Preakness Infield Beer Wars
Last year's Preakness Day Infield featured the mass-market debut of Port-a-Racin', the artful attempt to sprint over the top of a row of porta-potties while dodging flying debris cheerfully volunteered by the surrounding masses. A year later, the game had changed: now, the sprinting was banished to history's dustbin, as the flying debris itself took center stage.
Near as anyone could tell, today's game of beer-can volleyball broke out when someone flung a brew from on top of an outhouse. That, the surrounding masses realized, looked like jolly good fun. And soon the sky filled with silver-and-foam, the silver signifying surprisingly heavy vessels of lite beer, the foam showing that this lite beer anxiously wished to come out and join the party.
Six, seven, eight cans were volleyed back and forth simultaneously, some being consumed after their fleshy landings, others taking flight again. Some infielders shielded their heads with Styrofoam coolers. Others joined forces, hoisting a giant blue tarp to ward off the incoming fermentable attack.
One man proudly showed off what he claimed was a beer-can related broken finger. Another yanked a can out of mid-air, consumed its contents and chomped the defeated can between his jaws. A young woman face's snapped back after impact; she shook her head and managed a timid laugh.
The game was interrupted occasionally by a less subtle form of hostility, shirtless men beating each other upon the face, then hugging, then beating some more. Solidarity peeked around every corner; when the fights faded, the shirtless punchers clumped into wobbly kick-lines and joined voices in soccer's iconic "Ole" song.
But then solidarity slunk back into the mud, fists flew again, and chests already painted with mud and lite-beer added bright crimson highlights.
"I always love watching the fights," one bystander mused philosophically, as two shirtless fellows went careening into the row of porta-potties.
Leaving the land of fights, the fun was of a more conventional nature. The rousing bachelor party, for example. Or the "What Horses?" t-shirts. The proud parade of an American flag, saluted by "U-S-A" chants. The man with a fishing pole, claiming he was fishing for members of the opposite gender, using Miller Lite as bait.
Some infielders gamely bet the ponies; for others, racing's only impact was in shirts bearing sexually suggestive race-day puns. "Mount" proved a particularly popular word.
"Over half the people in here haven't even seen a horse, are you kidding me?" said 20-year Arica Wenzel of Linthicum, during one break in the beer wars. "Probably one-quarter of the people here don't even know this is a horse race."
By Dan Steinberg |
May 17, 2008; 5:30 PM ET
| Category:
Weirdness
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Posted by: smperk | May 17, 2008 5:39 PM
Steinz hope you had on plenty of sunscreen on that head SPF 50 at least.....I also heard Wiz PR boy Daren Jenkins was mistaken for bottle of extra lite beer and was tossed back and forth several times during the festivities...
Posted by: i got work | May 17, 2008 11:00 PM
Stay classy, Maryland...
Posted by: infield idiots | May 18, 2008 10:55 AM
This made me long for the days of Bram doing his radio show from the Preakness infield.
Posted by: odessa steps magazine | May 18, 2008 6:07 PM
Crab cakes and football...that's what Maryland does!
Posted by: ahern | May 18, 2008 8:33 PM
It was fun except for the raining down beers. That hour or so where it happened almost ruined what was a beautiful day on the infield.
Posted by: Mark | May 18, 2008 9:53 PM
We went yesterday to what should have been a fun filled preakness but instead had to leave early because we had one guy in our group catch a full beer to the head, another sliced his finger open from the beer wars and then 5 meat heads started a fight that left one of the girls in our group laying on the ground as the idiots tossed her aside. All this while security refuse to do anything. When we asked them to help they said "F" you. Glad to see our money going to pay their "salaries". After all the years of going and having fun, we will never return. Preakness sucked!!
Posted by: hating preakness | May 18, 2008 11:38 PM
Stay classy, Maryland...
Posted by: infield idiots | May 18, 2008 10:55 AM
Oh, right, because the Kentucky Derby infield is all southern gentry in Colonel Sanders suits sipping mint juleps and declaring "Mercy!" whilst fanning themselves.
Posted by: Goose | May 19, 2008 7:06 AM
Cleveland fans would never act in this manner!
Posted by: Unsilent Majority | May 19, 2008 9:13 AM
Welcome to Baltimore.
Posted by: StetSports.com | May 19, 2008 9:50 AM
Welcome to Baltimore, Hon.
Posted by: StetSports.com | May 19, 2008 9:50 AM
FYP.
Posted by: EdTheRed | May 19, 2008 12:34 PM
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can't wait for the videos