Get Your Tickets!

Housekeeping:

In an effort to make this blog closer to a daily occurrence, I'll need to stretch my imagination a little bit to come up with enough material. Although, I'm only going to be aiming for about 200-500 words per day, it'll still add up to a lot more Ham than 1000 words every third week. I've also decided to stop pimping my posts on FB since I don't fetch many hits, and it probably serves to annoy more than it actually helps people. So, if you want to read my stuff, just check here daily. All the time.

I recently heard someone on television talking about how he keeps all of his ticket stubs in a scrapbook. Initially, I thought it was an incredibly nerdy, and lame thing to do, but quickly changed my mind. I thought about some of the games I've been to in my life which have been awesome, and tried to fast forward to when I'm 80-years-old. I won't be able to remember any of it. In short, I've decided to also keep my ticket stubs, starting now, and write a brief summary of each experience. I've really been extremely fortunate to witness some of this stuff. I mean, really, some of these games, and the circumstances surrounding them, I can't believe I was a part of them. I've tried to recount everyone I was with at these games. I hope I haven't forgotten anyone on account of too much alcohol. This is entirely possible.

During the beginning of my sophomore year of college (2005) I spent a lot of time in an apartment tenanted (surprised this is a word) by Ronald, Zeke, Haus, Mitch and Justin Sanchez. They were all broke seniors, and I was a broke sophomore, not yet 21 and unable to enter most bars without fashioning a fake ID. The NHL returned from a lockout and we typically spent the weekend drinking cheap beer in the aforementioned apartment, joined by Greg S. and others, of course. It was this group however, that decided to turn on the Blue Jackets, who played their home games less than 3 miles from where we lived, in order to yell jibberish at the television screen and pretend like we knew hockey. None of us had ever watched hockey prior to this season. After about 3 drunk, weekend nights of screaming at the television and trying to encourage hockey fights, I looked at Ronald and asked if anyone actually kind of liked this sport for what it was, beside the fact that it gave drunk kids an excuse to yell at stuff. Ronald nodded, and suddenly the two of us, along with Greg S, evolved into die-hard BJ's fans. Ronald and I drove down High Street to the local Goodwill Store to be fitted for BlueJacket apparel. We bought actual jackets that happened to be blue. Ronalds was originally made for women, and mine was a nylon duster that went all the way to the ground. Wearing our new "uniforms" made watching the games hysterical and also drew us closer to the sport.

Flash forward to last Friday. Ronald, now wearing a Red Wings jersey, for reason's I hate to think of and refuse to explain for the purposes of this blog, myself, Ben B, J Boke, Z-Botz, Brian M, Danny M, and a Canadian guy named Joe, sat in Nationwide Arena watching the Blue Jackets and Red Wings play a game to decide 1st place in the division. Much like the first NHL game I ever attended, the Red Wings defeated to Blue Jackets, except this game was 2-1 and not 6-0. It kicked off the BJ's current 5-game skid. Besides this skid, the Blue Jackets have had their most successful season to date, but I've been without my best Blue Jacket friend, Ronald, and it's really disappointing.



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The Reds 1st home postseason game in 15 years. After finally having the pleasure of watching a winning season, I realized just how much I love the Reds more than any of my other sports teams. The Reds were swept out of the postseason in this game, but it was still an incredible sight, and I was fortunate to see it. I could probably complain about a few things, but complaining isn't productive and all it really does is make people not want to hang out with you. It's the only Reds game I've been to in my 25 years of living, where the stadium was actually full. For a moment I thought I was in heaven, and then my least favorite player made an error in the top of the 1st, so the Reds were quickly down 1-0, with the Series at 0-2. That's when I realized I was actually in Cincinnati, not heaven. Jake O purchased tickets online and I went to this game with My Brother Andy, Jason K, Greg S, and Jake O. For my purposes, it's unfortunate this "ticket" is actually just a piece of paper that was printed off the internet.



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I believe this game was played on a Thursday. It wasn't easy to find people to make the 2 hour drive to Cincinnati from Columbus to watch the Reds potentially clinch. With the projected starting pitching matchup, I was extremely confident the Reds WOULD indeed clinch, and I was able to talk one of my all-time greatest friends, Lee M, into going to the game. We met up with current Cincinnati resident and my former next door neighbor, Greg R, for this game. Heading into the bottom of the 8th, I called Jay Bruce would hit a leadoff, walk off homerun in the bottom of the 9th to send us to the playoffs. That's exactly what happened, because I'm a genius. Lee and I stayed around the park and took part in the celebration for an hour. We then drove back to Lee's house in Columbus, where we rewatched the game, and the walkoff, while drinking champagne and beer until 4am. This year I was able to watch the Reds biggest two home games in person, over the last 15 seasons; I'm grateful for that.



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The Buckeyes beat M!ch!g@n and we were heading back to the BCS National Championship. My immediate reaction was, "I'm absolutely broke, there's no way I can go to this game." Then, I went over a few things in my head and decided, "fuck it, I'm going to New Orleans." What are the things I went over that ultimately rationalized the trip to New Orleans? Glad you asked. Here's the list of my thoughts.
-I've been a fan of Buckeye Football since I was 5.
-Ohio State was the only college I wanted to go to.
-Ohio State was the only college I applied to.
-It was my senior season.
-How perfect is this situation?
-Very perfect. It's like a fairy tale.
-I'll just put everything on my credit card and pay it off eventually, somehow.

I called Lee M and the trip was on. Jon K from Miami, Aaron D from the University of Dayton, Justin S fellow OSU'er, myself and Lee made the trip.

Ohio State had a student lottery, which gave the winners the opportunity to purchase tickets to the national championship. Guess what. I won. I only knew 3 other people who won, and they were Abbey M, Kirby E and Tyler F. We all met up and purchased our tickets together and eventually, Tyler sold his.

About 2 weeks before we were to take off for New Orleans, I received a letter in the mail stating inactivity in my OPERS retirement account, which I was paying into while I was working for the Village of Minster for the previous 2 summers and 3 summers overall. It asked if I wanted to just cash it out. Yes, please. My only problem was, we were leaving for New Orleans so soon, I didn't know if the mail could get everything processed in time for my trip. Luckily I realized that I lived in Columbus, the capitol of Ohio, and that the OPERS office was probably also in Columbus. I was right, it was located about 1 mile from where I was living. I went to the office and collected the $900 I never realized I was entitled to and the trip was set.

If you're a fan of statistics as I am, think of these odds.
-Buckeyes make the championship my senior year.
-Out of about 150 OSU students I knew, I was 1 of 4 who won the opportunity to purchase tickets.
-Days before the trip, I was flat broke, but was basically gifted $900 which paid for everything.

All of these incredible circumstances made me positive that witnessing the Buckeyes win a National Championship in the Sugar Bowl my Senior year of college was destiny. After the first 3 minutes, the Buckeyes were up 10-0 and Kirby, Abbey and myself rejoiced as our destiny was certainly becoming a reality. This was the 1st time I ever thought I was in heaven. Then LSU scored 31 unanswered points and I realized I was just in shitty, shitty New Orleans. The game ended and my trip was over. Still, I'm undoubtedly fortunate to have been able to see this game, and partake in 4 days of partying in New Orleans with some of my best friends. Destiny still works, and the trip was a blast. Maybe in the grand scheme of things, the Buckeyes actually winning the game wasn't the most important thing.



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A season prior to witnessing a national championship game, I was on hand as the Buckeyes and M!ch!g@n met for the only time in their collective history as number 1 vs. number 2. I think Bo Schembechler passed away the day before, and Columbus was crazy. We had about 8 guests in our apartment for the weekend and it was a nonstop party.

I tailgated with Kurt B and his sister's friends before the game, and I saw Tara Reid partying at an adjacent tailgate. It's basically the only time I've seen a famous person in Columbus, who wasn't playing for a team based in Columbus, or from Columbus themselves.

I saw pairs of tickets on eBay for as much as $2400 for this game, but decided not to sell.

Anyway, Kurt and I left the tailgate, stole an unopened bag of chips from a random tailgate, and walked to the stadium. We ate the chips and drunkenly yelled stupid stuff all the way to the stadium. Kurt and I arrived at the stadium, but our seats weren't together that season, so I found my seat with Zoid. BTW, we were usually able to get to the 1st row of C-Deck, which is the upper bowl, to watch games. The seats were on about the 45 yard line, so you could see the plays unfold. These were my favorite seats I've ever had in Ohio Stadium. It was one of the greatest games ever, and the Buckeyes won 42-39. I had a throbbing headache from screaming the entire game. It was the loudest I've ever heard our crowd. Zoid and I rushed on the field and tore up some of the sod to take home with us. It was the last game the Buckeyes played on sod at home, as field turf was put in the following season. I had about a yard of sod hanging over my shoulder as we walked back to our apartment and people tore some of it off my back, but I didn't care, because who needs a yard of sod? I just wanted a little bit, and I kept it in our freezer for the rest of the school year. We moved out in June, and I deposited the sod into a dumpster. What an unbelievable memory.



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One of these two tickets is from a regional final baseball game I played my senior year of high school. It was the last game I ever played. I'm not completely sure where the other originated, although I suspect it's from the game our girls won state in basketball my senior year of high school.

My brother gave me his stub from the Regional Final game. I didn't think much of it at the time, but now, it's kind of special he thought to do that. I love baseball, and still miss playing it. I was fortunate to ride the coattails of such a great group of guys from age 8-18, and we made a lot of great memories.

Watching our girls basketball team win state our senior year was really fun. Most of my friends played football and basketball when I didn't, so I couldn't really hang out with them during those seasons. Since the girls playoff run came after our boys were eliminated and before baseball, it was a great time for all of us to hang out and support our girls, who eventually brought home the state title.



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So that's it. Wow, this was a lot longer than I anticipated. Talk about rambling. You'll probably have to excuse some of the grammar...