GAME 17: King of Legion Drinking

PRE-INTRO 

Two things....

1.  I like the build up. I like to bury the lead and build to the punch line.  Its not happening in this BLOG. 
2.  I'm a big fan of plausible deniability.  In fact, I'm a big fan of anything plausible or deniable for that matter.  But trying to claim that: 

THIS GUY

 AND THIS GUY

Are not in fact the same guy....just ain't gonna fly. 

The Real INTRO

The Beer Bros.

Paul and Steve.

Starsky and Hutch as I've named them.  Its probably somewhat unfair.  I mean, Paul is Starsky ALL FLIPPIN' DAY, but Steve is only really Hutch by default.  Its kind of unfair; especially for a guy who gives so much of himself to his league and his team.  AND Especially if you actually knew the real story of Steve Ross.  Which you will shortly.

Steve likes to tell people that he's from a small town called Nashville, which is just south of Bolton.  Sort of.  Nashville Tennessee is south of Bolton isn't it?  There are a select few people in this town who even know that much of the real Steve Ross.  He's a private man and understandably so.  When you're THAT recognizable, THAT famous, THAT much of an icon, you stay low key so as to not turn your wee little town into a town of paparazzi activity.

Well say hello to the paparazzi, because that all changes today.

Nashville was good to Steve.  Having a nearly perpetual summer he was able to enjoy his first love of baseball pretty close to year 'round.  And with the huge country music community there, it was an area that largely focused on the arts and he was able to exercise his second love too.  Acting!

First the baseball.

Steve Ross, second from the left.  The tallest guy in the front row.  Yeah, I said tallest.  Its not easy to tell from this pic, but Steve was actually pretty angry on this day.  You see, he was a little upset with the kid in the white jeans.  Apparently, you're NEVER supposed to look clean in baseball gere (I mean gear).  About 8 seconds after this picture was taken Steve made certain that there was an appropriate amount of grass stains and mud all over poor Jimmy Edwards cool new white Sergio Valenti jeans.

After years of therapy Jimmy now claims that he deserved it and it toughened him up to become Country Music legend Garth Brooks.

But Jimmy / Garth wouldn't be the only famous person to come out of Nashville. 

With the suspension that followed the 'grass stain' incident, Steve turned his attention to youth acting.  Because theatre ran through the same parks and recreation department in Nashville as did baseball; he needed to change his name or his suspension would follow him for each and every activity.  And thus; the legend of Richard Gere was born.

Steve/Richard's first close call was when he got down to the final two selections in the movie Weird Science. That plumb role of course went to Anthony Michael Hall.  But Steve/Richard remained undaunted.  If anything, he started working harder.  He started working out like a Son-of-a-Gere and before you knew it he went from boy to man.

Yes, Nashville's heart throb was on the verge of going international!  It wasn't long before the face of this Gentleman was causing the knees of women everywhere to go weak.

Meanwhile, while the world was bustling around him and he was popping up on magazine covers EVERYWHERE, he still found a way to have a completely separate and private persona. He took time away from filming to get married to his home town pretty woman (not pictured with respect to Richard's intense need for privacy). 

Here is a pic of the mustachio'd Richard Gere when he was filming the for the movie Internal Affairs.

The dead give away for me was obviously the ball signing night.  We ask the captains to sign a few balls at the beginning of the season for charity give aways, etc.  And one of the 10 I got back from Steve looked like this.  

Someone doesn't "accidentally" sign Richard Gere on a baseball. Was it a slip up?  Was it someone accidentally on purpose wanting to be revealed?  My guess is the later. 

The fame and fortune and climb to stardom was rapid for Richard. His life as the "most desired man in the world" was front page fodder of every magazine.  But through it all, he managed to reveal very little about himself other than what appeared on the silver screen. 

With his wealth assured and neatly tucked away the movies were fewer and farther between as he entered a semi retired state.  Instead of hob-nobbing with the Hollywood crowd he would disappear for great lengths of time.  And now you know where he was.

Collecting trophies in Tottenham Ontario.

Making plays on the diamond.

And Making Fans all over the league!

Like from the Cleats and their fans

The Units and their fans

The Stiffs and their fans!

And of course, the fans all over town!

THE SPEECH

I love it when the Robert plays along with the themes!  Not that it happens very often.  I told him we were doing this whole Richard Gere thing and he went off and wrote a rendition of "Right Here Waiting".  I had to tell him that was a Richard Marx song and had nothing to do with Richard Gere.  He was obviously disappointed, but god love him, he went right back to work on another song.

He came back a few days later with "Good Golly Miss Molly."  I reminded him that was sung by Little Richard, and while on some level is appropriate, it still has nothing to do with Richard Gere.  He was understandably perplexed now and went away with the dogged determination to get this thing right!

The next day he came back with what he called "the perfect song".  The theme from Ghost.  I had to ask, "Why the theme from ghost?"  "Because", says the Robert, "That's the most famous Patrick Swayze movie EVER".

Doug:  We're doing Richard Gere
Rob:  Oh.
Doug:  Yeah
Rob:  Did you change it from Patrick Swayze?
Doug:  No.
Rob:  Can you change it to Patrick Swayze?  Paul Piellusch looks more like Swayze him than Richard Gere anyway.
Doug:  Its not about Paul, its Steve we're focused on.  And its a little late to change the rest of the BLOG.
Rob:  Well, what movie was Robin Williams famous for then?
Doug:  What?  Robin Williams?  Its Richard Gere!
Rob:  Were this Gere fella and Robin Williams in a movie together?
Doug:  Honest to god, your memory is worse by the second.  I need a song!!!
Rob:  Who Are You?
Doug:  Who Are You?  The song by The Who????  What does that have to do with anything at all?
Rob:  No, not the song, "who are you"; I mean literally, WHO THE HECK ARE YOU?
Doug:  Sweet baby Jesus.  Look.  Could you write up the King of Wishful Thinking by Go West?  It was the theme to Pretty Woman which starred Richard Gere....can you make that happen?  PLEASE?
Rob:  Pretty Woman By the Guess Who, not The Who; who sang Who Are You.  And Spirit of the West by the King of Wishful Thinking who was Elvis Aaron Presley. 
Doug:  How is it that you can every single thing wrong in that sentence yet manage to remember Elvis's middle name?
Rob:  Seriously though, WHO ARE YOU?

Music  ===> HERE

King Of Legion Drinking

I don't need to trip over my feet

Just 'cause you've over thrown

And I won't miss the way that you hit off me

Sometimes our gloves are made of stone

If I don't listen to the talk of the town

Then maybe I can fool myself..

I'll hit the ball over you.. I know I will

I'll pretend my line drive's not sinking

And I'll tell myself the ball's over you

'cause I'm the king of Legion Drinking

I am the king of Legion Drinking

I refuse to look at my shoes

That's not how it's going to be

And I deny the tears in my eyes

Why do you hit the ball at me?... no

Now that you have made a hole in my glove

And now I've got to fool myself..

I'll hit the ball over you.. I know I will

I'll pretend my line drive's not sinking

And I'll tell myself, I'll hit it over you

'cause I'm the king of Legion Drinking

 

I'll get over you.. I know I will

I'll pretend my line drive's not sinking

And I'll tell myself, I'll hit it over you

'cause I'm the king of Legion Drinking

I will never, never drop a beer for you

I'll hit it over you

If I don't listen to the talk of the town

Then maybe I can fool myself..

I'll hit over you.. I know I will

I'll pretend my line drives not sinking

And I'll tell myself, I'll hit over you

'cause I'm the king of Legion Drinking

I'm the king of Legion Drinking

I'll hit over you.. I know I will

You made a hole in my glove

But I won't drop a beer for you

I'll be the king of Legion Drinking

I'll hit over you..

I'll pretend my average is still rising

'cause I've got no more beers for you

I'm the king of Legion Drinking..

THE GAME

Game #1 this season.  We had the national anthem sung.  We had a rocket. We had player introductions.  We had a win. 

After the game or maybe between innings I was chatting with Beer Bros. captain Paul Piellusch. 

Paul:  I was just talking to Mr. Ross
Me:  Oh ya?
Paul:  He said that he doesn't want any of these Grisslie shenanigans when we play you
Me:  Okay....we always ask the other team 1st anyway.  Its rattles some people so I understand.
Paul:  I, however will be deeply disappointed if there aren't Grisslie shenanigans when we play you!
Me:  Well..........can you help me get some pictures?

And so starts another BLOG.  Two months in the making.  Its not the work, effort or anything else, all that is the fun stuff...its keeping a secret that long!  Walking by a guy (Steve in this case) or talking about something completely unrelated and not giving it up.  Not easy.  Especially for me.  

Anyway, this one was as fun for me as the Pie man BLOG, the Chuck Cragg story, The Starsky BLOG and a hand full of others.....Cheers. 

Oh ya.  There was a game. 

This was pretty Grisslie-esque.  6 run 1st inning.  6-0 through 4.  Lead blown in the 6th, come back to win 12-9 in the seventh.

Good defense from both squads throughout.  Hopefully I get some time to update actual game stuff today, but in summary, the Grisslies are back to .500 for the first time since our record was 2-2.  Honestly, from 4-8-1 getting back to .500 was a long shot.

Now we have some Tap Masters that have us in their sights.  hmmmmm.


Things to check out:

Check out the Donini Three Stars of the game here ==> STARS
Check out the Dislocated Joints game notes from DTBB & Terry Doucet ==> JOINTS
Check out the Tap Master's game notes from Jason Bowers ==> Tapped Out
Check out the Hurtin' Units BLOG from Jimmer ==> Hannibal Lecter
The League's Official Website ==> League