Good morning!
The orange-vested parking lot attendant motioned me to stop the car and formed a rectangle with her thumbs and index fingers. “Do you have a parking pass?” she asked.
“No,” I replied.
“Go down and take a left,” she said, pointing toward a women’s rugby game that was being contested between UMass and Boston College. I parked next to the cinder track, locked the car and started my trek toward the other side of McGuirk Alumni Stadium.
“We gotta walk all the way over there?” I heard a fan say to his friend. “You got a big winning team, that’s one thing …”
Right, and it’s another to come off a 3-9 season, ask fans to park a quarter-mile from the ticket office and raise the prices. I’d hoped for $10 seats but figured probably $20 — the same as last year — but they’d bumped the cost up to $25.
When I told Gary Maynard it was $5 more than I wanted to pay he said, “I snuck in once.”
“How?” I asked.
“I followed the band into the stadium.”
Easy for him to do, I laughed, “You’re a music teacher.”
Maynard’s retired from teaching at the Eaglebrook School in Deerfield.
While we talked a contingent of Franklin County fans walked past, including Ron Puchalski, Brett Gewanter and his boys, and Tom Hecklinger and his wife.
From beyond the turnstiles I noticed a cop with his arms folded across his chest, his sunglasses made it feel like he was staring right at me.
It was a slow day. There wasn’t a scalper in sight and only about 10 people were waiting in line to buy tickets. I waited for 30 minutes but nary a fan held his hand aloft with an extra ducat.
A couple stood motionless near the curb and both had the 100-yard stare. “Waiting for someone?” I asked.
“We’re looking for cheap tickets,” she said.
A parent wearing a Florida International University game jersey couldn’t find the “Will Call” window.
“Over there,” I said, and began walking alongside him. “What’s going on with FIU this year?” I asked.
“Same as you,” he answered. “Trying to win a football game.”
Quarterback Ross Comis’s father was standing in line with his son Lou Jr., his wife Lisa and their daughter Leah. “Ross isn’t playing you know,” he said.
I was shocked. “Why not?”
He told me his son was injured. He told me how, where, and how badly his son was hurt and then he said, “Don’t write anything.”
I hate when that happens.
It made sense why the point spread had been off the board all week. The wise guys knew something and hadn’t posted the spread until Thursday. When they did, FIU was favored by one point.
It was easy money for bettors to take the point and take UMass. The winless Panthers had lost eight of their last nine road games and the trend continued with a 21-13 loss in Amherst. The Miami Herald reported that the blemish had “spoiled FIU’s best chance for a win this year” and dropped coach Ron Turner’s career record at FIU to 10-29. “(His) latest setback might be career-threatening,” the paper reported.
The announced attendance of 12,202 included several hundred students who were frisked and depossessed of whatever leftovers they’d brought from the tailgating party. The cops had broken up the school-sanctioned event before kickoff and most of the dispersees had decided to file into the stadium.
They stayed for one quarter and left. “It’s a mass exodus of students!” exclaimed the WMUA broadcaster, sounding like he was describing a long touchdown play.
I hadn’t asked for a media pass because I didn’t want to sit in the press box and feel beholden to write something nice. What kind of story would that be?
Without a scalper or anyone with an extra ticket I decided to try and slip through one of the parking lot gates on the south side of the stadium. On the east side a young woman straightened up and gave me the don’t-mess-with-me-I have-a-walkie-talkie look.
“Are you here the whole game?” I asked.
“I’m not sure,” she answered.
“Do you know if they open the gates at halftime?”
“I don’t know.”
“They used to,” I stammered, and she simply smiled.
On the other side of the lot a kid with curly dark hair was lazing on a foldout chair enjoying the warm late summer sun. He snapped to his feet when he heard my shoes crunching on the pebbly parking lot surface.
Again I asked if they let people in at halftime but added: “To see the band?”
“They didn’t give me all the details,” he said smiling. “All I know is I’m supposed to be here collecting tickets and doing my job.”
“That you are,” I said.
I walked back to the car, turned on the game, stopped for a steak at the Country Corner in Bernardston and watched the second half of the game on NESN.
Former Red Sox pitcher Al Nipper once pondered the importance of spring training. “It doesn’t matter in March if you suck in April,” said Nipper, who finished 46-50 with a no-hitter in seven seasons from 1983-90.
No one had Rick Porcello pegged to be a Cy Young winner with his 9.77 ERA in spring training but his 21 wins leads the majors. Porcello’s one of several worthy candidates to win the 10th Player Award. Others include Hanley Ramirez, Mookie Betts and Jackie Bradley Jr.
My vote’s for JBJ with his 26 home runs, 87 RBIs, 12 outfield assists and a paltry $546,500 salary.
HanRam has 28 home runs and 108 RBIs, but $20 million players are expected to produce. After last year’s poor showing the Red Sox pampered Ramirez and it’s worked. Making Hanley feel special makes Hanley a special player.
The Baltimore Sun reported on Thursday that Cal Ripken Jr. has put his 25,000-square foot home in central Maryland on the market for $12.5 million. The property includes two four-car garages, a 10-person spa, a one-acre pond with a fishing pier, a locker room, basketball court and a full-size baseball field.
Northfield’s Randy Foster likes keeping NMH alums in the news: “Oliver Drake, ’06, pitched two scoreless innings for the Baltimore Orioles in their loss Thursday (Sept. 15) to the Rays … A great young man who has been on campus numerous times and whom I had the pleasure of meeting.”
According to baseball-reference.com, the 6-foot-4, 215-pound Drake is a Worcester native who attended the U.S. Naval Academy after he graduated from NMH.
Veteran Recorder sports scribe Mark Durant reports that all wagers were voided after Clemson’s 59-0 win against South Carolina State last week. “The coaches agreed to shorten the final two quarters to 12 minutes because of the score. Vegas betting rules state that a game must go at least 55 minutes for action or all bets are refunded.”
The Bulldogs raked in $350,000 for getting clobbered before 80,000 fans inside Clemson’s Memorial Stadium on the Avenue of Champions.
Baseball attendance is down by 10 percent since its record-breaking season in 2007. It used to be just win baby, but only 13,888 turned out in Cleveland to watch the division-leading Indians beat the Royals on Wednesday.
Anyone watching the Red Sox sweep the O’s saw that half of the 20,000 fans at Camden Yards were Red Sox fans. Maybe that’s because of the tough neighborhood, or maybe O’s fans sense their team can’t wait to break out the golf clubs.
Squibbers: Don’t rush to make the 11:55 a.m. showing of Sully at the Hadley theatres. There’s 25 minutes of movie previews until the show takes off. … A Yankees season ticket that cost $750 in 1987 cost $16,200 this season. … Rookie catcher Gary Sanchez hit his 19th home run in 43 games on Wednesday. “He is the San-chino!” proclaimed John Sterling. “Gary is Scary!” … The fans loved it, but AL East managers were dumb to pitch to David Ortiz during a pennant race. Ortiz has walloped five HRs this month off O’s, Blue Jays and Rays pitchers. If Chicago and Boston meet in the World Series, Cubs manager Joe Maddon will be sure to play the walking game with Big Papi. … It won’t be long before self-driving tractors are furrowing the fields and farmers are propping scarecrows in the driver’s seat. … I’d like to say I knew Jacoby Brissett was NFL material the night I saw him play for Dwyer High School in Palm Beach Gardens, but I didn’t have a clue. Neither did Florida coach Will Muschamp, who started Jeff Driskel and let Brissett transfer to NC State. … St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Famer Stan “The Man” Musial had 1,830 hits at home, and 1,830 hits on the road. … In case you missed it, four Air Force pilots were reprimanded for flying too low over the Carloina Panthers’ practice field on Aug. 29. The pilots were close enough for players to see them waving.
Chip Ainsworth is an award-winning columnist who has penned his observations about sports for four decades in the Pioneer Valley.