But we all know that making a lame heartburn joke is a cop out for an answer. (So is saying I’m going to get a tatoo when I’m too afraid to pull the trigger.)

It’s interesting how in our 20’s we start off eagerly anticipating and wildly celebrating our birthdays (21 shots!) but that unbridled enthusiasm gradually turns into stressing and self-reflection contemplation as we get closer to 30. This does seem to make sense. Aging is mandatory. No matter how much you’re killing it, you have one less day to kill it in life than you did the day before. So the number 30 is certainly daunting. Heck, it was enough pieces of silver for Judas to betray Jesus (Matthew 26:15). One of the rallying cries of the 60’s was “Don’t trust anyone over thirty”. You can’t even watch adult content (XXX) without thinking about your roman numerical value and that you are indeed now an ADULT.

So I would be lying if I said that turning 30 isn’t at all intimidating. It is. But I believe that angst should go away as easily as a TUMS alleviates acid indigestion.

The thing is I do feel like a full-fledged adult these days. In both my professional career and personal relationships I’ve sensed my life perspective gradually shift over the last few years. I now, more than ever, recognize what I want to accomplish in life. That’s a good feeling. To know what I want. I spent much of my 20’s trying to figure that out. The NY Times writer David Brooks once wrote an article about the Odyssey Years as a stage in life. At the time, it helped me make sense of where I was in life. Now, while I’m still searching, seeking and learning I also feel like I know who I am and I know what I want more than I have ever before.

It’s always been important for me to understand myself. I’m wired to be a bit counter and I tilt more towards the independent and unaffected side. I never cared much about grades in school and set my own standards on how much time I spent on studying and homework. So I’ve just used that as a defining example of my ethos. I never thought much about how others perceive me or what I should change about myself….until recently. As I mature, I try to better understand myself, especially my weaknesses in my personality, values and views. Instead of wishing I can change who I am, I try to be more aware of how I can compensate for my shortcomings to improve my relationships with others and reach my goals in life.

I’ve developed an interest in learning and reading about emotional intelligence. In a nutshell it studies how a person perceives, uses, understands and manages emotions. I naturally do some of this stuff really well. I’m also naturally horrible at some of it. I like recognizing that and knowing when I’m falling short of my own expectations. FYI, my friend Evil Roy Slade has the highest level of emotional intelligence of anyone I’ve ever met and someone who I love learning from (even withstanding his west coast wedding speeches! jk)

It always made total sense for me to work hard at figuring out what I want out of my life. That might sound dandy but it’s sometimes tough to do especially when some of my desires go against the grain. I’ve struggled with this at times. I’ve questioned why I sometimes make things harder for myself. If I kept it simpler would it be easier? But I’ve learned that if I want to be happy and satisfied it’s become more evident what I should do in both everyday decisions as well as larger life choices.

I’d like to think in my thirties I won’t make as many decisions but rather react to life based on who I know I am. But as soon as I think I figured out one phase of life I realize that just means a new phase is about to begin. As college was ending, I remember worrying that my post-college life was never going to be as fun. I couldn’t even picture myself in this new life. But then I went out and lived life and had all these new and rewarding experiences. Maybe they weren’t as fun but in many ways they were better and made me happier. Now when I look to my next phase of my life I think about all the things that will happen with my career and my family. I see many of my friends already in this phase of life (or will be starting April 6th) and they love it. I have no idea how I’m going to be the business leader, husband, brother, son, friend and father that I envision for myself. Unlike at the end of college, I can picture all of it for myself. That feels great. It makes aging something I can casually blog about instead of stress about.

As my birthday approached, I unexpectedly found myself quite relaxed. Instead of trying to plan some kind of amazing big to-do I invited some friends and family over to my apartment to come out and playayayay. We ate dessert, had a silly string sneak attack, awarded each other trophies, and watched the college basketball slam dunk contest and the movie The Warriors (starring Neal Gold!). It was exactly the kind of thing, hanging with my favorite people, that I most enjoy doing with my free/social time these days. Just recognizing that that would make me the most happy is a level of comfort and maturity that I am enjoying.

One of my favorite historical baseball players is the Negro League pitcher Satchel Paige. He pitched well into his 60’s but may be best known for his memorable sayings (which I sometimes tweet out). Old Satch once said “How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were?” I’d like to think I would still be 30.

How did this happen?

I’d characterize my most dominating personality traits to be independence, efficiency and free/stubborn thinking. For most of the last decade the independent side has driven much of my career direction. I’ve gravitated into entrepreneurial positions where I can better control my own destiny and have the freedom to carve my own path. Even within those positions, I’ve tried to isolate my performance from the rest of the team believing that otherwise I’d be slowed down. It didn’t help that I worked in unstructured work environments.

Now I’ve also always been driven by efficiency. In my schoolwork I was more concerned with doing the right amount of studying/work (judged by me) than with the final result or grade. Socially, I’m definitely on the lazy side of the spectrum. For better or worse this has also carried into my professional career. I don’t like to work hard unless it’s the only way to get something done. More often than not, I’ve been able to figure out shortcuts and this is much more satisfying to me. One positive is that I’m usually able to fully push my ego aside and focus on the end result or goal.

Finally, I’m a stubborn free thinker. I didn’t get accepted into my first five college choices. I was bummed out about it for awhile and one day my mom gave me that look that Brooklyn Jewish mothers have trademarked and told me that if I really wanted to get into any of those schools I could have. She was right. For whatever reason, I never bought into the path. I’d do it the same exact way all over again (Zelda, ayn rand, college hoops and fantasy sports over AP Euro studying= no brainer). I’ve had ample opportunities to follow easier career paths that could be less risky and more financially rewarding. I haven’t. I don’t want to just be successful by worldly standards. I want to be successful by my own standards (not going to get into what that means). I’ve worked in pervious organizations that have reached their goals but I was unimpressed by the way they did it. Right now, I’m kind of enamored with Tony Hsieh (Zappos) and Reed Hastings (NetFlix). They were both able to build successful companies on their own idealistic terms with their own ideal cultures.

As my career has advanced, I’ve started to realize that if I want to keep my independence it will limit my professional upside. A hired gun is just that – impactful and effective but lacking the real power of the person who hired him! Perhaps power and influence is more attractive than independence.

It seems to me that the best way to truly be powerful and influential is through management and leadership. A person who can galvanize a group of people to all work towards the same goal will always be stronger than the individual, right? I also believe that management skills are more transferable. No matter what situation, venture or project a leader can always use these skills they have developed. That seems way easier than trying to learn a new industry as well as I know digital sports media. Finally, I want to do things my way – and the only way that will happen is if I’m in a management position.

Even after writing all this mumbo jumbo I’m still trying to figure out why I’ve developed such a desire to be a leader. It’s a trait that I’ve never really exhibited before other than applying it to myself (and if I’m a leader of one than the jokes on me). I looked at the kids who were captain of my high school sports teams as ass-kissers or coach’s puppets. I never got why my buddy Hal wanted to be class president every year. Even now, very few of my friends/readers seem to have a strong prioritized desire to follow a leadership path (correct me if I’m wrong).

I’ve never had a truly great manager at any organization that I’ve ever been a part of. I don’t think this is uncommon though. A great leader is rare to find. It’s incredible difficult. It’s hard enough to manage yourself, get in your own mind, and control your own actions. Think about how hard it is to do that for a group of diverse people to all achieve a common goal.

I’m learning on the fly. I’m trusting my own instincts, trying to be extremely thoughtful, honest and soaking up as much as possible through blogs, books, conversations and advice. I’m hoping to develop a solid enough foundation so when I make mistakes I can recognize them and correct them with good decisions. I’m not a natural and for most of my life I’ve gravitated towards doings things that I’m naturally good at. It’s a weird feeling of self-awareness when I sense that I’m falling short. I try to challenge myself every day to be more considerate and less selfish. To show less frustration and more inspiration. To focus my thinking on the team and not myself. It’s my biggest professional challenge yet but hopefully I’m up to it.

It’s a bit scary for me to even put all these thoughts and ideas down on your computer screen (or in troy’s case mobile device because he doesn’t own a computer – no way you are still reading this triz!!). I’m not sure what I’m going to think when I look back and read this five or ten year from now. But I don’t think I’m getting any smarter or any sharper over the next decade (genetically, I’m destined to get fatter, snore louder and repeat myself more). But I do hope to become a better leader.

It started this morning at 10am (an unnaturally early time for us East Coasters) with the USA soccer game. I set up the espn3.com feed through a large screen television and ordered some bagels and juice. Suddenly, the Sportsvite pod was as hot as Shahrukh Khan in Dilwale Dulhaniye Le Jayenge.

I was psyched by the World Cup (I freaking podcasted about it) but until today didn’t have much faith in our team. It was exasperating watching the US come so close to scoring the entire game without putting the ball in the net. My boy Dempsey had chance after chance but couldn’t convert (kind of like me last weekend). I was sure they were going to score. Then at around the 85th minute I was sure they weren’t going to score. But with one Tim Howard fastball, the Yanks were able to instantly turn the USA into a soccer mad country. With one streaking run, Landon Donovan went from a goat to the GOAT — Greatest (American) Of All Time! With a favorable match-up vs. Ghana (during Dudefest no less) and then a potential quarterfinal match between the winner of Uruguay-South Korea dare I say…

By the way, in the 80th minute of the match the UPS guy delivered a box of vuvuzelas to my office. For anybody who does not believe in love at first site, it is my most prized poessesion.

Just a few hours after the thrilling victory my buddy Neal hit me up to inform me that there was a tennis match tied at 30-30 in the 5th set at Wimbledon. At first I didn’t believe him. I was fascinated and headed straight back to espn3.com to check out the action. American John Isner (think of Chris Dudley playing tennis) was bombing ace after ace against unknown (at least to me) Frenchy Nicolas Mahut. I watched till 39-39 as both players seemed unaffected by the fatigue, pressure and insanity of it all. I was called into a few meetings and had a few work related things (the nerve of work to get in the way of my great sports day) and when I got back to it the match was tied at 55! The match was stopped due to darkness tied at 59. Thank the good lord because the announcers were pretty sure that ESPN would never air Sportscenter ever again. That number is so high I’m not sure what to make of it. It’s like if that Syracuse vs. UCONN game went to 14 overtimes of if Tiger Woods won a US Open via a 72 hole sudden death playoff. Just think of anything that is impossible and you got yourself a great analogy.

This is so mind boggling that it could be the opening episode of season seven of LOST. For goodness sake, even the scoreboard broke. I’m not sure how neither guy lost concentration or just plain old gave up. Mahut didn’t even look tired! Isner said “nothing like this will ever happen again. Ever.” One person more geeked than me is Roger Federer who kept on saying how much he loved watching the match. They broke just about every single record for tennis longevity in the book. In fact, there are no longer any empty pages in the darn book.

The match stirred up two of my most deep-rooted pre-adolescence fascinations. The first is the idea that I could fall asleep during a Yankee game and awake in the morning and the game would still be going on in extra extra innings. That way I could continue to watch the game in the morning as I ate cheerios and corn pops.

The second is the method in which I challenged myself when playing ping pong with my little sister. If we were playing to 21 I would give her as big as lead as possible. Then I would battle back to tie it at 20-20. Since ping pong is win by two points, I would then see how long we could play (without her blatantly knowing my scheme). I’m not sure what the point of this was besides allowing me to star in my very own mental Sportscenter and scarring my little sister psyche for life.

Here’s an even more mind blowing fact of the day. My dad is flying to London to watch the completion of the match tomorrow! No, no, no. It’s not what you’re thinking…that would be perverted/sick. My parents happen to be going to England tomorrow for a European summer vacation. My sister just happened to be able to get them Wimbledon tickets. So there is a chance that they might see the completion of the Isner match. Considering my pops was flipping out more than I am in this post, it might be the most serendipitous occurrence since two tennis players tied each other at 59 in the 5th set.

Despite a great afternoon of sports action, little did I know it would improve. Lisa was able to score some fourth row tickets at Citified so we headed out to the game. Do you know how good free food tastes at a sporting event? We sat next to David Lee. RA Dickey was spectacular and is having one of those fairy tale storybook years that can only can happen to 30-something, messy-haired knuckle ballers as he stymied Detroit over eight shutout innings. I’ve spent a good portion of the last few years herbing the Mets but got to give the Amazins some credit. They are playing inspired ball and have some young, unheralded guys stepping up. Ike Davis got some schnoz on him! For at least one night, the Mets won me over.

Finally, I got home and tuned into the Yankee game. They tied it in the 9th off of Arizona closer Aaron Heilman (ha – laughable). After a Grandy-Man homer, Mariano came back out to work a second inning but the D-Backs quickly loaded the bases with no out. Two infield pop-ups and a K later and the greatest reliever to ever play the game had done his job once again. Every time I watch Rivera pitch I appreciate that I am watching greatness. As Rivera ages, I dread the day that he is no longer the Yankee closer. Luckily, even at the age of 40, he shows no signs of slowing down. When it’s all said and done there’s a good chance Rivera will have a monument (yes a monument) at Yankee Stadium.

Still not convinced on how great of a day it was. Giambi hit a walk-off homer to beat Papelbon and the Red Sox. How awesome is that!

Heck this day should have it’s own 30 for 30 episode!

Please good lord Hashem, let this happen every day and I’ll promise to recycle, share, clean my room and be a better person!

It doesn’t take me much to be fascinated by sport. Admittedly, I’m a borderline perv when it comes to baseball, college basketball, anything fantasy, and come to think of it, just about every major sport out there (except for Hockey). I also happen to closely follow NASCAR, PGA Tour, World Series of Poker, the Tour De France (where my peleton at!), and action sports. I remember one summer (1995) of adolescence being enthralled by Dennis Connor valiant attempt to lead Starts & Stripes past the Kiwi’s in the America’s Cup (that’s a sailing race for everyone other than Ellstien).

My point here being that it’s a no-brainer for me to get all wrapped up in World Cup fever. The World Cup is what the Olympics used to be. An international competition featuring a sport people care about!

I’ve been following the US National Team pretty closely and I’m somewhat literate when it comes to European club soccer but by no means am I an soccer aficionado. I’ve enjoyed the last few World Cups so I want to go into this one as knowledgeable as possible. Some people stress about work or life….I stress about not knowing who is starting in Spain’s midfield.

So I asked the most avid soccer fan I know, my birthright homie Leor Shapiro, if he would take part in the maiden voyage. Leor’s a big sports fan. In fact the first time I ever met him, in the Israeli desert no less, he was wearing a St. John’s hat! He also recently lived in London for the better part of a year and got to experience a season of the Premiere League.

It took awhile to get our rhythm. I had some technical difficulties and the sound quality could be better. At first I was a bit wishy washy but grew more confident as we went on. I would also like it to have been a little more punchier and more of a conversation than an interview. All in all though, I think it was a good first stab (but do recognize there needs to be lots of improvement). When it comes to soccer, Leor knows his stuff (as my dad likes to say). I especially enjoyed Leor’s commentary breaking down the USA team players and their style of play.

If you have a chance, listen here or click on the podcast player at the bottom of this blog post page. If you have any World Cup questions, leave a comment and I’ll try and have Leor respond.

Also, if you are around the next few weeks and want to watch World Cup soccer during the day hit me up. I plan to take a bunch of long lunches at PS450 (below my office) or at Bar 29 (29th and 3rd).

Finally, if you want to understand the culture significance of the game of soccer (which is far and away the most popular global sport) check out the book How Soccer Explains The World by Franklin Foer.

The NCAA currently has three years left on an agreement with CBS, signed in 1999 for over $6 billion, which would pay them about $700 Million per year for the broadcast rights to the tournament. The NCAA can also opt out of the current deal and sign a new deal (kind of like Dirk this summer). The expanded format, which includes the 32 additional games, is attractive to both CBS and ESPN as it allow for two more full days of programming. Reported by SBJ, ESPN’s bid ($800M per year over 14 years) is a bit less than the combined bid by CBS and Turner ($840 per year). The NCAA has yet to make a decision.

Besides having a rooting interest in this as a college hoops fanatic, I’m also intrigued by how the digital component plays into the equation. March Madness On Demand, the online streaming of all NCAA tournament games, is lauded each year as the ideal online live video programming event. In 2010, over 6 million viewers tuned in to the first two days to combine for over 8.7 million hours of live streaming. More importantly, the event generated over $37M in online ad sales.

Let’s take a closer look at this $37M. It’s 20% better than the online ad revenue in 2009. It’s almost 9x better than the revenue MMOD generated in 2006 (the first year it was free and completely ad-supported). And if we turn back the clock all the way to 2005, when CSTV acquired the rights to MMOD and produced the event (with yours truly playing the role of the little boy who tried to put his finger in the well to avert complete calamity), the total revenue was less than $1MM with online advertising accounting for less than $300K. AdAge does a good job of breaking down the annual digital revenue.

Despite this exponential growth (in a time when television sales has stayed pretty stagnant), digital revenues still account for less than 10% of total revenues generated by CBS. What’ shocking is trying to predict how the networks valued digital revenue growth in making their bids. My guess is that the number is close $0.

Yup. I’m calling it like just like I had Butler going to the national championship game. One of the most successful online video franchises in the history of the web will cease to exist in 2011.

Whoever has the rights in 2011 will have a huge cable presence. CBS plans to partner with Turner and broadcast games on CBS, TNT, TBS and truTV. I’m not sure of ESPN’s plan but my guess is that their distribution would include ESPN2, ESPNU and ABC. Basically the Mega March Madness product exclusive to DirecTV will be shifted to regular cable. Chris Littman (another Litty??) of the Sportingnews.com does a nice job breaking down the media implications.

Cable companies don’t like to give away their most valuable content online for free. No matter how well they sell digital, it is still more difficult to monetize a user to the same extent as a television viewer. Combine that with the fact that cable companies make a substantial percentage of their total revenues (usually greater than their advertising revenue) from carriage fees paid by the major cable companies for their content. This shift to cable plus the additional programming is what accounts for the higher rights fees. Cable companies (Comcast, Time Warner, Cox, DirecTV, etc.) are super protective of their investment in content and won’t stand to see it given away for free online (unless they can fully control the experience). If you want proof, check out the digital access model employed by ESPN for ESPN3.com.

For the viewer/fan, this means they will probably be able to watch every game televised live in it’s entirety on good old television. No more cursing CBS as you miss miraculous game winner after unbelievable buzzer beater. What you will most likely forfeit is the opportunity to watch games online at work during the day. Of course, this all becomes a moot point as the convergence of digital and television unfolds (which seems inevitable but might not happen in 2011).

Does it seem like this would be a move backwards? Maybe or maybe not. Even without an online streaming product, I’d bet their will be some kind of digital or mobile distribution solution. Perhaps this is in the hands of the MSO’s (as Comcast is trying to do with Xfinity) instead of the content providers. Perhaps the NCAA carves out specific stipulations regarding digital in the deal. Or it could be a renegade technology (Slingbox-esque). Perhaps I’m totally wrong and MMOD will be back in it’s same exact form next season.

I am willing to bet that how the tournament is broadcasted and distributed five years from now will be more shocking and unimaginable than the how far it’s all come since I worked on this little project back in 2005. At the time, the prevailing thought was that MMOD didn’t sell well because it just wasn’t good content/product.

What I’m really saying is brace yourself to experience Steve Lavin and the Johnnies cutting down the nets in 4D (don’t forget the psychedelic dimension) brooo!!!!

If I ever write the book on happiness, one of my key principles would be to decorate your living space with things that make you happy. Last week, I hung up a framed Malik Sealy jersey on the wall in my apartment. Every time I look over at it, I’m happy.

Malik Sealy was and is my favorite athlete of all time (actually, it’s a tie with Donnie Baseball but you get the point). I’m pretty sure it’s impossible to ever like players as much you do when you’re a little kid (with the one possible exception being my friend Roy and his infatuation with Francisco Cervelli).

I was always kind of impressed with the way Malik carried himself both on and off the court. He seemed cool, confident and in control of any situation that he faced. He was thoughtful and low key and didn’t feel the need to unnecessarily grab attention. If athletes really are role models for kids, I tried to follow the lead of Malik Sealy.

It was really strange and surreal when I learned that he tragically passed away in a car accident in the summer of 2000. I decided to write about him as a way to express my feelings and deal with the death. A few years later I put the essay up on Littyhoops.com and you can read it here.

By the way, my sister Lisa got the jersey for me a few years ago. She remembered that a family friend used to be a big St. John’s fan and tracked him down. He was more than happy to give her the jersey as it was just sitting in his closet. She gave it to me on my birthday and it was one of the coolest presents ever. It took a few years for me to get it framed because…well, because I’m me.

BTW, the other things on my wall are….

• Photo of me looking at the Western Wall in Israel
• Wood carved mural of Yankee Stadium that I’ve had since I’m four years old
• Framed photo playing checkers with my Poppy
• Photo of my house in San Diego with my dad in it (photgraphed and printed by my mom)
• Hologram poster of Mariano Rivera (random and goofy)
• Michigan Flag is hanging in the bathroom

I decided I’m missing a few things. It would be a great photo of my entire family, a good shot of the backyard at my country house in the summer, and some La Jolla Cove action!

Before I could lay down my whole megillah, the Detroit Free Press (are they even a newspaper anymore?) decides they want to publish a hatchet job on UM — a shanda fur die goy. When I first heard about this whole shtunk and all the dreck I wanted to blame Dick Rod. Heck, I have blamed him for every other crappy thing that has happened to the program since he rode his wagon into town 20 months ago. But the more I’ve learned the last few days the more this smells of NOR.

I’m willing to wager that every major college program practices just as much as Michigan. One pisher who has transferred coming forward with any kind of negative sentiment surely does not warrant a thorough investigation, ESPN news conferences and the insane tumult that this story has received. My guess (and I usually have a decent pulse on the NCAA) is that this blows over in the next few weeks and Michigan gives itself a light slap on the wrist and adheres strictly to the practice rules in the future. The NCAA doesn’t want to open up this can of borscht as it’s virtually impossible to differentiate between voluntary and mandatory practices.

So let’s hope and assume that this current hullabaloo disappears as quickly as Justin Feagin’s shipment of cocaine. My friend and life long Michigan friend Ben wrote to me that he’s “hoping this in the long run 5, 10, 20 years from now is only a blip on the radar, he will be our ron zook between spurrier and meyer or mike walsh between gene stallings and nick saban”. I agree. If only Rich Rod is our Elijiah Ingram in between Erick Barkley and Marcus Hatten.

Where does this leave the Wolverine Football program heading into 2009?

Talentless. I’m not exactly sure how this happened but the nebbish talent pool on this season’s team rivals a DPhiE date party. Michigan has three legit above-average Big Ten starters on this team – Brandon Minor, Donavon Warren and Brandon Graham. The rest of the players are a collection of backups and shleps, none of who would have sniffed the field in the first seven years of this decade. My buddy Vant was all ferdrayt because he wanted to buy a jersey but didn’t know what player’s number to get. I don’t blame him. It’s tough to get excited to rock Renaldo Sagesse, Boubacar Cissoko or Obi Exeh threads.

The weird part is that Michigan has had a top 15 recruiting class in each of the last five years. Early departures, transfers, state law, and the erosion of family values have prevented many decently ranked recruits from staying enrolled in Ann Arbor longer than acclaimed film director Zach Sherman stint in A-squared. The most inexplicable travesty is the inability to trot out a capable quarterback. It was bad that we lost out on Terrelle Pryor to Ohio State. Michigan is actually going into the season opener planning to play all three shmegegges. Nick Sheridan is back with his shmedrick arm, along side QB Force Tres and Shoelace Robinson. Ay Gavalt!

I really don’t want to get too much into evaluating Rodriguez because I’ve said or written it all already. I don’t like him and I’m counting down the days until he is gone. He might be a decent coach and is certainly a real macher. He did a good job at West Virginia – give him kudos for keeping Pac Man and Chris Henry out of prison and there mishegoss in check. It’s just that he’s not the right guy for Michigan. He came into the program with lots of chutzpah and made it clear he wants to run a program his way and doesn’t want to be bothered with the history and tradition of a place like Michigan (He tried to turn their road uniforms into yellow shmattas). That’s certain to be an issue at a school in which the history and tradition is almost as important as winning.

My buddy Da Bwetty took it one step further. “Players recruited by Lloyd and his staff were met with a guy who knew no more about the Michigan program than a freshman girl who traded her ticket away for a salad at Mr. Greeks. Instead of Cinderalla Man and a fatherly figure the players got a rule-bender and his UFC fitness program. Rodriguez may be a good coach, he may be more passionate about football than anyone we could imagine, but the West Virginia way is not the Michigan way, its that simple.”

I’m not sure why Michigan would hire a zhlub who blatantly doesn’t fit into their value system (let alone tradition, style of play, or recruiting methods). Leave it to some gold old Midwesterners to be shmoozed by a slick talking, sun burned West Virginian gonif.

From the highlights of Monday’s press conference, it seems like Rodriguez is starting to feel fershlugina (although that could very well be shtick). He was back to being a hok a chanik during this interview on ESPN this morning on First Take. I imagine one negative story on top of another starts to bare down on a program. But I have no rachmones for Rodriguez’s tsoriss. And boy, have there been some negative stories coming out of A2. Here is a timeline.

2009
9/1 – Rodriguez sued over condo project
8/29 – U-M players allege program broke NCAA rules
8/23 – Michigan eyes quarterback shuffle
8/11 – Rodriguez defends his checks on recruits
8/10 – The story behind Michigan’s dismissal of Feagin
7/16 – Michigan’s Wermers transfers, rips RichRod’s staff
1/23 – Rodriguez cost Michigan $6.6 million last year
1/21 – Barwis reportedly owes West Virginia dough

2008
12/15 – Michigan Wolverines season recap
12/12 -McGuffie reportedly will leave Michigan
11/22 – Final: Ohio State 42, Michigan 7
6/30 – Garrison: Rodriguez ‘very distraught’ in private meeting before he resigned
3/26 – Boren says he left Michigan because ‘family values have eroded’
1/17 – Rodriguez accuses WVU of staging ’smear campaign’
1/8 – Manningham, Arrington likely to skip senior years; Mallett may transfer

2007
12/27 – West Virginia sues, seeking $4 million buyout in Rodriguez’s contract

The Matzah Ball Soup Is Half Full
I hate to be a total kvetcher and it’s always easier to plotz, especially when the going is rougher than a winter’s walk across campus to the Frieze building. So I’ll channel my inner Roy and come up with some happy thoughts.

Michigan’s first four games are manageable and even if they can’t handle the Irish at the Big House there is still a good chance they can start the season 3-1. Hopefully, all that extra practice pays off and the team actually knows what it’s doing this season with one year of the spread offense under its belt. One of the QB klutzes steps up to bring some stability behind center and shows glimmers of hope for the future. The young guys play well enough to keep it interesting all season. Minor stays healthy and breaks out to be the best back in the Big Ten. Michigan manages to hover around .500 in conference play….I give up. What a luftmensh I am! This team sucks!!!!

It used to be dreams of a perfect season and running naked down Vaughn screaming out my allegiance to Philip Brabbs. This season might be my least anticipated college football season since the pre Marvin Graves days (I was a die-hard Syracuse fan growing up). Gornisht helfn.

Rewind back to my senior year of high school. After I was rejected from my top eight nerd colleges and decided to go to Michigan I figured that at the least I’d be able to shep naches for the football team for the rest of my life. Rich Rod is ruining that.

Gai kakhen afenyam Putz Rod. Essen brek drek.

I received a comment and an email from a developer in NYC named Kevin Marshall. Kevin has been in the fantasy sports space for quite awhile and had a bunch of very similar ideas on how fantasy sports should leverage the twitter platform to create new types of games. A few lunches later (and the recruitment of a talented designer who designed the site and created a sick logo) and we agreed to go for it and see if we could do any damage.

This week we launched our first actual fantasy game called Pennant Race Drive. It is a baseball prediction game in which a player can tweet up to five predictions per day on which teams will win and which players will hit a Home Run that night. Obviously predicting who will hit the long ball is far more difficult than which teams will win and therefore the payoff is 10x greater.

Win/Loss = 1 point
Home Run = 10 points

I’d love to see all you fantasy sports + twitter heads to give the game a shot. If you want to predict team wins include up to five teams (full nickname), the hashtag #win, and the #gawkit hashtag, or http://gawk.it within the tweet. If you want to predict Home Runs then use players full names plus the #HR. Be sure to include #gawkit or http://gawk.it so that the tweet is picked up by the gawk.it scoring enginge.

Here are a few examples
Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada will all go yard tonite #HR #gawkit

The Yankees, Mets, Dodgers, Red Sox will all #win http://gawk.it

Only one type of prediction will register for each tweet. Also, the last five predictions that you log each day will count. All predictions need to occur at least 10 minutes before the game starts.

You can check out all the rules and details for the game at http://gawk.it website. Be sure to join the Littyhoops group to compete against yours truly. The game will continue throughout the season and we’re giving away Amazon Gift cards to weekly winners ($25) as well as the overall winner ($100).

In addition, we’re also donating one penny per correct tweet to the DonorsChoose.org organization (a charity that I recently blogged about). The overall winner of Pennant Race Drive will determine which school projects we will donate too. I’m excited by this philanthropic angle. As the game grows in popularity so to will our contribution to a great cause.

We’re excited to have something up and running and see if it sticks. Twitter is an extremely viral platform so if you like the game please just send out a few tweets to your followers and help us spread the good word. You can easily just retweet this message.

The Gawk.It game engine is built upon the twitter platform (using twitter’s open API’s) and this allows us to easily create all different kinds of fantasy games for just about any sport or statistical category. We’re already thinking about what we should do for football season and beyond.

Hit me up if you want to chat some more about gawk.it or the Pennant Race Drive.

Let me set the guidelines. My rankings are based on the live sports experiences that were most enjoyable and memorable. It boils down to how many times I said or thought or mumbled to myself “this is awesome. This is the best moment of my life” while I was at the event. Pregame festivities can enhance an event but can’t make one (otherwise Michigan home football games would the list). The historical significance of the game is only a factor if it contributed to the excitement and experience. I’m sure there are a bunch of other technicalities that I’ll leave to my litigious homies to figure out.

To fully enjoy this post my advice is to click to the blog post web page so that you can watch some of the videos that are embedded within the post. They dont appear on the email.

Honorable Mention

1991 US Open First Round – Jimmy Connors defeats Patrick McEnroe
I was mad young at the time. I was there with my whole family so we went home in the middle of the third set (girls can’t hang past 11pm) with Conner about to be finished off. A few hours later I’m watching in disbelief from home as the 5th set unfolds and Connors is running around the court with winning point celebrations that rival Evanter’s slickest dance moves and thinking to myself – damn, I should still be there! My guess though is this match isn’t as remembered if Connors doesn’t go on to two more thrilling five setters against Krickstein and Paul Harhuis.

2002 – South Bend – Notre Damd 25, Michigan 23
Best tailgate/pregame scene of my life. Pre-game peakage for 2.5 solid hours. Walk to the stadium was nuts. The Great Weino was cursing out a priest and Da Bwetty was vandalizing the pristine campus. Unfortunately, the game was super lame. The whole time I had the feeling that we would lose and we did.

1999 – The Big House (My first game) — Michigan 26, Notre Dame 22
My first game as a freshman was a thrilling victory by Michigan over Notre Dame. I was celebrating in awe on the walk back home and ran into Anand (who already had a season under his belt). I kept on asking him if all the games were this good. I was in total amazement that this was the first of 20-25 Michigan games I was going to be at in the next four years. College just rocks. Here’s a Youtube highlight clip of the game that is fun to watch if it was also your first UM game.

2004 Accenture Match Play – La Costa/San Diego – Tiger Wood Match Play
A surreal and sensory scene as my SD roomy Jon and I followed Tiger for about five holes with less than 100 other people in the gallery as he destroyed some poor European chap in match play. I’ve never been in the presence and so close to a man with such intensity. He was in a ZONE. I must have yelled “Tiger, YOU DA MAN” a few hundred times from about 5-10 feet away and Tiger was so locked in with his Darth Vader style deep breathing that I’m not sure if anything could phase him.

Events I Should Have Been At And Jealous that I wasn’t…

2005 NCAA Tournament First Round – Vermont 60, Syracuse 57
I had to work that day and was heading up to Worchester the next morning. I had been following Vermont all season and adopted the Catamounts as my team. I was sitting on the couch next to Hillman when first Mopa-Njila and then T.J. Sorrentine heaved a three in overtime to ice the game. Lisa and Howie Hoops still talk about that shot. Apparently Lisa was going at it with a Syracuse fan the entire game and taunted him after the Catamounts pulled off the upset.

2003 ALCS Game 7 – Yankees 6, Boston 5
I had just moved to San Diego and was freaking out watching the Yankees come back off of Pedro on a 16″ inch TV that barely worked. Not sure I’ve ever been as excited watching a sports event as when Posada tied the game. This was when the Yankees were still on top and you felt like they could do anything if you rooted hard enough. I think Brett, Matt, Hillman and P were all at the game. Damn. This video does Aaron Boone’s Home Run proper.

1998 – David Wells Perfect Game
I had been planning to go to that game with my cousin Stacey. That week we decided not to go. Wells threw a perfecto – something I’m dying to see in my lifetime. Only mitigating factor is that my cousin and I plan to go to a bunch of games each season and always seem to flake (sorry Stace!)

1998 Jericho vs. Wheatley High School – Troy Slade vs. Jason Horowitz Doubles Match
Man, just to be there to see Troy straight up cheat on line calls as Witz gets angrier and angrier. Finally, Witz calls him out on it and Troy invokes Machiavelli by responding “An Eye for an Eye, HOROWITZ”. It amazes me that Troy lived to tell the story. My buddy P was there and verifies that the blatant cheating was as startling as I imagine it to be.

The Real List

#5 – 2005 US Open Quarterfinals – Andre Agassi defeats James Blake
During a change over in the middle of the 5th set, I was yelling like a maniac from the upper deck as the entire stadium was on its feat applauding the battle between the aging Agassi and the resurgent Blake. The place was still packed well after midnight and the atmosphere was more akin to a football game than a tennis match. I remember thinking to myself “Damn son, if every tennis match was like this it would be the greatest sport in the world”.

Blake dominated the first two sets and was up a break in the third. He had his own personal and super white and super annoying luxury suite chanting section that would repeatedly scream his name in between each points for two straight hours like he was in the midst of a keg stand. Everyone in the crowd wanted to see Agassi make it a match. It seemed hopeless. But Agassi somehow turned back the clock and started hitting stunning winners all over the court. I could sense it might be Agassi’s last hurrah on a grand stage. I wasn’t just rooting for him to win the match but was cherishing the experience to watch one of the best and most likable athletes of my youth. The match was finally decided in a tense, and extremely well played fifth set tie breaker that at one point was knotted at 6-6 with both guys one point away from facing match point. It was truly a match that nobody deserved to lose. I remember the buzz on the train ride home as everyone was gitty and thankful that they were in the stadium.

#4 – 2002 College Football – Michigan 32, Washington 29
Nothing could make a Michigan Man’s senior year of college more exciting than a national championship run. The Wolverines were a top ten team but faced a stiff test in their season opener against another top 10 teams in the Huskies (the team that had ruined their season the year before). Get by Washington during welcome week and Ann Arbor was going to be A LOT of fun.

The weather in Ann Arbor was perfect (which happens maybe 3x times a solar year) and our seats (25 or so of us sitting together) were 10 rows up in the student section. On the second play of the season, Chris Perry broke through the line for a 50 yard touchdown and a mosh pit broke out in our section that at the time I thought was going to last my entire life. If I ever thought I have received a omen from g-d, it was that play signaling a championship.

But then the game went back and forth and nerves starting to creep into the pit of my stomach. Kind of the same feeling you get after you would eat at Maize and Blue. Evidently, Michigan couldn’t make a kick! They had flubbed three field goals (by two different kickers) including the potential go ahead kick with less than 4 minutes in the game. Somehow Michigan got the ball back and went on one of those nerve-wrenching unwatchable final drives that have so often ended in heartbreak. This time the breaks fell Michigan’s way as a Braylon drop on 4th down was ruled a fumble recovery. After a lucky Penalty, Phillip Brabbs lined up for a 44 yard FG to win the game. At that point I would have bet all the rupees in Southeast Asia that Brabbs shank the kick. But the little powder looking fella nailed it flush through the uprights. Pandemonium lasted for a good week. I spent my night gloriously drinking Jaeger bombs in Brabbs honor all night at Rick’s and screaming his name on top of my lungs on the entire stumble home!

#3 – 1999 College Basketball – Duke 92, St. John’s 88
The Johnnies of 98-99 are, and will always be, my favorite basketball team of all-time. They had a budding, and still somewhat sane, star in Ron Artest. They had a pure NYC point guard in Erick Barkley who ran the show and a wonderful supporting cast in sharpshooter Bootsy Thornton, bruiser Tyrone Grant and glue guy Lavor Postell. They were NYC basketball, complete with the chip on the shoulder underdog attitude. (If you think this is L-Hoops hyperbole ask Hillman what the Johnnies did to the Terps in the Sweet 16 that year).

In the middle of the season, #2 ranked Duke sporting an 18-1 record and All-Americans in Elton Brand, Trajan Langdon and William Avery visited the Garden to take on the 8th ranked Johnnies. It was the first sellout for a St. John’s game in three years (a feat that seems unfathomable these days). For some inexplicable reason, we had given up our season tickets that season so Howie Hoops and I found ourselves up in the nose bleeds much closer to the rafters than the court.

It looked as though Duke was going to blow out the Johnnies early and the ghosts of Blue Devil past were starting to haunt me once again. But Bootsy Thornton, on his way to a forever endearing 40 point afternoon, heated up to keep the Johnnies close. The Johnnies hung around throughout the second half despite foul trouble. Artest checked back into the game and immediately scored a few buckets to set up an exhilarating final few minutes. It seemed doomed when Artest missed a three with less than 15 seconds left but he then stole the inbounds pass and was fouled hoisting up a wild three. I went nuts. The Johnnies were back in it! I did my patented “hold my breath and try to suffocate myself” as Artest went to the line. He was only able to convert on two of the foul shots (damn – I needed less oxygen!) After Duke hit two free throw to go back up by three, Barkley found Arest on the wing. Ron Ron nailed an off balance three to tie the game with one second left. I’ve never rooted harder for a shot to go into the basket in my entire life. Little Littyhoops screamed and screamed and screamed. We had shoved it to the man. Elton Brand had fouled out and the Johnnies were going to the Final Four!

Unfortunately, the magic was short-lived as Duke escaped in overtime. I remember leaving the Garden disappointed that they had lost but 100% confident in the team.

#2 2005 College Football, USC 30, Notre Dame 29
The opportunity to attend this game came about somewhat haphazardly. I was pulled into a project at CSTV that involved Tim Brown and Notre Dame themed dial-up internet service (made no sense at the time and still doesn’t) and I had to somehow oversee that 100K flyers were distributed at the game without any kind of street team (the details are hazy in my head).

Anyway, I showed up in South Bend four hours before the game and after walking for miles somehow ended up in a VIP tent with all the former Notre Dame greats (Totally, blew off the flyer thing). I met Joe Montana and had lunch with Tim Brown. As the game was about to begin, I tried to sneak onto the field by hopping on the back of a golf cart that Tim Brown took into the stadium but was caught without a credential at the last moment. My back-up plan to get into the stadium was that another CSTV contact was in the press box and would be able to get me in. But phone service wasn’t working and after fruitlessly calling dozens of times I figured I would try to scalp a ticket. I walked up to a group of kids and saw one dude jumping up and down because he had just secured a ticket. I asked him how much he paid and he told me $500. This game was that big. The night before they had sold out a pep rally in the stadium that was covered live on ESPNews (I caught the last 30 minutes of it).

I finally got in touch with my friend 15 minutes before kickoff. I went up to the press box for a bit and then settled into the bleachers in the stadium. The game was magical from the start as Notre Dame suprised the crowd by coming out in their Green jersey’s and turned back the clock and played like they were still in their glory days. When that little midget boxer Zbikowski returned a punt for a touchdown it was holy.

USC had Leinart, Bush, a 27 game winning streak and perhaps the greatest college football team ever assembled but the legend of Touchdown Jesus (one of the cooler sights from a football stadium) and the Golden Dome seemed to be in Notre Dame’s corner.

USC had the ball for one final drive down by 5. The faced a early 4th and 9 and the stadium was shaking with the Irish one play away from a shocking upset of the #1 team in the country. But under pressure, Leinart somehow threaded the needle on a sideline pass for a 1st down. USC steadily marched down the field all the way to Notre Dame one yard line. Leinart rolled out of the pocket and decided to scramble into the endzone but was leveled at the goal line. Game over. The place erupted and the fans stormed the field. But then just as fast as the fans rushed the field, they rushed off it. For some it struck me as a very similar moment to the parting of the red sea (wrong religion, I know). Apparently, Leinart fumbled and the ball went out of bounds and USC had one final play from the line of scrimmage. As thousands of fans watched from the sideline, Reggie Bush pushed Leinart into the end zone and USC escaped with the victory. The place was like a midnight mass. I looked around in amazement. Jesus had just died…again. The stadium was dead silence. I was freaking out to myself. I was not believing what I had just seen and not believing how crappy it must have felt to be a Notre Dame fan at that moment. I felt a little bad – sike! It was awesome to watch those bastards cry!

#1 2008 NCAA Tournament First Round in Tampa AKA Upset City

Four games. Four upsets. Two overtimes. Two buzzer-beaters.

Yeah, so it might be a complete bullshit cop out that I’m picking four games as the best game I’ve ever been too. But man, it really seemed like one long ass game and definitely one radical experience. There was about an hour difference between the end of the afternoon upsets and the start of nighttime upsets. I walked out of the arena and the Tampa sun was setting and I was pretty sure that this is what happens in heaven.

When you watch 10 hours straight of basketball in one day there are just too many special moments to remember. The first game was Drake vs. Western Kentucky. When the bracket was announced I figured this one was a dud. But it turned out to be one of the most entertaining ball games that I’ve ever watched. Drake came back from 17 down by shooting a three pointer every single time down the court. They had a point guard named Emmenecker who couldn’t shoot so instead he would just dribble around in circles until he found someone behind the arc to hoist up a three (Emmenecker had 0 baskets but 14 assists). I looked over and Howie Hoops was bobbing and weaving in excitement like that one “special” St. John’s fan (yes, the kid is even more special then me). Drake came all the way back to take the lead. Then some white farmboy bench warmer named Ty Rogers on Western Kentucky peeled off a pick from 40 feet and swished the game winner.

Game #2 saw my adopted Toreros of San Diego take down UCONN on a buzzer beater. We were sitting in the San Diego section and got swept up in the upset. My dad unexpectedly went for a ride with Thabeet in the hotel elevator and was staring at him funny the entire game. Mitch was bragging how tight he was with AJ Price’s family until AJ tore his ACL in the first half.

The first game of he night was #13 seed Siena blowing out Vanderbilt. As Vanderbilt was dejectedly walking into the locker room at the half Howie Hoops got a bit swept up in the moment and was screaming at the Volunteers about how much they suck. Courtney (a relative newcomer to the madness) looked on in horror! It seemed like more good basketball was an impossibility as Clemson had a 20 point first half lead. I searched for a television in the arena to watch the India game with my sister. But then Villanova stormed back with a monstrous second half. I was almost expecting a triple overtime game after being so spoiled all day but Nova pulled away. Four upsets in one arena. It had never happened before. I’ve never peaked for so long in my life!

I awoke Sunday morning to a perfect high noon sun and a swath of flies in my backyard who apparently were still enjoying the goat carcass from the day before (which is a story for another blog post — but here’s a fascinating photo to arouse your interest). Not wanting to waste a perfect May afternoon I called Titanium Dave with a plan to check out the minor leagues scrubs that make up the Mets lineup and see for myself if all the fuss about Citi Field is legit.

Since it was so close to game time tickets were no longer being sold online. I called the box office and the guy told me that there were plenty of seats left and it should be no problem purchasing them at the stadium.

We arrived a bit after 1pm just as the game was getting underway and went to the ticket window only to learn the cheapest tickets available were $150 each. Apparently, this was a “platinum” game (platinum game = most expensive) as Cody Ross, Jeremy Hermedia and the sub .500 fish always are a hot ticket.

Not fully prepared to dip into my future kid’s college tuition fund to see the Amazin’s, Kosh and I evaluated our options. We first looked to scalp but the scalpers seem to have gone the way of the Encyclopedia salesman as there wasn’t a single dude hawking tickets. My guess is an increased police presence has something to do with one of my favorite New York pastimes.

We circled the stadium trying to figure out what to do next when Daring Dave started thinking that there got to be a way to sneak into the stadium. At first, I dismissed this idea as improbable even though I’m a fan of season one of Prison Break.

We checked the ticket windows outside of both rightfied and leftfield but got the same $150 offer despite our most cunning haggling techniques. Esquire Dave persuasive argument “but it’s already the 3rd inning, you’re just going to let the tickets go to waste!” was unfortunately completely ineffective.

At one point Bilingual Diego went up to the opposing team will call window and blurted “Yo soy un tio de Emilo Bonifacio”. Unfortunately, his cuz forgot to leave us some duckets.

As our outlook was looking bleak we got our first big break. We ran into parking lot girl who saw what we were up to and she said “you guys are trying to sneak in, huh”. We tried to recruit her to join our cause but she honestly retorted “I work in parking. If you need free parking I can hook it up”. We lamented that we had taken the subway to the stadium but she offered us one last golden nugget before she went on her merry way when she said “I’m not even going to bullshit you but there are doors past the outfield entrance that aren’t locked. I’m not sure where they lead but I’ve seen people go in”.

We tugged on a bunch of doors and finally found one that was unlocked and led into a construction site within the stadium. Unfortunately, the site was a maze of bolt locked doors and had no entrance into the stadium. After 10 or so minutes of peaking around corners, walking under ladders and trying to open locked doors we were back out on the perimeter.

Next, we went back to basics and walked into the ticket office with Puppy Dog Dave giving his most precious frown. I made up a sob story how we were visiting from out of town and came all this way to see the Mets play and we just didn’t have the funds to plop down $150 in this economy. She asked if I was active military. I told her I respect and applaud our nations hero’s but I basically just sit and play on the internet for a living. She said there were no discount/tickets available for struggling entrepreneurs. The women was a sweetheart and actually called over the customer service specialist who evidently didn’t yet view as us customers and basically told us to get lost. I was going to use my trump card — I’m facebook friends with Saul Katz’s nephew! I’m sure the Karma police would have whacked me upside the head at some point so refrained from citing cyber relationships. As we were walking out we realized there’s a door on the other side of the office that leads into the stadium and made a bee line exit for it. Unfortunately, they caught on to our shenanigans right as were about to walk out the door and told us we had to leave through the other exit.

By now it’s the 4th inning. Security was breaking down all the makeshift entrance gates and hence have opened up doors/gates all around the stadium. Most of these are exit/entrance gates. We found an exit that also doubled as the cigarette patio (astutely brainstormed by Big Idea Dave). The tricky part was that there were about six to eight security guards walking back and forth. Every time we though we had a millisecond of an opening the window would close. It was akin to something between trying to beat the most difficult board on frogger and the scene in the movie The ROCK when Sean Connary and Nicholas Cage have to roll under the furnace flames. I employed a tailgating strategy of tiptoeing right behind a security guy bringing in a gate and then reverse pivot into the smoker lounge. As I was about to pull a Gasol post move the security guard behind me spotted me and told me to take a hike. Cautious Dave determined it was impossible and we were once again outside looking in.

At this point we were running out of both options and innings. We circled the entire stadium and ended up in a parking lot with production trucks and loading docks. We used the cover of a few parked busses to sneak into the lot. Unfortunately we didn’t hop a fence (this would have been our chance) because if we did it would have officially been the best afternoon of my adult life. We confidently strode through the lot (ala Jack and Sayid in the season finale of LOST) although there were dozens of security dudes all around. Nervous Dave kept on repeating that we’ll tell them we’re looking to visit my sister in the SNY truck. My sister once took Awestruck Dave into the television truck at Nassau Coliseum during an Islander game and I guess he assumed she works every truck at every sporting event in the US. This is also a good time to mention that I have friends and colleagues who work at SNY and they have been offering to hook me up with tickets all season! (so simple, so unexciting)

We walked straight past the trucks and headed into the stadium and soon found ourselves in a long hallway. Walking as quickly as possible and fully expecting a security guard to start firing at us once we were spotted we came to the end of the hallway and opened a door. The door lead to the visitors BULLPEN! I turn to the right and Lee Nunez is staring us down. I look up and fans are looking at us in bewilderment. Dave and I quickly walk through the bullpen right as a golf cart sized garage mysteriously opens up right in front of us. (To be exact we were seperated from the bullpen by a chain fence. I fould this picture on flickr that basically shows you our exact position/view.)

We walk through the garage, open a door and find ourselves in the Modell’s Clubhouse. This is the hospitality/party area where fans can see through the rightfield fence. We try to blend in as quickly as possible (and begin to eye the free food and booze!) when a security guy approaches and starts questioning us. At this point I employ Strategic Dave’s basic sneaking-in principles and act like I have no idea what’s going on. I tell the guy I had to go to the bathroom and I’m looking for my seat in the upper deck! He replies “I’ll show you the upper deck” and escorts Dave and I through a door that leads to a staircase that lets us off in the Upper Deck! We’re In!!!!

Dave and I are as gitty as a middle school kids locked in a closet for 7 seconds when I randomly run into some of my friends from high school. I start bragging about how we just snuck into Citi Field and they look at me and go “Well you’re Littyhoops!!”

Dave and I spent the second half of the game up in the Pepsi Porch. It was sweet. The stadium is awesome. Great views, great food, and a nice loitering/lounging/chill areas throughout the stadium. The also have a t-ball stadium for little kids that looks strikingly similar to the future wiffle ball stadium in my future backyard.

I’m definitely going to hit up Citi more and more just because the park is such a great place to spend an afternoon. Perhaps next time I’ll even have tickets. Then again, perhaps I won’t.

Disclaimer: If you work for the Mets, SNY, NYPD, or are Emilio Bonefacio’s real cousin then please realize the events in this blog post are highly fabricated and the names, dates and references have all been changed to protect the identity and freedom of David Ross Koshers.