 |
 |
| HAIL TO THE KING OF SPORT PART II |
| Every once in a while, a man hears the call of sport. That man must answer provided he’s got the money, his job allows him the time off, and his wife says it’s okay. For some men, this involves going into the woods and shooting things (often animals). For others it involves, in the words of George Carlin, hitting a ball with a crooked stick and then walking after it, then hitting it again. Since my ideal pursuit of sport involves A) sitting down, and B) drinking beer, I answer the call of sport with the tried and true tool of the true enthusiast, the alcohol-fueled road trip. Conveniently, I was headed to Miami with the wife for Passover, so we started the week with the Nasdaq-100 Open, Key Biscayne, Florida, March 30 I had never seen a live tennis match before (on any level – when we played tennis in high school gym class I usually snuck to the local deli for a meatball sub), so I was looking forward to seeing Andre Agassi battle the pesky Chilean Marcelo Rios. I had no idea who the hell Marcelo Rios was of course. But I did think it was a ton of fun to yell, a la Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction, “WHAT DOES MARCELO RIOS LOOK LIKE? DOES HE LOOK LIKE A BITCH?” My brand of humor seemed to be lost on the fans sitting around us, most of who were from Chile and didn’t speak English. They did, however, yell “CHI CHI CHI LE LE LE VIVA CHILE!” approximately 230,000 times. This sounds like it would be a real hoot on paper, but when there’s a 100-degree sun blazing on your head and you’re sitting in cramped seats surrounded by sweaty, shirtless tennis fans it gets old quick. I don’t like to sweat that excessively when I’m working out, much less sitting down. Rios’ nickname is “Chino,” something else the Chilean fans yelled ad nauseam, even while he was playing. (“Chino” is Spanish for “Chinese,” which Rios certainly isn’t, so I’m guessing he wears chino pants.) Yelling during a match is “frowned upon,” meaning you’ll get a $22 daiquiri thrown at your head if you so much as clear your throat during play. This didn’t stop the resilient Chilean fans, who yelled as if they’d just won World Cup every time Rios scored a point. Speaking of scoring, whoever came up with the tennis scoring system was clearly playing a sick, drug-induced joke. Scoring goes 15, 30, 40, then you win the game, unless it’s 40-40, which is called deuce, which means you have to win two points in a row. You’ve got to win six games to win a set, but you have to win by two sets, so if the other guy wins six you just keep on playing until one player dies of sun poisoning. You have to win three sets to win the game, which my wife didn’t know until the first set, which clocked in at about 65 minutes, was over. “They’re going to do that TWO MORE F***ING TIMES?!” she screamed. The Chileans seemed to know that word. Luckily Rios had a bad knee and eventually had to pull out, causing the Chilean fans to yell things at Rios that probably weren’t as nice or ambiguous as “Chinese.” So it was back to Washington for New York Yankees vs. Baltimore Orioles, Camden Yards, Baltimore, Maryland, April 1 I’d never been to a season opener before and was jazzed when my friend Josh invited me. I hate the Yankees and am ambivalent about the Orioles, but as a student of the game and true fan of the athleticism, beauty and geometric complexion of baseball, it held my rapt attention. That and the fact that it was f***ing Passover and I couldn’t drink. Not being able to drink at a baseball game is like overdosing on Viagra at a brothel with an empty wallet and maxed-out credit card. It was made worse by the fact that we were sitting directly behind “that guy.” You know “that guy.” “That guy” is the guy that seems to be at the game by himself, gets hopelessly drunk and screams at the players (you can never tell who “that guy” is rooting for), and who, at least once, reveals way too much of his posterior to the rest of the ballpark. At this particular game, “that guy” repeatedly gave us a Orioles-eye view of his asscrack while screaming “YOU SUCK D.W.!” at Rondell White, whose initials are not D.W. Maybe he though Dave Winfield was still patrolling the outfield for the Yanks. When you’re drinking, “that guy” is hilarious because you’re relieved to know that there are people in the world who are sadder than you. When sober, “that guy” is just one big free-floating asscrack. But the game turned out great – the weather was terrific, the Orioles won, and Roger Clemens got shelled for ten runs. However, the crowd was considerably more excited about that night’s NCAA basketball final, and each yell of “fear the turtle” was received with more cheers than Tony Batista’s game-breaking grand slam. The only downside is we failed to get autographs. Josh and I are rabid autograph hounds and usually have success at Camden Yards. But this time the Yankees, being Yankees, strolled by us without even looking, as did Oriole Hall of Famers Jim Palmer and Jim Katt. We did say hi to Bush’s spokesman Ari Fleischer, but didn’t ask him to sign our baseballs. It occurred to me he probably couldn’t drink because of Passover eitherl, and in his job he needs alcohol considerably more than the rest of us. After a brief workweek, it was off to Washington Capitals vs. New York Islanders, Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale, New York, April 6 My lifelong dream is to visit every National Hockey League arena. Like every lifelong dream, the major obstacle (besides spousal objection) is prohibitive cost; the average “cheap seat” in any NHL arena is about $30 – multiply that by 30 teams and you’re already at $900. Add in fuel and car maintenance costs ($1,000), hotels ($3,000) and booze ($250,000) and you’re looking at a dream only reachable by the four richest kings of Europe, who are all goddamn Red Wings fans. Plus I wouldn’t be working during that time, though it’s likely no one would notice and I’d still get my direct deposit. So the plan is to see a few arenas every year until I get to them all. I’ve got eight down, and my friend Scott and I decided to notch two more on one road trip, so off we went to Long Island. We found out that it costs more to drive to Long Island than it does to fly. There seemed to be toll booths every ten miles, each charging more than the last. You pay to leave Maryland, and then pay to get into Delaware. You pay to drive through New Jersey. You pay to enter New York. You pay to get on the Verrazano Bridge, and then you pay to get off the Verrazano Bridge. New Yorkers needn’t worry about further terrorist attacks by car since it costs more than the gross domestic product of Iraq just to get there. We were lucky enough to meet some very cool Islander fans before the game. You hear a lot about rivalries in sports – Red Sox/Yankees, Cowboys/Redskins, Lakers/Celtics. These are the rivalries have been talked about to the point where they’re sanitized and merely legends – sure there’s a rivalry, but no Sox fan is kidding themselves into believing the Sox will win a pennant over the Yankees, so it's impossible to muster passionate animosity towards the other team’s fans. Having lived in both Red Sox Nation and Redskins Country, I can say with conviction that nothing comes close to the hatred Islanders fans feel towards the New York Rangers. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. Fans wear jerseys that say “RANGERS SUCK” on the front and bear insulting slogans about Ranger players on the back. Even though they were playing the Capitals, chants of “RANGERS SUCK” echoed through the arena the entire game and seemed to be the major rallying cry. The Caps lost the game (as well as their playoff chances) handily, and while we took ribbing from Islander fans it was good-natured and usually followed by “at least you’re not Ranger fans.” After the game we went to our hotel to hang with our newfound friends some more. Eventually, current and former Islander players began entering the bar and mingling with the crowd. Apparently this is a relatively common occurrence. And the fans knew every player, no matter how obscure. In DC, folks can point out the Secretary to the Spokesman for the Assistant to any given Senator from across the room but most couldn’t pick Jaromir Jagr out of a lineup. These fans were on a first-name basis with the Islanders friggin’ equipment manager. One former Islander in attendance was Clark Gillies, who’s had his number raised to the rafters at Nassau. Clark is one of the ultimate tough guys in NHL history, and just about the only player who was able to beat up my favorite player of all time, Terry O’Reilly. So despite the fact that he was standing ten feet from me, I was leery to talk to him. Until he called Scott and I over and offered to buy us a beer. When Clark Gillies calls you over, you go – you’d just as soon try to get out of a sitdown with Don Corleone. Apparently he admired the fact that Scott and I, still wearing our Caps jerseys, had the brass tacks to show up in a bar with hundreds of Islanders fans, especially considering the Islanders has just made the playoffs and ended the Caps’ 22-game unbeaten streak against them. We were able to talk with Gillies for a while, as well as a great young Islander winger named Oleg Kvasha. I was tempted to tell Kvasha I’d sent him a card to autograph and hadn’t gotten it back, but refrained from doing so. We woke up bright and early and massively hung over and headed to exit 16W for Boston Bruins vs. New Jersey Devils, Continental Airlines Arena, Somewhere in Northern New Jersey, April 7 It took us longer to drive the 2 miles from the highway to the Meadowlands complex than it did to get from Long Island to New Jersey. The arena is clearly visible, but there are long endless stretches of roads that aren’t marked, and it’s trial and error to find the right one. Luckily we got there, where we saw people tailgating. All well and good on a 60-degree spring day, but I imagine it’s not so fun in early January. I’ll take MCI Center with its convenient Fuddrucker’s, thank you. Continental is the biggest arena I’ve been in to date – it’s only got two decks but is extremely spacious. It feels more like an airplane hangar than a hockey arena, largely because the crowd is sparse and relatively quiet. The previous evening, Islanders fans had told us how blasé Devils fans are - apparently you could get tickets to last year’s Stanley Cup finals at the walk-up window the day of the game. Interestingly, the loudest cheer in this arena was also “RANGERS SUCK.” The New York area loves their Yankees, but get them talking about hockey and a riot breaks out. Our seats were close to the Devils’ broadcast table, so I got to say hello to their phenomenal play-by-play man, Mike "Doc" Emrick. I admire Emrick for two reasons: he’s got one of the best voices in hockey, and he opted out of calling the Olympics for NBC because his dog was sick. The game was relatively uninteresting…the Bruins scored just 26 seconds into the game but lost in overtime, causing the dozens of Devils fans in attendance to scream excitedly, “What? Huh? We can go home now?” After such a great time the night before, there was no question this game was going to be anti-climactic. But I had kind of hoped it wouldn’t be THAT anti-climactic – Marcelo Rios was a bastion of excitement compared to Devils hockey. After a seemingly never-ending drive home, it’s back to the grindstone. Congress is back in town, so I’ll have some actual funny stuff to write about soon. Meantime, enjoy the baseball season, and root for the Islanders in the playoffs. Viva Chile. |