Meeting the Montanas

Way before Hannah, and hitting his prime just after Tony, was a man named Joe who also carried the name of one of my top 3 square-shaped states of all time, and lit up the NFL. He dominated the sport of football like maybe no other will, and solidified himself as arguably the greatest quarterback in history.

Brought up as a San Francisco Niners fan, Joe Montana was on my Mt. Rushmore of sports heroes growing up. He was right between Michael Jordan, Mike Piazza and Bugs Bunny. (I was 8 when Space Jam came out. Are you kidding me! Combining my favorite cartoon character with my favorite sport was epic!)

Super Joe hasn't done much lately. It's doubtful that he'll be dancing on channel 7. Probably won't be belittled into sharing a house with reject stars on VH1, but once in a while he'll make public appearances at local community college football stadiums. Guaranteed.

Nate Montana plays the coveted position of hall of famer's son at Pasadena City College.

Young Nate had the privelage of playing his first collegiate game ever, at Hilmer Lodge Stadium against our very own Mounties.

Did the Mounties know he was Joe Cool's son? Ohhhhh you better believe it. Poor Nate was on the ground more than a person doing Wii Fit Yoga.

Anyway, Mounties won and it was time to do my journalistic duties and interview the brutalized Montana kid. He was cool as can be. Knew the right things to say and handled the interview as if the loss hadn't affected him. I thanked him for the interview, and watched the son of greatness run away into the brutal California sunset.

After a couple more interviews, I noticed a casually dressed man who glowed like Dr. Manhattan and had a crowd around him like the Fonz. It was Joe Montana. The football Icon in the flesh!

As a sports fan I almost wet my pants, but once I gained composure, I put on my reporter hat and walked right over to the legend. The awkward confrontation went like so:

Me: Hello Mr. Montana

Super Joe: Hi there

Me: Would you mind if I asked a couple of questions for the school paper?

Super Joe: I'm sorry, I'm here for my son and I don't do that stuff. I let him take care of the questions.

Me: Oh ok. Thank you anyway.

Ok. Fair enough. I understand why he wouldn't want to talk. He's freakin Joe Montana! He can talk to or not talk to whoever he wants.

It was really tough for me though. One of my Rushmore heads was right in front of me and I just couldn't leave empty handed. I couldn't ask for an interview again, that'd be stupid. So since he didn't want to talk to me as a journalist, I tried it as a fan. I looked in my backpack and I saw something I never thought I would see at that moment. It was a Sharpie! I ran to Joe Cool for one more shot at a perfect moment with one of my heroes. I asked him for an autograph.

He politely said no. Wamp Wamp. What an ending.

There I was, holding a Sharpie and a game program, alone in the world while my head was spinning like Sidewinder.

I was almost scared to put that picture of him up (above) in fear that copyright laws might reject me from putting it up.

I was rejected twice by the greatest of all time. Just might be the greatest rejection of my life.

Raiders of the lost Arco

I had the strangest trip to the gas station I might ever have. As I was pulling into my local Arco and slowly made my way to pump number 6, the lips of an angry man at the pump next to me blessed my cracked open windowsill.

Scared me a little bit. He had a really aggressive tone, but within all his yelling I happened to catch him say the word "Raiders" and I said to myself, "Oh. Makes sense," and parked my car.

What I had originally thought was a gas station, was apparently a mirage that tricked me and sucked me into the Black Hole. All of a sudden, I was in the middle of 3-way holy war between the angry gentleman next to me, a Green Bay Packers fan, and a man who didn't seem to say much. He was kind of just there, laughing and making quick remarks that seemed to anger the Raider fan.

So I got out of my car, stretched, dropped my keys and tried to listen in on the argument.

Unfortunately I have no idea how it started, but the enraged Raider fan next to me started taking indirect shots at Brett Favre, saying, "Packers haven't had a real quarterback since Bart Starr!"

Ouch.

Didn't hear what the guy across the station was saying because the steam coming out of the Raider fan's ears was impairing my already fickle hearing.

As I walked away to pay inside, I heard screams from the Raider fan, "1967 was the only true championship!" That told me he was an old school guy. In other words, I better pump my gas and get the hell out before he blows up the gas station like Robocop.

I came back out, and all three were still there.

This time the Raider fan threw out a, "At least we had Bo Jackson! Man could that guy run. He was the greatest player the league has ever seen!"

At that point I'm laughing inside. He didn't even know what to argue. It was sad. It's like San Francisco Giants fans try to argue, "Remember Bobby Thompson's home run against the Dodgers in 1951!" Umm, that's cool.

Or when they say, "At least we had Barry Bonds!" Congratulations! Good luck with that argument. (I love when "big headed" Barry Bonds fans "take shots" at Dodger fans and try to "inject" us with stupid arguments and "cheat" us out of intelligent thought) ;)
The last thing I heard the Raider fan say was, "Al Davis needs to die!"
Double Ouch.
80-year-old Al Davis, the Raider owner with Freddy Krueger-like features. I know he hasn't done that great of a job with the organization, but goodness, death?
The PACKER FAN then said, "Oh come on man, he don't have to die."
And to remove any chance of confusion, the Raider fan said, "No! He needs to die, die, die!"
This man had so much anger inside him that he started taking shots at his own team.

Anyway, I filled up half of my tank (Dam gas prices. The worth of a 20 dollar bill nowadays) and was ready to go.

The Packer fan and random instigator guy left.

As I drove away, from the corner of my eye I saw the Raider fan start talking to a lady with aggressive hand gestures. Guess he had more to say.

Hope that lady knew him.

Best Injury Ever!

I would have never thought that one of my earliest blog entries would be about Nascar, but this story is exceptionally amazazing! (Yes. Amazazing.)
Carl Edwards, that backflipping bandit of Nascar suffered a broken foot yesterday from (drum roll please) PLAYING FRISBEE!
"I know this probably sounds ridiculous to a lot of people and I could hardly believe it myself," said Edwards.
Ridiculous?! I'm glad you acknowledge it, Edwards, but goodness gracious sakes alive, this goes beyond ridiculous!
It wasn't even ultimate Frisbee, which probably would still sound ridiculous, but I mean, he was just playing frisbee with friends!
You can't help but chuckle when something like this happens.
Apparently Edwards ran into one of his friends, and his friend got WWE fever and got Edwards in an ankle lock. Well, not really, but that would have made more sense.
One of his friends dove into his leg while trying to get the Frisbee. Awesome.
He could have at least said he was playing with his dog, tripped over his dog, lost his balance, jumped over a pile of venomous snakes, dodged a tree and smashed his foot on a cinder block.
Or at least that his friends were Brian Urlacher and Ray Lewis, and they were at the beach, and while running away from these two beasts, a piece of seaweed caught his foot and he tripped and sprained his ankle. (If I were playing ANYTHING with Brian Urlacher and Ray Lewis I'd probably end up hurt somehow.)
I don't know how you break your foot playing Frisbee. It's borderline unbelievable.

It's better than when Arizona Cardinal, Martin Gramatica hurt his leg celebrating a field goal!
It's better than when Chicago Cubs star and steroid hall of famer, Sammy Sosa, went on the disabled list for getting back spasms after sneezing!

It's better than when Detroit Tiger's pitcher, Joel Zumaya was out for the season for splitting his finger playing Guitar Hero!
It's better than when Forrest Gump got shot in the but-tocks!
It's better than when Jean Girard broke Ricky Bobby's arm for not wanting to admit he loves crepes in Talladega Nights!

It's better than when then Cincinatti Red, Ken Griffey Jr. got a pinched testicle! (Ah! Well, maybe it's a tie with Griffey)
It has to be the greatest injury ever! You have to really put in a lot of effort to break your foot playing Frisbee, and Edwards did.
Ricky Bobby kept racing while his arm was wrapped like a frickin gordita, and Edwards has said the injury won't hold him back from racing either.
What a trooper.