Feeling the Draft: The Life of a First Round Fan

Welcome to the life of NFL fans trying to get into the 2013 NFL Draft. Unlike pretty much any sports game ever, you can not buy access or preferential treatment (unless you are a real juiced up baller and if so, God bless you). Instead the cost is a pound of your sanity is that you have to stand out side of Radio City all afternoon in an immobile line for a free ticket. The bracelets (which you use to get your ticket after waiting on line the next day) were being distributed at 9 pm. I figured I would get there before 5 pm and beat everyone leaving work.

Getting to the line at 5 meant I was only behind 400 other people. It sounds like a lot, but the line would eventually contain thousands of fans.

My partner on this adventure was the guy who made me a Jets fan (thanks, I’m sure being a Giants fan this last decade would have been terrible) @LolaNewYork.

Why am I wearing a Vietnamese rice paddy/vietcong hat? I brought a bunch back from Vietnam a few weeks ago for friends and was still in the process of distributing them. I had arrived in NYC by bus just before and had brought one for a friend. It looked less ridiculous to wear it than it did to carry it. Plus it’s funny when fans dress up for the Draft. The new NFL Draft slogan should be :

“The NFL Draft, we’re all here because we’re not all there”

Big business saw this an opportunity to test the taste (and probably safety) of some new food products on this hungry, thirsty and weary bunch. The line was basically crop dusted with products they were trying to test out. Pepsi Next, some kind of disgusting honey mustard ruffle chip?

Now I know how monkeys at the L’Oreal testing lab feel like. If I grow a third arm soon, just know it was Pepsi Next related.

No matter what teams fans were walking by, this fenced in, bored, possibly not sober mob of fans from all over let them have it.

Chargers fan walks by? “Chargers suck!”

Post man walks by? “USPS sucks man!”

You can imagine the response when a platoon of confident Dolphins fans come through?
Not everyone was held hostage by experimental foods, some people simply ordered pizza in the line.

“Make sure it’s not a bomb!” one person yelled. The Boston Marathon bombing had happened a week prior and the spectre of it loomed large over this concentrated mass of sports fans with nothing but time on their hands.

When you enter the line, your bag is inspected. This pizza was handed over the fence, obviating that security measure. Thank God it was just pizza, but everyone stayed jumpy.

As time elapsed, people became more cavalier in their answers to nature’s call. This guy photo’d taking a leak was also drinking whisky and smoking weed (I really should have got a photo of the smoking) in line, so I guess he’s just bout that life.

As it got later and later, more reporters perused the line, trying to find the drunkest fan to look foolish on TV. It was like shooting fish in a barrel
Some network analysts started to show up and sign things. “The ’98 Vikings were my favorite team!” I yelled at Brian Billick.

Michael Irvin didn’t come as far down the line, but people near me were yelling stuff about cocaine towards him.

We finally got into Radio City Music Hall at around 9.20 to receive the Holy Grail that was this bracelet. Fans now had to spend 24 hours being terrified of anything happening to this paper shackle on their wrist. That part kind of sucked.

They also gave us a slice of pizza and a NFL Draft 2013 collapsable stool. Do you know when this stool would have come in handy? About five hours ago.

On my way out I bumped into Roger Goodell. “What happened to the missing 18 minutes of Spygate?” is what I wish I would have said. Maybe if I had time to prepare it could have been another “Frost/Nixon”, but it was more sudden than a Tavon Austin cut.

Instead I just shook his hand (while holding a half eaten slice of pizza and a collapsable stool in the other hand) and said something along the lines of “I’m glad there is a Jets fan in charge, you were a Jets fan growing up, right?”. to which he said he wasn’t a fan of any team. And that was the end. The next day we hopped right back in the saddle and got back in the same line for a another wait, except this time there was some light at the end of the tunnel, we knew the draft started at 6 o’clock. Radio City Music hall was pretty swank. It was funny seeing football fans milling around a theatre. The only time you see football and theatre mix is when Mark Sanchez is busy going to Broadway musicals instead of working hard.

On the way to our seats we got gift bags from the NFL.Is Lamar Odom the food and beverage director for Radio City Music Hall? There was only movie theatre-ish food and of course, no beer. I can understand the beer ban because it would be bad for business if a fan Geno Smith’d (unexpectedly fell) from the balcony.

The gift bags had deoderant in them. I’m assuming this is their way of saying “we know you have spent like eight of the past 24 hours in line and we know you didn’t take a shower since yesterday because you were afraid of your paper bracelet washing down the drain, you probably need this”.

They also came with an ear piece so you can listen to the broadcast of the draft. Now I feel like that old guy with the radio feed at the game. They aired a segment with Joe Namath. This leads to about 5000 simultaneous alcoholic jokes. The running themes were that Namath was responsible for the lack of alcohol at the event. Either the NFL either banned alcohol at the event because they knew he was coming or he simply drank all the alcohol in the building before everyone else got in. Stay classy New York. The 2013 NFL Draft blue chippers. They all would have a new team today except for one…. Fans have good taste in Raiders theme music. Is this “Weekend at ~~Al’s~~ Bernies IV”?“The Jets are on the clock” has become a sports punchline. I wish I could say it wasn’t true, but it is. The saddest part of the Jets Day Blunders is all the evidence that Jets fans knew much better than the Jets decision makers. You hear that fans chanting “We want Sapp!”, and you see the Jets fan give a post draft interview in 1983 where he says “we all wanted Marino, but I guess the Jets knew something we didn’t”. I

nstead of letting fans text in to vote on the song selection for their team, how about letting Jets fans vote on the pick? Can we vote on this idea?

The difference between now and those years, this one has been characterized by analysts as a “flat draft”, meaning no one in the early first round stands out much more than anyone else. There was far from a consensus on who Jets fans wanted to take.

I have been banging the drum for Tavon Austin ever since the combine. In my eyes, the slot is the new sphere of warfare in the NFL. Until the last decade or so, going across the middle was about as safe as going across the 38th parallel in Korea, but rule changes and changes in public sentiment have turned that area into an autobahn. Austin is the perfect elixir for an offense that has more problems scoring than the 40 Year Old Virgin.

The Jets appear to have seen this too, unfortunately they banged the drum way too loud and made it clear that if you wanted Austin, you would have to cut in front of the Jets. Which is exactly what happened when the Rams enriched our division rival the Bills in a trade up to snag Austin a mere spot ahead of the Jets. I would love to play poker with Rex Ryan.

The Jets pick ended up being Alabama cornerback Dee Milliner. He was regarded as the top cornerback in the draft but slipped due to injury concerns. Jets fans were pretty happy with this pick. Injury concerns never really seem to derail Jets draft picks, it’s always the team passing on someone uber talented to reach for a “safer” pick, so this passes the smell test to me so far.

The Jets second selection of the first round would raise more eyebrows as the Jets would select Missouri DT Sheldon Richardson, a move that no one saw coming.

I made a pact with myself that I would be stoic and not show emotion during the Jets pick (unless is was Austin, then I would have started acting like Maury told me that I’m not the Father). I did’t have strong enough opinions on the rest and didn’t want footage to haunt me if I reacted inappropriately. It must be nice being Peter King, where you can just make horrible predictions with no repercussions whatsoever (he guessed one out of the 32 draft picks correctly in his final mock draft released hours before the draft. Don’t worry though, his checks are still coming in)

Historically speaking, Giants fans have had to wait a lot longer than Jets fans for their teams to make their draft selections.

(insert your own joke about this being the closest Jets fans are going to be to a Lombardi trophy)

After the Draft I caught up with TheJetsBlog.com‘s Brian Bassett and Corey Griffen to decompress after a long day with some cold ones at The West Way and some tacos on the corner of Avenue A and 2nd street. A nice finish to an exhaustingly rewarding 36 hours. TheJetsBlog.com ‘s esteemed Bent was with us in spirit.

To quote Geno Smith, “I’m not coming back to the draft tomorrow.” I would have liked to, but the line for tickets to day two has been long over.

Like Geno Smith, Brian and Corey were back at the draft the next day doing work for the Jets.

The first round of the NFL Draft is something all football fans should experience once, it’s not like the ticket price is prohibitive.

In the morning I woke up to a tweet from Corey, asking if I had seen myself on BustedCoverage.com. They did a write up on “Keeping it Real on the Line at the NFL Draft”. The last and largest photo was of myself. Their interpretation of this mass of dedicated fans was:
Thanks for “keeping it so real” and dropping by to strafe some of the most dedicated NFL fans with insults. Maybe you can slow down on your speedwalk by the line next year actually get to see what dedicated sports fan life is like.

If you were one if these “fame hungry, sweaty, ‘bro’ using, unmarried, sports radio calling, not getting laid” losers on line and wanted to chat with the author of the article, Joe Kinsey, have at it.

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Tail Gr8: The Charleston Riverdogs

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Single A baseball isn’t a big draw, but that doesn’t stop fairweather baseball fans like myself (my main rooting interest is that the Red Sox lose) from invading The Charleston Riverdog’s Joseph P. Riley Park (AKA The Joe). My objective: Extreme Stadium Fooding.

Bill Murray is a part owner of the franchise and is known to show up at games and randomly serve at concession stands and do funny stuff. In the food world, theres a bigger celebrity at work: John Schumaker. He is the Food and Beverage director. He tours state fairs and other food events around the country and brings back what he likes. From there he comes up with culinary statements that are so bold that their gravity sucks sports snobs such as myself through The Joe’s turnstyles.

Unfortunately my camera was stolen out of my car on my drive down South. It was the second Canon G series that has been captured in the field under my command. All photos are from my iPhone.

The lead off batter was the Pickledog. It’s a half a pickle, scooped out with a melon baller and refilled with cole slaw and a hotdog.

This is some outside of the box stuff right here. I’m a pickle junkie (pickleback anyone?), but there was a little too much pickle going on here and I couldn’t taste much else. The other problem was that I didn’t think it was a good enough pickle to be the dominant taste like that. The considerable time that I’ve spent around Jewish and Amish people has spoiled me, making me the pickle snob that you see before you today. Scooping it out more would have made this less of an issue.

With all that said, I would totally get another. Especially considering it’s reasonable $4.50 price tag.

Tonight is “Thirsty Thursday, where Busch Light is only $1. When have you got beer from a stadium at frat house prices? A 22oz Budweiser is $6 which is a record in stadiums that I’ve been to (Hawks had $9 domestic 22′s, Patriots have $11 imported $24′s).

The Medical University of South Carolina highlights healthy food options the ball park offers. I politely declined.

Batting in the 3rd spot was the Home Wrecker. The scale of this meal was epic, it had everything, it was like when Sammy Sosa was on steroids AND had a corked bat.

A one foot (good quality) hotdog topped with over 15 condiments. Certain ones stood out like the pimento cheese and okra, while others were lost in the mix.

It was $12 and came with a Home Wrecker trucker hat. Halo tee shirt not included.

I pitched around the duck (with plum sauce) and alligator (with remoulade) sausages. It’s tough intentionally walking two guys in a row but I was looking to get to someone else…

“Inside peanut butter, outside jellay”. The PBBJJ. Peanut butter on a burger sounds horrible but the trio of bacon, the sweet and the heat from the pepper jelly made everything work.

I could never figure out if they added extra jalapeno or if it was in the jelly, either way I could have used a little more as the peanut butter was a bit over powering. The bacon was better quality than I expected in a ball park and overall it was a very good experience.

The burger itself was standard sports stadium burger, bland, but the idea shines like Manu Ginobili’s bald spot in HD. I’m trying to convince @LolaNewYork to get him to try this out in the Whitman’s test kitchen, stay tuned.

I gave a bite to my 10 year old cousin JoJo. “I really liked that peanut butter burger” he later said. Isn’t passing the kid test what ball park food is all about?

I took a load off while JoJo dug in the sand box down the right field line. It’s cool that the bull pen is right there but as a parent I would worry about foul balls.

In the bottom of the ninth inning I swung for the fences with the Guinness Milkshake. This was somethign I have attempted to create on my own before but could never get to work. The recipe here is vanilla ice cream, caramel syrup and a quarter of a bottle of Guinness Stout. Booze hounds will be disappointed because there’s no way to get drunk off of these. The Guinness gives a bitter bite at the end of a rich, choclatey shake.

I wasn’t super thrilled with the result (I’m one of those aforementioned booze hounds). My suggestion would be to add some Bailey’s or Kahlua, it would not only give it more of a punch, it would also improve on the flavor.

Greatness has been in this stadium before in the form of Josh Hamilton 13 years prior. The ideas have been All Star quality but some some of the execution and ingredients were playing closer Josh Hamiltons playing level since joining the Angels.

Overall it was enlightening, adventurous and most importantly, tasty. It boosts “The Joe” into the stratosphere of such legendary food stadiums as Mile High and the Barclay’s Center (the bar for sports food stadiums is very low).

If you want to try to recreate any of this stuff, knock yourself out, the recipes are pretty straight forward. Hit me up on Twitter for recipe help or food talk.

Real Life Street Fighter II: Thai Boxing in Phuket

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Welcome back to Lola Sports Talk. This is the second part to my Sports in Asia Tour. You can see my Saigon Heat game photo essay here.

We’ve all seen Blood Sport, Enter the Dragon and other movies where fighters from around the World convene on a secluded island somewhere in Asia to compete in a clandestine, no holds barred tournament. It’s long been a dream of mine to attend one of these dark soriees, to breath air heavy with cigarette smoke and Southeast Asian humidity as two men fight it out in the coolest way possible.

Earlier this year, I found myself on the Island of Phuket, a tourist destination off the Western coast of Thailand. This was the perfect time to realize that dream.

Thailand is the Mecca of kickboxing (known as Thai boxing here). People come from all around the world to train here and there are kickboxing stadiums in most cities that give them a chance to show off their skills. These fights are big business in a tourist town like Phuket, which is ironically a sister city of Las Vegas.

I wandered up to the Bangla Boxing Stadium, a roughly three story building with paper mache looking kick boxers on the side. It’s right off the main party area in the town, Bangla road, which is a strip of bars, sex shows and street food vendors that terminates at the Adaman Sea.

The MMA is cool but there’s a little too much grappling in speedos and Affliction-ish tee shirts for me. Boxing is fun to watch, but exciting matches have been fewer and further between and the once proud heavyweight division lumbers on to extinction. Adding kicks to boxing doesn’t sound like a bad idea at all.

In kickboxing, I envision an ballet of fist, elbow, knee and foot strikes, unencumbered by grappling or a Robert Guerreros Dad yelling “woman beater” repeatedly. Something like this.

The best way to enjoy people kicking the hell out of each other is with a Chang, which is the official Thai beer of Lola Sports Talk (sorry Singha).

Make sure to get your bets on the children fighting in. I’m assuming this is what it felt like to be in the background of the Street Fighter II levels.

The child fight ended up in a pretty unspectacular decision. No “Battle Royale” stuff here.

The adults on the other hand were going hard in the paint. The first adult fight ended with one combatant’s head being cradled by a referee after a high kick found its mark. It wouldn’t be the last probable concussion of the night.

More money changing hands, more people getting their heads cradled by the referee.

The earlier fights were all locals throwing down, but the event was about to take a more international flavor.

We had our first female fight of the night. The girl with the corn rows successfully audtitioned for the part of the villan in “Million Dollar Baby II” by beating the brakes off of this other girl.

Next up was the “Looper” fight. Just like the movie, the younger version of this “Last Samurai”ish guy took on his future self.

The younger Looper had an effective, yet cruel game plan: he repeatedly targeted his older incarnation’s knees. The older, Skip Bayless looking guy didn’t make it through the first round. It’s tough to watch a knockout caused by a kick to the knees, but that’s what happened.

The conflicted look on a man’s face after kicking the last few bits of cartiledge out of his future self’s knees.

Either Dhani Jones is taping a new episode of his travel adventure show or this guy just looks like him.

“Dhani”‘s second trip to the canvas ends the match.

He was really angry after losing, hitting the mat and yelling. It’s OK man, you got off way easier than Williams in “Enter the Dragon”.

Lets take a look around and see what characters are in the crowd.

“Tanning Dad”.

Guy instagramming himself smoking a hookah in the second row.

Australian haircut man.

Guy who’s wife beater straps are actually thinner than 50 Cent’s back in the day.

I re upped on some Chang as just before the main event began.

The final bout of the night pitted a local Thai fighter versus a Muslim fighter. I’m really sorry I didn’t get to see a sumo wrestler fight an African pygmy like Blood Sport, but it was still cool to see people from all over the World fighting each other.

It was a close match, but like so many fights before it, it ended with the ref holding the head of a dazed fighter. It is kind of like when you hold a newborn baby’s head because you know it’s neck muscles aren’t strong enough to hold it up straight. It’s pretty scary to see someone, who a few seconds ago was a fighting machine, in such a helpless state.

Hookah guy posed for a photo with the champ.

Tanning Dad (with white chacletas on) storms the ring like his alma matter just won the NCAA Tournament but is intercepted by security.

Tanning Dad is able to talk his way into a photo with the champ.

A multi national strikefest chuck full of gambling, knockouts and maybe a hadouken was what I expected coming into this event and I got almost everything I wanted.

I really wish Muy Thai kickboxing was more popular in the USA, I prefer this style of fighting over anything going on in La Vegas right now.

I left Phuket, but life goes on as there are fights every night.

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Other things to do in Phuket:

Go see James Bond Island. It was made famous by the movie “The Man with the Golden Gun”.

Go to the Swedish nightclub on Bangla road. It’s Sweden’s answer to the Jersey Shore. House music pumping, dolled up Swedish girls and even Swuidos (Swedish + Guido) jacked up on sweroids. I had to hightail it out of there after my friend Jorge drank 9 shots of tequila in 45 minutes and flicked a lit cigarette on a group of Swuidos. This is him hanging out of the cab on the escape from Lil Sweden.

Ride around and get it on a moped. If there is a more fun mode of transportation, I have yet to encounter it. Whipping a $5 a day135cc bike through jungle hills with spectacular views and then down to the beach is one of the more #Bauce things you can do with your time.