Clevelanders Can’t Do Math

I grew up there, so I know they have schools, but you wouldn’t know it from this.

I grew up in Cleveland. I love Cleveland. Even when the rest of the world is laughing at it for pathetically adopting teams in the NBA Finals, or looking like a “Scooby Doo ghost town”, or having “sports” teams, I defend my hometown with a blind and near-religious ferver. It’s like having a little sibling. I can make fun of it, but no one else can.

All that said, I cannot defend this.

Cleveland’s Progressive Field featured these “deals” on the menu:

Source: @rpuck

So to review a hot dog will cost you $4. Three hot dogs will cost you $12. Which Progressive field claims will save you $1.50. What? The same mathematical quandary is present if you’re the type of monster who goes to a baseball game and orders pizza. And look if this were the end of the story that would be fine. Typos happen. But it’s not. The Huffington Post did a little reporting.

We called the Cleveland Indians to check the pricing, and to our dismay, the service representative politely confirmed the “deals,” without noticing the blunder.

I’m so proud of my city.

Source: media.tumblr.com

Update: Anne Keegan from the Indians points out that hot dogs and pizza at other places in the park are actually more expensive ($4.50 and $3.75 respectively). So chalk this up to a poorly worded, out of context menu page, rather than a failure of Cleveland mathematics. Now if we get some more jobs in the city and have the Indians find a way not to collapse every summer, I’ll have no reason to be ashamed of my hometown.