No Beach Balls!

This post is rated PG as it includes the discussion of "Brief Nudity"!

Yesterday while reading the always entertaining and enlightening "Travel with Kevin and Ruth" this picture reminded me of an example of why the prohibition of beach balls is so important and why violating the rule is not always a bad idea!

Following is the Anaheim Stadium website rule concerning beach balls:

Beach Balls:
For the safety of all guests, players and employees, beach balls are not allowed inside the ballpark. Any fan bringing in a beach ball or inflating one during a game will be subject to ejection from Angel Stadium of Anaheim. Please do not partake in hitting or chasing after a beach ball as it may disturb and/or injure another fan.


The significance of the above will become clear later.  First a long story made short (I hope).


Around 30 years ago, in a former life, I decided that I wanted to travel.  Not that much different than the present, but at that time I needed to travel and earn an income at the same time.  I decided that driving a moving van cross country would be a good way to accomplish both goals.  A friend taught me to drive a truck; I bought a truck; I went to DMV and took the required written test; I scheduled the first appointment available for the driving test; and, I almost aced the test.  Well, not really, I got a 78 on the driving test which was barely acceptable as the minimum passing score is 75.


Next, even though I had little experience driving and even less experience loading a truck, I interviewed with a local Mayflower agency and was offered a job hauling people's treasures around what is called "the eleven western states" in trucker's lingo.  In my thirties I felt pretty much invincible and accepted the job.  My first month was what I considered on-the-job training and all my assignments were for less than full loads and the destinations were mainly in California with a few trips to Arizona (in the middle of the summer).  Income is based on how full your truck is and how far you haul the load.  When I got back to the agency after the first month, I knew I had to do something to improve my assignments. 


This is where the beach balls come in.  I won a radio promotion giving away 4 tickets to an Anaheim Angels day game.  Who to take?  The operations manager and the dispatcher (the guy who hands out the assignments) gladly accepted my invitation.  We had very good seats about half-way down the third base line.  The location of the seats became even better as two very pretty young ladies squeezed past other fans and took the two seats immediately in front of us.  BTW none of the guys they had to squeeze by seemed to mind as the young ladies were clad in short shorts and bikini tops (think hot day and a few beers).


Okay, this is really where the beach balls come in!  It was a warm July day and the game wasn't that exciting.  Someone (bless his heart) decided to throw caution to the wind, break the rule about beach balls and throw one down from the upper level.  It wound up right in the lap of the best endowed of the two young ladies in front of us.  Rather than just batting it away, she decided to stand up and hold it for a moment while she shook her booty and made a couple of 360 degree turns so that everyone in the stadium would notice her.  She finally gave the beach ball a toss and miraculously within a very short time it came back our way.  I caught it and, being a considerate gentleman, I handed it to her.  Spontaneous cheers erupt!  She repeated her previous performance and it took even less time for the beach ball to get back to us.  Everyone near us was also very considerate and instead of hitting the beach ball away, when caught, it was promptly returned to the young lady.  More spontaneous and much louder cheers!


After around 15 minutes, and maybe 10 of these repetitive displays of very impressive beach ball tossing, a man who was sitting about 20 rows behind us came down and offered her $200 (1980 dollars when you could still buy something with a dollar) to take her top off the next time she got the ball.  He only had one condition:  he wanted her to wait until he got back to his seat so he could watch her through his binoculars!  Kinda sick don't you think; but what the heck!  


She accommodated the request, remaining topless and doing 360s (right in the face of my guests and I) to cheers so loud that the players on the field looked up to see what was going on.  Security was also watching and had her removed from the stadium within a few minutes.  The boos for her ejection were even louder than the cheers and the game was delayed until she and her escorts reached the tunnel.


My scheduled half-load trip to Arizona the next week was cancelled and replaced with a full load from Laguna Beach to Denver.  I spent the rest of my time at that company with full-load trips to and from Washington, Oregon, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and Idaho.  I would have offered her $400 if I could have foreseen the outcome!