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Jays @ Rays : Special series at The Ballpark
(Disney’s Wide World of Sports)
National Anthem
Rays Pitcher Jason Hammel
Rays All Star 3B Evan Longoria
Rays Closer Troy Percival
Fud!
Platanos Maduros al Tostone
(almost ripe plantains in the style of tostones)
Red Snapper on the Grill
stay delicious+
!nerd up
it was and is the greatest live sporting event i attended.
early october, 2003. i’m living in the miller mansion (it rhymed, it stayed) with a cubs fan, a mets fan, a guy who likes the mets/yankees and is having sex with cubs girl, a potential rays fan and a jesus fan (surprisingly, not a jesus from baseball). the marlins and cubs are battling to a 3-1 series lead for chicago after a fish spanking in game 4 at joe robbie.
it will forever be joe robbie. doesn’t matter. pro player, dolphins stadium, ricky’s resin-covered bowl…it stays 80s
we battled ticketmaster for as long as possible when games 5-7 were announced and on sale, losing to their piece of crap software and the nefarious ticket brokers that screw fans over. and over. and over till you spend $115 on a $35 311 concert ticket cause they’re sold out to nebbish fucks that will never step inside a concert arena.
sullen and sullied from our loss, it was a few days later that the grace of orestes destrade would again shine upon me. ms. cubs got a call from her dad in south florida that they had secured a block of seats and that we housemates were welcome to come and enjoy. we quickly accepted the offer and realized that this was saturday afternoon and we had to get there pretty damn early on sunday afternoon.
the troops were gathered early sunday morning and we ventured to the airport to rent a car and head down. well, no one was quite 25 yet and our option was for ms. cubs to strongarm her place at lockheed-martin into a rental car as a gubment employee. after much haggling and hassling, we were on our way in a spanking new ford windstar.
allow me, for a moment to explain that the wind in windstar is purely for entertainment value. it’s true meaning can be found in the amount of noise that the car produces cutting through the turnpike’s swath at 105mph. whilst said minivan is not made for such excitement, we got it to the broward/dade county line with plenty of time to spare.
and then we walked, and walked, till we ascended to the highest reaches of upper right field. i won’t say we sat far away, but i certainly saw cloud formations a few rows below us. i’d say it was closer between us and the sun that us and home plate. thank god for the tiny, terrible towels given away as i soaked a couple of em laid them inside and beneath my hat. like the baseball version of ishtar!
this is a big game. no professional championships in south florida since the marlins last won in 1997 and they trotted out the big gun to sing the national anthem. the growd goes absolute bananas when it’s announced that jose feliciano (n. i want to wish you a merry christmas…from the bottom, of my hearrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt) would be the guest singer. he put out one of the most stirring and heartfelt renditions i’ve ever heard, accompanying himself with an acoustic guitar. he finishes, the non-existant roof comes off and it’s time.
here’s what happened. josh beckett went to work in a fashion that he never even matched in boston. he worked a no hitter into the fifth and gave up the only other hit as a single in the 7th. it was mastery. it felt like everyone was playing to their absolute maximum on both sides of the ball.
mike lowell homered and so did ivan rodriguez. what happened after that? same as 97, they were both gone soon after.
but who else homered? jeff conine. the gods of baseball brought him back 6 seasons later to be the man on the only team he had been able to become a star on and everyone in the stadium knew it.
marlins would win, bartman would interfere and soon i would be running around my living room, cheering another world series title with no one else home.
and this
2 world series wins in 10 years of existence
