Favorite encounters with athletes

[ChitownSpaceForRent]

An old picture of me and Bobby Hull popped up on my Facebook today so that reminded me of a funny story.

Met Bobby Hull at a restaurant I used to work at, he was doing a meet and greet. When he was done I went over to say hi to him and take a picture. "Absolutely, no problem at all," Super nice dude.

Anyways, during this time, the Blackhawks happened to be playing on TV, we both kinda looked up to watch it and he turns to me and goes "Man that 32 really fu**ing sucks doesn't he? He can't skate worth a damn" He was talking about Michal Rozsival, and I absolutely burst out laughing because of how brutally honest he was.

Sat with him for the next 10 or so minutes just watching the game while he complained and shared some stories from his playing days. Pretty cool stuff.

[reinko]

Great thread idea!  spring, 1993, Reinko as an 8th grader was surprised with a trip to Spring Training with my dad in Arizona to see the Brewers.  Go karts with Pat Listach, going to Sunday mass with the whole Brewer team at their complex, hanging with Brian Harpers dad who scored me a bat...

Fun times!  Thanks for the trip down memory lane!

[MarquetteDano]

Was at Elsa's in Milwaukee around 1994 (might be off a year or two) and our entire table said "Disco Danny Mac" (nickname) when I arrived.  Ray Allen,  then with the Bucks must have overheard because when we got up to leave he and his entourage were leaving as well...

He came by outside and said "Danny Mac,  how 'bout those Disco moves?"  To which I replied:  "Ray:  They called me Disco because I don't have the moves".

Allen could not have been more disappointed.  He nearly walked away,  then step back and just said "Maaaan."  My friends to this day still do the impression of his disheartened reaction.   

[SERocks]

Back in '83, when I was a newly minted freshman, I saw Doc Rivers walking out of the athletic building and I waved at him. 

Good times.

Good times.

[tower912]

At the Rec Center on a Saturday morning.    One game going full court, I call 'next'.    Down behind the curtain, I see a guy signing autographs for kids.   He starts walking toward me and I recognize that it is Paul Molitor.   He asks who has next, I answer that I do, he asks if he can get in.    I say sure.   
    The game starts and he turns out to be a ballhog with terrible hands who shoots every time.    I actually found myself yelling at the future hall of famer to get back on defense.     We lose, he says thanks and leaves. 

[DegenerateDish]

Jordan had a celebrity golf tournament for 2 years, and summer of 94 I caddied in it. I was in the first group out and caddied for Bobby Anderson. After the round was over, they were somehow short a volunteer at the first tee, so they asked me to escort the celebrity golfer into the tent at the first tee, and tell the celebrity to sign the tournament posters which were going to be auctioned off at the tournament.

I met a ton of famous athletes, politicians, entertainers. One in particular was in the tent with me and said he was starving and asked if there was anything to eat. He and I both looked around, and I ended up finding a full package of Oreo’s in a bag. Guy turns and asks “Do you think we’ll get in trouble if we eat these?” I said to him “we’ll blame it on Charles Barkley”. I ended up eating half a bag of Oreo’s with Smokey Robinson.

[ZiggysFryBoy]

Not an athlete but a sports figure.

My 12th birthday, we had a big bash at Harry Carey's.   This was pre-stroke, so HC was good and polluted.

He shows up to the party room we had.  One of my neighbors had a Corey haim mullet that put Corey to sham.

We all get together to sing Take Me Out to the Ballgame, all the kids with Harry.  He has his hand around my mulletted friend's shoulder.  Halfway through the song, Harry realizes that the long hair is flowing from a boy's head.  He moves his arm to one of the teenage girls shoulder.

When the song was done, he grabbed my mom and planted a giant slobbery kiss right on the lips.

Its funnier to see on video, but was a memorable birthday nevertheless.

[tower912]

I am working as a marshal at an LPGA event.   Danielle Kang, prior to winning her major, walks off the green saying to her caddie... G-D it, I can't even f'ing putt.      I almost fell in love right on the spot.   

Same tournament, Christie Kerr gets a marshal kicked off the course because he was dipping into a little bag of potato chips 30 feet away while she was starting her process to hit her drive.    He crunched, she turned, growling, he got kicked off. 

Laura Davies and her caddie, chain smoking together when she isn't hitting.   Then, when it is her turn to drive, she whacks the hell out of the ground, raises a little piece of turf, and hits off of that instead of a tee. 

[MU82]

I was a big Dolphins fan when they were the best team on the planet in the early '70s, and I was visiting my aunt and uncle in Miami when I was 13. (As was the law, if you were from the East coast and Jewish, once you hit 65 you had to move there.) It was my first airplane trip ever.

The doorbell rang one day and it was Nick Buoniconti, then the Dolphins' All-Pro MLB, and he gave us tickets for the 1973 playoff game vs. the Bengals. Plus, he played catch with a football with me in the parking lot even though he was wearing a suit.

As it turned out, a woman who lived in their condo complex was Buoniconti's secretary, and my uncle (who like Buoniconti was a lawyer) arranged for the tickets. So that was pretty cool for a young kid like me.

The Dolphins crushed the Bengals and I had a blast at the first pro sporting event I ever attended. They killed the Raiders the next week. And two weeks later, they annihilated the Vikings for their second straight title.

[Cheeks]

When they get involved with my kids, a bunch of cool memories for them and for me as a dad.

[mu_hilltopper]

I saw Joe Nethen ~5 years ago at a festival.

I went up to him and said hello .. "hey, you're Joe Nethen right?  We lived at McCormick at the same time, 1987."

He shook my hand and 5 seconds later asked "I didn't beat you up or nuthing, did I?" .. I imagine he says that to everyone he meets from that era.

[MUEng92]

Back in the late 1970's I got my one and only pro athlete autograph from Steve Dillard of the Cubs at the Boat and Fishing show at the Rockford (Il) Armory.
 
(drops the mic...)

[dgies9156]

Mine was in high school. My closest friend from high school's father worked for the local ABC affiliate in Nashville. The Atlanta Braves winter caravan was coming through and he asked if my friend and I wanted to go to the Braves press conference with the local sports editor.

We rode out in a television mobile cruiser, got to the conference and were told stand in the back and be quiet while the working media did their jobs. We did and just watched in awe as Eddie Matthews, Rico Carty, Phil Niekro and a couple of other Braves did their presentations.

When the questions were done, Mr. Matthews grasped Mr. Niekro and walked over to us. The two of them saw us, said hello and began engaging in baseball talk. We were mesmerized as they talked about pitching and hitting for a couple of minutes.

My second was Jose Posada, the catcher for the New York Yankees, who signed for my 12-year-old son in a Nordstrom's in downtown Seattle. Hate the Yankees but loved Jorge ever after.

Never got the chance to meet Stan Musial or Bob Gibson, who I admired growing up. And, of course, I would have killed for an hour with Al McGuire, who basically could do no wrong in my mind -- even after the double technicals!

[Sir Lawrence]

Steve Novak took my daughter to homecoming.  Puked in my powder room on a different night when Sir Larry was not home.

Lew Alcindor, before he was Kareem, was on my paper route.
Always tipped well.

Ran with Al McGuire in Al’s run for about three minutes.  He was gassed.

[NorthernDancerColt]

I am working as a marshal at an LPGA event.   Danielle Kang, prior to winning her major, walks off the green saying to her caddie... G-D it, I can't even f'ing putt.      I almost fell in love right on the spot.   

Same tournament, Christie Kerr gets a marshal kicked off the course because he was dipping into a little bag of potato chips 30 feet away while she was starting her process to hit her drive.    He crunched, she turned, growling, he got kicked off. 

Laura Davies and her caddie, chain smoking together when she isn't hitting.   Then, when it is her turn to drive, she whacks the hell out of the ground, raises a little piece of turf, and hits off of that instead of a tee.

I caddied for Jenny Lidback of the LPGA during a charity outing at Conway Farms. When a CF member in my group asked ME (and not Jenny) why his swing was off  (I was his regular looper) I told him that he was seriously fast in the transition, and was probably subconsciously over swinging so as not to be outdriven by Jenny. He was a heck of a player and had won the club championship before. My advice to him was to stare in almost a hypnotic state at Ms Lidback’s ridiculously smooth tempo swing and emulate it. He starts puring it every single shot, and Lidback is like “what happened?” The guy goes “Rob told me to stare at you longingly.”  “Your swing of course.”

I remember Laura Davies doing that turf-bash thing in the Solheim Cup at Rich Harvest as well. Sometimes pros will do that when they’re getting a little too shallow in the hitting area, or when they want to hit a fade.

[NorthernDancerColt]

I am working as a marshal at an LPGA event.   Danielle Kang, prior to winning her major, walks off the green saying to her caddie... G-D it, I can't even f'ing putt.      I almost fell in love right on the spot.   

Same tournament, Christie Kerr gets a marshal kicked off the course because he was dipping into a little bag of potato chips 30 feet away while she was starting her process to hit her drive.    He crunched, she turned, growling, he got kicked off. 

Laura Davies and her caddie, chain smoking together when she isn't hitting.   Then, when it is her turn to drive, she whacks the hell out of the ground, raises a little piece of turf, and hits off of that instead of a tee.

Christie is pretty cool, so that story surprises me. I wonder if it was her caddie that asked that the guy be yanked. Those guys can be brutal though. They often do more harm than good at tournaments, and most just do it for the free round of golf they usually get.

[GooooMarquette]

Lots of personal encounters when I was a kid during Al's day, but my favorite was with my daughter.

She was in about 6th or 7th grade, and had been struggling in school. I told her she could go to the game if she turned everything in on time and participated in class (didn't want to make it dependent on a specific grade). She did.

It was early season (November), and she had only been on campus in the winter, so we came to Milwaukee earlier than usual to walk around campus. Turned out to be a torrential downpour, so we decided to pass a few hours in the union. We walk into the Spirit Shop (which was virtually empty that early), and Dominic James was standing there. She told him that she was allowed to go to the game because her grades were improving. DJ gives her a short pep talk about the importance of school - which she listened to FAR more intently than she'd ever listen to me - and became an honors/AP student overnight.

To this day, she credits Dominic with making her take school more seriously...although I hope I helped a little bit myself.... 

[MU82]

Steve Novak took my daughter to homecoming.  Puked in my powder room on a different night when Sir Larry was not home.

I hope you saved that puke and then sold it on eBay to a Knicks fan during Linsanity!

[WarriorFan]

1995 I was in Cleveland area for a wedding and as I did at the time wherever I travelled I started calling YMCA's looking for a pickup basketball game.  Finally the East Cleveland Y says "yeah, a bunch of guys come in around noon, just show up".  So I went early and was shooting around and warming up and a bunch of TREES walk in.  Seemed like everyone was 6'7 or larger.

Eventually the biggest guy comes up to me and says.  "Hi, my name is Jim, you want to play?"  I said yes, thats why I'm here... he says well, the way we keep all these lazy buggers on time is that the first guy in the gym gets first pick... that's you, and your first pick is me - and then you let me pick the rest.

He proceeded to pick Tony Miller with the next pick and two other guys I didn't know.  We held the court the whole day... never lost.

Jim, of course, was Jim Chones. 

[Plaque Lives Matter!]

Someone bought Chris Otule a drink at Trinity and he didn’t want it so he gave it to me.

[Jon]

Was cutting past the Plankinton Mansion where two guys were smoking weed on the west side steps. I recognized them as Mike Norris and Rickey Henderson who were in town with the A's.

I spoke with them for a few minutes then asked if they could leave me tix at Will Call. There were 4 for each of the remaining two games.

 

[Galway Eagle]

Shotgunned a beer with Jimmy Butler my freshman year,

Dwight Buycks used to cheat off me my sophomore year in history (his mistake as I was drunk most classes),

used to work out with Iman Shumpert in high school.

[Archies Bat]

In high school in the mid-70's while working at a grocery store in Hales Corners, I regularly packed groceries for Robin Yount.  He was the nicest guy and was always made nice small talk as I packed the groceries and loaded into his car.

Was at Goolsby's after a Bucks game next to Brian Winters.  Told him good game, and he sent a pitcher over to our table.  I assume it was a comp.

In another thread, I told of my flight sitting next to Al.

At an MU Block Party around 1979, someone bumped into me and I spilled my beer on Sam Worthen. 

[Lighthouse 84]

Several years ago I got to play Rich Harvest Farms for the first time.  After the 11th hole, the skies opened up so we went to the half way house to wait it out. Everyone else had the same idea and soon, Bo Jackson walked in.  Bo starts telling stories from his baseball days and someone asks, what city has the best looking fans?  Without skipping a beat (except for Bo's little stutter), he says, "without a doubt, Arlington, Texas.  Remember when Robin Ventura got hit by Nolan Ryan, Robin charged the mound and Nolan got Robin in a headlock?"  We all nodded, as it was something we all remembered.  Bo says, "go back and watch it again and see how long it takes us to get out of the dugout to help Robin.  We were too busy looking at the p-$$y in the stands to get out there."

[MUBurrow]

Lots of personal encounters when I was a kid during Al's day, but my favorite was with my daughter.

She was in about 6th or 7th grade, and had been struggling in school. I told her she could go to the game if she turned everything in on time and participated in class (didn't want to make it dependent on a specific grade). She did.

It was early season (November), and she had only been on campus in the winter, so we came to Milwaukee earlier than usual to walk around campus. Turned out to be a torrential downpour, so we decided to pass a few hours in the union. We walk into the Spirit Shop (which was virtually empty that early), and Dominic James was standing there. She told him that she was allowed to go to the game because her grades were improving. DJ gives her a short pep talk about the importance of school - which she listened to FAR more intently than she'd ever listen to me - and became an honors/AP student overnight.

To this day, she credits Dominic with making her take school more seriously...although I hope I helped a little bit myself.... 

Dom was definitely the celebrity of the 3 Amigos class early on, and in my experience he was always really gracious about it.  I was a student at the time, and had just bought my brother some Christmas gifts at the spirit shop (he would've been about your daughter's age) when I walked by Dom heading into the Union. I jogged back and asked if he would sign a couple things as my brother was a big fan. He was really cool about it, asked my brother's name so he could personalize the autographs, etc.