As a revelation that should surprise absolutely no one, I’m not a big sports guy.
Sure, I pitched for the TIME Magazine softball team for 12 years and even became reasonably proficient at getting my pitches across the plate (my nickname on the mound was “Speed Metal,” despite it being, ostensibly, “slow pitch” softball), but, if I’m being honest, my involvement in same had more to do with the promise of beer and girls after each game. Here I was -- circa 1998 or so -- looking suitably awkward and ill-equipped near the pitcher's mound.
But in terms if watching professional sports of the more celebrated varieties, I have absolutely zero interest in football or basketball. I, of course, fully understand baseball, but don’t really care about it. I don’t mind soccer, and hockey at least has the prospect of becoming entertainingly violent, but in none of these instances am I invested in any meaningful way.
I used to be way more vocal about my disdain for sports, until I realized that no one actually cares about that (nor should they) and that all I was probably doing was pissing off friends of mine who do like sports. So, yeah, I’ve stopped doing that, kinda.
Anyway, a reader named Steven recently wrote in and, along with some encouraging things to say about a few recent posts, postulated an intriguing query. Steven writes:
In the mid 2000s, I went to a show at the Bowery Ballroom with some friends.. went bar hopping afterwards. Ended up late night at a bar somewhere on the L.E.S. that was very cool, and I have not been able to find it again (if it’s still there) or remember the name. A long skinny room with the bar in the right side as you walk in, old but somewhat clean. But what made it very distinctive was it was adorned with Brooklyn Dodger photos. From front to back. Ebbits Field, players, World Series pictures.. I remember the bartender telling me the bar had been a Dodger bar for 50/60 years at that point. Does that ring a bell for you? Not a lot to go on. Just a shot in the dark to someone who seems to know that city inside and out.
Now, again, not being versed in professional baseball (neither National League nor American League … not that I even understand the difference between those two, much less do I care), I cannot say that even if I’d drank myself stupid in the very boozer he’s referring to, would I have probably noticed a hodgepodge of Brooklyn Dodgers paraphernalia adorning the walls.
But this, dear readers, is where YOU come in – who remembers a divey-but-“clean” Lower East Side bar festooned with Brooklyn Dodger ephemera….batter up!!!
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