Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Because food tossing is just so damn funny

The Boston Herald provides this excellent recap of last night's fling (the characters: Sole, hit by pizza; Madore, owner and proprietor of pizza; Kelly, Madore's friend and pizza tosser):

As if the slo-mo spill and requisite grimacing weren't enough, a large slice of cheese pizza then arced perfectly through the crowd, hitting Sole’s shoulder and face. Once he realized what hit him, he went ballistic while girlfriend Anya Ho, 29, tried to wipe off his face.
A few rows away, Madore and buddy Danny Kelly beamed. It turns out Sole had given them grief about having a large pizza in the stands just moments bef
ore the at-bat. He wanted to know where they got it.
"He turned around and said something like, 'Your mother,' " Sole said.
"No," interjected Ho. "He said, 'The pizzeria.' "
Either way, all parties were annoyed.
"They had been giving us (expletive) about it," Madore said. "Next thing I know, there's a fly ball to left field and it goes foul and my buddy says, 'You want some pizza now?' And he hits him right in the face. Hey, the guy wasn't paying attention. When you're in the stands you've got to be ready for anything -- a foul ball, a flying slice of pizza, everything."

And just when you think the best newspaper story of the year couldn't get any better...


By the time the eighth inning rolled around, however, most involved couldn't stop laughing. Sole fielded nonstop calls from friends telling him he was on NESN, which named him "Fan of the Game." He wondered if he could meet NESN’s Tina Cervasio.

Presque Isle, Maine, native Madore ended up at Game On, where he received a standing ovation. Friend Aaron True called the whole thing, "Pizza Bartman," a reference to the Chicago Cubs fan who cost the team Game 6 of the NL Championship Series in 2003 by trying to catch a foul ball.

Honestly ... and I don't mean to beleaguer Cubs fans here, because they don't deserve it, but honestly ... isn't that the difference between Chicago and Boston in a nutshell? A fan interferes with a foul ball in Boston and it happens 1) in a meaningless game, 2) it actually helps the home team, 3) said home team ends up winning anyway, and 4) everyone laughs about it afterwards. It happens in Chicago and it becomes one of the most tragic moments in the city's sports history. Poor Cubs.

POSTSCRIPT: For a limited time, if you click on that Herald story, you can vote in the poll, "Who had better stuff yesterday at Fenway Park? Sox hurler Josh Beckett or pizza thrower Danny Kelly?" Only 759 people had participated when I registered my vote for Kelly, but right now, the pizza hurler is up 62% to 38%.

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