Ah, the things we do for fan-love

I love how much we get to let sports matter in our lives. Sure, in the grand scheme of things, today’s matchups don’t matter, nor do tomorrow’s, and nor would it really matter if MLB started using instant replay in games. But we get to make those things matter; we get to love our teams wildly, our moods rising and falling with their performances. We get to skip work for day games, keep our young kids up way late for extra innings (even in minor league games), heckle like our lives depend on it…and endure horrific customer non-service for jerseys.

Oh Banny, I’d jump through hoops of fire for you and your spectacular brain!

A few weeks ago, Royals’ brilliant pitcher Brian Bannister was 3-0 with an ERA well under 1.00, and I was in heaven. He has been my favorite Royal since he was traded here from the Mets (confidential to metschick: I’m sorry you guys lost Banny AND had to take Ambiorix Burgos off of KC’s hands); I’ve started Facebook groups in his honor, and obsessively followed every statistical detail in his bid for AL Rookie of the Year last year. But I hadn’t bought his jersey.

So, under the glow of his then-sterling ERA and then-perfect record, I went to a large sporting goods store (which I won’t name here, but it might rhyme with “Wheels”) to make the commitment, to get myself a Brian Bannister jersey. Naturally, they didn’t have any in the store, so I had to find an employee to help me special-order one. His name was some kind of tree, which should have been my first hint that he did NOT belong in the baseball section of the store. I trusted him to help me anyway. I told him I would be moving to a different town before the jersey would arrive for me; he told me that was no problem.

A few days later, the gal that was supposed to have been in the baseball section called me to go over the details of the order. Turns out Tree-Guy got the name and color wrong. Great. I once again mentioned that I’d be in a different town when the jersey came in, and was again assured it could be shipped to the store in my new town, no problem.

Fast forward to this morning: the same gal calls me and says the jersey is in. Wooo! Oh, wait, what? It has arrived at the store in HER town. You know, the town in which I no longer live, and told two different customer service reps that I would be leaving. So what solution does this oh-so-helpful “service” rep have? I would have to drive to that town (yay $4 gas!) to pick up an already-overpriced item that THEY said they would send here, or I could have it sent to the store here and pay for a shipping charge.

After I pointed out how stupid those plans were, a different customer “service” lady called me. Long story short, she is sending the jersey to my town like they were supposed to do in the first place, and she was a bigger bitch than I was and is currently cursing my mortal soul. I can feel the pins going into a Voodoo doll of me right now.

Lessons:

1) I will no longer do any business with “Wheels” Sporting Goods, and

2) I would do ANYTHING for fan-love (But I won’t do that).