Monday, October 13, 2008

Regrets Only

Sara Foss of the Schenectady Daily Gazette describes what happens when you schedule an October wedding in Red Sox Nation:

Fortunately, my relatives are die-hard Red Sox fans, and they weren't about to let a mere wedding interfere with playoff baseball. But it's not like they gave the wedding short shrift, either. They simply found ways to make sure the Red Sox were part of the celebration. So even when they were off dancing to "Brick House" or "Billie Jean," it was impossible to forget that the Red Sox-Tampa Bay game was under way.

"I'd like to pause for the moment," the DJ/emcee said at one point, "to announce that Jason Bay of the Red Sox just hit a home run." Looking at the box score today, I can see that the DJ/emcee was wrong: Jason Bay hit a double, and Kevin Youkilis and David Ortiz both scored. But no matter. The cheers that greeted this little bit of erroneous information were among the loudest of the night.
People in New England should probably just follow the unofficial law citizens of Columbus, Ohio have enacted with respect to the Buckeyes' season: no football Saturday weddings. Ever. And if you schedule one, the negative RSVP should be assumed for anyone not in the immediate family.

Beyond that, I think I fell in love with Ms. Foss after reading this passage:

After dinner, we played wiffle ball . . . I can only play wiffle ball if I'm drinking a beer at the same time, and when I scooped up the ball one-handed while carrying around a bottle of Sam Adams and tossed it to second base for an easy out, I felt pretty pleased with myself. Then we went inside and found the Dodgers-Phillies game on the radio. At this time of year, there's really nothing you can do to avoid playoff baseball. Except go to bed.
Ahh, the perfect woman.

5 comments:

tHeMARksMiTh said...

Mrs. Shyster didn't hear that (see that) did she?

Mark S said...

As a member of both Red Sox Nation (not a paying member as I find that a wee bit foolish) and Buckeye Nation (two masters so not the undergrad passions burning here) I would agree with Craig about the dangers of scheduling weddings or other big events that may compete with games. I would assume the same could be said in Pittsburgh for Sunday fall events or Kentucky for winter/March events because of basketball.

So what do event planners in cities such as LA have to worry about scheduling around - I mean are the big paparazzi days like the Oscars and Emmys completely off limits? Do folks in NY, especially J .. E.. T .. S JETS, fear scheduling the 50th anniversary dinner opposite the NFL draft? Maybe we need to ask Rob Neyer which microbrew fest is big enough in Portland to reduce the guest list at the shindig we want to host? Curious what other off limit days are out there in this great land of ours?

Craig Calcaterra said...

I grew up (mostly) in West Virginia, and I can tell you that you had better not schedule anything big the week rifle season opens up in November. You can probably get away with a wedding during bow hunting or muzzle loader season, but never during rifle season.

Hell, they give kids excused absences during school that week (or sometimes two weeks, depending on the deer census)

Mark S said...

Aren't the muzzle loaders a necessary items at some weddings?

Craig Calcaterra said...

Man, I should know better than to bring up West Virginia. I got no response to that.