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Home > What's New > I Need Baseball -- and a Cigar
I Need Baseball -- and a Cigar
Posted: Wednesday, July 12, 2006
By Michael S. Marsh Every year around this time I suffer through some pretty serious withdrawal symptoms. Truth be told, I'm in pain at this moment: cold sweats, uncontrollable tremors and acute cravings. Man alive, the cravings.
No, it's not from lack of cigars. Like any hard-core hardball fan, I've been on a three-month baseball bender since the first pitch of the season back in April -- watching or listening to my beloved Mets and any other game that happens to be on. ESPN's "Baseball Tonight" has been a sleep aid and the previous night's box scores and the day's pitching form a morning fix. The thirst is insatiable. I can't seem to get enough.
A view of Comerica Park from the stands.
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But now, during the All-Star break, we die-hards are forced to go cold turkey. The inhumanity is sickening. Sure, there's the Midsummer Classic -- and I watched it with a certain interest, of course -- but it's an exhibition and even the players treat it as such. For me, the All-Star Game will never produce the same buzz as the regular season, even when Major League Baseball comes up with something as bogus as having the game determine home-field advantage in the World Series.
Fortunately, the second half of the season promises to be as exciting as the first. In the American League, the Tigers and the White Sox are going toe-to-toe (with the runner-up poised to win the AL wild card), the Yankees are battling the Red Sox yet again, and in the West, all four teams have a chance to win the division. The same can be said for the National League, except for maybe the NL East where my New York Mets…forget it. For fear of the Jonah, let's move on.
What's also exciting, at least from a cigar smoker's standpoint, is the recent influx of cigar bars into Major League ballparks. OK, so it's only been two, but isn't that a start?
Inside the Montecristo Club at PNC Park.
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In April, PNC Park, home of the Pittsburgh Pirates and host of this year's All-Star Game, opened the Montecristo Club. Then in June, Christian Eiroa and Camacho Cigars struck a deal with the Detroit Tigers to open the Camacho Cigar Bar at Comerica Park. They join the Cuesta-Rey Cigar Bar at Tropicana Field, which has been accommodating cigar-smoking Devil Rays fans since 1998, as the only full-blown cigar bars in the majors. Could this be a trend? If so, what a trend it would be.
There are few nights when I don't sit on my porch, light up a cigar and tune into the Mets, but to be able to go to Shea Stadium (or the new park scheduled to open in a few years) and enjoy a cigar with other Mets fans? It's too good to be true in this dead-ball era of public cigar smoking.
But not in Pittsburgh, Detroit and Tampa Bay. In these cities, the thinking is different.
Christian Eiroa (right) with Duane McLean of the Detroit Tigers at the entrance to the Camacho Cigar Bar.
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"Baseball is a relaxing sport," says Duane McLean, the senior vice president of business operations at Comerica Park and a cigar smoker. "Enjoying a cigar and a drink goes along with that." He adds, "We want fans to have a well-rounded experience when they come to the ballpark, and cigars reach out to another segment of our fan base." Of course, those fans couldn't be happier. During its grand opening in June, the Camacho Cigar Bar was filled with cigar-smoking Tigers fans enjoying one another's company, as well as the ballgame.
In Pittsburgh, fans are also eating it up. The Montecristo Club came to be because of a huge group of cigar-smoking fans that continually gathered on one of the concourses. Noticing how much they loved their cigars -- and the Pirates -- the team brokered a deal with Altadis U.S.A. when space in the ballpark became available. "PNC couldn't be better for watching baseball," says Jeff Weber, a lifelong Bucs fan and a cigar smoker who makes it to about a dozen ballgames at PNC each season. "But adding a place to enjoy a cigar before and after the game did just that."
Inside the Cuesta-Rey Cigar Bar at Tropicana Field.
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Sadly, most professional sports teams and venues don't see cigar smoking in the same light. Whether it's the idea that cigar smoking is taboo or because antismoking laws prevent it from happening, cigar-smoking sports fans can be hard-pressed to find a venue that caters to their needs. Hopefully, this will change, as stadiums like PNC Park and Comerica Park show how beneficial a cigar bar can be.
In the meantime, enjoy those cigars wherever you may be enjoying a game: the stadium parking lot, the front porch or, if you're lucky, the Camacho Cigar Bar, the Montecristo Club or the Cuesta-Rey Cigar Bar. And let us know where you smoke when it comes to attending a professional sports game, whether it's baseball, basketball, football or hockey. All we cigar smokers want to know. We need to know. Just like I need the All-Star break to be over so I can get back to feeling normal again.
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