Category: Sports
Greetings from Boston!
I’m sitting in the last row of Section 320 in the Fleet Center in Boston, the section of this area that has been designated as ‘Blogger Alley’ for the event we are all here to attend, The Democratic National Convention. So much as happened since getting here last Friday, it’s difficult to find the time to recount it all! (As I’m typing right now, my old boss, Senator Edward Kennedy, has just begun his speech, really).
I am here at my third Democratic Convention working in the Democratic News Service. Our mission, to help the candidates and elected officials that are here to reach their local news… television, radio, and Internet. My team’s focus is on the Internet. The Convention’s web team is doing a great job with the officlal Convention web site, that’s not what we’re doing from the DNS. We are working to help do some matchmaking between the politicians who use the DNS, and the online media and bloggers who are here to cover this event. And so far it’s going very well.
But I should back up a bit. The adventure began last Friday, when I arrived on got checked into my very nice dorm room at Northeastern University. Not quite the Four Seasons, but then again I am one of 30,000 or so visitors who have descended on Boston for the Convention, and having any place to rest your head is something to be thankful for, even a college dorm room with roomates (not somewhere I imagined to find myself again at 39). My good friend Neal Stillman accepted my invite to join the Internet team in the DNS, and we began the week eager to take in another event here in Boston… yes, the evil New York Yankees were coming to play the Red Sox at Fenway. We took in the Friday night game at a popular sports bar near Fenway, the Cask and Flagon. And though the Red Sox lost, I still took a bet from my Yankee friend Bobby that the Sox would win the series. Two days and many beers later, I won that bet. Go Sox!
The ball games were a welcome distraction, but we were plenty busy getting oriented with the Fleet Center, setting up our workspace, training our teams, and enjoying the buzz and parties of the big start on day one. Conventions are hectic by definition, and this one is no different, except for the fact that this is a ‘National Security Event’, and so the Fleet Center has been turned into a fortress, and the troops/police/security are everywhere in Boston. At least they’re not wearing Red Coats.
Stay tuned, more to come…
Purple People Eaters Avoid A Shutout
Things were looking grim for the Purple People Eaters tonight as they took a soggy field for a mid-week makeup game. Never a dominating team, the PPE make up with enthusiasm what they lack in precision. Not ones to get down about it, their season has been a string of often painful losses, but they’re having fun and that’s what really matters, right?
Will’s having a great time and is playing well, but just hasn’t been able to seal the deal in the scoring department. It can be very painful watching from the sidelines. Balls that are mere inches from the goal, so close they’d roll in with a mild gust of wind, somehow manage to avoid crossing the line. Some days it seems like these boys couldn’t hit water if they were kicking the ball over the side of a boat. Unable to just run out on the field and punch it in the net for them, good parents say, “Great shot!”, while thinking to themselves “How did you miss that?! You were right there!”. It can really hurt.
The competition wasn’t making things any easier tonight. Sporting mean looking black t-shirts and taking orders from their jar-head coach, they scored at will against the out-of-sync PPE, 2-0, 4-0, 7-0, their score climbed, our pain grew.
Having recently heard another player mention their dad had offered to pay him a reward for each goal he scored, I checked with Jenny to see if she had any problem with that, and being that she didn’t I offered Will a cash incentive plan, $5 for the first goal, $10 for a second, $15 for a third, etc… After learning last Saturday that a ‘near-miss’ wasn’t gonna earn him a cent, Will took the field with dollar signs in his eyes tonight.
And finally, it happened. Breaking away at mid-field, he found no other player except the goalie between him and the big bucks. The sideline is on their feet, ready to congratulate another ‘almost’, but this time, instead of sending a roller just outside of the post, he lofts the ball in the air, over the goalies head, and dead center into the net with an authoritative kick that was destined to hit.
I’m five bucks lighter tonight, but I can’t imagine having spent the money for anything better. Will is, of course, just flying. But he’s also calculating. I had to explain that the raising pay scale for each goal started at $5 again each game and wasn’t cumulative for the season. I’m expecting an angry call from his agent.