Best & Worst Experience Meeting An Athlete

[jsq]

since most of the above are focused on baseball players i will list a few pleasant experiences (wife was with me on all of these so that certainly helped) mainly with other sport athletes:

enjoyed hanging out with Edmund Hillary at his house on remuera dr in auckland, walked his den on the lower level with him, literally history on the walls! he used a small amount of oxygen to climb everest but most of his other adventures were oxygen free, and those other adventures were and still are legendary in climbing and exploration circles - now thats a pair of lungs. he was strong as a bull also.

Edmund was very quiet and humble guy. especially so for someone whose picture was, at that time, adorning his countries currency in circulation. the 5 pound note as i recall, i still have several notes somewhere which he autographed for me (it was me who asked for the autograph, he was embarassed to be asked).

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peggy fleming was most gracious and very pleasant, we were at a party after a tv skating show which she was a commentator on. she has a vineyard and we discussed that a bit.

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mickey mantle, excellent and treated both my wife and me excellent. he was totally sober. i was a bit tongue tied on this one, one of the rare times in my life. (along with gehrig, mickey is my favorite ball player. after hearing some tales about his treatment of fans when drunk.... very glad he was sober!!)

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joe dimaggio, met him in atlantic city and made small talk about how the tables were treating him. lots of smiles and quite gracious.

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bob feller, another favorite of mine. good experience. what an arm!!, can you imagine playing pro ball and THEN going back for your high school graduation ceremony! what a life.

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we stayed with the new england patriots at their hotel in scottsdale for the 2008 super bowl. after the loss the hotel was like a morgue. we had expected to be up all night. lots of us went to bed early.

on a plus side we met up with reggie bush who had been a big noise with his heisman win a few years before and was about to have a super bowl appearance the next season, and his high school teammate alex smith. both were quite pleasant and we listened to them for quite a while and had a good time in spite of the patriots loss.

i am not a small guy, but you really get perspective on large humans when you get into an elevator with a few of the patriots linemen.

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a group of 30 of us had the owners suite (kfc - yum brands suite) at the kentucky derby the year the queen of england was attending. we had by far the best seats in the house. brown and forman suite is the only thing that compares. richard petty had an all access pass and as a result could get up to our floor. he came in and was a hoot. he told us he wished he had as good a seats as us and generally made us all feel ten feet tall.

speaking of ten feet tall we met a several of the jockeys the days leading up to the race. they were short of stature but tall in graciousness and courtesy explaining stuff to us.

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on the friday before the indy 500 we were guests of mari hulman george in her owners suite for the friday races.

the next day wife and i took a hot lap with one of the friday race drivers, the friday race is kinda the minor league to get to be a indy 500 driver, its called the "indy light series" or ILS.

sebastian saavedra, who some years later did drive in the big race, was our driver. a very nice young man from colombia. with hot laps they take you for a ride in a genuine race car from the ILS series, we did 130 mph on the wall going into the curve, pretty cool. you are literally about 2 or 3 feet from the wall on the curve with him - coming out of the curve we were still doing 100 mph. i am a former gearhead and i've done 120 straight away on public highways with my 1960's street car and wife is cool so it was very unique and a lot of fun going into a curve on the wall at 130 mph. we talked to sebastian for a while afterwards, he was driving for the andretti team and had big hopes for the future. great guy.

we had an all access pass for indy day and got to walk the track and the pits right up to about an hour or so before race time. about an hour before the race started we were talking to one of the pit crews and i noticed them handling the tires like they were nothing, the tires are much larger then street tires. i was perplexed at how strong they must be?? much to my surprise he handed me one, this is a tire to be used shortly in the race mind you, it weighed nothing. they are filled with a special chemical which helps make the tire very light. either that or i was suddenly very strong for just that day.

****also too a person we never met so many nice people as at that race in terms of race day drivers and pit crews. they totally understand it is the fans that pay for all the hoopla. nicest group of professional athletes you could hope to meet. *****

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while surfing met some former low level pro surfers, they were ok, which considering what you hear about surfers was a major surprise.

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played a pickup basketball game with former chicago bulls center bill wennington. patrick kane of the blackhawks was training at the facility and joined us along with patricks sister who was a college athlete as i recall. patrick and bill were very nice and it was a fun game.

a different time we got to ride the zamboni during the blackhawks game and meet the team - good people.

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many others but these were some of my favorites.

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one oddity i will mention, but not the name. wife and i were at the after party for the american music awards. a former minor league baseball player and long time espn sports guy, with a show on espn, and his wife, were sharing a standup table with us having drinks. she was great, a real good looking lady and an extremely pleasant and conversant person. the espn guy couldn't say much of anything. for a guy that talks for a living we found that kinda funny.

[baseball tourist]

The absolute best:

1) Mike Myers of Austin Powers movies etc. fame. Met him in Toronto bar on a quiet night in April and - as I was hanging out with other SkyDome Hotel (now Rogers Centre) colleagues and a now infamous hotel guest and Blue Jays trainer
and alledged steriod go-between for Roger Clemens, Brian McNamee - a few hours of drinks and amazing interaction and laughs turned into a pick up game of baseball at 2am, on the field at the stadium with borrowed Blue Jays bats and gloves. A night I will never forget. Fast forward 2 years and I share the same subway car with Mike who looks at me and immediately places me - saying with a wink that “I was the worst shortstop he ever played on a MLB field with”. Total
Class Act. Truly.

2) Wayne Gretzky:managed his named restaurant in Toronto for 2 years in mid-90’s and met him and his family several times (Wally is the best too!). Had the pleasure of backing Wayne up on the bar a few times as he attempted his best impression of Tom Cruise in “Cocktail” - bottles flying and crashing everywhere!

3) Hank Aaron - multiple interactions over 2 days as he was a guest in the Hotel and as I was the Concierge on duty. Shared advice, stories, rode a golf cart together to the Jays clubhouse, gave me his biz card (VP with Braves) and said to contact him when in town. Amazing!

Very positive, lengthy interactions (mostly during private tours of the SkyDome/Rogers Centre and/or Hotel events or check ins): Stan Musial, Mickey Mantle, Warren Spahn (at the HOF in Cooperstown), Dave Winfield, Carlos Delgado, Robbie Alomar, Shawn Green, Paul Beeston, Joe Carter, Paul Konerko, Shaq, Vince Carter, Roger Clemens, Pinball Clemons, Doug Flutie, Tracy McGrady, Kobe, Chauncey Billups, Dr. J., Hakeem, David Stern, Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn, John Travolta and Kelly Preston, Pat Tabler, Ed Sprague, Lloyd Moseby, Cito Gaston, George Bell, Tom Henke, Kelly Gruber, Sugar Ray Leonard (in Vegas), Jack Black (drinks at the an airport bar the day before my stag night in Vegas).

[sycks22]

I've had some good experiences in the past couple days with NFL stars in down for the Superbowl. Ladainian Tomlinson / Drew Brees were super nice guys to have a quick chat with and get their autos. Terrell Davis said "I respect the perseverance you guys have for autographs" He went on to ask "What do you guys do with these autos?" It was also awesome seeing Rodgers / Montana within 30 minutes of each other. Last night Jim Brown walked by and his handler wouldn't let him sign anything, but we shook his hand. Best part of the night was having two older guys from Boston take a picture with a guy who was a sleep on the lobby couch.

[Snapolit1]

Met my childhood hero Darryl Strawberry and both times he was down to earth and just a nice guy. And once was on a 630 am flight. Ouch.