a little bizarre. When we scored our 12th and final goal, one of the fans jumped over the wall and did a little dance, and then jumped back over into his seats...without the referee ever seeing! The TJ head coach saw it and went ballistic, telling the referee it shouldn't be tolerated, and the ref gave him the sheepish shrug of the shoulders intimating "Whadya want me to do?"
All in all, definitely glad I went. Would I go again? Different question. If I did, I'd probably want to sit with the granny, or I better start practicing my frisbee skills.
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