I stayed up til 2 AM getting photos sorted and uploaded the night before, so last night I fell asleep sometime during the 11th inning after thinking the game was going to be thankfully short when it looked like the Nats would win around 9:45 PM. I woke up to, “Brian Schneider strikes out and this game is over,” as the Nats ultimately lost 6-2 to the Mets. Nationals pitchers need to stop getting hits, impressive as they may be. Jerome Williams nearly hit a home run to left field in the bottom of the 6th, much to his surprise (did you see the smile on his face?!) and ultimately sprained his ankle sliding into second where he was out on a fielder’s choice. At least, that’s where I thought he sprained it, but WaPo reports he sprained it swinging the bat.
So instead of dwelling on the depressing, here are a few funnies from Friday night:
Forgive me!
Dave Jageler is still mad at me since I admitted I was watching the game on TV and not listening to the radio when my name was called for the superwindows.com home run give-away. Awww c’mon Dave, can’t we still be friends? I have to give all my announcers equal time to be fair which means a lot of hopping back and forth between radio and television :-)
Home at last!
When I was in the press box during spring training, I noted that besides me, only one journalist was using a Mac. Everyone else had PC laptops. The opposite was true in the photographer area. One person had a PC and everyone else had Apple hardware. Ahhh yes, this was where I belonged!
What a newbie!
Being the green newbie that I was, I received brief instructions from the staff photographer prior to the game. He instructed me on basic etiquette and which pits I could use. He told me not to block the players’ view when walking in front of them. Horrified and not quite getting I was supposed to walk on the dirt warning track as I’d never actually watched what the photographers do during a game, I tried to clarify, asking, “I don’t walk through the dugout to move across, right?!” It was his turn to be horrified. “No!” I still wasn’t quite sure what he meant about crossing in front of players, so I decided I was going to pick a pit and just stay put! I did cross to the other side later, but I went up through the concourse and back down, which was good – it allowed me to wave at MDG as I passed him again.
Manny pulled a hammy!
I was surprised upon entering the photog room to offload my pictures after the game and pick up my stuff to find the room full. All the beat writers were in the assembled folding chairs bearing the logos of other MLB teams (meant to get a photo of the chairs too) and tv cameras were set up on the wooden platform I had left my laptop on earlier. I had to tiptoe around cables and cords and reach past them to retrieve my laptop and find a spot in the standing room only photog area. Manager Manny Acta arrived to give his post-game press conference. After finishing, he was leaving and tripped on one of the taped down tv cables and grabbed his leg. I thought, “Oh gosh, he pulled a hammy!” and then he said, “Oh, I pulled a hammy! Lawsuit! That’ll be 5 million dollars!” All that was missing was him putting his pinky by his mouth while saying, “five MILLION dollars…”
Jesus showed me the way!
I have the slowest card reader for photos, apparently. I was the last one out, even though I tried to pack my stuff up quickly so I could follow the last two photographers out since I wasn’t sure where to go as leaving via the field wasn’t an option anymore. I stuck my head around the corner in the “bowels” of RFK and looked left and right, seeing no sign of the photographer who left a few seconds earlier. Baffled, I looked around for signs of how to get out of there. A guy was walking toward me and I swear it was Jesus Colome. I asked him how to get out and he pointed me in the right direction. Even if it wasn’t Colome, it’s funnier this way.
