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You Don’t Have To Be Crazy, But It Helps!
I can’t remember exactly when. I have the date on a piece
of paper at home. I think it was in May of ’07, and the Yankees
came to Seattle to play the Mariners. Now, I know you are thinking,
“What?”, “Yankees/Mariners?!”
Yeah, I know, that’s why this is in my top 5. So like I said,
Yankees/Mariners. I got a couple tickets from a guy in my office
at Windermere. They were right behind home plate, and my friend
Ben and I went to the game.
It was probably about the 3rd inning when I looked over and saw
some guys getting to their seats. They were in the next section
over, coming in from the aisle on the opposite side. I didn’t
think about it much, but then I realized - wait a minute, that looks
like Seneca Wallace. Then, that is Seneca Wallace, and Lofa Tatupu,
and a couple other guys I didn’t recognize. One of them looked
really familiar, but I couldn’t put a name with him. The other,
I just had no clue who he was.
So, I sat there for a few minutes, then thought to myself, you know
what, I am going to call Kurt (my roommate). I was hoping he would
be available to bring me the ball. I figured I was probably the
only guy crazy enough to actually try and pull this off, having
Kurt bring me the ball, talking Safeco Field security into letting
me bring it into the stadium, and going up and asking those guys
if they’d sign it.
I knew the biggest challenge was going to get Safeco security to
allow me to bring the ball in. Well, Kurt was available. He brought
me the ball. Safeco security let me bring it in. And, sure enough,
I went right up to those guys and asked them to sign the ball. Fortunately,
there were a couple seats open right in front of them.
That’s only half the story though. |
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So, I walk over there
and sit down in front of them with the ball, and I asked them if
they would sign it. However, the one guy who I kind of recognized
decided to mess with me a little.
He said, “First, do you know who all of us are?” I said,
“Well, I know who he is (pointing at Seneca Wallace), I know
who he is (pointing at Lofa Tatupu), I kinda recognize you, but
I am sorry, man, I have no clue who you are.” So then Seneca
tried giving me some clues. He was like “nose”. I couldn’t
figure it out. Turns out it was Jordan Babineaux. The other guy
turned out to be Niko Koutouvides, the back up middle linebacker
who is now with Denver. The whole guessing game actually got dragged
out for a little while. I think Babineaux was enjoying having a
little fun with me. I felt bad that I didn’t know who Koutouvides
was. Here he is out with his buddies and they get recognized, but
he didn’t. He didn’t seem to upset about it though,
he was a pretty cool guy.
Lofa was really quiet, and Seneca was really cool, too. When Jordan
kept giving me crap, Seneca was like, “Dude, this guy's got
some pretty big names on this ball. He's doing it big!” I
liked that. Then Seneca asked a funny, fair question. “What
do you do, just bring this ball with you everywhere you go?”
LOL! I laughed. I said, “No, I had my friend bring it down
to me.” LOL!
Eventually, they all signed it.
Funny thing, before I went over to them, no one was really paying
attention. However, when you walk up to some guys at a Mariners
game with a stainless steel football, that tends to grab people’s
attention. Afterward, these girls across the aisle from them said,
“So, are you guys football players?” Then some people
started coming up and asking for their autographs.
I felt bad, because they were just trying to enjoy the game, but
I got over it pretty quick. LOL! |
