Chasing the Chicken Man's 70 on a Northbound Train and that Son of a Punter

I had to take a break and while I have some pressing issues related to the plummeting Padres I must recap a couple of things first:

---Seeing the Padres on the road
---The kid who blew the U.S. Open

6/14/2009
I will begin with the train ride up to Orange County a week ago Sunday where The Ghost of Sid Going and I saw the Padres willingly submit to a weekend of domination by The The Angels Angels of Anaheim. The game sucked. It was another complete joke of a game where the little border town team looked very minor league. Chris Young completely sh*t the bed.......couldn't find the strike zone..... and when it was all said and done the board read 6-0 with CY headed to the DL.

Chris Young is incredibly frustrating....he is much like leaving the comfort of San Diego to watch the Padres play on foreign turf. I am now 0-5 lifetime.....two 6-0 losses on Sunday afternoon games to the Angels and Dodgers and the woeful sweep in NY last season at the hands of the Yanks. That being said: the fans were really nice, the stadium clean, and the lasting tribute to Nick Adenhart was touching.

When you willingly decide to follow around a AAAA team I suggest the following:

1. Expect that you will lose and it will BE ugly
   
2. Search out an ancillary storyline

Number one was achieved once again quite easily and for number two.......enter The Wade Boggs Effect. I had mentioned the drinking prowess of Wade Boggs prior to setting off for Anaheim and while The Ghost and I pushed the pace early (10:05 am-11:24 am) we fell dismally short of hitting the Magic 70. It was not to be on this given Sunday, however we quickly discovered the joy of taking the train to see a ball game and would like to give kudos to the designer of my Jansport backpack as it seems to have been engineered precisely for the purpose of transporting an 18-pack whilst still in the box.

'Twas good fun and I look forward to 2012 (?) when MLB's infinitely wise inter-league rotation deals us back into the AL West......why would we play a team every year that's but an hour train ride from San Diego? Anyways, I recommend the train for a good time as well as chasing after the Chicken Man and his Magic 70.

6/21/2009
I'm not a big golf guy but I do have a rooting interest in Phil Mickelson so this last Sunday I began my Father's Day by turning on the Open coverage at about 8 am where I caught an interview with then leader Ricky Barnes.

The viewer received all of the necessary Barnes background information: from LA, great Amateur player, high expectations but no results, athletic family......the son of a former NFL Punter:

Yes his father was a punter and he did his ball striking for none other than the New England Patriots. While this Patriot football talk was annoying to listen to as was the flashing of the ol' time football card (crappy facsimile--best I could do) it all became worth while at the end of the interview when Ricky Barnes simultaneously gave me a Happy Father's Day shout-out and a giant middle finger to Patriot Fan when he uttered one of my favorite phrases.......Go Chargers!

Suck it Patriot Fan! (although I can now see that I have opened myself up for ridicule as Barnes ended up choking horrifically down the stretch a la The 2006 edition of the San Diego Chargers who folded against the Patriots......but you can STILL suck it Patriot Fan!)

Go Chargers!

The Wade Boggs Effect: Awe Inspiring

The blogosphere is fantastic because of the connectedness that exists. Within two or three degrees you can stumble on to some of the funniest things......it just takes a couple of clicks.

I was reading a blog that I usually frequent and decided to click one of the many blog links in the reading list. One click beget another and before you could say Miller Lite I was at a Toronto Blue Jays site called Drunk Jays Fans. Their banner was funny enough for me to scroll down and that's where I found the '80s Hitting machine, Wade Boggs.

It's a Blue Jays site. If I see Wade Boggs's head suspended in thin air with a #70 stamped on his throat, you can be sure I'm going to click it to find out, "The Story Of The Boggs Head."

It was a story I had heard before but had somehow misplaced. This tale lay dormant for the last couple of years somewhere between the SARS RV trip to SLO and one of the many nights at the 'Comber. It was a legendary tale of Wade Boggs.....and the Drunk Jays Fans had memorialized it. Here is an excerpt from the post which was a radio interview transcript between a Seattle station and former Yankee, Jeff Nelson...

Sandy: Who would you say drank the most beer out of everyone you ever played with?
Nelson: Easy, Wade Boggs…..easy

Sandy: (laughing) Really!? Wade Boggs?
Nelson: Oh, yeah, without a doubt. I’ve never seen anyone drink as much beer as he did in my life.

Sandy: (laughing) Get outta here, alright, give me an example, like how much did he drink?
Nelson: Oh, I’d say, on a typical road trip, east coast to west coast [Nelly played with Boggs on the Yankees], say a road game to Seattle……Wade would drink anywhere between 50 and 60 beers.

Sandy: NO WAY!! 50 or 60 beers. That is impossible.
Nelson: No, I know…I know how crazy that sounds, and I wouldn’t believe it myself unless I saw him do it…..numerous times. And he drank nothing but Miller Lite.

50 or 60??? How could I have forgotten a story like that? Nelson would go on to explain how Wade went about his mass consumption and then decided to call former teammate Paul Sorrento as a corroborating witness:

Nelly: Hey Paul, good to hear from you man, I haven’t talked to you in a while.
Sorrento: Yeah, what’s it been like, two, three years?

Nelly: Yeah. Hey, Paul, just to clarify now, I didn’t speak to you over the commercial break, and I haven’t talked to you about anything since we last talked a few years ago right?
Sorrento: Yeah, right.

Nelly: Alright Paul, we’ve been talking about Wade Boggs up here today in Seattle.
Sorrento: (laughing) Yeah, ole Wade huh.

Nelly: Yeah, alright Paul, I need you to answer one question for me, truthfully now….How many beers would Wade Boggs drink on an east coast to west coast road trip?
Sorrento: Oh, jeez, (exhaling like a flat tire) I don’t know, like 70.

Now is the time where we hear it straight from Wade Boggs's mouth....

Wade IS lying! If he didn't drink 64 it was obscenely close to it...so close that he couldn't admit it lest he be judged an addict (didn't he have a sex addiction?).

I bring this up for a reason........Alfred.

If Wade Boggs could accomplish this on a 7 hour east coast/west coast swing, what could one do on a round trip Coaster ride from San Diego up to Anaheim sandwiched around a ball game?

Pick up the beer on your way, buddy..........

How 'bout the rest of you? How close have you been to Boggs-like perfection?