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.
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
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.
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.)
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 used my own weight and type of beer for reference, but fair enough that that’s not representative!
Still, do they limit it to 2 beers then?
Beer at stadiums in America are like $15 each, I’m sure that stops some overconsumption
Holy shit that’s bad, that’s bring-a-flask territory for me
I think they limit to 2 per transaction (been awhile since I’ve been to a ballgame), but that definitely wouldn’t stop you from handing those to your wife and going to the next stall over and buying two more, or coming back for more after the next inning.
As another commenter said, in baseball they usually stop all alcohol sales after the 7th inning. I’d guess they do similar with other sports. I can see that being enough time to be largely ok to drive (especially by the time you hoof it down to your car and make it out of the parking lot) assuming you only had 2-3 over the course of the whole game. If you’d been dropping a beer per inning, probably less so.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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!
@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
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.
Yeah 16 oz, under .5 L and sometimes you can get 24 oz cans ((.71 L) for about the same price but it’s cheap beer and usually only light beers with low alcohol content. I actually love baseball but I only watch it in person, never on TV. I like to go to hockey games too, and we have a minor league team in town. The games are super fun, lots of fan interaction and they do merch giveaways pretty often. Plus cheapish tickets and often they do $5 beer nights.
