Nov 20 2007 07:58 PM
Okay, from the top.
My cousin and I find out what hotel in downtown Chicago the Mets are staying in. We show up about 7:30-8ish, and there isn't a big crowd but Luis Castillo is at the bar nursing a drink. My cousin and I hang with him for a while, and actually end up buying him a beer! I don't know, a welcome to New York kind of thing, funny since the guy still hadn't played a home game yet at Shea!
Anyway he had this hanger on that was pretty much running crowd control and when Luis left momentarily this oily slick fellow told both me and my cousin, well essentially not to be morons and respect the privacy of the players.
Both me and my cousin though are among the LAST people you need to tell that speech though as we've both had multiple professional brushes with greatnesses, so we act normal and treat those with fame like, I don't know, like if we saw KC and Edgy walking by (first two posters that came to mind, sorry guys)
Well anyway, we're hanging around the bar, talking with other fans, we see Ruben Gotay and Mota chill with Castillo and eventually other Mets came rolling in as Saturday turned into Sunday. I noticed the entire Glavine party in the hotel lobby and had to say hello and that I've been a fan of his work since the 1991 World Series!
I got a pic of my cousin with Glavine, sadly I have to convert a 1 second movie clip because apparently Glavine's (I think) brother-in-law can't keep the camera setting on AUTO and moved it to the video setting
Well, anyway, we head back to the bar and Paul Lo Duca was holding court. I ask politely for a photo during the conversation Edgy references up thread, unfortunately my cousin is only slightly better behind a camera than Glavine's in-law (though my cousin was bombed) and this resulted
Great shot of Paul, but horrible shot of the moron in the Blues Brothers shirt. Could there BE any more flash used? And does my cousin know how to use the W/T mechanism?
Anyway, that could be what tipped off the aforementioned Castillo Entourage member because as soon as I got my camera back from my cousin a hotel employee actually escorted me out of the hotel! Didn't even let me tell my cousin I was kicked out! Just tossed me out into the Chicago streets.
So anyway, I wasn't able to plead my case as all I was told was that "The baseball manager said you were harassing the players." Something that could hardly be anywhere near the truth, especially since crowds were starting to gather in the bar and photos were being taken, and as I said, I did ask if they minded having pics taken.
Clearly I was steamed, I didn't act it though, but I calmly said that I wasn't doing a single thing out of line (i.e. interrupting meals and/or conversations, actually being that annoying prick that causes such meetings to be arduous for the famous, ect) and that there were plenty of people in that bar who were doing the same thing. Not to mention I had a friend in there that still didn't know I'd been forcibly removed.
Anyway my cousin finally hears about this, goes outside and asks me what happened. At this point I really just wanted to leave the premises anyway, I had a case, but it was falling on deaf ears, so I hail a cab. This is 1:30 now in Chicago, I get one, my cousin tackles me and tries to get me to calm down since I did not have my cell and I was leaving him alone. I think at that point I was just too wasted, pissed (plus the Mets lost that day) and just wanted to get to the hotel because we had a 4:00 wakeup call to get our plane.
I brush my cousin off and proceed to have a 45 dollar (or whatever it was) cab ride from mid-town Chicago to Rosemont, IL where our hotel was.
Anyway my cousin, understandably pissed at both me and the hotel roars back in, starts to tell off the employees, the Mets (Castillo, Gotay and I think Oliver Perez was there at this point) overhear this, and it was the Entourage wannabe that kicked me out, with zero actual authority!
Interestingly enough in my mind when the hotel employee was telling me that a "baseball manager" kicked me out I wanted to run down names such as Willie, Omar, Charlie Samuels and Jay Horowitz (Does Jay even travel with the team I wonder?), essentially people who actually would probably be in that position, but I figured she wouldn't know those names or people from the average Joe off the street.
Well anyway turns out the guy was trying to become Castillo's publicist and get back into the Mets after the two Carloses had fired him, and this caused Castillo to have it out with him right there! My cousin almost ended up with a free room at the hotel for his trouble, and Castillo invited him to go out into the early morning Chicago night life.
But since he had to find out that I made it safely back to the hotel, he took n 8 buck ride on the L all the way to where we were staying (45 dollars...8 dollars, boy am I wasteful when I'm drunk and pissed) his night was done.
Well thats the story. The lesson I guess is that A) I need to stand up for myself a little better and B) I shouldn't make snap judgments, it would have saved me about 35 freaking dollars!
