(I wrote this on June 22nd, 2007, in Alaska. It was the day after the famous annual Midnight Sun Game, which is played on Summer Solstice in Fairbanks between the hometown Goldpanners and a chosen opponent. The game doesn't begin until 10:30 PM...and it is contested entirely without artificial lighting. It attracts a worldwide audience and media presence to a small little ballpark in a small little city in a giant hulking wilderness. It's beyond bizarre, and you feel uniquely privileged to be a part of it. I got to call play-by-play for Fairbanks, since I was their radio guy that summer. This was my somewhat stream-of-consciousness attempt to capture the experience.)
"This has to be the most stressful day of the year for you," I say to Goldpanners owner Don Dennis as we drive to the local Sam's club for a last-minute concession stand stock-up run.
"Yep," he said. "After this, the summer just flies by."
Which is exactly what Midnight Sun Game day did, even though it was the longest day of the year. So if this recap of the day seems disjointed, crazy, and a bit overwhelming, well, good. Because that's exactly how it was.
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Don entrusts me with remembering what we need to buy. Peanuts, nacho sauce, onions, and relish. PNOR. Later, he decides we need more hot dogs, too. "I hope that doesn't mess up your acrostic," he says. "We've got a thousand hot dogs already, but last year we sold 927, and I don't wanna take any chances."
Mr. Dennis is especially talkative today. Even in his late seventies, having owned the team for forty years, he's visibly energized by this event. He's in remarkably good shape for man his age, with only a slight paunch, an omnipresent red Goldpanners windbreaker, and a few remaining wispy strands of white hair that cling defiantly to the edges of his otherwise bald head.
Today, he's willing to discuss any topic.
"What's the coldest it's ever gotten in all your years here?" I ask on the way back from Sam's.
"Oh, sixty-two below," he says, with the casual nonchalance of a war survivor.
"Zero isn't too bad," he continues. "At zero, people walk around here in light jackets. It's when it gets more than twenty below that you start to feel it." He lives in San Diego most of the year now. Wonder why.
"Alaskans tend to be very much in favor of Global Warming," Don chuckles. "The only problem we have is that there isn't enough of it."
Back at Growden Park, we offload the cases of hot dogs and the jars of pickle relish and the bag of onions and the cans of nacho cheese sauce. Ever heard room-temperature nacho sauce sloshing around in big one-gallon cans? Ever read the ingredients on the nacho sauce label? Good. Don't do either of those things. Not if you ever plan on eating overpriced ballpark nachos again.
"I think we're set," Mr. Dennis says. "Now, we wait."
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There's nothing like the anticipation and latent energy of an empty stadium on the afternoon before a big game. When that stadium is Growden Memorial Park, the feeling is a strange one. It's a ballpark that doesn't look like it should ever be hosting a world-famous game.
Imagine if a bunch of neighborhood kids decided to build a baseball field. Think Sandlot or Field of Dreams. First, they make a diamond. They get a bunch of used plywood and build an outfield wall. They appropriate some used wrestling mats, and nail them over the plywood. They steal some chain-link material to fence off the rest the area. Then, they find some wooden benches that nobody wants, and use them as grandstands. It's all very charming, very cute, very American.
Then, imagine if those same kids just kept adding to the project. One enthusiastic but ill-planned layer on top of another. For decades.
That's Growden Memorial Park.
The box seats down the the third base line were made in the 1930's. I'm serious. It's amazing that they don't have more splinters. Behind them, there are two sections of metal benches. They're each a different shade of metal, obviously put in at different times. Ditto for the two banks of seats down the first base line.
The sections behind the home plate and dugout area are raised on a ten-foot concrete base. The first two rows are fold-down metal seats. Each chair has an "LA" logo on its side. It's thought that the Dodgers donated them years ago, but nobody seems to know for sure. I've never seen any seats at Dodger stadium like them. Behind those, there's a few more rows of 1930's wooden benches behind the home on-deck circle, a metal bank behind home plate, and a single, small, portable bleacher section behind the visitor on-deck circle.
The infield is all artificial Astroturf. And this turf was probably installed before the Astros invented it. The area that should be grass is a sun-faded, snow-fatigued shade of light-puke green. The part that should be dirt is bright yellow. It's a color scheme that only the 1970's would approve of.
You can poke fun at the place, but then you realize that dozens of legends have played here. The Goldpanners are the most successful amateur baseball team in history. Tom Seaver, Dave Winfield, Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi, Terry Francona, and dozens of other famous Major Leaguers have played for them over the decades during their collegiate summers before becoming stars. Appropriately, the Panner logo is a single star with a "49" in the middle of it, signifying Alaska's status at the 49th state. Alaskans take a perverse pride in how forgotten they usually are by "The Lower 48." But on this annual evening, Fairbanks, with its crazy old ballpark, gets to take center stage.
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It's a common misconception that the Midnight Sun game begins at midnight. It actually doesn't; 10:30 is the standard first pitch time. But this still gives the locals all day and evening to party and fortify themselves for the perpetually sunbathed night.
By six o'clock, lines are already forming for last-minute tickets (the booth won't re-open till nine) and for the early entry line (the gates won't open till eight). Two large tents are set up in the parking lot as the tailgating begins. The buzz is building.
There's a father and son who've made the trip from Ohio in a modified school bus that they've painted blue. A Cincinnatti Reds and a Cleveland Indians banner hang side-by-side in the windows. The interior sports baseball shower curtains, baseball bat cabinet handles, and a cooler full of beer. They'll hang around for the next couple Panner games, then continue their tour of Alaskan ballparks. "We left on June 10th," the dad says. "We'll probably get back around the middle of August."
I hear that another man has traveled from England to see the game, despite having an appendectomy just a few weeks ago. I can't even think of anything snarky to say about that.
Meanwhile, in the creaky wooden press box (which, until this year, was known as "Death Row" because of the ominous way it would sway back and forth in any kind of breeze before they reinforced it with steel cable), I am joined by Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports, a reporter from Sports Illustrated, and another from Reuters.
Sports Illustrated had called me the day before, asking if they could get a media credential for their writer. I told them that they absolutely could. What I didn't say was that normally, around here, if somebody wants to come in the press box, they just climb the tall wooden staircase and open the door. And even so, I don't normally have much company. But it's a different story tonight.
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At eight o'clock sharp, the early entry gates are swung open and the first fans stream in. They hurry to the stands and reserve their preferred spot, spreading blankets over stretches of bleachers and recruiting unlucky family members to hold down their land rush claim while everyone else wanders around.
By nine o'clock, the seats are almost full. The concession and souvenir lines are long. The beer line is longer. You can get a Pabst Blue Ribbon for two bucks, an MGD or a Miller Lite for three. Hot dogs are $3 each, but as a sign by the snack bar helpfully indicates, the buns are free. There's also the infamous Frito Pie: Fritos served in a Styrofoam bowl, topped with chili and cheese sauce.
Don walks among the throngs, taking everything in, a smug smile pasted across his aging, bespectacled features. You can almost see the dollar signs in his eyes. "This is the happiest day of the year for him," says Sheena, the stadium maintenance manager. It should be. He just about makes enough money from this game to keep the Goldpanners afloat for another year. All the other home dates, really, are just gravy.
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Ninety minutes to gametime, I descend from the press box on some errand that seemed important at the time. But I run into Michael Guerrero, the cheerfully lovable left-handed pitcher from Fresno. Guerrero, who's affectionately known as "Lunchbox" by his teammates for his rotund midsection and robust appetite, isn't pitching that night, and he's been wandering around in the milling crowd. He calls me over.
"I need you," he says. He hustles to catch up to two attractive girls, one blonde, one brunette, who are walking toward the bleachers.
"Can I take a picture with you ladies?" he begs, producing his most practiced puppy-dog look. "I'm Michael," he says, reaching out his hand. "I'm sitting on the bench tonight."
The girls raise their eyebrows, giggle nervously, and exchange "What do we do now?" glances.
"It's kind of awkward," the blonde says.
"Everything's awkward," Guerrero shrugs, never skipping a beat. He deftly hands me his disposable Kodak camera, steps between the girls, and extends his arms around both of them, producing a gap-toothed smile. I take the picture. "Thank you!" he says to the girls, who giggle again, shake their heads, and walk off. Lunchbox can't stop grinning. "Git it done!" he says exultantly.
Hopefully, his girlfriend won't see the picture. Maybe she'd understand. But I doubt it.
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The only thing this pre-game buzz needed was a live band. That's where The Frigid Aires come in.
The Frigid Aires are fronted by trumpeter Bill Stroeker, who is the son of Ed Stroeker, who started the whole Midnight Sun Game tradition in 1906. Bill is almost ninety years old. He is accompanied by an accordion player who's equally ancient, and a bassist who's probably in his late fifties and looks like a fresh-faced kid next to his two bandmates. As they run through a batch of swing tunes, I sarcastically wonder to myself if they'll make it through the set alive. Then, I wonder what they'll do once Bill dies. As far as anyone knows, he has no children. When he's gone, the lineage of Midnight Sun royalty will end. And as corny as it may sound, something very special will be lost forever.
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At 10:10 P.M., the pre-game ceremonies begin. Don strides out behind home plate with a hand-held microphone to address the crowd. "Thank you all for attending," he says. "Before we begin, we have a few housekeeping items to attend to." He presents three recognition awards; one for community service, to a recipient who hasn't arrived yet; one to Oceanside Waves coach Mike Studer, a Fairbanks native; and one to Sean Timmons, a local legend. Timmons is a five-time Goldpanners MVP, and spearheaded the pitching staff of the 2002 Panner squad that won the National Championship. He also started and won the 100th annual Midnight Sun game in 2005; after the game, attending Major League Baseball officials asked for his hat, glove, and uniform, and placed them in the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.
After the presentation, Don thanks everyone again, and walks off the field. Now, it's time for the starting lineups. Time for Gonzo, the Panners long-time P.A. man, to take center stage.
Gonzo is a wrinkled, sunburned man in his early 60s; he has average height and Hispanic heritage, with a scraggly grey Fidel Castro beard, long salt-and-pepper hair, and a healthy paunch that suggests a purposeful, good-natured life of beer consumption. He's a classic aging Hippie; one who still loves all things Hendrix and Joplin and Clapton, and enjoys recounting how wild he was in his younger days but how glad he is that he finally reformed his ways. “I had an argument with a bottle of Jack Daniels once,” he's fond of saying. “The bottle won.”
He's been waiting all day, and probably all year, for this moment.
"Lllllladies and Gentlemen," he roars, "Welcome to Growden Memorial Park, and the 102nd Annual Midnight Sun Game! Now, let's meet the starting lineups, first for the visiting Oceanside Waves."
The Waves, who've made the long journey North from San Diego, are fired up. As each starter is introduced, they exchange elaborate high fives, handshakes, and fist bumps. The crowd is good-natured, booing each player while clapping simultaneously.
Then, it's the Panners' turn. "Aaaaaaaand now, the starting lineups for YOUR ALASKA GOLDPANNERS!" Gonzo yells. Each player gets a huge ovation, especially from the fifty-strong group of eighth-graders and teachers from Marshall, Michigan sitting down the third base line. They're a science and ecology group who travel to Alaska every few years. This is their fourth time at the Midnight Sun Game; the Panners have yet to lose when they're here. Almost every crowd chant that breaks out through the evening starts with them.
With both teams lined up along their respective baselines, it's time for the presenting of colors. A color guard from nearby Eielson Air Force Base has been standing next to the Waves’ dugout, at attention and stock-still, for the last hour. Buckingham Palace should give these guys an audition. Finally given the go-ahead, they march slowly toward the area in front of the pitcher’s mound, forcing the Waves to improvise a parting of their line to let them through. The color guard slowly about-faces until they’re facing home plate. The crowd cheers.
“And now, ladies and gentlemen,” Gonzo says, “to honor America, please rise for the singing of our National Anthem, to be performed by Emma Hughes.”
Normally, anthem singers aren't introduced until they're already in place and ready to sing. But poor Emma, who looks about thirteen years old and pale as Alaskan snow, has been waiting far down the left field line, past the Goldpanner dugout on the third base side. As the crowd stands silently, she slowly walks to her microphone behind home plate. It seems like she takes ten minutes to get there. It must seem even longer to her. And the crowd has gone completely quiet. No applause, no encouragement, just awkward silence. Poor Emma is obviously intimidated. “Oh man,” I mutter. “This could be trouble.”
Emma gets off to a shaky start, her voice timid and wobbly. It doesn’t get much better from there. When she comes to the high part of the song, she just can’t reach it. Or maybe she forgot the words. “And the…huh nuh nuh nuh,” she stammers. But the crowd picks her up. They hadn’t really been singing along through the first half of the song; now, they carry the tune. “Gave proof through the night,” they sing, “That our flag was still there.” Emma recovers and sings the last third, now accompanied by a backing choir of four thousand Fairbanksans. She finally finishes the song, smiles sheepishly, and walks off as fast as she can. The crowd gives her a rousing ovation.
There’s a rumbling in the air. Everyone turns around and looks at the sky. The noise grows. People start cheering, waving their hats in the air. The sound becomes deafening. Finally, two fighter jets roar over the stadium, flying straight over the American flag, then banking off to the right. The crowd is buzzed. But it isn’t over. A minute later, everyone starts cheering again. Two huge bombers fly over the field, rattling the metal bleachers and shaking the press box. Sheena, who’s been standing next to me, can’t contain herself. “That was freaking awesome!” she yells. And it was.
*****************************************************************************
The last item of business before the game is the ceremonial first pitch, and the honor goes to Brigadier General Dave Scott, a one-star general at Eielson. Lieutenant General Douglas Fraser, a three-star general, is also in attendance; initially, the local military representatives were a little uptight about the one-star throwing out the first pitch instead of the three-star, but the three-star didn’t care, and the officials finally relented.
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At 10:50 P.M. local time--20 minutes late--the game begins. The Panners’ starting pitcher is Ryan Platt, a guy I played with at Pierce College a couple years ago. His dad had flown in that morning. For Father’s Day, Ryan and his family gave him a plane ticket to Fairbanks to watch the Midnight Sun game. Mr. Platt had always wanted to see this spectacle for himself; maybe he’d get to see his son pitch, too. They had no idea Ryan would be starting the game.
But it doesn’t go well for him. He hits two batters in the first inning, escaping with a double-play. In the second, he puts two more runners on base, before wriggling his way to within one strike of getting out of it again. Then, disaster. Eddie Torres, the Waves’ third baseman, lines a base hit to center field. Brent Wyatt, the centerfielder, charges the ball hard, and misses. It rolls thirty feet behind him. Both runners score. And Platt is limping.
He finishes the inning, but he’s done. Sprained left ankle. He’d already sprained his right one a week ago. I’ve never seen anyone sprain both ankles within one week. But strange things happen up here.
Jarred Holloway, a big lefthander who’s just out of high school, picks up for Platt in the third inning. He walks the leadoff hitter on four pitches. He seems to settle down, though, getting the next two hitters out. Then he walks another batter. And another.
Tim Gloyd, the Panner manager, has seen enough. He’s already down 2-0, and he
knows that Midnight Sun Games are usually low-scoring. You see, there’s enough light to play at midnight in Fairbanks, but just barely. In fact, the pale dusky glow is a condition in which you wouldn’t normally play a baseball game. But it’s tradition. No lights, ever. Not even when the Taiwanese National Team walks off the field in protest and forfeits (which they did in 1984). And the result is that after the first few innings, the pitchers have a huge advantage because the hitters can’t fully see the ball.
Gloyd’s got to stop the bleeding, right now. And Holloway isn’t happy about it. As the manager takes his first couple steps out of the dugout, Holloway groans. “No, come on,” you can hear him say, as he tries to Jedi-push Gloyd pack in the dugout with his hands. But Gloyd is undeterred.
He brings in Kevin Camacho, a sophomore from Cerritos College in Southern California. What does Camacho do? Walks the hitter. On four pitches.
The next batter singles to left field. Another run scores. The next guy dribbles one in the hole between third base and short. Chris Tremblay, the Panner shortstop, knocks it down but has no play. Everyone’s safe. Another run scores. 5-0.
And really, at that point, you knew it was over. Which was a shame, because it felt like it had hardly even started. Was it at that moment that the sun became obscured behind a cloud on the horizon? No, that would be overly dramatic. And inaccurate. The truth is, the sun had ducked behind some clouds before the first pitch was even thrown. But at that moment, with the Panners in a hole they looked unlikely to climb out of, you finally noticed it for the first time. The Midnight Sun, on its night of honor, was nowhere to be seen.
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But there was one more ceremony to perform. As the top of the fourth inning ended, the time stood at 11:55 P.M. It’s tradition in this annual game to pause as close to midnight as possible for the singing of the Alaska state song, and the throwing out of the ceremonial midnight pitch. And it was poor Emma’s turn again.
Once more, she made the slow walk down the third base line to the home plate area. The sympathetic tension was so thick, you could’ve cut it with a blunt machete and fed it to starving orphans. Please, don’t let her blow it again, everyone prayed. She might be scarred forever.
But she didn’t blow it. Her voice was still wobbly and nervous, but she grew stronger as she went through the song. She sang the last two lines with confidence, the way you know she can when she’s all by herself.
“Alaska's flag, to Alaskans dear
The simple flag of the last frontier.”
Then, it was time for the midnight pitch. The honoree was Sean Timmons, who’d been presented with the plaque before the game. His fastball grazed the dirt in front of the catcher, but it still had velocity on it. You suspect he could still strike somebody out if he really wanted to. Timmons, as the Panners brass was quick to point out, became the first person in Midnight Sun Game history to have thrown out the ceremonial first pitch (he did that last year), the actual first pitch (in 2005), and the ceremonial midnight pitch. Not bad for a guy who never made it to the Major Leagues but is technically in the Hall of Fame.
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I’d love to tell you about the dramatic, stirring, movie-script comeback the Goldpanners pulled off after that. I’d like to write about a leukemia survivor coming up in the bottom of the ninth, bases loaded, down by three, full-count, and hitting a game-winning grand slam over the Alaskan flag in center field, being mobbed by his teammates, and embracing his dying grandma, whose final wish was to see her grandson play one last time.
But none of that happened.
In fact, the rest of the game was anticlimactic. The Panners scratched out a run in the fourth inning, briefly raising hopes that we might see a game. But it was their only run of the night. Final score: Oceanside 6, Fairbanks 1. It was the first time the Panners had lost the Midnight Sun Game since 1992.
After the final out, the crowd exits almost instantly. Thirty minutes after the game, the place is empty. The only traces of what happened here are the hundreds of beer and soda cans littered all over the bleachers. It feels like the whole day’s been a dream. Were there really thousands of people crammed in this tiny, dilapidated old ballpark? Were there really reporters from major international media outlets here? Did fighter jets actually fly over this place? Intentionally?
Nah, couldn’t be. Not here. Not in Fairbanks. Not in the middle of the Alaskan tundra. Impossible.
Which, I suppose, is why this game matters so much. For one Summer Solstice evening every year, Growden Park isn’t rusty and moldering; it’s quaint. Bill Stroeker and his band aren’t has-been old-timers reliving the glory days; they’re treasured links to a past that will soon disappear completely. And Fairbanks isn’t some ice-ridden center of nowhere; it’s baseball royalty in full regalia. For one night. This night.
A few hours in the sun.
And for Alaskans, that’s everything.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Obituaries: Jane, Dell Inspiron Laptop, Dies of Natural Causes
It is with sadness that we announce the passing of loyal Dell laptop Jane, who lost consciousness during a routine morning bootup last week. Despite being immediately rushed to a tech center, efforts to revive her were unsuccessful, and she was pronounced dead of massive video card and circuit board failure.
Jane, 3 ½, was known as a hard-living workaholic who often stayed up for days at a time crunching data, playing music, and streaming video. She was prone to sudden crashes and frequent bouts of lethargy, but always seemed to bounce back with pixels blazing. Hailed as "Top of the Line" in her factory as a youngster, Jane's neurotic brilliance could be both awe-inspiring and maddening.
As a 17-inch Inspiron who weighed nearly 9 pounds, Jane struggled with body-image issues for most of her life. Ridiculed for being too large and bulky, she also suffered from the chronic and often paralyzing illness known as "Vista Disease." She was even stricken with a severe virus last year, which caused a complete hard drive failure and left observers doubting her survival. But despite her myriad challenges, she fought on and carved out a lasting legacy.
"People always stared and pointed, but she was gorgeous to me," said longtime owner Donny Baarns. "Her screen was just beautiful. When she played a DVD or streamed a show on Hulu, nobody could compete with her."
Always a restless spirit, Jane traveled extensively during her tumultuous life. She visited Alaska, Minnesota, Indiana, Nevada, Arizona, Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, and journeyed up and down the state of California repeatedly. Wireless networks throughout America grew to fear her tenacious packets and dynamic IP address.
"She was relentless," remembered SP_Circ, a router in Las Vegas. "I wouldn't let her access the internet initially because I didn't recognize her, but she kicked and screamed and rebooted until I finally had no choice."
Nowhere did Jane survive harsher conditions than in Bakersfield, California. A frequent visitor to dilapidated Sam Lynne Ballpark, she braved direct sunlight and extreme temperatures while still spitting out web pages and recording audio effortlessly.
Despite her death, technicians successfully preserved and harvested her hard drive, and her data will live on in a new machine. To those who knew her, it's a fitting end to a life lived to the fullest.
"It's exactly what she would've wanted," said Baarns. "She was always a giver. She never had time for herself; she was only interested in which Pandora song you wanted to hear next."
Jane is survived by Donny's cell phone, Bart. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to The Buy Donny A New Laptop Fund in her name.
A public viewing will not be held.
Jane, 3 ½, was known as a hard-living workaholic who often stayed up for days at a time crunching data, playing music, and streaming video. She was prone to sudden crashes and frequent bouts of lethargy, but always seemed to bounce back with pixels blazing. Hailed as "Top of the Line" in her factory as a youngster, Jane's neurotic brilliance could be both awe-inspiring and maddening.
As a 17-inch Inspiron who weighed nearly 9 pounds, Jane struggled with body-image issues for most of her life. Ridiculed for being too large and bulky, she also suffered from the chronic and often paralyzing illness known as "Vista Disease." She was even stricken with a severe virus last year, which caused a complete hard drive failure and left observers doubting her survival. But despite her myriad challenges, she fought on and carved out a lasting legacy.
"People always stared and pointed, but she was gorgeous to me," said longtime owner Donny Baarns. "Her screen was just beautiful. When she played a DVD or streamed a show on Hulu, nobody could compete with her."
 |
| Jane, pictured in the foreground 3 months before her death at ClearChannel Stadium in Lancaster, CA. |
Always a restless spirit, Jane traveled extensively during her tumultuous life. She visited Alaska, Minnesota, Indiana, Nevada, Arizona, Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, and journeyed up and down the state of California repeatedly. Wireless networks throughout America grew to fear her tenacious packets and dynamic IP address.
"She was relentless," remembered SP_Circ, a router in Las Vegas. "I wouldn't let her access the internet initially because I didn't recognize her, but she kicked and screamed and rebooted until I finally had no choice."
Nowhere did Jane survive harsher conditions than in Bakersfield, California. A frequent visitor to dilapidated Sam Lynne Ballpark, she braved direct sunlight and extreme temperatures while still spitting out web pages and recording audio effortlessly.
Despite her death, technicians successfully preserved and harvested her hard drive, and her data will live on in a new machine. To those who knew her, it's a fitting end to a life lived to the fullest.
"It's exactly what she would've wanted," said Baarns. "She was always a giver. She never had time for herself; she was only interested in which Pandora song you wanted to hear next."
Jane is survived by Donny's cell phone, Bart. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to The Buy Donny A New Laptop Fund in her name.
A public viewing will not be held.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
On Moose and Modern Society
(This piece was from July of 2007, when I was spending the summer in Alaska and working for the Alaska Goldpanners of Fairbanks as their broadcaster. It was my first professional gig, and it was a mind-bending experience. I made a couple personal observations about a place that seems very foreign to most in the Lower 48...and was certainly a whole new world to me).
After over a month in this stupidly beautiful state, I've reached an important conclusion: Alaska is gorgeous, but it demands respect.
So if you visit someday, see as much of the wilderness as you can...but use a modicum of intelligence, because if you don't, it could quite literally bite you.
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I wish we could go on road trips every week, just for the bus rides. Yesterday, we rode from Anchorage to Fairbanks, and even though it was our fourth time traversing Highway 3 (yes, in Alaska, there are three main highways: the 1, the 2, and the 3), it was the best and most scenic trip yet. The weather ran the gamut; for the first hundred miles or so, it was sunny and warm, with the morning sunshine filtering through a paper-thin layer of wispy cirrus clouds, softening the light just enough to bathe the landscape in a gentle, innocent glow. Then, as we approached the elevated region around Mt. McKinley, we drove through the teeth of a brief but torrential storm, with huge horizontal raindrops slamming into the bus windshield like Kamikaze zealots. After an hour or so, we re-emerged back into sunshine as we skirted the edge of Denali National Park. And there, by the side of the road, we saw them.
We knew something was up when we approached a cluster of cars and tourists parked by the side of the highway. About two dozen people were looking out at a grassy field, pointing and snapping pictures. "Moose!" somebody yelled.
(Tangent)
There's something funny about the word "Moose," and it's not just that it remains unchanged between singular and plural. After all, it's a name for a huge, majestic beast that can kill humans when provoked. Just a couple years ago, a student at the University of Anchorage was trampled to death by an angry female while walking back to his dorm room. And yet, every time you hear the word "Moose," you just want to giggle. It's a silly, lovable-sounding word. Go ahead, say it out loud. Right now. Just try not to chuckle. The fact is, it's a very unintimidating name for a large, dangerous animal. You don't laugh when you say "Lion" or "Elephant" or "Kodiak Bear." But if you changed just one letter in "Moose" and modulated your lips slightly, you'd be saying "Mouse." Maybe that's the problem. Somebody in the Wild Animal Marketing Department should lose their job over this.
(/Tangent)
As the bus pulled over, we saw two shapes in the tall grass. It was a mother and baby, grazing peacefully about fifty yards away. We got out to take pictures (with me still in my socks because I'd taken off my shoes for the eight-hour ride and didn't want to waste time putting them back on), and we stood by the side of the pavement gawking at a National Geographic scene happening right in front of our eyes.
The female moose has no antlers, which makes her look sort of like a big retarded donkey-horse. (I'm sorry, I mean, a very beautiful retarded donkey-horse.) Every few seconds, the mother would stop munching and look up at us, assessing the situation. We were just a few feet from the bus, and there was a steep drop-off from the side of the highway; I estimated that we had about ten seconds if she decided to charge us, which would've been more than enough time to ruthlessly shove everyone out of my way and dive back into the vehicle. And I would've had it on film. But, disappointingly, it didn't come to that. Instead, the pair wandered into the nearby pond for a drink.
It's the kind of moment that makes you feel grateful, awed, and several other sentimental emotions that men don't like to talk about.
After a few minutes, the mother and mooseling started walking away, back toward the pine-covered hills. We, meanwhile, walked back to our roof-covered bus.
As we continued to ride through Denali, we saw another moose. This one was right next to the road, drawing another crowd of onlookers. As we drove past, we saw a potbellied man in a John Deere t-shirt, perhaps about thirty feet from the beast, approaching it from behind with a camera. It was a scene destined to become part of Fox's next "World's Wildest Animal Attacks" show. Unfortunately, we kept driving and were not privy to whatever happened next.
*******************************************************
The more you see of Alaska, the more you realize that it's a perfect place for hermits. The huge, majestic mountains are blanketed by trees, which are only occasionally interrupted by tiny rectangular blips, inhabited by even tinier log cabins, each a small speck of proto-civilization carved into the rugged landscape of the Last Frontier.
And make no mistake, that "Last Frontier" hype is no hype. It's true. Pull up a Google Map of Alaska, find Fairbanks, and then look at all the enormous territory to the North and West. The relatively small triangle of highway that runs between Fairbanks, Anchorage, and Canada is the only highway system in the state. If you want to drive all the way through or around Alaska, well, too bad. You can't. There are no roads. When you consider that Alaska could hold all the square mileage of California, Texas, and Montana (and still have room left over), and that its biggest city is Anchorage (population: 275,000), you begin to understand just how vast, spacious, and completely untamed this place really is.
If you decide to make the drive from Anchorage to Fairbanks in the winter, for example, you take your life in your hands. The temperature will likely be far below zero, and if your car breaks down, your chances of getting help before you freeze to death are, at best, 50-50. People never make lengthy drives on their own; it's far too dangerous. If you must make a long-distance journey, you do it in large convoys with as many people as you can.
For those of us who live in big-city America, this kind of reality is something foreign and jarring. We're used to the arrogantly unspoken idea that mankind has conquered nature; we have grappled with it, subdued it, and brought it under our domain. We have power, water, food, and services close at hand, whenever we want or need them. Freeze to death on a highway? What? We have cell phones and OnStar and 24-hour Roadside Assistance!
But when you come to a place like Alaska, you realize that the modern, western, metropolitan lifestyle is still the exception, not the norm. What do you do when your radiator freezes in a forty-below ice storm, and you have no food, no water, no cell service, and no civilization for hundreds of miles around?
*************************************************************************
After all that hypnotic scenery, pulling into town, any town, is a bit of a letdown. I mean that in the nicest way possible, but it's the honest truth. One moment, you're watching moose bathe in a natural pond; the next, you're back in a city, which, while full of wonderful and generous people, also faces the same kind of problems any other city struggles with these days. It's like getting home from vacation and re-entering the Real World.
And that's exactly the point: when you're in one of the few centers of dense population here, you can forget you're in Alaska.
But then, you go for a walk down the street, and you see animal tracks on the dirt path next to the paved road. And you remember: I should be careful. This is the Frontier. We've made some inroads, but this is still not our home turf. And it probably won't be any time soon.
After over a month in this stupidly beautiful state, I've reached an important conclusion: Alaska is gorgeous, but it demands respect.
So if you visit someday, see as much of the wilderness as you can...but use a modicum of intelligence, because if you don't, it could quite literally bite you.
*********************************************************************
I wish we could go on road trips every week, just for the bus rides. Yesterday, we rode from Anchorage to Fairbanks, and even though it was our fourth time traversing Highway 3 (yes, in Alaska, there are three main highways: the 1, the 2, and the 3), it was the best and most scenic trip yet. The weather ran the gamut; for the first hundred miles or so, it was sunny and warm, with the morning sunshine filtering through a paper-thin layer of wispy cirrus clouds, softening the light just enough to bathe the landscape in a gentle, innocent glow. Then, as we approached the elevated region around Mt. McKinley, we drove through the teeth of a brief but torrential storm, with huge horizontal raindrops slamming into the bus windshield like Kamikaze zealots. After an hour or so, we re-emerged back into sunshine as we skirted the edge of Denali National Park. And there, by the side of the road, we saw them.
We knew something was up when we approached a cluster of cars and tourists parked by the side of the highway. About two dozen people were looking out at a grassy field, pointing and snapping pictures. "Moose!" somebody yelled.
(Tangent)
There's something funny about the word "Moose," and it's not just that it remains unchanged between singular and plural. After all, it's a name for a huge, majestic beast that can kill humans when provoked. Just a couple years ago, a student at the University of Anchorage was trampled to death by an angry female while walking back to his dorm room. And yet, every time you hear the word "Moose," you just want to giggle. It's a silly, lovable-sounding word. Go ahead, say it out loud. Right now. Just try not to chuckle. The fact is, it's a very unintimidating name for a large, dangerous animal. You don't laugh when you say "Lion" or "Elephant" or "Kodiak Bear." But if you changed just one letter in "Moose" and modulated your lips slightly, you'd be saying "Mouse." Maybe that's the problem. Somebody in the Wild Animal Marketing Department should lose their job over this.
(/Tangent)
As the bus pulled over, we saw two shapes in the tall grass. It was a mother and baby, grazing peacefully about fifty yards away. We got out to take pictures (with me still in my socks because I'd taken off my shoes for the eight-hour ride and didn't want to waste time putting them back on), and we stood by the side of the pavement gawking at a National Geographic scene happening right in front of our eyes.
The female moose has no antlers, which makes her look sort of like a big retarded donkey-horse. (I'm sorry, I mean, a very beautiful retarded donkey-horse.) Every few seconds, the mother would stop munching and look up at us, assessing the situation. We were just a few feet from the bus, and there was a steep drop-off from the side of the highway; I estimated that we had about ten seconds if she decided to charge us, which would've been more than enough time to ruthlessly shove everyone out of my way and dive back into the vehicle. And I would've had it on film. But, disappointingly, it didn't come to that. Instead, the pair wandered into the nearby pond for a drink.
It's the kind of moment that makes you feel grateful, awed, and several other sentimental emotions that men don't like to talk about.
After a few minutes, the mother and mooseling started walking away, back toward the pine-covered hills. We, meanwhile, walked back to our roof-covered bus.
As we continued to ride through Denali, we saw another moose. This one was right next to the road, drawing another crowd of onlookers. As we drove past, we saw a potbellied man in a John Deere t-shirt, perhaps about thirty feet from the beast, approaching it from behind with a camera. It was a scene destined to become part of Fox's next "World's Wildest Animal Attacks" show. Unfortunately, we kept driving and were not privy to whatever happened next.
*******************************************************
The more you see of Alaska, the more you realize that it's a perfect place for hermits. The huge, majestic mountains are blanketed by trees, which are only occasionally interrupted by tiny rectangular blips, inhabited by even tinier log cabins, each a small speck of proto-civilization carved into the rugged landscape of the Last Frontier.
And make no mistake, that "Last Frontier" hype is no hype. It's true. Pull up a Google Map of Alaska, find Fairbanks, and then look at all the enormous territory to the North and West. The relatively small triangle of highway that runs between Fairbanks, Anchorage, and Canada is the only highway system in the state. If you want to drive all the way through or around Alaska, well, too bad. You can't. There are no roads. When you consider that Alaska could hold all the square mileage of California, Texas, and Montana (and still have room left over), and that its biggest city is Anchorage (population: 275,000), you begin to understand just how vast, spacious, and completely untamed this place really is.
If you decide to make the drive from Anchorage to Fairbanks in the winter, for example, you take your life in your hands. The temperature will likely be far below zero, and if your car breaks down, your chances of getting help before you freeze to death are, at best, 50-50. People never make lengthy drives on their own; it's far too dangerous. If you must make a long-distance journey, you do it in large convoys with as many people as you can.
For those of us who live in big-city America, this kind of reality is something foreign and jarring. We're used to the arrogantly unspoken idea that mankind has conquered nature; we have grappled with it, subdued it, and brought it under our domain. We have power, water, food, and services close at hand, whenever we want or need them. Freeze to death on a highway? What? We have cell phones and OnStar and 24-hour Roadside Assistance!
But when you come to a place like Alaska, you realize that the modern, western, metropolitan lifestyle is still the exception, not the norm. What do you do when your radiator freezes in a forty-below ice storm, and you have no food, no water, no cell service, and no civilization for hundreds of miles around?
*************************************************************************
After all that hypnotic scenery, pulling into town, any town, is a bit of a letdown. I mean that in the nicest way possible, but it's the honest truth. One moment, you're watching moose bathe in a natural pond; the next, you're back in a city, which, while full of wonderful and generous people, also faces the same kind of problems any other city struggles with these days. It's like getting home from vacation and re-entering the Real World.
And that's exactly the point: when you're in one of the few centers of dense population here, you can forget you're in Alaska.
But then, you go for a walk down the street, and you see animal tracks on the dirt path next to the paved road. And you remember: I should be careful. This is the Frontier. We've made some inroads, but this is still not our home turf. And it probably won't be any time soon.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Vegas, Day 1
(This was written in December of 2008 while attending the Baseball Winter Meetings, an annual gathering of everybody who's anybody in pro baseball (and hundreds of others who hope to become somebody). That year, the convention was being held in Las Vegas. I wrote this as part of an email to a friend after the first day of the convention; it ends abruptly, because my intent was to write a new piece each of the next few days. As it turned out, I never got around to writing another installment, partly because I was busy, and partly because I didn't feel like anything else happened the rest of the week that would've made for better material than what I'd already written after one visceral day.)
I suppose it's appropriate that the Baseball Winter Meetings have finally come to Vegas. It brings together thousands of desperate people and converges them on a city that has made desperation a cash cow.
*******************************************************
I woke up today to a cloudy, dreary sky. This city is bizarre in the morning; it feels like the whole place has a hangover, as if the buildings themselves all had too much to drink the night before. I entered the city just after dark yesterday, and as you'd expect, it was pretty spectacular. All the lights, all the glitz, all the gaudy buildings and hotels had me gawking and almost crashing my car several times.
But in the morning light, you see all the ripped-up concrete and ongoing construction and stained pavement, along with the graying facades of past-their-prime hotels like the Riviera and Circus Circus. The Strip is like an aging woman who appeared ravishing under layers of makeup and glitter and discrete lighting, but really looks distinctly average in the unpretentious morning sunlight. The wrinkles, the cracks, and the sags are all clear now, and you realize that what you saw last night was just a carefully constructed illusion.
*********************************************************
It's tough for a Christian to critique Las Vegas without sounding trite, snide, cliched, and judgmental. But I just can't get over how this town takes everything that's seedy about the American way of life and magnifies it exponentially. The city really is what happens when you take greed and vice to its logical conclusion. Everything is allure, temptation, and sound, but it's never really there. Whatever "it" is--and the people who charge around this city really have no idea what "it" is, they just know they have to have it, and what they just had isn't enough, but maybe what they're about to have will be--it's just around that next bend.
Men love Vegas because it can approximate the two things they've always wanted: women and adrenaline. You can bet on a sporting event or a dice roll or a card hand (huge rush), then walk next door to a cabaret and take in women you could (and will) never have in real life. "Ah," Vegas whispers, "but here, you can. All it takes is a little cash." And everything is so carefully choreographed to keep coaxing that next $20 bill of your pocket. "Here, we'll give you free drinks if you just keep playing craps." "Here, she'll keep taking off her clothes if you just keep throwing bills around." "Here, you can have all the food you can eat for just $11.99." Sure, drinks just dull your judgment and make it even harder to win money. Sure, that woman will never voluntarily have sex with you no matter how much of her clothes she takes off. And sure, that buffet will actually consist of some stale scrambled eggs and limp bacon and undercooked potatoes. But you had a good time, right? Right?!
And that's the crazy thing: everybody you talk to knows this whole thing is an illusion, but they choose to fall for it anyway. They believe that this is the closest they will ever come to realizing their inner fantasies, and so even if they know they're being fleeced, they think it's worth it. And so they keep chasing. You can smell the desperation, even when you can't see it externally. And then, you throw in the prospect of a job in professional baseball.
***********************************************************
You should see the faces of the people who walk around at the Job Fair. (Yes, for about $200, you can have an all-week pass to the Pro Baseball Job Fair. What they don't tell you is that you only have to show your dearly-bought credential to look at the actual job detail postings; the board that tells you which teams are interviewing and when is in plain public view. I just waited for teams to finish interviewing one poor guy, then walked up and handed them a card. It makes you feel for the desperate people who shelled out money that they probably don't have to get something they could probably have had anyway.) Most of these people are fresh-faced kids just out of (or still in) college who think they're going to land a plum job with a high-level team RIGHT NOW! They have no idea.
They walk around with their big credentials (with the heading "JOB SEEKER" emblazoned across the top) like wide-eyed zombies. "Jooooooooobbbbssss!" And then they get to the job postings, and they find that there are very few, and that they're almost all for non-paying general internships. The economic downturn has made Minor League Baseball even more frugal than usual, and it just ratchets up the desperation level two notches higher. Kids elbow their way around and through each other to sign up for interviews. Nobody cares about anybody else. Everyone eyes each other suspiciously, sizing each other up, knowing that that guy or that girl is your competition. It is every man and woman for themself; it's employment Darwinism.
As one of the lucky ones who actually has a job already and isn't desperate for another one just yet, I have the ability to be fairly detached from all this. But I remember that, about eight months ago, I was going to be one of these desperate kids. Before Easter Sunday (when Visalia called out of the blue), I had planned on doing some odd job for the rest of the year and then crashing these meetings. I wouldn't have known that paying for all this "access" was mostly a rip-off; I wouldn't have known that the best leads are found by mingling and talking with people; I wouldn't have known anything. I would've been just another desperate kid in the piranha tank, except I would've been a couple years older and even more desperate than most of them.
*****************************************************************
Eventually, I decided to head over to where the real high-stakes action is. You see, the Minor League Convention is at the Hilton. It's ok, as Hiltons go. But the Major League Meetings are at the Bellagio. There's just a slight difference.
As soon as you walk into the Bellagio and see the real marble tiles and the plush upholstered couches and the scenic tree-lined corridors and the ultra-chic water-fountain bar (it's hard to describe, but trust me, it's very cool), you know you're playing a whole different ballgame.
I walk toward the convention center, and there's hardly anybody in the halls. I see a few people with credentials wandering around, but nothing major. I wonder if I'm wasting my time. Who wants to talk to a low-level minor league broadcaster from Visalia anyway?
Then, I see Peter Gammonds.
Gammonds is the reigning godfather of baseball TV analysis. I've seen him on ESPN for years, and now he's sitting 20 feet from me, waiting to go on the air again in a couple hours to give another live update on trade and contract rumors circling at the Meetings. He is wearing a moderately expensive dress shirt and tie, less expensive brown khaki pants, cheap white tube socks, and ratty, stained, beat-up white tennis shoes. That's the beauty, I realize, of being a talking head: nobody ever sees your feet.
"I need to talk to him," I think. "I'll wait 'till nobody else is around him, and then I'll introduce myself and give him a card, and hopefully he'll remember me. Couldn't hurt." So I find a chair about 100 feet away from him where he can't see me silently stalking him. And I wait for an opening. But it never comes. The guy is so popular and famous, he always has people around him. Relentlessly. Finally, I decide to just go up to him anyway, gawkers be damned. But as I start to get out of my seat, a funny thing happens: Harold Reynolds walks up to Gammonds and embraces him. Reynolds was a fellow studio analyst on ESPN's nightly baseball show until he was fired for murky reasons a couple years ago; now, he's a studio talker for TNT. The guy's almost as famous as Gammonds. After briefly chatting with Peter, Reynolds, keeps on going, right past me.
"Well," I think, "I should try to talk to Reynolds, since he's by himself, and he's leaving, and Gammonds looks like he's going to stay right there for a while." So I walk up to Reynolds, who is walking at a very fast pace, and start to introduce myself. "Hi, I'm Donny Baarns," I start. He shakes my hand and never breaks stride.
"Walk with me," he says. "I gotta go, but walk with me." So I do. I tell him who I am. I give him a card. I ask him to check out my demo clips and give me feedback. He says he will. "You got a cell phone?" He says. "I'll give you my number." And he does.
As I walk and talk with Harold, he runs into somebody he knows. They chat for a minute. Then Harold introduces me to him. "This is Matt Yallof. He's with Sportsnet New York." Matt Yallof, it turns out, hosts the pre and post-game shows for the New York Mets every night. He's here giving live updates back to New York during the Meetings. Matt is exceptionally friendly. He accepts my card, and also promises to check out my stuff. We have a long conversation. He gives me his card. We walk past where Peter Gammonds is sitting. Yallof briefly introduces me to the guy sitting next to Peter Gammonds. I don't know who he is, but I probably should. I give him a card, too. Gammonds, meanwhile, is due for an interview and disappears through a pair of doors that I'm not allowed to go through.
Guy-who-was-sitting-next-to-Gammonds asks Yallof, "So how do you know this guy?" "We just met," Yallof says. "He's a young broadcaster up here on his own trying to meet people. Has he got a sack or what?"
All things considered, this day went better than expected. Which, I realize, is not something many can say after 24 hours in Vegas.
I suppose it's appropriate that the Baseball Winter Meetings have finally come to Vegas. It brings together thousands of desperate people and converges them on a city that has made desperation a cash cow.
*******************************************************
I woke up today to a cloudy, dreary sky. This city is bizarre in the morning; it feels like the whole place has a hangover, as if the buildings themselves all had too much to drink the night before. I entered the city just after dark yesterday, and as you'd expect, it was pretty spectacular. All the lights, all the glitz, all the gaudy buildings and hotels had me gawking and almost crashing my car several times.
But in the morning light, you see all the ripped-up concrete and ongoing construction and stained pavement, along with the graying facades of past-their-prime hotels like the Riviera and Circus Circus. The Strip is like an aging woman who appeared ravishing under layers of makeup and glitter and discrete lighting, but really looks distinctly average in the unpretentious morning sunlight. The wrinkles, the cracks, and the sags are all clear now, and you realize that what you saw last night was just a carefully constructed illusion.
*********************************************************
It's tough for a Christian to critique Las Vegas without sounding trite, snide, cliched, and judgmental. But I just can't get over how this town takes everything that's seedy about the American way of life and magnifies it exponentially. The city really is what happens when you take greed and vice to its logical conclusion. Everything is allure, temptation, and sound, but it's never really there. Whatever "it" is--and the people who charge around this city really have no idea what "it" is, they just know they have to have it, and what they just had isn't enough, but maybe what they're about to have will be--it's just around that next bend.
Men love Vegas because it can approximate the two things they've always wanted: women and adrenaline. You can bet on a sporting event or a dice roll or a card hand (huge rush), then walk next door to a cabaret and take in women you could (and will) never have in real life. "Ah," Vegas whispers, "but here, you can. All it takes is a little cash." And everything is so carefully choreographed to keep coaxing that next $20 bill of your pocket. "Here, we'll give you free drinks if you just keep playing craps." "Here, she'll keep taking off her clothes if you just keep throwing bills around." "Here, you can have all the food you can eat for just $11.99." Sure, drinks just dull your judgment and make it even harder to win money. Sure, that woman will never voluntarily have sex with you no matter how much of her clothes she takes off. And sure, that buffet will actually consist of some stale scrambled eggs and limp bacon and undercooked potatoes. But you had a good time, right? Right?!
And that's the crazy thing: everybody you talk to knows this whole thing is an illusion, but they choose to fall for it anyway. They believe that this is the closest they will ever come to realizing their inner fantasies, and so even if they know they're being fleeced, they think it's worth it. And so they keep chasing. You can smell the desperation, even when you can't see it externally. And then, you throw in the prospect of a job in professional baseball.
***********************************************************
You should see the faces of the people who walk around at the Job Fair. (Yes, for about $200, you can have an all-week pass to the Pro Baseball Job Fair. What they don't tell you is that you only have to show your dearly-bought credential to look at the actual job detail postings; the board that tells you which teams are interviewing and when is in plain public view. I just waited for teams to finish interviewing one poor guy, then walked up and handed them a card. It makes you feel for the desperate people who shelled out money that they probably don't have to get something they could probably have had anyway.) Most of these people are fresh-faced kids just out of (or still in) college who think they're going to land a plum job with a high-level team RIGHT NOW! They have no idea.
They walk around with their big credentials (with the heading "JOB SEEKER" emblazoned across the top) like wide-eyed zombies. "Jooooooooobbbbssss!" And then they get to the job postings, and they find that there are very few, and that they're almost all for non-paying general internships. The economic downturn has made Minor League Baseball even more frugal than usual, and it just ratchets up the desperation level two notches higher. Kids elbow their way around and through each other to sign up for interviews. Nobody cares about anybody else. Everyone eyes each other suspiciously, sizing each other up, knowing that that guy or that girl is your competition. It is every man and woman for themself; it's employment Darwinism.
As one of the lucky ones who actually has a job already and isn't desperate for another one just yet, I have the ability to be fairly detached from all this. But I remember that, about eight months ago, I was going to be one of these desperate kids. Before Easter Sunday (when Visalia called out of the blue), I had planned on doing some odd job for the rest of the year and then crashing these meetings. I wouldn't have known that paying for all this "access" was mostly a rip-off; I wouldn't have known that the best leads are found by mingling and talking with people; I wouldn't have known anything. I would've been just another desperate kid in the piranha tank, except I would've been a couple years older and even more desperate than most of them.
*****************************************************************
Eventually, I decided to head over to where the real high-stakes action is. You see, the Minor League Convention is at the Hilton. It's ok, as Hiltons go. But the Major League Meetings are at the Bellagio. There's just a slight difference.
As soon as you walk into the Bellagio and see the real marble tiles and the plush upholstered couches and the scenic tree-lined corridors and the ultra-chic water-fountain bar (it's hard to describe, but trust me, it's very cool), you know you're playing a whole different ballgame.
I walk toward the convention center, and there's hardly anybody in the halls. I see a few people with credentials wandering around, but nothing major. I wonder if I'm wasting my time. Who wants to talk to a low-level minor league broadcaster from Visalia anyway?
Then, I see Peter Gammonds.
Gammonds is the reigning godfather of baseball TV analysis. I've seen him on ESPN for years, and now he's sitting 20 feet from me, waiting to go on the air again in a couple hours to give another live update on trade and contract rumors circling at the Meetings. He is wearing a moderately expensive dress shirt and tie, less expensive brown khaki pants, cheap white tube socks, and ratty, stained, beat-up white tennis shoes. That's the beauty, I realize, of being a talking head: nobody ever sees your feet.
"I need to talk to him," I think. "I'll wait 'till nobody else is around him, and then I'll introduce myself and give him a card, and hopefully he'll remember me. Couldn't hurt." So I find a chair about 100 feet away from him where he can't see me silently stalking him. And I wait for an opening. But it never comes. The guy is so popular and famous, he always has people around him. Relentlessly. Finally, I decide to just go up to him anyway, gawkers be damned. But as I start to get out of my seat, a funny thing happens: Harold Reynolds walks up to Gammonds and embraces him. Reynolds was a fellow studio analyst on ESPN's nightly baseball show until he was fired for murky reasons a couple years ago; now, he's a studio talker for TNT. The guy's almost as famous as Gammonds. After briefly chatting with Peter, Reynolds, keeps on going, right past me.
"Well," I think, "I should try to talk to Reynolds, since he's by himself, and he's leaving, and Gammonds looks like he's going to stay right there for a while." So I walk up to Reynolds, who is walking at a very fast pace, and start to introduce myself. "Hi, I'm Donny Baarns," I start. He shakes my hand and never breaks stride.
"Walk with me," he says. "I gotta go, but walk with me." So I do. I tell him who I am. I give him a card. I ask him to check out my demo clips and give me feedback. He says he will. "You got a cell phone?" He says. "I'll give you my number." And he does.
As I walk and talk with Harold, he runs into somebody he knows. They chat for a minute. Then Harold introduces me to him. "This is Matt Yallof. He's with Sportsnet New York." Matt Yallof, it turns out, hosts the pre and post-game shows for the New York Mets every night. He's here giving live updates back to New York during the Meetings. Matt is exceptionally friendly. He accepts my card, and also promises to check out my stuff. We have a long conversation. He gives me his card. We walk past where Peter Gammonds is sitting. Yallof briefly introduces me to the guy sitting next to Peter Gammonds. I don't know who he is, but I probably should. I give him a card, too. Gammonds, meanwhile, is due for an interview and disappears through a pair of doors that I'm not allowed to go through.
Guy-who-was-sitting-next-to-Gammonds asks Yallof, "So how do you know this guy?" "We just met," Yallof says. "He's a young broadcaster up here on his own trying to meet people. Has he got a sack or what?"
All things considered, this day went better than expected. Which, I realize, is not something many can say after 24 hours in Vegas.
Friday, November 5, 2010
Random Thoughts: Hamburg International Airport
I flew into and out of Hamburg International Airport with my Grandmother on our way to Switzerland back in 2000, and even though we were only there for several hours, it still sticks with me vividly.
It had a very modern, metallic feel, and it had several distinct terminals connected by stereotypically fast and smooth-running German monorails. Pilots and flight attendants (mostly Lufthansa employees) were striding professionally through the walkways, each looking very well-groomed and stylish, exuding a classically cool European traveler-chic attitude. Everyone was smoking. I remember sitting in our terminal (which had big glass windows facing out at the tarmac and at the dense forests that surrounded the airport), and looking into a thick but slowly lifting continental fog that had delayed flights all across Europe, and watching the sunlight just start to faintly pierce the mist.
Most people hate airports; I love them, delays and crowds and all. They've always seemed magical to me; they're like a mystical portal to other worlds. I see all of these people together in one building, and I realize that just hours from now I'll be thousands of miles away and in a completely different part of the globe than they will. It's mind-boggling, and it's the kind of thing that people even a hundred years ago would have found utterly incomprehensible.
It's the kind of place where there's no stagnation; everything is always dynamic and changing, and so are you, because you won't be there for long. It's a moment in time that will pass in a blink, and I always feel an urgent need to remember everything I'm seeing because it will never be exactly like this again.
When I look out of a terminal window, the sky always seems bluer and deeper, and it's strange knowing that I'm about to be up there. It's so...unnatural. And yet, thanks to advances which are, given the scope of human history, staggeringly recent, it's now completely common.
This stunning modernity creates a feeling, at least for me, of radical freedom. Wherever Dodge is at the moment, I'm about to get out of it.
I remember having that feeling in Hamburg that morning, as the fog slowly burned off and our flight was cleared to board. The modernist architecture of our terminal was interesting and streamlined, but it also felt cold and impersonal, and I didn't want to dwell on it. And, thanks to this massive machine that somehow manages to stay safely airborne, I didn't need to. I was about to be gone. Again.
It had a very modern, metallic feel, and it had several distinct terminals connected by stereotypically fast and smooth-running German monorails. Pilots and flight attendants (mostly Lufthansa employees) were striding professionally through the walkways, each looking very well-groomed and stylish, exuding a classically cool European traveler-chic attitude. Everyone was smoking. I remember sitting in our terminal (which had big glass windows facing out at the tarmac and at the dense forests that surrounded the airport), and looking into a thick but slowly lifting continental fog that had delayed flights all across Europe, and watching the sunlight just start to faintly pierce the mist.
Most people hate airports; I love them, delays and crowds and all. They've always seemed magical to me; they're like a mystical portal to other worlds. I see all of these people together in one building, and I realize that just hours from now I'll be thousands of miles away and in a completely different part of the globe than they will. It's mind-boggling, and it's the kind of thing that people even a hundred years ago would have found utterly incomprehensible.
It's the kind of place where there's no stagnation; everything is always dynamic and changing, and so are you, because you won't be there for long. It's a moment in time that will pass in a blink, and I always feel an urgent need to remember everything I'm seeing because it will never be exactly like this again.
When I look out of a terminal window, the sky always seems bluer and deeper, and it's strange knowing that I'm about to be up there. It's so...unnatural. And yet, thanks to advances which are, given the scope of human history, staggeringly recent, it's now completely common.
This stunning modernity creates a feeling, at least for me, of radical freedom. Wherever Dodge is at the moment, I'm about to get out of it.
I remember having that feeling in Hamburg that morning, as the fog slowly burned off and our flight was cleared to board. The modernist architecture of our terminal was interesting and streamlined, but it also felt cold and impersonal, and I didn't want to dwell on it. And, thanks to this massive machine that somehow manages to stay safely airborne, I didn't need to. I was about to be gone. Again.
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