This is the Web site of Michael Fornabaio, a sports writer for the Connecticut Post. (That's me.)

About   Michael Fornabaio would sometimes turn around at New Haven Nighthawks games. He'd peek up to the press box, to where they wrote the stories that he'd pore over the next day. He never dreamed he'd work alongside some of those same people someday.   Fornabaio has reported for the (Bridgeport) Connecticut Post since ...-more-

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My regular gig is covering the Bridgeport Sound Tigers, but my stuff has also appeared in Hockey Night in Boston, The Hockey News and several dailies. I've covered Brakettes softball, pro tennis and golf and lacrosse, and almost every high school sport to be found in Connecticut. But it usually all comes back to hockey, at least since college.

The links on the left will take you to the Place of Employment's site, as well as the blog; check out recent posts on the widget to the right. There are other highlights over there, too, as well as some favorite destinations on the Web.

And other stuff will probably drop in below, too.

This first appeared at Soundin' Off.

The first ballgame I ever attended was in the Bronx. My grandfather took me. Kansas City. Wish I could remember enough details to pick out the date. He had been going to the Stadium since it was young; he followed all those Yankees teams, still follows this one while railing about how the announcers talk too much. (That's not just a Yankees thing for him, though.) You've probably gathered that I ended up rooting for the other guys. I don't think Pop understands how that happened.

My dad grew up a Yankees fan. He cut ties when they cut ties with Yogi. (The first time.) But I grew up knowing all those names, Berra, Kubek, Richardson, Tresh, Ford, Maris, Mantle above all. When my first Little League jersey bore 14, I was told I was wearing Moose Skowron's number before I was told I was wearing Gil Hodges' number.

We'd watch Old Timers Days together, even went a few times. We'd go other times, too. (This was back when you could a) get in and b) not get beaten up for wearing Orange and Blue.) Even though I knew the park looked and played entirely differently than it used to, it was still the carved-out parcel of my home borough on which Babe Ruth had played, on which Lou Gehrig had played, on which that Holy-Cow guy had played, on which Mantle and DiMaggio had played.

Even for someone whose heart belonged to the team that gets cursed out in the bleachers every few minutes, that meant something.

That team belongs in the Bronx. Their stadium, whether "a stadium" or "The Stadium," belongs at 161st and River. Their late-'90s run (which magically transformed the neighborhood from a place where "no one wanted to go" into a place where 4 million people showed up every year) probably made sure it would stay there; perversely ironic consolation. Time hurries on; we're all about maximizing revenue through efficiency and quality of product, and if a new park is part of that, well, we get it.

But it'll be different in Macombs Dam Park. Same corner; different address. Same stop on the IRT; different parcel. It won't be the same.

Until they roll out Berra and Ford and Skowron and Mrs. Rizzuto and Jackson and Randolph and Nettles and Winfield and O'Neill and Martinez and Cone and all of them.

And it'll be just right again.

(Especially if they play the way they played this year.)

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I had forgotten how narrow the seats are at Shea. (Look, I know I'm fat; I contort myself, I make it work. There are people around me who are in perfect shape who just barely fit.)

I had forgotten how one must defy death and gravity to walk down those narrow stairways to those seats, to then try to arrange one's view around the bars at the bottom of those stairs, to then contort to face home plate instead of the archaic 50-yard-line.

I had forgotten how narrow the concourses are, how they collect water and soda and beer and goshalmighty-knows-what-else in pools near the top of the ramps, ramps that don't even have those blue-and-orange panels on the outside anymore.

I had forgotten how quickly rookie pitchers can fall apart, how aggressively we can turn against second basemen with big contracts and small batting averages, and how annoying it is when the visitor's fans overwhelm ya.

And I was becoming more and more certain that the place has run out of miracles; that ball hitting the bat last night gives me pause, but one wonders, too, if it was just the death rattle.

Nah, I ain't gonna miss the place.

(Daily.)

Things aren't particularly pretty here, I know. We're all about the words here. Sorry.

With one minor exception: