Which Players have you met?

[Controlled Chaos]

Yoss.. I don't think you and I have ever had a cross conversation.

It's just a select few that for some reason think I think my s*** don't stink because I know people who play professional sports..  :rolly

OOOoooooo... big friggin whip. They put their pants on one leg at a time just like the rest of us.

 

ok fine...hey everyone steffs s*** does stink...and she admits it!!

 

 

soooooo.....who ya know??

[Steff]

ok fine...hey everyone  steffs s*** does stink...and she admits it!!

soooooo.....who ya know??

 

 

Really.. and I know this will sound s***ty.. so many to name. Right now Jim and I know, and talk to on a regular basis, players on 11 different teams. Add in the retired ones he plays golf with and I bet we have both leagues covered.

[ptatc]

Really.. and I know this will sound s***ty.. so many to name. Right now Jim and I know, and talk to on a regular basis, players on 11 different teams. Add in the retired ones he plays golf with and I bet we have both leagues covered.

 

No need to apologize. There is no shame in having friends. 99% of the people who read here appreciate any insight and good stories you have. There rest of them to qoute another poster can eat..... (I just bring myself to type it.)

[Nokona]

I put my pants on two legs at a time actually.

[ptatc]

I put my pants on two legs at a time actually.

 

No wonder you have Fast Break in your sig

[SoxFan1]

Baseball wise, I met MIke Jackson after a game 1 time. I saw Frank Thomas driving down Lake Shore Drive. And I talked to Man Soo Lee for like 5 minutes at a game 1 time. He gave me a ball Marte was warming up with. I also met all of the 2002 Gold Medal Winning Yugoslavia Basketball team including Stojakovic, Divac, and Radmonovic etc. Awesome guys, I got all their autographs. Also, I met some of the Globe Trotters after a game last year.

[NCsoxfan]

As far as the Bulls, Craig Hodges was an awesome guy. I met the whole Bulls team in 1991, the summer before they won it all at a Lou Malnatis dinner.

[Mplssoxfan]

I was watching Tyson-Holyfield II (the ear fight) in a ballroom in the Sox Team hotel in Minneapolis when, lo and behold, Frank took a seat right next to me. We chatted about boxing for a little bit, then watched the mayhem.

 

Genuinely nice guy.

 

Another nice guy was Jim Abbott. I let him and Kirk McCaskill, who's nice himself, hang out in the bar I worked at when they both pitched for the Halos. That bar then became the Angels' pitchers' bar whenever they came to town.

 

The pitching coach for Cleveland, Carl Willis, pitched for the Twinks in the early 90's. I got to hold his WS ring the night he got it. That was pretty cool.

 

The one that got away, though, was drinking from the Stanley Cup. I had to pick up a shift at my bar the night that Tom Chorske, who was with the Devils at the time, brought the Cup to one of my fav bars in Mpls. Chorske still gives me crap about it.

[3E8]

I talked with Mike Hampton at a mall in Milwaukee. This was when he was when he was on the Rockies, and bad.

[Traveler1776]

My wife has had the opportunity to meet a number of recent Sox players. She said that Maggs was relatively self-absorbed and Carlos Lee pretty quiet, but not really a nice guy.

 

I was with her when we met Paul Konerko two years ago and he was as nice as could be. Very personable and very gracious.

 

We "met" AJ and Garland Friday at an event downtown to increase organ donations. No chance to really chat, but AJ was very personable and Garland more laid back and pleasant.

 

I agree with Jim H. In my limited experience, players have been very gracious and accomodating as long as you give the same back to them and don't ask too much of their time.

 

Great set of posts. Had a lot of fun reading it!

[YASNY]

I met Ed Herrmann and Rick Dempsey at a bar in Worth, IL when I was 17. This was when they were with the Yankees (Dempsey had a fro. ) Catfish Hunter was supposed to be there with them, but didn't make it.

 

I also met the late Keith Magnuson, along with Reggie Fleming when I was a kid. That was pretty exciting for a 10 year old kid.

 

Non-sports ... I met Mark Farner of Grand Funk Railroad after he performed at a local bar a few years ago. I was a big GFR fan as a teen, so that was cool.

[Steve Bartman's my idol]

Met a bunch of people, trying to remember them all;

 

Baseball wise-Frank Thomas, Mark Buerhle, Eric Gagne, Torri Hunter, Sammy Sosa, Mark Grace, Billy Williams, others at autograph shows, all super nice people, other then Sosa, Clemens, Rose and Canseco, Sosa the 2nd time I met him was a dick.

 

Football-no one special.

 

Hockey-Alex Zhamnov, Brett Hull, Bobby Hull, Chris Chelios, Gary Suter, Denis Savard, Jeremy Roenick, etc. (all nice, especially Zhamnov and Brett Hull who signed autographs until he had no more pictures to hand out).

 

Basketball-Curry, Chandler, Jalen Rose, Jamal Crawford, Michael Jordan who is the biggest prick around, Scottie Pippin, Dennis Rodman (super nice), Charles Barkley, Jason Kidd, Toni Kukoc, David Robinson, Antonio Davis, Dikembe Mutombo, Alonzo Mourning suprisingly a nice guy.

 

Boxing- Ali, Leon Spinks (drunk), Lennox Lewis, Evander Holyfield, Mike Tyson.

 

Showbiz-Michael Douglas, Billy Crystal, Oprah, Kramer (a prick as well), Jean Claude Van Damme, Uma Thurman, Traci Lords and Anna Nicole Smith (before she got fat) on back to back days, Will Smith, Jack Nicholson, Paula Abdul, Nick Lachay, Brittney Spears, Kelsey Grammar, Morgan Freeman, Brian Dennehy, Pierce Brosnan, all nice people, many more that I can't think of off the top of my head.

 

Wrestlers: The Big Show, Stone Cold Steve Austin, HHH, The Heartbreak Kid, too many to name.

 

I used to work at the airport.

[chisoxfan14]

Have you showered since then?

 

 

haha yea, i plan on asking for another hug when i go to Kid's Day, since there is no photo day schedualed!

[Chisoxfn]

I was watching Tyson-Holyfield II (the ear fight) in a ballroom in the Sox Team hotel in Minneapolis when, lo and behold, Frank took a seat right next to me.  We chatted about boxing for a little bit, then watched the mayhem.

 

Genuinely nice guy.

 

Another nice guy was Jim Abbott.  I let him and Kirk McCaskill, who's nice himself, hang out in the bar I worked at when they both pitched for the Halos.  That bar then became the Angels' pitchers' bar whenever they came to town.

 

The pitching coach for Cleveland, Carl Willis, pitched for the Twinks in the early 90's.  I got to hold his WS ring the night he got it.  That was pretty cool.

 

The one that got away, though, was drinking from the Stanley Cup.  I had to pick up a shift at my bar the night that Tom Chorske, who was with the Devils at the time, brought the Cup to one of my fav bars in Mpls.  Chorske still gives me crap about it.

Kirk and Jim were awesome guys. My dad was friends with Jim's wife and I got to meet him a few times. Total class act and he was good friends with Kirk or so I assume cause the two went to a ton of things together, even during the offseason.

 

Kirk was nice, but Abbot was awesome. I don't have any good stories from this, I was really young, but I just remember he was and probably still is my favorite pitcher of all time.

[GoodAsGould]

Really.. and I know this will sound s***ty.. so many to name. Right now Jim and I know, and talk to on a regular basis, players on 11 different teams. Add in the retired ones he plays golf with and I bet we have both leagues covered.

 

 

How did you get to know so many athletes? I knew you knew a lot of people involved with the sox but 11 other teams? Whats your secret

[RibbieRubarb]

How did you get to know so many athletes?  I knew you knew a lot of people involved with the sox but 11 other teams?  Whats your secret 

 

Don't you know? She's Doable!

 

::ducks::

[knightni]

When it comes to Sox players, I've only met a couple guys.

 

The 1987 preseason caravan came to South Bend.

 

The Sox busted out those new red white and blue unis with the blue curly C caps for the first time.

 

Robin Ventura was still a AA wannabe, so they sent a veteran, the starting 3rd baseman and a rookie pitcher.

 

Harold Baines, Steve Lyons and Bill Long.

 

Ribbie and Rhubarb were there too.

 

It was a pretty cool experience for a 13/14 yr old kid.

 

 

Besides the players, I even got autos from R&R!

[Steff]

How did you get to know so many athletes?  I knew you knew a lot of people involved with the sox but 11 other teams?  Whats your secret 

 

 

Many are from our MLBPA contact. Jim and I are contributors to several charities involved and Jim plays in the MLBPA golf outing every year in Lake Geneva as well with several retired guys over the summer. Most of the others are from players traded from the Sox that we keep in touch with. No real secret.. treating them like normal people seems to be a good start though. They love to hear that they are looked up to, of course. But at the same time they love to talk about their other interests as well.

[Rex Hudler]

Steff, I am giving you a free pass for the week ahead....... No one treats Steff like s*** until at least next Monday!! So it is ordered.

Edited May 16, 2005 by Rex Hudler

[Rex Hudler]

A more fun topic would be which players have you drank with lol

 

I will say I have been very fortunate in my life to interact with a lot of great people and have remained friends with some (including the catcher none of you had ever heard of that hit a HR against the Sox today)......

 

But my favorite memory was being lucky enough to spend parts of three days with Willie Mays. It was an amazing experience and nothing I could ever forget.

[farmteam]

Hey, I'd heard of Sal Fasano before, when he was with the A's.

[Rex Hudler]

He's a Chicagoan, so most of you should have heard of him.

[Rex Hudler]

Here is my weird/random brush with an athlete. I'm sure most of you older guys 25-30 and up will have heard of him........

 

About 4 years ago or so, I flew to Charleston SC to visit a college buddy. He picked me up at the airport about 10:00 on a Saturday night. We stopped by a bar in the Mount Pleasant area of Charleston for a couple of beers on the way to his house. We went in and the bar was pretty crowded. It was your basic surburbian local pub full of 20 somethings......

 

We upstairs to see if we could find a table. There was one round table open so we sat down. No one came to wait on us so my buddy went downstairs to the main bar. While I was sitting there, checking out the scenery, a black man with several gold chains hanging from his neck sat right down at my table. We made eye contact and he just looked away, but stayed there. After about a minute of trying to figure out what the hell he was doing, it popped into my head. I looked at him real strange like and said "hey, aren't you Dwight Smith?" He smiled and said yes. I asked him what the hell he was doing there and he told me he was the Hitting Coach for the Charleston River Dogs.

 

So my buddy came back up and I introduced him and we drank several beers and ate some wings together. My buddy who was a Cardinals fan kept telling him how much he used to hate him. Dwight thought it was hilarious.

 

Smith was a former OF for the Cubs amongst other MLB teams. He might have even been NL Rookie of the Year in 1989???

Edited May 16, 2005 by Rex Hudler

[Jabroni]

Here is my weird/random brush with an athlete.  I'm sure most of you older guys 25-30 and up will have heard of him........

 

About 4 years ago or so, I flew to Charleston SC to visit a college buddy.  He picked me up at the airport about 10:00 on a Saturday night.  We stopped by a bar in the Mount Pleasant area of Charleston for a couple of beers on the way to his house.  We went in and the bar was pretty crowded.  It was your basic surburbian local pub full of 20 somethings......

 

We upstairs to see if we could find a table.  There was one round table open so we sat down.  No one came to wait on us so my buddy went downstairs to the main bar.  While I was sitting there, checking out the scenery, a black man with several gold chains hanging from his neck sat right down at my table.  We made eye contact and he just looked away, but stayed there.  After about a minute of trying to figure out what the hell he was doing, it popped into my head.  I looked at him real strange like and said "hey, aren't you Dwight Smith?"  He smiled and said yes.  I asked him what the hell he was doing there and he told me he was the Hitting Coach for the Charleston River Dogs. 

 

So my buddy came back up and I introduced him and we drank several beers and ate some wings together.  My buddy who was a Cardinals fan kept telling him how much he used to hate him.  Dwight thought it was hilarious.

 

Smith was a former OF for the Cubs amongst other MLB teams.  He might have even been NL Rookie of the Year in 1989???

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Nope, Jerome Walton was RotY for the Flubs in 1989. Walton was a true "flash in the pan."

Edited May 16, 2005 by Jabroni

[Rex Hudler]

Nope, Jerome Walton was RotY for the Flubs in 1989.  Walton was a true "flash in the pan."

 

I knew Smith came up with someone else, I just couldn't remember who and which one won it......