With that being said, the following is what I perceived to be the seventh best story that was submitted. If you don’t like it, don’t worry because there’s a better one coming tomorrow. If you do like it, be excited that there’s an even better one coming tomorrow. Either way, here’s a look into Zac Jackson's life as a benchwarmer.
Sure, I also wanted to one day be president of the Los Angeles Lakers, unseat Vince McMahon as president/announcer for the WWF, get married to my sixth-grade girlfriend and eventually host the 6 p.m. SportsCenter. But my first goal was to be the biggest star point guard little Manchester High School had ever seen.
I shot free throws in my driveway all day. I watched basketball on TV all night. I remember watching a young Chris Fowler host a show on ESPN called “Scholastic Sports America” featuring Jason Kidd and believing that some day I would be so good that ESPN would send its cameras to Manchester to film me. To talk to me. To let me share my greatness with the rest of the world, because everybody was watching Scholastic Sports America, right?
Turns out I wasn’t that good. Several not-so-funny things happened on my way to the NBA, including me not working hard enough, other kids stealing the ball from me, my own father telling me I sucked, my coach keeping me on the bench because I was too short to see over the halfcourt trap defenses the other teams kept throwing at me, and me making 90 straight free throws in practice but always missing the ones I shot in the game. Truth is the only crunch-time baskets I ever made in my life came in my driveway while playing one-on-one against my brother.
When I was 11 and he was 4.
So even though I adjusted and tempered my goals, I was still convinced I’d make it in basketball. I knew one day my high school girlfriend would have big boobs and wear my letterman’s jacket around town, and that was OK because I’d have a fancy Manchester Basketball sweatsuit to wear with a necklace and my number, 11, as the charm. Man I worshipped the older guys who did that. I knew someday I’d own the Manchester assist record, play in college and just generally be awesome at life.
Things didn’t quite work out that way, but I think I eventually became pretty good at being a benchwarmer – so good that all these years later I can take this opportunity to claim I was a better benchwarmer than you. Listen, your blog is great. Your jokes are great. You’ve carved quite a niche, and I’ve enjoyed reliving some of my youth (that’s what washed up American males such as myself love to do more than anything) through your exploits.
But you were not a better benchwarmer than I was, and I’ve broken down our matchup below. Our rivalry begins now.
THE EARLY DAYS: There was a time when I truly thought I was the greatest sixth-grade basketball player in America. Maybe I was. I scored off the bounce, in the lane, from well beyond the arc and played two or three steps ahead of most other kids. What eventually started to happen is the other kids started not only learning how to play, but also growing muscles and hair on their legs and upper lips. It seemed like every game I was a bit weaker, another half-step behind, etc. And I was. I still made the team when I got older because I knew the game, dated the head coach’s daughter (the smart take from the strong) and could make a wide-open 3-pointer, but I wasn’t any good. From your stories, I’ve come to learn that you hit puberty at age 8 (or 9 years earlier than I did) and only dominated on the local basketball floors because the other kids couldn’t physically keep up with you. Ho hum, ho hum.
Advantage: Me
SUPPORTING CAST: My Manchester High teammates were good guys and great friends, but they never were anything too special. They’re all successful now, but nobody’s really rich, has a really hot wife or a really awesome kind of drug problem. My favorite teammate was this white guy named Dane who not only never passed the ball (even when quadruple teamed) but sported a curly little afro, bobbed his head from side to side when he walked and off the court wore a Mr. T Starter Kit around his neck and on top of his tight black t-shirt. No lie. You not only get to play with a big-time NBA prospect in Evan Turner, but you coined an outstanding nickname for him (The Villain) and have a dedicated army of Trillionaires willing to help you ruin his day at a moment’s notice. Plus, you’ve played with a ton of other big-time players who may not ever let you inside their inner circles, but have made you good enough and let you close enough that you’ll be making occasional appearances on Sports Century and absolutely dominating church league play a year from now like The Villain will be dominating the likes of Gardner Webb and Fort Wayne State a month from now.
Advantage: Titus
DURING PRACTICE: My fellow benchwarmers and I called ourselves the Scrub Club and we always enjoyed standing in the same spot against the stage during practice while the starters got their run. My friend Joe and I would stand there and jokingly trash the coach for keeping us on the bench when we had talent to be McDonald’s All Americans, something I’d aimed to be since those early SSA episodes with Chris Fowler. Since our All-American Days ended Joe and I have combined to put on 170 pounds and make it to our 30s unmarried, uninteresting and still telling high school basketball stories when we do get together. Now we get winded just watching basketball. I’ve never seen what you do in practice, but I’d imagine it goes like this: Make a joke most of the team doesn’t understand, make a fart noise, get swatted by Dallas Lauderdale, get funny looks from The Villain, make the coaches rue the day they let you walk on, repeat process next practice.
Advantage: Me
EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES: If my quickly-failing memory serves me correctly, one of our rival schools, Tuslaw, had the hottest cheerleaders around. I was particularly in love with one named Kristen Kidd (and I very much enjoyed my extended time on the bench allowed me to stare at her). I believe I gave her my pager number once, but almost 12 years later she’s yet to find the time to call me. You, on the other hand, had a relationship with Erin Andrews. Come to think of it, I never got ANY girl to ever call me back until I started listening to country music. You were way ahead of me on that one. Plus, I still wear a pager.
Advantage: Titus
SIDELINE OBSERVATIONS: I stayed in the game, calling out plays the other team would run and answering any questions my coach might have had. Sadly, he didn’t ask “would you like to go in?” very often. I have this sick photographic memory, too, which helped me remember what certain opponents liked to do in certain situations. Today, when I run into someone our team used to play against in a personal or professional setting, I almost always remember him and what kind of player he was. Just the other night some guy in the bar told me had 17 points and 11 rebounds against us our junior year. He was lying through his recently-bleached teeth, but if 12 years later he needs that to redeem himself, who am I to cut him down? You stare down cheerleaders, fumble with a towel and try to get on camera. I don’t see much help to the team there.
Advantage: Me
ON-COURT CONTRIBUTIONS: Knowing my time on the court was going to be short, I always launched a long 3-pointer as soon as I got in the game. Not many of them went in, but I wasn’t deterred. On senior night I got the ball with about 8 seconds left and our team up by a bunch. I dribbled the length of the court and –despite being about 5-foot-9 – leapt off one foot and attempted a tomahawk dunk. My vertical wasn’t any more than 15 inches, but my arms were long enough to reach the rim. I slammed the ball into the front of the rim and fell backwards, sending the ball to the roof while everyone in the gym laughed like crazy. Except my head coach. You? Your whole goal is to record a trillion, which means avoiding recordable action of any sort. Nice blog name, terrible way to play.
Advantage: Me
APPEARANCE: These days I’m overweight, out of shape and battling several addictions and afflictions including a bad back and excess ear wax. Back then I was scary skinny, lacking muscle definition and always had the same buzzcut on my disproportionately large head. You may not be pulling the most beautiful ladies on campus, Titus, but you’re in shape and you can grow the type of mustache in a week that I couldn’t grow in a year. Plus, you get to stroll in around in a different Nike, Ohio State Basketball sweatsuit every day and I have to dress like a grown up five or six days a week.
Advantage: Titus
POSTSCRIPT: The Manchester assist record is now held by someone named Jackson, but it’s my little brother. We never won any championships. I never got a letterman’s jacket or a big-busted girlfriend, and I’m now the absolute last pick in the gym when I make my twice-annual appearances at the local old man’s open gym. Sticking with basketball at THE Ohio State University has allowed you to see the country on someone else’s dime, do Bill Simmons podcasts, hang out with Greg Oden, jump around elevators in fancy Minneapolis hotels and give ultra-uptight NCAA people even more reasons to be ultra uptight. More than anything, you’ve let a star-obsessed culture know that walk-ons are people, too. Well done, sir.
Advantage: Titus
CLOSING CEREMONIES: In the four or so minutes I got to play on senior night, I threw an alley-oop from halfcourt for a two-handed dunk to my good friend Justin and I tried that dunk of my own. When I fell back on my head just after my dunk attempt and had my moment of clarity/reflection while staring at the ceiling, I realized that I’d failed to become The Guy That Every Little Kid In My Town Looked Up To because of basketball; strangely, I was very much at peace with that. Now some of the younger guys who were wide-eyed kids at that game still know me as The One Goofball Who Tried To Dunk, and to that I say, hey, I might as well be remembered for something. You, on the other hand, won’t even get in a game this year because Coach Matta is scared of what you might write about it. Sure, you’ll get a big cheer from the crowd on your senior night and give that stupid-looking smile you give every time the cameras come around, but will your parents really be proud?
Advantage: Me
Final tally: Me 5, You 4.
Keep up the good work, Titus. But consider yourself dunked on.
I’m of the opinion that the process of reflecting plays a pivotal role in the maturation and development of a society or an individual. Before we can get to where we want to be in this life we must first understand where we currently are. Anyone who saw what I assume is the Asian version of Pocahontas can tell you that without reflection it’s impossible to know that you are wearing just a little too much makeup on your face. The importance of reflection explains why the developers of the Taj Mahal and the Lincoln Memorial chose to place reflecting pools near their monuments and also explains why The Villain spends virtually every waking moment looking at himself in a mirror.
(By the way, I bet the guy who invented the mirror had a hard time convincing people that he wasn’t full of himself…
“Hey guys, I just invented something that let’s you look at yourself whenever you want.”
“Uhh…why would you want to do that? What’s so special about you that makes you want to look at yourself?”
“Nothing, it’s just that, ya know, I thought it would be cool if you could see if your hair was sticking up or something.”
“Either that or you thought it would be cool to constantly check out your flawless six pack from a better angle, you arrogant prick.”
Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s how the initial conversation went.)
As this blog approaches its one year anniversary/birthday (not really sure which term is appropriate in this situation), I thought it was important for me to reflect on how far it has come. When I started this blog, I did so out of boredom from the combination of living by myself and nothing being on TV. I had no intention of writing it for much longer than a month and my only real goal was to expose a handful of people to my favorite YouTube videos. Now one year later, I’ve ruined two Simmons podcasts, I’ve been denied by the NBA (and countless women), and I’ve had my embarrassing combination of serious face and faux hawk on the front page of Yahoo.com. I’ve achieved infinite times more success with this thing than I ever could have dreamed of and absolutely none of it could have been possible without you. This is why I’m devoting an entire week to give back to the Trillion Man March.
Some of you may have missed my last post and in doing so didn’t read the announcement about how I’m claiming October 18th through October 24th to be Club Trillion’s Fan Appreciation Week (still waiting for the government to officially declare it). I outlined a contest that prompted the Trillion Man March to send in stories about how you used to and/or still are riding the bench on your sports team or just in life in general (if you missed it, go back and read the latter part of the last post for all the rules and regs). So far I’ve received a solid number of entries, but I’m yet to receive one that I think is the unquestionable winner. With that in mind, you only have until October 15th to send your story in, so get to it. If it doesn’t suck, I’ll publish it and you can brag to the two other people in your circle of friends who would think that it’s remotely impressive that you got something published on Club Trillion.
In the last post, I also promised that there would be much more to Fan Appreciation Week than just the writing contest, and if there’s anything my countless failed relationships have taught me it’s that lying is an awful way to tell someone you love them. And since I love each and every one of you, I’m going to stick to my promise and outline everything else that will make up Fan Appreciation Week right now.
Free T-Shirts
Even though NCAA rules prohibit me from taking free stuff from just about anybody, I’m pretty confident that I’m permitted to give out free stuff to you all. I had ten t-shirts with the CLUB TRIL logo made up (I would have had more, but these things cost money and money is something I simply don’t have) and will be distributing them throughout Fan Appreciation Week. There is, however, some bad news to go with the t-shirt handout.
I’ve thought about how to hand out the t-shirts and every idea I have come up with involves me using my Twitter account in some fashion. This is bad news because I’m guessing most of you don’t have Twitter accounts due to the fact that “Twitter sux” and you “don’t know why anyone would care that I’m having eggs and toast for breakfast”. I completely understand your frustration but unfortunately, Twitter is really the only way I can give out the t-shirts because it’s the only fair way to do it. In most cases, I’ll post a Club Trillion trivia question on Twitter and the first person to e-mail me with the correct answer will get the shirt. I also plan on hiding shirts on campus and revealing their location via Twitter. Because Twitter is a live stream site, it makes the most sense to do it that way.
If you really want a t-shirt but don’t have a Twitter account, I suggest making one to follow me (here’s my Twitter page) during Fan Appreciation Week and deleting it at the end of the week. I know it’s a hassle, but it honestly won’t take longer than five minutes to create an account (if you’re old, have your kids make one for you) and there really isn’t a better way for me to hand these things out. If you do make an account and follow only me, you actually will have a better chance of winning a shirt than those who are following more people because only my tweets will show up on your feed, which means it’s less likely for you to miss the t-shirt announcements. Just something to think about.
All E-mails Get A Personal Response
Anybody who has ever sent me an e-mail has surely noticed that I respond to them almost as frequently as I shave my body hair (so about once a week). It’s something I’m not really all that proud of (the lack of responding, I mean), which is why I thought that during Fan Appreciation Week I would personally respond to any and all e-mails sent to the Club Trillion e-mail account. Due to the large number of e-mails I get on a daily basis (I consider more than one to be a large number), I usually put off responding as long as possible and then end up with the monumental task of responding to tons of e-mails all at once. It’s a side to blogging that I never prepared myself for and I wish I had a better method, but as it stands I continue to let all sorts of e-mails get lost in the shuffle and then come up with various excuses as to why I forgot to respond. Until now.
Fan Appreciation Week will give you the opportunity to ask me just about anything you want and be completely assured that I will respond. Some of you have already taken it upon yourself to ask me something only to go months without hearing anything back from me. If that’s the case, now is the perfect opportunity to ask again. I vow to personally and truthfully write a response to every e-mail, which may sound like a pretty lame aspect of Fan Appreciation Week, but in reality will probably be a pretty hefty workload for me. So send in your thoughts, suggestions, questions, and pictures you took of yourself in your bathroom mirror with your cell phone and I’ll do whatever it takes to write you back.
Letter of Recommendation for Anyone Applying to tOSU
Of the people who have sent me an e-mail in the past, a good portion of you did so because you were asking me to write something for you to use in some way. The most frequent request was for me to write something for you to put on your own blog, but some of you requested that I write for your fantasy football league, write some sort of speech for you, or rewrite Swingers as a play for you and your theatre class to use in your end-of-the-year high school production (I obviously made up that last one, because I definitely would have done that had anybody actually asked). Anyway, I declined virtually every request, because I didn’t have the time to do all of them and I didn’t want to play favorites and choose one or two. Basically I took the same approach towards these requests as I did with the general e-mails, which is why none of you ever heard from me after you sent me your request.
Now that Fan Appreciation Week is around the corner, I’ve decided to loosen up a little bit and offer my extremely one-dimensional and completely amateur writing services to a certain demographic of the Trillion Man March. I’m not sure if it’s too late for high school seniors to apply to colleges, but if it’s not, I’m offering to write a letter of recommendation for any high school senior applying to Ohio State. I’m pretty confident that you don’t need letters of recommendation to get into tOSU, which is why I think this aspect of Fan Appreciation Week will be doubly awesome. Also, I’m pretty confident having a letter of recommendation from me will be as helpful towards your chances of getting in as having a letter of recommendation from Mike Tyson. I would be pretty terrified for the future of Ohio State if the admissions people really consider a letter from me to be beneficial to an applicant’s cause. Come to think of it, there’s a pretty solid chance that my letter will actually be detrimental to your chances of getting in, so I’d think twice about asking for help from me if I were you. Either way, the offer has been put on the table and it’s your decision to take it or leave it.
Podcast With A Member of The Trillion Man March
This is definitely the biggest gamble of Fan Appreciation Week, but I’ve got my fingers crossed that it’s a gamble that’s going to pay off. I plan on recording a podcast with a random one of you and plan on discussing just about anything. Unfortunately, like the t-shirt giveaway, if you want a shot at being a podcast guest you are going to have to have a Twitter account. I’ll post on my Twitter at some point in time during Fan Appreciation Week that the first person to call in will become the podcast guest. Again, like the t-shirt giveaway, the live stream feature of Twitter makes it the only logical way to choose who will be the podcast guest, so I apologize to all of you who really hate Twitter or don’t completely understand it. If you really want a t-shirt or want to be a podcast guest that badly, you should be willing to take the five minutes to create an account anyway, so it shouldn’t be that big of a deal. All I ask is that if you do become the podcast guest, please don’t suck. I’m already doing all I can to make the podcast boring, so I’d appreciate it if you brought at least one remotely interesting thing to the conversation.
Even though I want this to be a humorous and completely unserious blog, I do want to thank each and every one of you for being an integral part of the success and growth of what I’ve created. At this time last year I was a nobody who was underachieving in the classroom and on the basketball court, but now I’m a nobody with a blog who’s underachieving in the classroom and on the basketball court. It’s been a fun first year that has quite literally changed my life. I feel incredibly blessed to have the chance to play practice for a top notch Division I basketball program and be able to tell stupid stories on here that people apparently enjoy reading. Fan Appreciation Week may turn out to be an awful idea, but even if it is, it will completely be worth it to me because I think it’s important for all of you to know that I love you so much that I’d pick you up from the airport or help you move into a new apartment (please don’t hold me to this). God bless the Trillion Man March and God bless America.
Streak for the Cash Group Leader: T. Rittenhouse, and T. Roche (streaks of 15)
Streak for the Cash Group Loser: J. Terry (streak of 11)
Your awesome YouTube was sent in to me by Mitch B. There’s your shout-out, Mitch. And here’s your video.
Your Friend and My Favorite,
Mark Titus
Club Trillion Founder
Thursday, October 8, 2009
The Benefits (and Risks)
of Friendships at Work
Most employees working in a non-virtual environment spend a great deal of time with their co-workers and are likely to develop friendships over time. While friendships in the workplace can increase job satisfaction and make going to work more fun there are also other benefits. Co-workers that become friends can provide rich feedback on work-related matters and encourage you to do better; providing that extra push to further yourself at work.1
However, not all researchers/authors have agreed that workplace friendships are beneficial. If your workplace friendship is beyond casual where you are also friends outside of the workplace this can cause potential problems. Spending time together outside of work enables you to see another side of your friend’s personality and vice versa. Some friends may become more accustomed to the “outside of work personality” and lose professional courtesy when engaging with one another at work. Another potential risk is if a personal friendship is tainted outside of the workplace. A fight or disagreement could potentially lead to poor communication and a lack of productivity. 2
What to do? I think the benefits outweigh the risks. Having a source of support and encouragement at work is healthy. However, I do believe that a balance of professionalism and friendship is needed. One suggestion is to leave strong friendships outside of work and keep to more casual friendships with your co-workers.
I need to apologize. It has been almost a month since the last podcast was published. Many of you probably said "good riddance," but to the 25,000 people who have subscribed to it, I need to tell you that the absence has been unacceptable. And completely Keller's fault.
We ran into some technical problems with the last two podcasts we taped that I'm not completely convinced couldn't be fixed by someone who didn't spend all day taking Sporcle quizzes and playing checkers on Skype. Nonetheless, when combined with basketball and classes starting up, it didn't leave much time to tape podcasts. The first podcast we taped with our old high school friend Drew Storen (of Hagerstown fame) couldn't be salvaged, so we're retaping it, but after a week of puzzled looks at the computer screen, we were able to get this podcast with my old teammate Byron Mullens to finally work.
So pardon the occasional cutting out of my microphone (if anyone has any suggestions as to what's causing it, let me know) and enjoy the podcast, where we talk about Ohio State basketball, Keller's Life and Times of K-Smoove, and the famous BW3's story that inspired half of America to tell me that the third W stood for "weck".
I consider Photoshopping Byron's mustache on myself to be one of life's simpler pleasures
Another podcast should be out within a week or so, and we're working on lining up some really cool guests for the future. If you have any suggestions (that are realistic), send them in and we'll see what we can do. Also, don't forget that October 15th is the deadline to submit your Fan Appreciation week story, so if you've got one and it doesn't suck, send it in to ClubTrillion@gmail.com and you might make the cut.
Social responsibility and “going green” are new trends of the new Millennium amongst the general public and within the business world. There are many ways to pledge your commitment to the sustainability of the global environment all while getting fellow colleagues and employees excited and engaged in this beneficial endeavour.
As a new member at Life Strategies, I have had the wonderful opportunity to be a part of our newly initiated “green committee.” There are a number of ways in which Life Strategies has been a “green” business since its beginning, but the goals of this newly instated “green committee” are to ensure that these green practices are maintained, others are adopted, and others are promoted in a manner that encourages other businesses to contribute to the sustainability of the environment.
At Life Strategies we: • Work from remote offices which reduces the amount of fuel emissions • The majority of our work is produced in digital format; significantly reducing the amount of paper used • Print on the reverse side of previously printed on paper when we print for internal purposes • Conduct bi-monthly staff meetings online, also reducing emissions • Have an in-house recycling program where we recycle paper products and drinking containers • Provide educational services online with the majority of learning resources in digital format resulting in the reduction of printed paper products • Provide publications on flash drives; not just printed versions
Do you recognize the impact your efforts can make? How are you and your workplace going green?
For immediate release…..(RED DEER, ALBERTA ) High Speed Rail Canada in cooperation with the City of Red Deer, Red Deer County and the Red Deer Chamber of Commerce are hosting on a high speed rail educational seminar for the public in Red Deer on Wednesday, October 14th 2009 from 5:30pm to 9:00pm at Red Deer County’s Council Chambers, 38106 Range Road, 275, Red Deer County. The guest speakers for the event have been finalized.
High Speed Rail Canada,( http://highspeedrail.ca ) a citizen's national advocacy group dedicated to the education on, and the implementation of, high speed trains in Canada, will be in Red Deer for its 4th in a series of Canada wide public seminars on high speed rail.The seminar speakers will consist of: the President and CEO of Alberta High Speed Rail - William Cruickshanks, Vice President of Alstom Transportation Canada - Ashley Langford and Alberta Central Rail Historian Paul Pettypiece. Bios of the speakers are available at the High Speed Rail Canada website.( http://highspeedrail.ca ) .
Paul Langan, Founder of High Speed Rail Canada states, " We have put together a list of speakers that are knowledgeable about the Calgary-Edmonton rail corridor. With the presence of Alstom Transportation, the largest manufacturer of high speed trains in the world, this promises to be an exciting event.”
Residents will have a chance to ask Mr. Cruickshanks and Mr. Langford questions during a panel discussion after the presentations. Modern high speed rail videos will be shown. There is no cost to attend the seminar but seating is limited so pre-registration is highly recommended.
Participants can register by calling or emailing Lindsey Hutton at the Red Deer Chamber of Commerce at 403-347-4491 lhutton@reddeerchamber.com
This blog post is the second of a two part entry about why this past summer was the best of my life. By my own admission, it sucks. I know it sucks (so don’t tell me) and I’m fine with it sucking because I wrote it for myself and only chose to publish it so the diehard members of the Trillion Man March wouldn’t call me lazy in a bombardment of complaining e-mails. I wanted to chronicle an action packed time in my life so I could look back in the future and remember what I did, making this more of a diary/journal than an entertainment-oriented blog post. As I said in the previous post, this should be the last entry that’s way off-topic, because basketball is now in full swing and I already have plenty of material from the past couple weeks that I could write about. With that being said, there is a pretty big announcement at the end of this post, so make sure you at least check that out (I put “STOP SCROLLING” in bold at the bottom of the entry as a heads up for you, should you choose to bypass the blog post altogether). Make sure you also check out this sweet new YouTube video I found. Pretty awesome, isn’t it?
I’m beginning to notice that it is becoming increasingly harder for me to buy a jumbo pack of tube socks at Wal-Mart without at least five people coming up to me and saying something along the lines of “Mark, when I think of America I immediately think of morbidly obese people and AC Slater’s jheri curl. But then I think of you, because you are everything the stars and bars stand for.” Based on what I regularly write on this blog, I completely understand where these sentiments are coming from. I like to think of myself as the consummate American who listens to country music, supports the troops, and only speaks one language because I’m unapologetically ethnocentric. Sure I like Japanese game shows and I follow the English Premier League, but all it takes is being around me for five minutes to know that I’m practically as American as they come.
Let’s do a little role play. You and the hot babe with zero personality or intelligence that you are dating are walking down the street. You see a seven-year-old girl selling lemonade for a quarter at an intersection and you decide to get some. You hand her a dollar, ask for two cups, and tell her to keep the change. You and your girlfriend drink your lemonade (that more than likely tastes like a combination of tap water and sweat) and continue walking. You notice your girlfriend has a single tear rolling down her cheek, so you ask her if she really thought the lemonade was that bad. She responds with, “No, it wasn’t the lemonade. I was just thinking that that girl and her lemonade stand are more American than apple pie.” You add on, “Yeah, apple pie and baseball.” Your girlfriend chimes back with, “Except baseball really isn’t all that American.” You look at her as if she just suggested that the two of you spend the day shopping for curtains to hang in the living room of her apartment. Is she trying to be stupid? Well, as crazy as it may be, your dumb girlfriend is absolutely right.
Now let’s go back to real life. The phrase “…as American as apple pie and baseball” has been around forever because it was conceived when things were different. Back then, baseball was the most American thing in the world because, well, it was played by exclusively Americans. But now it’s tough to say if America is even the best country in the world at baseball. Most major league rosters are filled with foreigners, which has undoubtedly made the game a little less boring but in doing so has made the game much less American. Names like Alex Rodriguez, Albert Pujols, and Ichiro Whateverhislastnameis dominate the baseball landscape, which is surely making all those racist owners from back in day roll over in their graves. The point is that baseball simply isn’t as American as it used to be because it’s becoming more and more popular all over the world. So go apologize to your hypothetical girlfriend.
The reason I bring up my love for America and baseball’s globalization is because I think it can explain why I’m not really all that big of a baseball fan. I love my country and everything that makes it what it is, which is why I’m becoming less of a baseball fan as baseball becomes less of an American sport. Sure I still love my Chicago Cubs (currently tied for first place in the 2010 season!), but outside of their consistent disappointment, I don’t do a whole lot of baseball watching. The obvious exception was when I went to Hagerstown, Maryland for a minor league baseball game (as I detailed in Part I) but even then I enjoyed the promotions at the game more than the game itself. Baseball is definitely losing it’s American feel, but it’s younger, more awesome, steroid-free cousin is still as patriotic of a game as they come. I’m talking, of course, about wiffleball.
At the beginning of the summer, I received what I consider to be the most significant e-mail of my life. It was from a Nigerian prince who explained to me that I was entitled to over one million dollars if I simply told him my name, address, social security number, and favorite song from the Thriller album. Naturally, I obliged and should be collecting my fortune any time now. I also got a rather important e-mail from Joe Overman of Coldwater, Ohio that served as an invitation to throw out the first pitch at a wiffleball tournament in the aforementioned town. Apparently the tournament coincided with a yearly festival that is thrown in Coldwater that may or may not just be an excuse for Coldwater natives to celebrate the fact that they are American and proud of it. Either way, it was the first time I had ever been asked to act as a “celebrity guest” (or whatever the equivalent is for someone who is in between “that guy looks familiar” and “I swear I know him from somewhere”), which is why I jumped on the opportunity like I was Lindsay Lohan being offered the chance to act irresponsible.
After researching Coldwater a little bit (which consisted of asking various people about it), it was revealed to me that not only does the town have a pretty uncreative name, but it’s also a little too much country for most people to handle. I invited Keller to tag along because he’s the only friend I have who knows all the words to “If You’re Gonna Play In Texas” by Alabama and can name at least three NASCAR drivers. Based on what people were telling me, Coldwater seemed like my kind of town, which is why I felt like I couldn’t get up there fast enough. Unfortunately, the cop that pulled me over on the way up completely disagreed.
In the cop’s defense, I absolutely was tailgating him and probably had been for at least two miles. In my defense, though, I honestly didn’t know that what I was doing was illegal. As soon as I got pulled over, Keller told me I was tailgating the cop, but I calmly explained why he was wrong. I wasn’t tailgating—I was drafting, which is a strategy that has catapulted Jeff Gordon to four Sprint Cup Championships, so I really couldn’t see where the problem was. The only tailgating I do involves playing cornhole (or “bags”), eating way too much, and high fiving passersby. Still, apparently what I did was illegal and it was going to take a smooth performance on my part to get out of a ticket.
The first thing I noticed as the cop approached my car was that his mustache was nearly perfect. It was glaringly obvious that this cop was a seasoned veteran who probably didn’t even carry a gun because his hand-to-hand combat was the stuff of legend. I knew I’d have my hands full trying to get him to crack. He asked for my license and registration, and then asked if I had been pulled over recently. I truthfully answered that I had just received a speeding ticket a few months back, which prompted him to ask if I’m “always in a hurry or something”. Because I’m both too stubborn and too stupid to play by the rules, I responded with, “Well, sir, I am from Indianapolis and racing is just in my blood I guess” and then let out a few nervous laughs. The cop looked at me as if I had just said “I have such little respect for you that I plan on taking your daughter to prom and not bringing her back until the next morning.” He replied, “Wisecracks aren’t going to do you any favors out here, son”, snatched my license and registration, and walked back to his car. Yikes.
(By the way, any time an authority figure adds “son” to the end of a sentence, it almost always results in me being entirely terrified of what happens next. Especially when I’m not the authority figure’s actual son.)
At this point, I told myself that I should be completely satisfied if the cop gave me a ticket and a swift kick to the groin because I was halfway expecting to get cuffed and thrown in the back of his cruiser. Instead, he walked back to my car, handed me my license and registration, told me to “be more careful out there”, and then laughed and walked away. It honestly felt like the opening scene of Super Troopers, only I wasn’t completely stoned and the cop didn’t come back and repeat everything he had already told me. I was, however, freaking out, man.
Even now, I really can’t think of an explanation as to what happened with the cop. He basically went from Agatha Trunchbull to Uncle Joey in a matter of ten minutes without giving any indication as to why he did. The way I tell the story (to everyone but you all) is that the cop called my information into dispatch and the Rod Farva equivalent on the other end of the radio was a member of the Trillion Man March who immediately informed the officer that he should let The Shark swim free. This is most likely not the case, but when your moments of fame are as limited as mine are, you tend to embellish things to make you feel better about yourself.
When we finally made it to Coldwater, we met up with the one person from Coldwater that I knew and made our way to a house party a few blocks away. As I approached this particular party, I couldn’t help but think that this must be what the parties in high school that I was never invited to were like. You see, while all my classmates were hooking up and lying to their parents during high school weekends, I was busy studying molecular genetics and volunteering at a local animal shelter. More accurately, I was busy trying to figure out what the parental lock code was on the TV in our basement, but let’s keep that between you and me. Anyway, I was excited to finally be invited (note: I wasn’t actually invited) to my first party in quite some time and decided that this party would just have to make up for all those missed opportunities in high school. And it did.
When you hear that an awesome party took place that was thrown by a bunch of twenty-somethings, you immediately assume that KY Jelly was involved somehow, the cops showed up numerous times, and at least one person passed out before 9 pm. And while that certainly would be a winning combination for any party, that’s not what took place here. This party wasn’t awesome to me because it was an out of control drunkfest. In fact, the only real reason I thought it was worth mentioning is because it had the one thing no other party I’ve ever been to has had—a truck parked in the backyard with all its doors opened and country music blaring through its speakers. Apparently high quality radios are hard to come by in Coldwater, which is why residents use their trucks as both female-attracting machines and audio entertainment devices. Either way, the image of a bunch of Coldwater natives hanging out in a backyard listening to country music through a truck’s speakers was enough for me to conclude that Coldwater is quite possibly the biggest hick town I’ve ever been to in my life, which is about as big of a compliment as I can give.
The wiffleball tournament itself was held the next morning and, as far as I could tell, my first pitch was as perfect as I had hoped for. I was a little nervous heading in because the last memory I had of throwing a baseball/softball/wiffleball is when I played left field in a men’s softball league and slightly missed the cutoff man as I threw the ball onto the roof of the concession stand right next to the field. Still, I managed to throw a flawless pitch by starting the ball on the right edge of the plate and letting the curve I put on it bring it back down the middle. It was a proud moment for me that was made possible by the fine people of Coldwater. I couldn’t stick around to watch the whole tournament because I had some sort of basketball function, so I don’t know who won the thing, but I do know that the combination of a truck used as a boombox and a community wiffleball tournament is enough to make me adopt Coldwater as my Ohio hometown. The only problem is I don’t think I’m country/awesome enough to claim Coldwater.
Following the success of the Coldwater trip, Keller and I went to Mankato, Minnesota for the Vikings training camp. As I touched on in a previous post, I have been a Minnesota Vikings fan for as long as I can remember and discovered in the offseason that Sage Rosenfels, a Vikings quarterback, was a fan of my blog. Through a series of e-mails, Sage invited me to training camp and because I didn’t want another interaction with the police like I had on the way to Coldwater, I recruited Keller to tag along and do the driving. After around a 10 hour drive, we arrived on the campus of Minnesota State University and immediately began asking the locals where we could find Craig T. Nelson. They must have assumed we meant the football stadium because that’s where pretty much everyone we asked sent us. We got to the stadium a little late but still managed to catch the exciting parts of training camp, which is to say we got to see a Vikings fan instruct everyone in the surrounding area to kill the guy wearing a Packers hat. Some would say he took it too far, but I say he’s just passionate about his Vikings. And after the Brett Favre miracle against the 49ers, how can you not be?
The best part of our trip to Minnesota was when we got to hang out with some of the players at a local bar after training camp was over. I decided to wear an Ohio State shirt to serve as a conversation starter, which was a decision I immediately regretted as soon as I saw Steve Hutchinson, a 315 pound offensive lineman and Michigan alum, and his furrowed brow looking at me in an unsatisfactory manner. If you think that I was maybe reading into things a little too much, take a look at this picture and imagine it coming to life and standing five feet away from you. Now go change your underpants.
While hanging out with some of the Vikings, Keller and I also had the chance to meet Pro Bowl defensive end and mullet connoisseur Jared Allen, who is now quite possibly our favorite human being ever. He wore a cutoff t-shirt to the bar with cutoff jean shorts, a camouflage hat, and Crocs and basically told the entire establishment that he didn’t give a Michigan what they thought of him. His carefree attitude really is inspirational, so much so that Keller claims he will name his firstborn (guy or girl) Jared Allen Keller and his secondborn Allen Jared Keller. He is easily the biggest redneck to ever be a professional athlete (I’m including NASCAR drivers in that claim), which is something that kind of makes him a hero of mine. I could go on and on about how big of a man crush I have on Jared Allen (as if I haven’t been already), but that would only lead to me wasting even more of your time and you judging me in an unfavorable fashion.
Altogether, the trip to Minnesota was a huge success, even though we spent more time driving to and from Minnesota than actually hanging out in Minnesota. Still, Sage showed us a pretty unreal time that got me more excited for football than I’ve ever been in my life. When you consider my preseason trip to Mankato, my Week 1 trip to watch the Vikes dismantle the Browns, and a 3-0 Vikings start, it’s easy to see why I’m so jacked up for the NFL season. AMPAP goes out to Sage Rosenfels for not only being a member of the Trillion Man March and giving me the hookup with my favorite football team (don’t worry NCAA, I paid for everything!), but for also leading my Favre-less squad in Madden to a 6-0 start with over 1400 passing yards thus far.
In a little over three months, I managed to basically travel all over the Midwest while still taking summer school full time. I also went to Canada for four days with the basketball team, took a weekend vacation to Charlotte with my brother, and went to a local Columbus fair that was dubbed as the “Biggest Little Fair in The World” or a similar ripoff of the sign in Reno, Nevada (in reality, I could have dedicated an entire blog entry to the fair, but I’m willing to bet that you are sick of reading about how much I enjoy acting like a redneck). When it was all said and done, I set foot (not feet—I did a lot of hopping) in 13 different states and two different countries this summer, and met countless awesome people who made it all possible.
I doubt that you found my summer as awesome as I originally hyped it up to be, but I still thought it was pretty action packed. I got to hang out with a bunch of different types of people, ranging from professional athletes (the Vikings, former HS teammate who’s pitching for the Nationals) to nobodies (Keller). I did loads of traveling, got out of a tailgating ticket, and managed to knock off all the musts for any summer of mine (Indy 500, spend day on body of water, baseball game, fair, eating a ton of fried food). I was pretty sad to see this summer come to an end because in a way it’s like I saw my youth come to an end. Society is telling me that I need to grow up and stop telling girls that I would think it’s fly if they stopped by for the summer, for the summer. At the same time, I was pretty excited to see the summer end because it meant I wouldn’t have hear "Summer Nights" by Rascal Flatts being overplayed on every country station in America. That song kinda sucks.
Diehard Club Trillion fans have undoubtedly noticed that a pretty special date is quickly approaching, but for those of you who don’t know, on October 24th it will have been exactly one year since the internet and I made love and conceived this blog. For the blog’s birthday I’ve decided to throw a little bit of a party (but it’s a surprise so don’t tell the blog!), and guess what? EVERYONE IS INVITED.
I am officially declaring the week of Sunday, October 18th through Saturday, October 24th to be Fan Appreciation Week for Club Trillion and the Trillion Man March. It’s going to serve as a week for me to give back all I can (so basically nothing) to you fine people who have made this blog as much fun for me as it is. Within the next week or so I will outline what exactly this giving back entails, but for now I wanted to present what will make up a large portion of Fan Appreciation Week.
Because the 18th through 24th is your week (it’s not mine because I’m actually not a fan of my blog), I’ve decided to let the Trillion Man March do the writing for the blog. The topic of your writing should be centered around a time in your life when you were a benchwarmer, whether it was in sports or just everyday life. For example, you could write about how you are similar to me in that you rode the bench for your high school basketball team and would eat nachos during the games. Or you could write about how you had to work a dead end job for ten years and spent your entire time at the job mocking your boss by dressing exactly like him on an almost daily basis. Or you could tell stories about relationship failures. Basically, the entire premise is to explain a time when you simply weren’t good enough. The backbone of this blog is that I’m not good enough at basketball, yet I still find a way to have a good time with the team. That’s why I want your stories to be about how you aren’t/weren’t good enough, but you still found a way to take your failure and turn it into a pretty amusing situation.
As far as rules and regulations go, they are pretty simple. The first rule is to make sure your story doesn’t suck. If I wanted to publish terrible writing, I’d just keep writing about my summer and not take the time to have Fan Appreciation Week. Also, make sure you keep it clean. There are ways to talk about adult situations without using foul language or suggestive phrases. If your entire story is based around an experience you had with someone in the bedroom, it’s doubtful that it will get published (please still send it to me, though, cause I’d love to read about it). If your story only briefly touches on a singular instance in the bedroom, however, there’s a chance it could get published if you make it as classy as you possibly can. I’m fully aware that some of the best stories in the world are as explicit as can be, but I’m also aware that a large number of children read my blog and I’d prefer to not get e-mails from their parents explaining why I’m an awful influence. As a general rule of thumb, don’t write anything that you wouldn’t have told your parents at the dinner table when you were a 12-year-old. And if, by chance, your parents happen to be Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne, don’t write anything at all.
Please submit your stories with the subject line of “Fan Appreciation Week Story” to the Club Trillion e-mail at ClubTrillion@gmail.com. I’m setting the deadline at 11:59 pm on October 15th so it will give me a little bit of time to sort out the best ones. I will publish the top seven entries (one each day), with the seventh place story going up on the 18th, sixth place on the 19th, etc. until I publish what I perceive to be the best story on the day of the one year anniversary, October 24th. This contest, along with the entire Fan Appreciation Week (there will be much more to the week than just this contest, as I’ll explain later) is my way of showing gratitude to those of you who have stuck with me all summer. I know that I strayed away from what probably originally brought you to this blog, so I thought I’d do a little something to show my appreciation that you continued to read despite the change. Plus, I think this will be a fun way to get everyone excited for basketball season, and thus excited for more stories involving me getting disrespected in some fashion. With that being said, go tell all your friends who used to read the blog but stopped because it got boring (can’t really blame them) to come back and participate in this contest. I’m really looking forward to reading through stories, so make it happen. Ready, go.
LEGAL NOTICE: First of all, I’ve always wanted to write “legal notice” in all caps because it demands so much respect and kind of makes my blog seem like a legitimate operation. Secondly (and most importantly), please be aware that by sending me an e-mail with “Fan Appreciation Week Story” as the subject, you are giving me permission to publish whatever is in the e-mail, including names, dates, and places. I’d really hate for you to send me some secretive story without realizing that there’s a chance your wife could get on here and read it. If you don’t want your real name to be used, make up a fake name. If you don’t want your real town to be used, just write “Avon, Indiana” because that was a rival town of mine in high school and is basically crawling with misfits anyway.
Streak for the Cash Group Leader: D. Blum, T. Rittenhouse, and T. Roche (streaks of 15)
Streak for the Cash Group Loser: K. Sullivan(streak of 12)
Your awesome YouTube was sent in to me by Kara K. and features a young Kyle Madsen dunking a baseball cap. For those who might not know, Kyle is a current teammate of mine and is the tall guy that appears throughout this video. My favorite part is Kyle’s performance at the end, but that’s just me. And before you ask, no he isn’t the one with the thirty sweatbands on his arms. Anyway, there’s your shout-out, Kara. And here’s your video.
It’s uncertain whether or not Club Tril gear will ever be available in camo.
