3d ago

If everyone goes to baseball games by car and everyone gets wasted like Randy Marsh, how do people get home?

I just saw a picture of a baseball stadium and the parking lot was like 5x bigger than the stadium. How do people manage to get wasted AND get home.

Excuse my naivety but I’m from Europe where people take the train usually and the hope is that the train conductor isn’t a drunk dad coming from the game. Plus we don’t have baseball.

33 comments

many Americans don't really worry about driving drunk. it is weird going back to visit, having beers with people and then everybody drives home drunk.
from concerts, from the bars, from restaurants, from bowling alleys, driving impaired is pretty normal there.
like you say, there's no public transport to get them home.
- I’ve said this countless times but I’ll say it again: Go to any “local” bar in your town and observe what happens at close. It sure as shit ain’t Uber after Uber pulling up to drag home the people who have been there all night. They’re driving home drunk, it’s wild.
  
  exactly. when I grew up with it, I was like oh five beers? you can function all right because that was the culture.
  and now when I visit the states I'm like oh these people are all driving home drunk, every person I know and many I don't are driving home impaired to a dangerous degree.
- Many adults understand the concept of a designated driver aka the sober guy who drives everyone home.
  
  a lot of them understand the concept of airfoils also, but holding a random concept in your head doesn't prevent them from driving home drunk.

Drink and drive? Also, understand that in some states, you could have 1-2 drinks and depending on your body and the exact timing still be under the legal limit.
Of course responsible people have a designated driver. That definitely happens, but not as often as you would hope. So we all know that if you live near the arena, be extra careful when the game ends, because half the drivers around you are drunk. That's common sense in the big cities.

By drunk driving
- The Chad drunk driver vs the virgin public transportation user
  
  Idk man but I feel pretty Chad like when I throw up in a train toilet

In cities that haven’t been completely taken over by car brain, people don’t drive to the stadium. Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, all cities with passionate sports fandoms and functioning public transit. I once rode on a Metra train (Chicagoland regional rail) with a group of ~10 Cubs fans who were working on a couple cases of beer on their way to a game.
For places like LA, the line to get out of the parking lot is so long, there’s time to sober up before you’re actually on the road. (jk, kind of.)

While there is drinking at the games, I don’t believe most people drink as much at baseball games as they do at soccer (football) games. MLB, especially, really tries to present itself as a family oriented sport.
- If they didn't want me drinking, they wouldn't make the game so boring.

Baseball stadiums usually cut off alcohol sales after the 7th inning, which allows for fans to somewhat sober up before the end of the game.
- Are drunk driving laws just not that strict in the US? Iirc you lose about 0.01%BAC per hour. One beer will give you like 0.05%*, which is also the upper limit of blood alcohol where I live. If you have a second beer, that means it'd take like 5 hours until you're able to drive again. Are baseball games this long?
  *to be fair, this'd be lower the heavier you are
  
  One beer will give you like 0.05%*
  Maybe if you shotgun it on an empty stomach or something.
  With the weight of the average American, and the abv of the average American Miller Lite, one beer ain't gonna get you anywhere near .05.

I take the train to games. For some reason, drunk driving isn’t really that big a deal in the US, even though it kills so many people. A lot of people have multiple DUIs, because the state just won’t take people’s licenses away. I’m of the mindset that if you get caught driving drunk, you should lose your license for at least five years. And if you do it again, you should lose it permanently.

If you've seen South Park, you should know that drunk driving is half the fun. (Apparently.)
- Yeah I wanna go to a baseball game and see drunk dads fighting and then on their way home crashing into each other, America fuck yeah!

When I visited Netherlands it was nice to not have to think about this while going out.
For your question, most people don’t get drunk. An average adult man can process about 1 drink an hour, so 2-3 standard drinks or less spread out over a game should be fine. You also kinda coordinate with your group to make sure someone’s good to drive.
If you’re all planning on getting drunk, you take Ubers. You can also come back in the morning for your car if it was unplanned

The last (major league) baseball game I went to was like 3 hours long, and that was just the game, plenty of time to have a beer (or multiple) and sober up, especially because that 3 hours didn’t include time waiting for people to file out of the stadium and etc
It’s like getting stoned watching Avatar at the theater

Eh, beers are like $14 so I never buy more than two. I usually have a few right before we head into the game though. Pre gaming is the American way. You're buzzed for the first half of the game but sobering up by the end of it. I don't drive home anyway, my wife doesn't drink almost ever. I also don't like going to bed drunk so if I'm drinking I like to do it a little earlier. But yeah it's pretty normal for people to have a few beers and still drive home later. Some people do take Ubers tho.
- Oh shit $14, but you probably also get like a gallon instead of those tiny 0.5l ones we drink :D
  
  Nope, still ~same amount of beer. A us pint is only 16oz which is only 473ml.

@shaserlark Reminds me of that time I was leaving a concert and dude was selling nitrous balloons to people as they were driving off... Like bro had a drive thru set up... Philly is wild these days.
- Lmao that’s wild
- Nitrous is active for seconds

The real question is why do you think people act like South Park?
- If it’s not true, why is it on my TV?

33 comments