Today's Musical Selection: "Take Me Out to the Ballgame"
Howdy, everybody! I had a surprisingly good day today, all thanks to the Baltimore Orioles' DC FanFest. I'm sure that most of you find this hard to believe, which is understandable. I find it hard to believe myself. And some of you are probably wondering why I'd be at the FanFest in the first place. So for you folks, I'd best begin at the beginning.
I went to the FanFest strictly and solely to meet up with Papa Shaft, with whom I planned to go to lunch. I got there a while before the end of the event, when we were to meet, so I figured I'd wander around and examine the scene. The first thing I noticed was a lot of lines. Lines up and down the square. Lines, lines, lines! It called to mind Communist Russia. It was definitely a line-oriented event. I attempted to avoid the lines and find a shady spot to stand and watch for the protesters.
I'd heard some scuttlebutt that DC baseball boosters were planning to picket the FanFest, an idea I applauded. What better way to publicize the cause than to crash Peter Angelos' market-protecting party? After strolling the premises awhile, and dodging the lines to work into the center of the square, I located Protest Central. Not much of a show; two youngish guys (college-age, I'd guess) holding signs standing next to a middle-aged man. The signs contained a Peter Angelos quote, "There are no real baseball fans in DC," and the phrase "Support baseball in DC/NoVa." I was about to go over and tell the sign-wavers to keep the faith, but something about the middle-aged man seemed familiar, and I was trying to place him. I looked a little closer and noticed that he was writing in a long notepad. Suddenly it all clicked into place: the man was Thomas Boswell!
Boswell is a baseball writer for the Post, one of the greats. I'm a huge fan of Boswell's work; I read his column religiously, and I have all his books. The man is, to me, a legend. And here he was, standing three feet away. Naturally, I couldn't resist going over and introducing myself. He shook my head and invited me to walk and talk. We shot the breeze about the FanFest and DC baseball. After a while, he pulled out his pad and made a few notes. Thomas Boswell was interviewing me! How cool was that? He excused himself after a few minutes, and I drifted off with a huge grin on my face. My day -- nay, my year -- was made.
Incidentally, Boswell is a good guy. He was low-key and friendly, engaging me in baseball chat like two fans sitting in the bleachers on a summer afternoon. I'd love to watch a game with him. He's shorter than I expected, shorter than me, in fact. If I have any criticism of the man, it's that, like many journalists, he appears to dress in the dark. He was wearing a short-sleeve button-down shirt that was maroon-and-white plaid. Boswell has a wife, and I would have thought she would have but the kibosh on a shirt like that. (Boswell, however, was a GQ model next to Jay Gibbons, who was wearing a light-blue shirt with this bizarre Western-ish embroidery along the back at the shoulder blades. Gibbons must not be married, because any right-thinking wife would have long since thrown that shirt in the incinerator.)
Incidentally, I think I understand how the Greg Packer "scandal" happened. (For those not familiar, Packer was a New Yorker who got quoted repeatedly in the Times, so many times that right-wing critics started calling them out on it.) Boswell was following what I presume is the standard procedure for journalists at events like this: he was wandering around, chatting up people who seemed willing to talk and jotting down notes. I'd imagine that, journalistically speaking, this is a safer and saner alternative to collaring people at random and trying to make them talk to you. Obviously, given a story with idenitifiable major players, you need to talk to those people whether they want to talk or not. But at an event like this, where you're just looking for some faces in the crowd, obviously you're going to want to talk to people who want to talk to you.
Given that, if you're someone who wants to get in the paper a lot, the best strategy would be to hang around crowd-based events, learn to identify the journalists and approach them, preferably with compliments. Odds are, if you're a friendly face with something to say, you'll probably make it in the paper. I'd guess that that's just what Packer did. (Was it the Times' fault for not catching on? I'm inclined to say no, because it's the sort of thing that's only obvious once it's pointed out.) I don't have any desire to follow in Packer's footsteps, but I was happy to get to meet a journalist I like and admire.
I did meet up with Papa Shaft afterward, and he called my attention to something I missed: In the office building over the Orioles team store at Farragut Square, mischievous office workers had taped signs in the windows reading "Baseball in DC" and "DC Fans Don't Sell Out for a Free Hot Dog." (Free food was part of FanFest.) Papa Shaft approved the sentiment, and so do I.
Papa Shaft also reports that among the O's players, Jay Gibbons and Todd Williams were nice and friendly guys, while Rodrigo Lopez and Buddy Groom were, um, not. Groom won Papa's official "Mondo-Asshole of the Day" title for sitting there and bitching constantly to Lopez about how they were forced to sit in the sun, while the rookies across the square were sitting in shade. As Papa pointed out, when the session started, Groom's table was in the shade (Rafael Palmeiro having moved it there). But there's not much shade to be had at high noon. My personal take on it is that Buddy Groom should consider himself fortunate to have a job at this point. He's an adequate left-handed reliever, but he's 39 and had rarely if ever been more than a marginal player. If anyone should have been grateful just to be out there, it was Groom.
But then, isn't it usually the case that the most marginal members of a club usually have the worst attitudes? The closer you are to losing your grip on membership in the elite, the harder you're going to fight to stay there and the less pleasant you're going to be to the non-elite. Up until now, I'd never cared one way or the other about Buddy Groom. Now, I'm so irritated by Papa Shaft's report on Groom's bad behavior that I feel no qualms about informing the world that Buddy's real first name is "Wedsel." No, really. Any fans who wish to start up a "Let's Go Wed-sel" chant the next time Groom enters a game have my blessing and admiration.
Oh, and while I'm thinking of it, I think that this pretty much defines the concept of "taking a joke too far." The front page is mildly cute, I guess. But I encourage you to poke around a little further. Someone clearly put a lot of time and energy into this. If you're not convinced, click on the "Order Book" tab. Yes, it's for real. You can actually spend $30 for a book that, by the time it arrives, will probably be a forgotten memory of a lame, discontinued ad campaign.
I elected not to blow the $30 and instead downloaded a copy. It's about 130 pages long. Granted, it's in large type and includes a lot of pictures, but there's at least a good 60-70 solid pages of writing in there. And it's not even good! It's not an effective parody of fad-diet books, it's too long to be an effective product plug, and it's not particularly humorous on its own. Certain elements merited a chuckle (particularly the section on supermodel wrestling, and yes, I'm dead serious), but the overall effect is like a movie based on an SNL sketch: a 30-second premise stretched much, much too far and too thin. Anyone who actually drops $30 on this book should immediately be placed under house arrest and forbidden to make future spending decisions without consulting someone with a brain.
I look at this, and at the Subservient Chicken, and I wonder just what they're smoking over at Burger King HQ. I know Burger King is hemorrhaging market share, and I know Wendy's has passed them for #2 among fast-food chains, and I imagine drastic measures are called for. But is this what it's come to? This is beyond bizarre. Unless they're trying to position themselves as the fast-food chain of choice for stoners (an honor currently held by Taco Bell), I don't know what they're thinking.
That's all for today. See you tomorrow!
Posted by Fred at August 18, 2004 05:14 PM