Portland, Maine & NFL Draft

Gab:

When we pulled into Portland, Maine the other night, we had every intention of going downtown, grabbing a quick bite to eat then retreating back to the hotel room to catch up on the website, emails, work, all that good stuff. But out of the corners of our eyes, we saw a lit stadium, a full parking lot, and families heading towards ticket booths. Baseball!

The Portland Seadogs (AA minor league team for the Red Sox) and the Trenton Thunder (AA team for the Yankees) were going head to head in just a half hour, walking distance from our hotel.

Forget the quiet night. We dropped off our stuff, grabbed our jackets and joined the crowd.

Unlike Monday’s Red Sox/Yankees game in Boston, the most expensive ticket tonight was $8. We splurged for reserved seats right over the Visitor’s dugout. We collected our free Seadogs rally towels, which should come in handy on the road, two cups of Maine microbrews and settled in to watch the game. Go Seadaaawwgs!

We added our voices to the chant and I ran into the aisle to get my picture taken with Slugger, the Seadog mascot, who is much cuter than the Riverside Rascal, mascot of the Harrisburg Senators. Sorry Rascal. I still don’t understand what you are supposed to be. Slugger the Seadog is clearly a dog, albeit a dog with finned feet,

Like all good mascots, Slugger rallied the crowd, started the wave, led the seventh inning stretch and all other promotions and giveaways during the night. A night, which was getting progressively colder as the sun started setting and the wind started blowing. Still the crowd never thinned. There are some hearty folk here in Maine. We are not two of them. Michael and I switched over to hot chocolate and coffee and huddled together for warmth. We felt inadequate next to the young girls in t-shirts and vests and that guy next to us in shorts. Shorts?

Now this is what baseball should be – watching the sun go down, feeling the air get chilly, listening to the crack of a wooden bat while following the cues of a person in a dog suit. Ahhh American Kabuki.

Did I mention that the Portland stadium has its own Green Monster and a mini-Citgo sign behind it? Did I also mention that we saw the Yankees/Red Sox game in Yankees Stadium and that we have plans to see the Sox again in Cleveland? If you didn’t know me, you’d think I was a Red Sox fan.

Which I am not.

We left the game once the Trenton Thunder pulled ahead in the eighth inning with back-to-back homers. Now if only the New York Yankees had pulled off a similar feat on Saturday.

This weekend, we “adjusted” our itinerary again and went back to NYC to meet a friend who decided to spend his 30th birthday on a red eye flight from LA to New York to see a Red Sox/Yankees game at Yankee Stadium. A few months ago, he sent out an email that said, “Who’s coming with me?” We answered the challenge, as did about a dozen of his friends and family. Who loves ya, kid?

With luck again on our side, someone handed us two extra tickets. Behind the plate, upper deck, last row. The very last row. Perfect. We’ll take them! Into the Stadium, up the ramps, up the stairs, up those stairs too. Seats 4 and 5. Row X. A ladder to the roof was next to us. A panoramic view of Harlem could be seen through the aperture at our backs. To our left and our right, almost every seat was filled.

The weekend was darn near perfect even though the game stretched into extra innings, Derek Jeter was still in the midst of his slump and the Sox eventually won. After sleeping on the floor of our friend’s brother’s hotel room (thank you!) we got up Sunday morning for a walk, some coffee and a copy of the Times. We woke up in the city that never sleeps to find that it certainly does sleep in. Can I get a cup of coffee? Anyone? A Starbucks near Madison Square Garden came to the rescue.

Sunday, April 25th, my birthday, also happened to be the second day of the 2004 NFL Draft held at the Garden.

Tickets to the draft are free. Free! Day 2 begins at 11 am. Doors open around 10. All are welcome. Still clutching our coffee and paper, we found seats to the right of the ESPN anchor table and settled in with the rest of the headphone-wearing, spreadsheet-studying, jersey-wearing fans. The Theater at MSG looks just like it does on TV! We were on TV! At least I was. Michael was in the bathroom. Why didn’t we call anyone with the news? Because we didn’t have a cell phone between us – one battery was dying the other one already dead. Reconnecting with our friends for lunch was a serious challenge.

I do not know of any other major sporting event that opens its doors free of charge to its fans. And everything about this felt like an Event. The future of the 2004 NFL season was being shaped in front of us. It was both formal and intimate at the same time. Your favorite ESPN sportscasters were there doing their jobs on camera, interacting with the opinionated crowd when the cameras were off. Michael later admitted that going to the NFL Draft was a dream come true. For me, like Nick Bakay says, we are living the dream.