I guess a lot of people want to know how the Opening Day party at Who's on First went, so here's the Cliff's Notes version:
• Woke up to find I'd been quoted twice in a Daily News article about the early wake-up call for Yanks fans. I was interviewed over the phone Monday and told my family to get the paper Tuesday. After reading my boring quotes, my uncle wanted his 50 cents back. But c'mon, at least I wasn't the guy who said, "It's a little weird, but I'll be all right." Jesus. That made it over my analysis about how Yankees fans have to take the good with the bad when their team is the global face of Major League Baseball? Reminds me of when I visited a baseball card shop with CNN in 2001 for the 50th anniversary of Topps, gave them a lot of good stuff on the evolution of hobby shops and online auctions, walked in and out of the shop like five times till they shot it right, listened to the cameraman and producer fight with each other, and they used like five seconds of me pointing out some banal fact about a 1956 Ted Williams card. (Oh, speaking of CNN, here's how to get easy air time. If they shoot interviews in a "busy" newsroom where you happen to work, just walk through the background for no reason or send something worthless to the printer and hover over it forever — while in camera view, of course. I used to do it all the time.)
• The New York Times came in to shoot candid scenes from the bar at 6 a.m. Maybe they found out about the party through the Daily News. Or maybe they found out through PK.com (the News did). Anyway, you haven't seen people looking so unnatural while trying to be natural as when a Times photographer is popping his flash all over the place. Especially when half of them hadn't gone home from the previous night and were wasted off their asses. I pointed out to the guy that he could take a picture of me reading my Times with breakfast at the bar, but he said that's something the Post would do.
• It definitely didn't feel like Opening Day. It felt like I chore. I cursed Bud Selig in the shower at 4:30 a.m. The game felt like it had absolutely no importance whatsoever. I'm still waiting for Aston Kutcher to tell us we'd been punk'd and that the Yankees' season will start for real in America next week.
• New York state has to do something about the law that prohibits liquor sales before 8 a.m. Fucking game ended at 7:59 a.m., just in time for a Miller Lite I didn't want but, let's face it, had to have. You go to a bar to watch a game, you gotta throw one down. There's really no option.
• At least we didn't spend $25 on a breakfast buffet at ESPN Zone, like these clowns, who failed to follow Rule No. 1 on how to react when your team fails and you have an AP photographer pointing at you: ACT LIKE A MAN!
Other Sports Links:
• The 88-89 Duke Police (Glaxo) Set — A blast from the past: trading cards issued locally to warn kids of the dangers of drugs. Christian Laettner's card reads, "Whether it is a teammate or an opponent, show good sportsmanship by respecting their feelings. Respect yourself by not trying cocaine. The first time can kill." This is a guy who once stepped on an opponent's chest while he was laid out on his back.
• Top Things Not to Link About March Madness — Joe Concha gets cranky on us this week. C'mon, the One Shining Moment montage is still cool. After Syracuse won last year, we all loved seeing it. Of course, if your team is Stanford...
• Cubs Adorn Cover of Sports Illustrated's Baseball Preview Issue — Thank god. The Yanks were on the preview issue's cover the last three years and didn't win one World Series (although we got to two, most in the majors over that time, same number as the Red Sox since 1967). SI picks Cubs over Yanks in the Fall Classic. I think the last time they were right about an eventual champ was before one of those Ali-Frazier fights.
I've heard the mutterings that being on the SI cover is like the kiss of death for a team/athlete. What the hell- the Cubs know all about curses, what's one more?
I did see that the Yankees lost their first game. Bummer. (Although I might feel more sympathetic if Yankees fans weren't so unsufferably smug and unfailing irritating. Worse than White Sox fans and that's saying a lot.) That's the problem with opening the season in a foreign country far, far away: if you lose you've come one hell of a long way for absolutely nothing except bad airline food and a serious case of jet lag.
Wonder where opening day will be in 2005....
Posted by lucy at March 31, 2004 3:04 AM