The news that Miami will not be hosting a Super Bowl anytime soon got me thinking back to 1999, when I covered the 33rd contest. Not the game – my newspaper had a team of reporters doing that – but the color and events surrounding it. In fact, well before the game I started writing my final story of the week, sitting with my pocket Webster’s Dictionary in a mostly empty media tent just outside the stadium. It was the first time I’d written on a laptop and, not realizing I’d have access to the Internet, I’d brought my dictionary along.
I finished my story half an hour before kickoff and successfully sent it to the newsroom. With an intense feeling of joy and relief, I entered the stadium. (My ticket allowed me to roam without entitling me to a seat.) The electricity in the stands only heightened my elation. Descending the steps behind one end zone, I spotted a colleague sitting with his wife in the middle of a row about halfway down. Giddily, spontaneously, I reached into my bookbag and pulled out my Webster’s.
“DICTIONARIES!!” I cried, holding it high in classic vendor fashion. “GET YOUR DICTIONARIES HERE!!!”
Everyone around looked up in amazement. I felt a small part of Super Bowl history.
Last evening, on my seventh try, I finally saw Marlins Park with its roof open. The parking lot attendant - in the lot next door - was very happy to see me. I walked across the street - a shorter stroll than I ever had at Pro Player Stadium - to the ticket window, where a man in line (only two windows were open) told me that tickets for home games on Thursday nights were free for people over the age of 55.
My ticket was not just free, it was for a seat about 10 rows up along the third base line. The stadium looked more real with sky, the uniforms crisper in the natural light. Planes heading off from MIA made occasional diagonals across the open rectangle. In the ninth inning, a full moon climbed over the outfield lights.
It was a beautiful, exquisite evening, though in the bottom of every inning my eye would drift to Espada and I would wonder what it's like to be the third base coach of a last place team.
Watching the Marlins on TV last night I thought: There have probably been sadder home openers - the Pirates in '73, four months after the death of Clemente - but perhaps none more pathetic.
Meanwhile, the Marlins may need to hire a team psychiatrist.
I was happy to see Richard Gasquet defeat Tomas Berdych at the Sony Open last night, and not because the Czech was wearing an H&M cap. I always root for the player with the one-handed backhand, in the same way that, watching a foot race, I always hope that the person hopping on one leg beats the people running on two.
When I heard that Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer had both withdrawn from the Sony Open I thought of the ball boys and girls, especially one whom I talked to last year while covering the event.
She was from Doral, and came every March with her friends from high school, most of whom were also Venezuelan-Americans. I asked her about players from a ball girl's perspective. The French were the least polite, she and her friends said, except for Tsonga and Monfils, who were nice. Nadal was nice, always saying "Gracias." I figured she'd be in love with Nadal. I asked about Federer.
"I've never worked a Federer match," she said sadly. "I'd trade seven Nadal matches for one Federer match."