But I’m a Good Drunk Driver

Originally written February 1, 2010.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Missouri is, at least as of 2008, it is one of just eight states in the union that allows passengers in a car to drink open alcohol. While I and my compatriots took advantage of this on the way to Kauffman Stadium on July 26, 2008, it became readily apparent to me that in a town where the communal ethos every Saturday night is “I know I’m driving home drunk, but I’m a good drunk driver,” as one Kansas City resident said to me, this is unbelievably stupid. In a state where three years earlier I had seen a sign reminding Cardinals fans that “Missouri law prohibits firearms in a sporting venue with a seating capacity of 5,000 or more,” this was far more disconcerting. Then again, in a city where bars in the Waldo neighborhood sell domestic bottles for $1.50, I can’t blame them for enjoying the revelry. What Lewis Black said of Madison, Wisconsin holds true in Kansas City, Missouri.

Even with the plane ticket it’s cheaper than drinking in New York.

Regardless, I wasn’t thinking of the theoretical implications, I was just enjoying drinking my Sierra Nevada. I always thought the idea of drinking openly and brazenly on the car ride to a baseball game was a little ridiculous, or at the very least required questionable judgment. But here I was, enjoying every minute of it. Not being quite sure what was proper and yet still relishing in it was probably the theme of that trip to Kansas City for me. In a city distinctly different from my own, the brief sojourn was a wholly educational experience.

I had come to Kansas City that summer to visit Susie Sharkey, whom I had met five years earlier while working at Fairview Lake YMCA Camp. Fairview generally hired a large swath of counselors from across the country and the world, prompting me to make friends with people as close as New Jersey and as far as Australia. Kansas City lay somewhere between those two on the exotic scale.

I’m not sure when the moment occurred that Susie and I became so close, though I theorize it was probably the night during staff training when we sang an impromptu rendition of Don McLean’s “American Pie”, likely to the chagrin of everyone around us. In the years since, Susie visited me in Chicago, I visited her while she was working in a Jesuit Social Work program in Sacramento, and she visited me in New York in April of 2008. If the pattern involved alternating, well, I suppose it was my turn again.

I bought a plane ticket with a few goals in mind, namely indulging in famed Kansas City BBQ, visiting the Negro Leagues Museum, stepping foot in the state of Kansas and, obviously, seeing a Royals game. Really, it was the barbecue that was key. This trip was far more organized than my trip to Sacramento two and a half years earlier, when a winter storm-induced airline snafu caused me to spend my first day in California as the designated driver for Susie’s roommates whom I had never met before while Susie, ironically, spent the night in Chicago.

This time she was at the airport waiting for me.

Apparently, I prepped Susie for my visit well, because she wasted little time in knocking off the first requirement, as she drove me, her friend Kathleen and her brother John directly from the airport to Arthur Bryant’s, considered by some to be the most famous barbecue restaurant in the world. While it has been patronized by all manner of celebrities – a few months after I visited GOP nominee John McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin would stop in – the décor is about as fancy as a high school dining hall.

When you eat there, however, you’re thankful that’s the case. Were they to fritter away money on repairing the chipped formica tables, it might distract them for the more pertinent task of preparing the food. I had the brisket and burnt ends, their specialty, and felt my arteries clogging almost immediately. This would be a trend for the entire weekend.

The next day Susie and I visited the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, which is located in the same building as the American Jazz Museum and you can buy a joint entry into both of them. We did, but after the Negro Leagues Museum we were fairly wiped out. It contains a number of interesting pieces of memorabilia as well as early 20th century and late 19th century newspaper articles and posters that are riddled with hints of America’s racial tension. The one thing that struck me most, however, was that a number of the placards and exhibits were damaged or otherwise in disrepair. In most museums these things would have quickly been fixed, but much of the damage hadn’t been touched in years it seemed.

This didn’t show me so much that the museum was not well kept or curated – it was well organized and very interesting – but rather it gave you the feeling that it wasn’t fixed because people didn’t seem to care as much about this particular museum. Perhaps I’m reading too much into it, but torn plaques in exhibits would never fly at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. But that, I feel, was long a white institution. Making sure that the dedication to African-American heritage in baseball history was just as pristine and professional just didn’t seem important to enough people, which is truly a shame. Neglecting greats like Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson and Cool Papa Bell is as tragic a situation for all of baseball as it is for black baseball. But in the racial wounds of this country, some of which will never heal, this one, I suppose, is fairly minor on the grand scale.

The barbecue tour was far from over, and Susie was as strong a partner as I could hope for. Our next stop was Oklahoma Joe’s, a slightly more well-kept, but equally as casual joint as Arthur Bryant’s that lies past a scenic drive of industrial factories at 3002 West 47th Avenue in Kansas City, KS. The line was long – it was the heart of lunch time – and the people behind the counter were good-natured and slopped an outrageous amount of food on your wax-paper covered trays. I went for the jumbo size pulled beef and pork sandwich with a side of French fries. It was probably enough calories to keep me running for a year or so.

After this, other highlights of the trip included a venture to Hallmark headquarters, an obligatory visit to Culver’s so I could get a double butter burger with cheese and frozen custard, and perhaps the most interesting, the Sprint Center in downtown KC. The thoroughly modern arena is a sharp building. Its outside is entirely made of glass and curves in a modern and tasteful fashion. The stadium is meant to be the anchor of the revitalized Power and Light District, which also has a number of apartments and restaurants, one of which, a location of the Famous Dave’s BBQ chain, was pointed out to me by Susie as a restaurant we would not be going to when there was authentic Kansas City BBQ to be had.

There is only one problem with the arena, and that is, well, no one plays there. It does regularly host concerts as well as college basketball tournaments – it is hardly vacant – but professional sports, aside from a few preseason games, have yet to make their presence felt there.

It is, however, home to the Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame and the College Basketball Experience, which is completely awesome. Susie and I did our best to beat the buzzer with three-pointers and test our passing accuracy. Each activity has a sign explaining the museum’s rules which, adorably, include “absolutely no swearing or cursing.”

There I learned that Shaquille O’Neal, not surprisingly, has feet about twice the size of mine. Also, dunking is hard.

Really hard.

Visitors can test their skills dunking on hoops 7, 8, 9 and 10 feet high, and while, I have never been noted for my athletic prowess, I struggled with the shortest one. It was here that I came to the stunning conclusion that dunking a basketball is an obscenely difficult task. It is absurd that human beings can actually do it.

The last bit of the museum is a quiet hall denoting all the members of the college basketball Hall of Fame, which happens to be accompanied by softly playing college fight songs. I cracked a smile when “Go U Northwestern” started playing, though given NU’s inauspicious basketball history –it is the only school in the six major conferences never to make the NCAA Tournament – it seemed an odd choice. Then again, as a freshman I practiced with the Ultimate Frisbee team at Patten Gymnasium in Evanston, which hosted the first ever NCAA Tournament Championship Game in 1939. I struck up a conversation with an older man, a Michigan alum, while Susie watched on in amazement that I could reel off so much pointless sports trivia with a man three times my age. I wasn’t sure if I should be proud or seek to do more productive things with my time.

Other highlights of the weekend included a party at Susie’s house where I made sure to bring six packs both of Leinenkugel’s Sunset Wheat and Leinenkugel’s Summer Shandy, which I hid in the back of the fridge. About 10 beers later, and after generally making a fool of myself, it was time to slow down.

The next day was the main event, a Saturday night showdown at the K with Susie, her boyfriend Kevin and her friend Hennie. As the non-drivers among us sipped our beers on the car ride, we approached the stadium, which sits in a complex next to the Chiefs’ Arrowhead Stadium, and were informed by Hennie that her ex-boyfriend was apparently also attending. The potential for awkwardness abounded, but surely we wouldn’t bump into him in a stadium that held more than 38,000 people.

The odds were that we wouldn’t even see him, let alone park just a few spots away from him in the stadium lot. Ah, but the odds are odds and not certainties for a reason. Sure enough there he was, and the uncomfortable hello conversation ensued. I’m fairly convinced in the years since that this was the moment Hennie decided she no longer wanted to be at the game. I can’t say I blame her – I would probably feel uncomfortable in the same position, but having come halfway across the country to see this baseball game, I was less than sympathetic.

We bought our tickets and entered the big winding circular entrance ramp and were presented with our Dan Quisenberry Bobblehead dolls, complete with a Royals fireman’s helmet in reference to his reputation as one of the best relievers, or firemen, of his day. I would be lying if I said the giveaway didn’t factor into when I scheduled my visit to the Paris of the Plains.

Kauffman Stadium is one of the more interesting  I have seen. It is fairly old, but for a building from an era typified by multi-use cylinders, it is a very modern baseball-specific design. The stadium’s upper deck has a unique slope at the ends that give it a crescent-like shape. The main stands open up to a view beyond the outfield of grassy fields and trees. While there is a road that cuts through the landscape, the picture is very idyllic, giving you the sense that while you are at a Major League game, the field connects to baseball’s mythological Field of Dreams roots. It is a simple and subtle fixture in the stadium, but there is something rare and overtly pleasant about it that I enjoy tremendously.

Adding to it are the famed fountains that sprout up beyond the centerfield wall. I have always remembered them as a special characteristic of the building since I first saw a game in Kansas City on ESPN as a child. Seeing them in person is interesting, if for no other reason than because those types of ballpark features were practically unheard of when the K was built. The fountain is the largest privately funded one in the world, and gives the stadium authentic charm that is often sought and rarely matched in newer buildings. Make no mistake, the building is uniquely 1970s in its design, which bears many similarities to cookie-cutter stadiums such as its steep upper deck, but it is also unique in a number of ways.

At the time I was there, the building was in the midst of a major renovation designed at adding restaurants and luxury seating which would keep the Royals competitive in the ever financially expanding Major Leagues. As a result, the gigantic Royals crown that typically circles the top of the scoreboard lay in pieces on the grass beyond the right field wall. Part of the renovations, a positively enormous LED scoreboard – at the time the world’s largest – was already installed.

Opposite Kansas City’s starter, a rookie right-hander with high hopes named Luke Hochevar, was Tampa Bay ace Scott Kazmir. As a Mets fan, watching Kazmir pitch in a Rays uniform still hurt. Kazmir had been a highly touted prospect for New York until 2004 when he was dealt in a foolishly lopsided trade to the Rays for the eternal Victor Zambrano.

In the years since, Kazmir has become an all star. By 2008, Zambrano was out of baseball.

The Royals played the Rays close, keeping the game tied at 2-2 for the first five innings, and then, like so much bad luck, the rains came. A 73-minute delay was sparked by a rain and hail storm that provided some beautiful red skies in the distance but also resulted in a lot of soaked clothes. I, having never been there before and never a fan of leaving early, made it a point to stay. Susie was reluctantly willing to back me on this, at least for a brief period, and Kevin, too stuck with me.

Hennie, was less than enthusiastic. Her feelings might have been influenced by the fact that not only was her ex-boyfriend at the game, but he was seated in the same section as us. We stuck out the rains, but eventually everyone had gotten grouchy except me and with the majority – and the moisture – ruling, we headed to the car shortly after the delay ended.

The next day, Susie and I made one more stop on the way to the airport, a lunch at the popular Kansas City-area chain Gates Bar-B-Q. Gates, along with Arthur Bryant’s, is one of two area restaurants that draws roots from the father of Kansas City barbecue, Henry Perry. Ironically, Gates is the only place in Kansas City that I actually had ribs at. The sauce was a nice change of pace, tangy like the others but with a peppery kick at the end. I decided to splurge on the $3 and buy a bottle to take home.

By the end of the trip I was thoroughly worn down and full of more barbecue sauce than I think any normal person should eat in a year, let alone a weekend. After Susie dropped me off at the airport, a place that in and of itself was a new experience because of how much smaller it was than any other airport I had been to, I went to the desk to get my ticket and when asked to check my bag, I told the clerk, “No thanks.” I had made a point to borrow a rolling weekend bag from my roommate, Brandon, so I wouldn’t have to bother with baggage claim when I got home, particularly since my flight wasn’t direct.

As I went through security, the woman checking bags, a skinny blond in her 50s, sharply informed me of a problem.

“You can’t take the barbecue sauce on the plane, sir.”

Federal regulations don’t allow you to bring liquids larger than three ounces in volume onto planes as a carry-on item. While I have no problem with the rules, I am always stunned at how much more pointed and dedicated to enforcing them I’ve found security people at smaller airports to be than their counterparts in major population centers that are more likely targets of terrorism. Annoyed, I went back to the clerk to check my bag rather than throw out my memento of Kansas City.

“Back again, huh?” the clerk said.

“Yes, apparently my barbecue sauce is too dangerous to bring on the plane,” I told her.

If there was nothing else I learned in Kansas City that weekend, it was that the people are very perceptive. And they also know their barbecue.

“Is it Gates?”

“Actually, yes it is.”

“Yeah,” she said. “That stuff’s pretty potent.”

72 Hours In The Life Of Steve Nash

Instead of spending most of today thinking about the dumbest holiday known to man, I beseech you to take a few minutes and consider one Stephen John Nash. Yes, I'm sure most of you reading this have at least heard of Steve Nash, the point guard for the Phoenix Suns who may very well wind up in the Basketball Hall of Fame one day, but I wonder how many of you have actually taken a few moments to really think about his life. And by think about his life I mean, if you have watched anything sports related this weekend, you've probably seen Steve Nash.

This has been Nash's weekend:
Friday Night: Light the Olympic cauldron to open the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver, roughly 60 miles from your childhood home in Victoria, British Columbia.
Saturday Night: Win NBA All-Star Skills Competition in Dallas, Texas, a city that still adores you for the six years you spent turning their Mavericks from moribund cellar dwellers into championship contenders.
Sunday Night: Play in NBA All-Star Game.

Yeah, just a typical weekend in the life of Steve Nash.

I'm not entirely sure how someone could be so lucky to have that kind of three-day journey, but no one really seems to be noticing it. Of course, I have no problems with this. I like Steve Nash. He's a joy to watch on the court, and he's also one of the most underrated public personalities in the world, as his work for Vitamin Water can attest.



Still, I find it somewhat bizarre that this has slipped through the sporting consciousness. No one is really talking about Nash, perhaps because he's not the biggest star playing in tonight's All-Star Game, or perhaps because he was overshadowed in Vancouver by Wayne Gretzky, but it's almost absurd.

In fact, it's so absurd that I can't really think of anything else to say on it. There really are no words. I just hope some day I can have three days in a row that are quite so cool. If I, too, can manage to do it without the media broadcasting it, well, all the better.

At least Nash always gives hope to his come country, which is starting to get antsy after its first gold medal hopeful, Jenn Heil, was unable to defend her crown in women's moguls last night. Canada still has never won a gold medal on its own soil, but I have a feeling they won't wait too long this time around, even if the U.S. has taken the early medal lead with Hannah Kearney taking Heil's place on the podium and Apolo Anton Ohno getting his sixth Olympic medal.

If nothing else, Canada's women's hockey team, which beat Slovakia yesterday, 18-0, will probably continue to wax the competition.

In other news, I was stunned to find earlier this week that apparently the Melbourne Football Club, formally known as the Demons, is pulling whatever strings it can to have Barack Obama attend its season opening AFL match against Hawthorn when the POTUS makes his scheduled trip to Australia this March. On one hand, it excites me that Obama's visit might give footy a little more pub, but at the same time, why would the President want to see the mediocre Dees, who finished last in the league table last year, when instead he could simply come to the Melbourne Cricket Ground a day earlier and catch the season opening tilt of the defending-champions Geelong Cats -- who happen to be my favorite team.

In fact, while Geelong is facing Essendon, which also made the postseason tournament known to AFL fans as Finals, Melbourne and Hawthorn both missed the playoffs a year ago. Geelong being overlooked, in addition to Southampton meeting its FA Cup demise in a fifth-round tie against Portsmouth, has made this a rough week for me internationally.

At the very least, maybe Obama can come to his senses and see the greatest team of all. Failing that, maybe the U.S. can take a few more medals and cheer me up.

Expect a story early this week, though I'm currently debating which one to post. Also, with the holiday tomorrow, I may wait until Tuesday so you're all entertained at work instead of missing it.

You'll thank me later.

Oh, Hey. The Olympics.

Apparently none of you seem to be noticing that the Games of the XXI Winter Olympiad open tonight in Vancouver, British Columbia. Now, I know most of you probably prefer the summer games and you might be wondering why, exactly, Apolo Anton Ohno, Bode Miller and Lindsey Vonn are suddenly worth knowing about for the first time in four years. Also, you may have forgotten who Sarah Hughes, Bonnie Blair or Jamie Sale and David Pelletier are.

That's fine. But for people like me, well, I love the Olympics. I don't always remember whom all the different stars are, or the defending gold medalists in the vast majority of the competitions, but I love watching all the sports I don't get a chance to see on a regular basis in the U.S. Also, these people are just unbelievably phenomenal athletes.

I enjoy the downhill skiing, and the figure skating, though curling and short track speed skating are really what I get excited about seeing. And if you've never seen the short track speed skating relay before, well, it's like a chaotic ballet on ice.

Oh yeah. And there's hockey.

And by "hockey" I mean, the single greatest hockey tournament in the world. This means you won't be seeing any of these for two weeks, however. With the use of NHL players and no Soviet Union to hate, we'll never be able to see a feat quite like the Miracle on Ice again -- though the 30th anniversary of the greatest upset in sports history is later this month -- but this tournament should be awfully exciting, if for no other reason than Canada, a heavy gold-medal favorite, is hosting the Games. And take it from me since I've had an awful lot of interaction with Canadians in the last two years. Canadians love hockey.

Like they really love it.

Imagine how much you all love your families, significant others and chocolate. Multiply that by about 1,000 and you might get close to how much Canadians love hockey. It's that big up there, and should the home country fail to take home the ultimate prize, well, it won't be pretty north of the border.

And if you doubt the power of the Olympics, or the Sports Illustrated Cover Jinx, or perhaps both, look no further than last week's cover with Lindsey Vonn, who was dubbed "America's Best Woman Skier Ever" only to suffer a major shin injury this week, which may prevent he from competing in a Games where she was expected to take multiple golds. It should be noted, however, that Canadians received a cover with Sidney Crosby on it. If they can't bring home hockey gold, I think they'll know who to blame.

Of course, I'm sure most of you have been paying attention to that other Sports Illustrated that just arrived. I have to be honest, I generally find the swimsuit issue to be kind of silly. Don't get me wrong. If this is the closest I'll ever come to having Brooklyn Decker in my apartment, I'll take it, but the novelty seems to have worn off for me, particularly since the internet doesn't make it difficult to find scantily clad women these days. In fact, in college whenever I would leave the issue out on my desk, the girls who came into my room seemed far more fascinated than the men.

The part I generally find most enjoyable about the issue is when Sports Illustrated prints all the irritated letters it receives in the week after its release. Do these people not know Sports Illustrated sells this? Do they not see the large section of the Letters page for the previous two months telling you who to contact if you don't want to receive the swimsuit issue?

Apparently not.

In other news, before I sign off today, I want to touch on the unfortunate passing of Fred Morrison, the man single-handedly responsible for thousands of hours of entertainment during my college years and beyond. Now, he was elderly, so it's not too surprising the end came, but the man did invent the frisbee. I'm not sure where I'd be without him.

Lastly, on a lighter note -- or more depressing depending on where you're coming from -- New York Mets closer Francisco Rodriguez was outdueled in a softball game by Venezuelan President/Insane Dictator Hugo Chavez. Yeah, you read that right. Chavez was no Eddie Feigner, giving up seven runs in two innings, but K-Rod, the man expected to shut down games for the Amazins this year gave up 11 runs over three innings.

That bodes well. And to think, I was excited that pitchers and catchers report in just eight days. Of course, given that Chavez's team won, naturally, I'm inclined to think the whole outing wasn't exactly on the level. Either way, I think I'm glad the headaches don't begin for six more weeks.

A New Project Is In The Works And You Could Be A Part Of It

It's been a momentous week here at ARWSMDAS, and no, not just because we're busy celebrating the fourth anniversary of one of the most hilarious political episodes of our time -- though I do hope that I, one day, can have enough power that I can put someone in mortal danger and have them apologize to me.

No, it's been a big week because Bert and I headed down to Philadelphia on Monday for the Devils-Flyers game at Wachovia, where, in addition to finding out that we're both apparently gay, I was able to cross the Flyers off my list. The Devils blew a two-goal lead to their hated rivals, which was frustrating, but I did manage to get some good fodder and Bert and I were able to sit in the fourth row behind the Devils bench until the people who actually owned the seats showed up in the second period.

Why you would wait until the second period to show up when you've spent $200 on each ticket I can't say, but I won't judge.

In any event, there are just 91 teams left and I will have a story on the trip up as soon as I've written it, though that, um, could be a while. But surely you'll all still be on the lookout for it... right?

The other big story is that I'm considering a new side project. As I told Bert during the drive down, when I was 10 years old or so, I decided to write letters to every team in the NFL -- at the time there were only 30 -- just to see what I got back. I was particularly shameless in asking for anything free and autographs of star players, but I was a ten year old. Who was going to hold it against me?

I have all of my responses in a box somewhere and I need to go to my house in New Jersey to dig it up, but I did get a litany of media guides, newsletters, invitations to team-specific kids clubs and schedule magnets. I remember the Jets, in particular, being awfully giving. As far as autographs go, some teams require you to go through the player himself, which I did, in many cases make the steps to do, also shamelessly. The only two I remember receiving were from former Seattle Seahawks running back Chris Warren and Bills and Packers receiver Don Beebe, who despite being a very solid No. 2 receiver for most of his career, is probably best remembered for making Leon Lett look like a total fool when he prematurely celebrated a touchdown in Super Bowl XXVII.

Don Beebe's response I personally cherish mostly because he sent his autograph to me in a hand addressed envelope which had my name as the return address and no stamp. I know Beebe wasn't a superstar, but I feel like he could have afforded what was, I believe at the time, the 32-cent stamp on his salary.

The best part? The autograph was on a pamphlet that Beebe is on the cover of about following the light of Jesus. I feel like there was a disconnect there.

In any event, after discussing this with Bert on the long car ride, I decided that 15 years later, it might be an interesting idea to do the whole project over again to see what teams are sending out now. In fact, I may do it every 10 years or so just to see what changes. Only this time, rather than just the NFL, I think I might write to every team in the NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB.

Bert wants it to be abundantly clear that he initially came up with the idea to re-do the process, but until he starts paying for postage he gets no credit.

The results may not be as exciting as this morning's Bruins-Lightning Preview, but I think it would be very interesting to see what materials I get back and I will post them up here as they come along. The only catch is that since I work in the industry, I don't think I should use my actual name, particularly since I have worked with some people who may be in charge of handling the letters.

This is where you all come in. I want this blog to have a relationship with its readers and I want some feedback from the readers. As well, I want you all to feel like you're participating in the journey. So, for this particular project, I would like submissions for what I should say to teams and, in particular, what pseudonym I should be using.

Please feel free to leave a comment or shoot me an e-mail with ideas.

Lastly, and on a note of personal pride, this week's story on my early exposure to the NHL and my fandom for the New Jersey Devils has drawn enough visitors to put me over the 1,000-hit mark. I know 1,000 hits isn't a particularly huge milestone, but since I just started this a month ago, I think it's a pretty good start.

With any luck this project will continue to grow and the next 1,000 will come even quicker.

Craig Billington and My Deal With the Devils

Originally written on April 19, 2009. Statistics updated on February 9, 2010.

For whatever reason, I had a poster growing up of the 1991-92 New Jersey Devils in my room. I’m pretty sure my sister got it as a free giveaway when she attended a Devils game with her girl scout troop, but I couldn’t swear to it. All I remember about it in certainty is that the photos were all in black and white and that New Jersey’s goalie at the time was a journeyman named Craig Billington. He and Sean Burke, who I believe was also on the poster would soon be supplanted by Martin Brodeur, who has maintained the post for 16 years, taken dozens of records and won three Stanley Cups.

To call Brodeur my hero is putting it mildly.

Regardless of owning the poster, I didn’t really watch hockey as a six or seven year old. In fact, I didn’t come across a hockey game until I, an eight-year-old up well past his bedtime one Saturday, happened upon MSG Network’s replay of a Rangers-Stars game at two in the morning. I watched and found it entertaining, and for some reason developed a strong fascination with the name of Dallas goaltender Andy Moog, but I remember clearest of all that I knew absolutely nothing about the game. This has since become painfully obvious to me because I remember watching the clock tick down on a Rangers power play and I assumed it was a countdown until the Rangers power play started, rather than ended. How the Rangers could have exacted the timing of an offensive scheme so incredible that it would be called a “power play” in a game of such unpredictable action and fluid motion is beyond me now, but the thought didn’t enter my head at the time.

I also recall another late night viewing of an overtime Rangers loss to the Ottawa Senators, and I became more and more interested in hockey as the season wore on. Interestingly, the Rangers, readily available because MSG Network was a basic cable channel, did not get my support. The Devils were on Sports Channel at the time, a premium network that my parents chose not to purchase. Despite the fact that I grew up watching the Rangers far more, a Rangers team that won the Stanley Cup in my first year as a hockey fan no less, I clung to the Devils. In retrospect, I have no idea why.

The only reason I can come up with is the poster. For some unknown, strange reason, I really liked that poster. That was that. The Devils were my team. This was something that became difficult to handle as the first year I watched the Devils lost to the rival Rangers in the Eastern Conference Finals. It was a seven-game series that I still consider the best I ever saw for multiple reasons. For one, the Rangers and Devils hated each other. For another, the Rangers and Devils finished one-two in the league that season. For yet another, the series also featured Mark Messier’s famed guarantee, when he declared the Rangers would force a Game 7 despite trailing 3-2 with Game 6 in New Jersey and then backed up that claim with a hat trick in the third period. Lastly, three games in the series, including Game 7, went into double overtime. Game 7 ended on a wraparound goal by Stephane Matteau, which is still a cherished memory for Ranger fans who saw the Blueshirts lift their first cup in 54 years that season, and a particularly bitter one for me.

I will admit I’m glad I saw that game as an eight-year-old rather than a full adult. As a child, I couldn’t process the drama and I since have realized that I would have been far more deeply affected – and depressed – by seeing a loss like that in my 20s. The Devils would bring order to my universe the next year when they won their first Stanley Cup in a shocking sweep of the Detroit Red Wings, but that season was also notable to me because it was the first one in which I would see a hockey game. After nagging my father, he got tickets through business to a Rangers-Islanders tilt at the Garden on April 7, 1995.

Dad took me, my sister and my friend Matt Nedostup. It was my first time at the World’s Most Famous Arena, and while my memories are hazy, I distinctly remember being overwhelmed by the grandeur. The circular shape and the walls on the outside give it an appearance of importance when you see it poke out from between the buildings in midtown Manhattan. This particular Garden was the fourth building in Manhattan to bear that name when it opened in 1968. The previous three had long since been torn down, and given the tradition of its two main tenants, the Garden had seen fairly little postseason success. The Knicks had won two titles in its early years, but none since, and the Rangers’ Cup win in 1994, was their first since 1940. The previous incarnation of Madison Square Garden had seen the Rangers win three in a 12 year span. Of course, that building was shared by another, older hockey team called the New York Americans, who would eventually fold due to an inability to compete with the on-ice success of the newer Rangers, leading some to theorize this was the root of “The Curse of 1940.”

I think the inability to win might have come from an inferiority complex in the organization that developed after the Rangers were often forced to reschedule Stanley Cup Finals games as a result of the third Garden also being booked for the circus. The Rangers won the Stanley Cup in 1928 despite having to play all their games on the road because of Ringling Brothers.

The current Garden allows the teams to take center stage, but it is also one of the busiest buildings in the world, hosting not just the Rangers and Knicks, but concerts, conventions, boxing matches and traveling theater – not to mention my brother’s college graduation.

The concourses on the inside aren’t as small as the ones in Yankee Stadium or Shea, but they aren’t large either. The seating area is where the action is. You walk in and find yourself intimidated by its massive and yet intimate feeling. The seats from the higher sections feel as though they are almost on top of the lower sections, and the ceiling has structurally necessitated lines that lead towards the scoreboard in the center. It’s almost as if the building’s feng shui leads you to the focal point. When you sit in it, there are many aspects of it that make you feel as though it deserves its status.

Those, however, were the lenses of my youth. I have since become less enchanted with the grandeur, as I’ve found the Garden to be an impressive place to watch a game for its ability to create energy and make you feel like you’re somewhere special, but it is, on the whole, really not a great arena. The sightlines are not all that spectacular, the seats are outrageously expensive, and the fact that the chairs have leather on them more or less blinded me to it all.

Of course, it is silly to disregard the Garden for these reasons. All arenas are expensive and the energy the crowd brings makes the experience. This game, given the Rangers longtime rival in the Islanders, was no exception. I specifically recall a loud unattractive woman in a Campbell Conference All-Star Game jersey who was particularly vocal, lending much of her ire to referee Don Koharski, a man both legendary for his decades of service to the game, and notorious for being told to “Go eat another donut!” by former Devils coach Jim Schoenfeld during a confrontation after a 1988 playoff game.

“Koharski you suck!”

Those were her words after one penalty. I was only nine at the time, but that was the moment when one of the most obvious truths of sports dawned on me.

You hear the word “suck”. A lot.

It’s a pretty damn important word at sporting events. I would venture to say you’ll probably hear it at least 100 times when you take the kids to a game. Some might have a problem with this. It doesn’t particularly irritate me as a general term, but it does bother me in that I know there has to be something people can say which is more intelligent. Or clever. Or at least mildly less crass. Perhaps my reason for this is that I don’t see a plausible way to quantify suckiness, or rules dictating the nature of suckdom. If determining sucktitude is such an inexact science, it hardly seems like a reasonable way to measure someone’s worth as an athlete or an official.

I’m sure we can come up with something better, but a lot of us don’t really go to sporting events to think hard. Generally, we aim for the opposite. In a sense, that is what makes them great, but at the same time I hope for a greater sign of human intelligence than this. Then again, in the years since, it has become very apparent to me that hoping for that is entirely futile.

This particular game was the night of the NHL trade deadline and the Islanders had been involved in the biggest move of the day, picking up Montreal Canadiens captain Kirk Muller and defenseman Mathieu Schneider. While Muller did not immediately report because he was upset to have been traded from Montreal, Schneider would assist on the Islanders’ first goal that night, as they rallied from a 2-0 deficit to pull out a 4-3 win, prompting loud booing from a sellout crowd at the Garden, which was rather unsettled with their defending Stanley Cup-champion Rangers. Just a year earlier, the Rangers had ended the longest drought in the history of the sport. The night I was there, the defending Champs played nothing like one, dropping their fourth straight game at home.

I remember most clearly that night that my father decided we were all hungry and needed to stop off at a Pizza Hut on the drive back to New Jersey afterwards, ordering a stuffed crust pizza – it was new at the time – and indulging in it while The Doors’ Greatest Hits played on the juke box. “Touch Me” was the song I recall being played multiple times and as I far more thoroughly understand the song now than I did then, it seems just a little inappropriate.

The Rangers would squeak into the playoffs that year and surprise the No. 1-seeded Quebec Nordiques who were in their last year at the Colisee before pulling up stakes and moving west to Colorado, where they would win the Cup a year later in 1996. The Rangers would be out a round later in 1995, meeting their fate at the hands of the Philadelphia Flyers who swept them in four games. That year, though, it would be my team, the New Jersey Devils, who would surprise the hockey world as a five-seed to breeze through the Boston Bruins and Pittsburgh Penguins before knocking off Philadelphia in six games and then sweeping the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Detroit Red Wings for their first Stanley Cup in franchise history.



My first venture to see my favorite team wouldn’t come until six months later, when family friend Sally Bregman gave my father two tickets on December 7, 1995 for that night’s game against the Toronto Maple Leafs. For the first 25 seasons the Devils spent in New Jersey they played at what was called, for most of its existence, Brendan Byrne Arena, or as I referred to it – and I’m pretty sure I was the only one – “The Byrne.” Brendan Byrne was a New Jersey governor who helped push for the creation of the Meadowlands Sports Complex that would come to house the Devils, the New Jersey Nets and the New York Giants and Jets.

As a thank you gesture, Byrne was honored by having his name grace one of the most lifeless and uninteresting buildings the NHL has ever known. It was probably more fitting for the building to have its uninteresting corporate sponsor name of Continental Airlines Arena starting in 1996. The building would later change its name again to The Izod Center in 2007, but by then the Devils had moved on to the Prudential Center in downtown Newark.

While I would share a number of memories with the building, namely Game 5 of the 2003 Eastern Conference Semifinals and Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Finals that same season, the Byrne was a beige, boxy home that was plain and uninspired on the outside and felt like a mall as you walked around inside. The concourses were brightly lit and white all the way around. The arena itself wasn’t a terrible place to watch a game. The sightlines were decent and the capacity, 19,040, was likely an early stab at stoking a rivalry with the Rangers, who were in the midst of their drought when the Byrne opened in 1982. Bizarrely, the top bowl of the arena was surrounded by pale blue walls that seemed like an appropriate place to film a blue screen sequence in a movie.

The Devils’ fan base does not always come out in force. My first night at a game the announced crowd was 12,374, downright shameful for the defending Stanley Cup champions. But the fans that do show up are a passionate lot, devoted to their team and not afraid to vocalize their disdain of the Rangers. One tradition in the building is to hum aloud a generic arena pump up song and then yell “Rangers Suck!” Sometimes this is followed by less of the crowd with the all too tasteful “Islanders Swallow!” Another tradition follows that the fans yell out “Sucks!” whenever a member of the visiting team is announced during the starting lineups.

Clearly we Devils fans do little to separate ourselves from the vast majority.

The Devils would lose to the Leafs by a 2-1 count, their third loss in a row, dropping them below the .500-mark. The game was sealed on a cross-checking penalty against longtime Devil Ken Daneyko, who I vividly remember slamming the door of the penalty box and yelling at referee Paul Devorski as he was sent to the sin bin with less than two minutes remaining. The game-winner came at the hands of Toronto’s Benoit Hogue, and the first goal I ever saw scored by a Devil was potted by rookie Petr Sykora, who would go on to be a crucial part of the Devils’ 2000 Stanley Cup Championship team and play in the NHL for 15 more years, including two more Finals appearances with the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim and the Pittsburgh Penguins.

That loss, which caused a great deal of booing from the home crowd – apparently I had that kind of effect on teams when I was younger – led many to question the toughness of a still young Martin Brodeur. Despite winning it all the year before, the Devils were struggling and would wind up missing the postseason that year, unable to defend their Cup. As of today, Marty, as we Devils fans affectionately call him, has since accumulated three Cups, four Vezina Trophies and an NHL record 590 career wins and 108 career shutouts. To say that Brodeur assuaged those fears in the years since would be putting it lightly. Instead of being considered immature, he is now remembered as one of the greatest netminders to ever play the game.

Interestingly, the Devils were suffering from a number of injuries among their wingers at the time I attended my first game. This forced a number of minor league call ups including a young left wing named Patrik Elias. My first Devils game would be the NHL debut for Elias, who did not reach the scoresheet that night. Elias would score a number of important goals as a Devil, however, including the winner late in Game 7 of the 2000 Conference Finals against Philadelphia.

On March 17, 2009, Marty would break Patrick Roy’s record for most career regular season wins in a 3-2 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks. Elias would play a role, assisting on the game-winner by Brian Gionta. That assist would be the 702nd regular season point of his career, making him the leading scorer in Devils history. I didn’t realize until years later that I had been there for the start of Elias’ career. Of course, being all of 10 years old at the time, it’s foolish to assume I played any sort of role. But it’s still a fun thought.

Marty, despite an early fascination with Claude Lemieux, has permanently established himself as my favorite player of all time. At times I think that is a bit unfair, however. After all, it was Brodeur’s predecessor Craig Billington, who got me to make that deal with the Devils in the first place.

As far as sports go, it’s one of the best I’ve made.

Well, I Guess I Was Wrong

Yes, I'm aware I picked the Colts to win, and frankly, I feel like I had sound logic to rely on, but alas, that is why they play the games. I don't know that I really have the energy to go into all of my thoughts on the game, but for now I'll give you some bullet points.

-- The Saints won the game when they went for it on fourth down in the first half and didn't get it. Sean Payton is a gambler, and that onside kick to start the second half, aside from being perhaps the game's most crucial play, was a pretty clear manifestation of that. But once he showed his team that he was willing to risk the game on them, it was a signal to the players that they were going to get it done. They clearly relished the risk.

-- Lance Moore will not be remembered as the key player of this game, but he made the play of the game when he contorted his body to stretch for the two-point conversation after New Orleans took the lead in the fourth quarter.

-- Dwight Freeney was effective early, but by the third quarter it was clear that his ankle was affecting him. My guess is he was on so many cortizone shots that he couldn't even feel anything below his knee. He may not be walking for a while.

-- Despite that late pick, Peyton Manning actually played an exceptional game. He was 31 of 45 for 333 yards a touchdown and an interception.

-- Jim Caldwell was overwhelmed by the moment, as shown by the fact that he didn't call time out before the Colts' fourth down in the final minute.

-- The Saints executed an excellent Gatorade Dump on Sean Payton, who thoroughly enjoyed the shower.

-- The Colts lost because they had never been in a close game this season. When it came to crunch time, they had no idea how to react.

-- Reggie Wayne absolutely should have had that catch in the end zone at the end of the game.

-- I said early in the game that if Joseph Addai won MVP I would eat my hat. I came dangerously close to it.

-- This afternoon's Capitals-Penguins game, which featured Washington winning its 14th in a row by rallying to win in overtime on the strength of a hat trick by Alex Ovechkin was a better game than the Super Bowl.

That's all I got. This wasn't the best Super Bowl I've ever seen, but it was a pretty good one. And it was far closer than the two-touchdowns New Orleans eventually won by. What made it even better was that I have a fridge heavily stocked with Leinenkugel's Sunset Wheat as a result.

Tomorrow it's off to Philadelphia for team No. 31, the Flyers. As a result, I may not get a chance to post a story because I will probably be in transit, but if that's the case, I'll be sure to have it up on Tuesday.

Super What Sunday?

When I was younger football was my first love and Super Bowl Sunday was essentially the holiest holiday of my religion. Now Yom Kippur has stolen that mantel -- sort of -- but Super Bowl Sunday still has a special feel about it even though I now can viscerally remember watching the last 15 of them. The Super Bowl doesn't feel like quite the rare event it once did now that I'm older -- after all it does happen every year -- but I still can get into it, particularly since the last decade or so of games has for the most part been pretty good, and once in a while a fucking life fucking changing event.

Of course, the Giants can't get there every year, but even though my rooting interest is pretty minimal and based on the least stringent of standards this time around, I'm pretty excited for what should be a fairly entertaining game.

Now for those of you who know me, in addition to sports I also get irrationally interested in the Oscars despite the fact they're almost always wrong. Still, Newsweek had a fairly accurate example of how the Super Bowl would appear cinematically depending on the auteur earlier this week, and for film minors like myself, it makes an awful lot of sense.




Now, Quentin Tarantino will probably never be involved in the Super Bowl. I don't think we could handle the blood, but the game can still be an inspiration for the film industry, apparently, as ESPN Magazine recently reported that numerous Hollywood executives have approached recently retired and future Hall of Famer Kurt Warner about the film rights to his life story. Yes, his meteoric rise from NFL has-been to elite superstar quarterback is only beaten by his sudden rise from grocery store stockboy to the MVP of Super Bowl XXXIV as far as inspiration quotient, and indeed, it is a great story despite all the talk about Jesus.
And there is a lot of it.

But tagging along with him the whole time has been his wife, Brenda Warner, who aside from making a noted physical shift between Kurt's championship with the Rams a decade ago and his third visit to the big game last season with Arizona, has been noted for being awfully outspoken. Well this week she made have topped herself when she told ESPN Magazine that she wanted to be involved in the casting for the film about her husband's life. And who does she want to play Kurt?

Denzel Washington.

There is a disconnect here.

I don't know that there is the potential for any sentimental Hollywood magic this year, though the rise of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina certainly has some cache, but as far as who will win, well, that's a trickier question.

Going into this game I think I would have joined the chorus that seems to believe Indianapolis is simply the better team, and for the most part, I think they're right. In fact, given that in all 16 games the Colts have actually attempted to win this year they have, I think this has been a remarkably underappreciated team. Were it not for the front office and the coaching staff pulling starters against the Jets in Week 15 we might be talking about the first 19-0 team in history today.

Still, the Saints have been an offensive juggernaut most of this year, and while I think Peyton Manning is the more precise surgeon under center, Drew Brees leads an attack that is so potent almost no defense can stop it when it's running on full cylinders.

So essentially, tonight's game, in my mind, comes down to the defenses, since both offenses clearly can score. The Saints' defense is not a particularly great one, but they are opportunistic, and Darren Sharper is as good a ball hawk as they come. New Orleans could easily steal a turnover or two to turn the tide. Indy's defense is better, but with Dwight Freeney hobbled by a fairly severe ankle injury, despite the Colts' insistence and stonewalling all week, I don't for a second believe he's really going to be healthy enough to be a factor.

Although, it should be noted, Freeney was seen driving a golf cart yesterday for some reason. Still with him being unable to walk comfortably at media day this week, I have a hard time imagining him really have the explosiveness off the edge he usually provides, and that may make it open season on the Colts' secondary. And that gives the Saints a chance.

Still, as I look these two teams, I can't help the feeling that Peyton Manning is the brightest mind to play quarterback, maybe ever. And because of that the Colts may be less exciting to watch, but they're just, well, better. The Saints will score, and they will make a game of it. But I just can't see them pulling it off.

Indianapolis 34, New Orleans 31.

Get it? Got it? Good. Let's go have some fun.