But the reason to come to out to the stadium is to watch the stands. Between the hardcore season ticket holders and the young ones hawking peanuts and beer in bleechers, there's a fire in the air, a passion for the game that the major leagues just can't compete with.
Firstly, there's Buzz, a season ticket holder who's perpetually letting the stadium know what's on his mind. His nearly toothless mouth is always spewing insults at the umpire or the opposing team. His white whispey hair and pudgey physique make him into what could easily be considered to be the Dust Devil's mascott. I suppose I lied a bit: Buzz does have a few teeth, the most prominent of which is a singular yellowed stump jutting forth from his bottom jaw. Buzz knows all the major ticket holders; they rely upon him for updates on the Mariners games that are typically coinciding with the Dust Devil's. Buzz always keeps a radio by his ear and shouts out the score as each inning ends. Anyone who queries him as to what he just announced invariably gets a sarcastic answer, such as "I said it's a nice day for fruit!"
Then there's Millie, an aged fan shaped like a whizzened beer barrel. Millie always seems to show up halfway through the third inning, taking her seat with he husband and best friend. She always has a bag of peanuts in hand, and a comfy blanket to place under her tush. Of course, the temperatures in the Tri-City area typically top 90, so that blanket has never seen the light of day aside from the short jaunts from the car to the seats.
The real treat here, however, are the food vendors. The beer girl is a voice coach by day, and if you ask nicely, she just might grace you with an operatic piece from her portfolio. She's a thicker lady, but full of class and style, full figured and bubbling over with personality. He long black hair is sometimes divided into pigtails and sprayed with temporary blue and green, the Dust Devil's colors.
Her two male companions sell red rope and slushy Minute Maid Ice cups. The red rope hawker can often be found with numerous little children in tow, echoing his sales pitch "Cracker Jacks! Peanuts! Red Rope!" It's a scene that puts to shame the Giant's famous half-retarded red rope salesman, whose pitch is often mistakenly heard as "Reh Rooooooeeeeeeeee!"
On particularly balmy nights, the crackerjack peddler can be heard saying "Crackerjack! Melted sticky cracker jacks! they're all messy, but they're still good!"
The Dust Devils are in last place in their league, a division made up of eight teams, but their fans never seem to mind, and on some nights, the team might even manage to put on a good show for the folks. Cheung-Lung Lo, the team's only Taiwanese player was the youngest professional athlete in the US last year, at the age of 16. On off nights, he sits in the front row with a radar gun and a clip board, cataloguing his teammate's retinue of pitches. Occasionally, young little leaguers will wander over and ask for an autograph, and Lo is always happy to oblige.
The players may not earn millions a year, and the stadium may not accommodate more than 3000 fans at a time, but the rewards for supporting this small town team are reaped in the friendships and comrade-re that can only be found in middle America. This is not exclusively the game of Americans, but it is the exclusive property of those that enjoy and revel in it's glory.