Press box horror stories

I guess I do have a press box horror story. I was there when a guy really did drop dead.

Last year at the state high school football championships, we had two of our teams playing back-to-back. I was doing the gamer on the early game, then helping my associate with the late game.

I leave the press box to do postgame for the early game and as I'm leaving I pass the guy who did the website for the local team that's playing the late game coming through the door, having lugged his camera and tripod up the steps to the press box. I greeted him, said something about what a hike it was to the top of the stadium then went down to do my business.

As I'm down there, I hear the PA announcer ask for a doctor to come up to the press box. Don't think anything of it, finish my interviews and head to the elevator to go back and write my gamer. Elevator is blocked by an EMT trying (and failing) to get a gurney on there and after a few minutes I hike up the steps to the press box.

Turned out that a couple of minutes after I greeted the local website guy, he's talking with my partner about the upcoming game when his eyes rolled back in his head, he collapsed and started going into convulsions. When the EMTs finally got up there and started treating him, it was pretty apparent that he was gone. Got him to the ER at the hospital a few blocks away, but he didn't make it.

Near as we can figure he had a pulmonary embolism. My wife the critical care nurse said that the only way anyone could have saved him was if he'd been on the operating table, and already cut open when it hit him. Guy was 47. Needless to say, no one was terribly enthusiastic about the game, and it was a very sobering ride home that night.

 

My dad was a writer for a large metro, and he'd take me to games, but the only time I was allowed in the press box was at the area NHRA event. Because, well, it's the NHRA. But it was cool to me, and got to go in the pits as well. But even at minor-league baseball games, bowl games, college football, or wherever else he took me I sat in the stands by myself. Can't imagine a writer having a kid in the press box at a pro game, much less during the postseason.

 

A horror story averted, at a HS basketball playoff game:

Pregnant writer from competing paper: "Just so you know, I'm about due."

Me, chuckling nervously: "I don't know nothin' about birthin' no babies."

Made it through the game without an uptick in attendance.

 

My sister was more than 8 months pregnant and had season tickets to the local NFL team. Doctor told her she could go, so I was supposed to go with her. I was terrified that she would go into labor walking up the stairwell to the seats. She went into labor the Friday before the game, and I can scarcely remember being more relieved. And I got a beautiful niece out of the deal.

 

I'm going to lighten the mood and give you my favorite press box story, one involving the late Kent Heitholt. He was working for the Nashville Banner at the time, and we were covering Tennessee in the late, lamented Garden State Bowl at the Meadowlands. The game was about to start and the clock operator, who looked to be about 80, suddenly shouted out: "How many minutes in a college quarter?" Kent promptly responded: "Twelve." And so ... when the game started, that's how many minutes were on the clock. It took the officials a couple of plays from scrimmage to notice something was wrong. Awesome.

Kent and I sat next to each other during the Tennessee basketball games in the old Stokely Center. They were the best seats in the house because they were right next to the visitors bench. Some of the coaches were hilarious. Sonny Smith of Auburn was a true comedian and Hugh Durham at Georgia was surprisingly funny. And of course, Kent was a comedian in his own right. Good times.

 

Covering a state high school basketball playoff game. I had my credentials all set, and was allowed in.

Coming in a few minutes later was the local town's sports radio broadcaster, who, as I've mentioned here before, used to read my stories and stuff on the air verbatem, quotes and everything. My paper had complained multiple times, and the guy would deny it, even when my boss would tape record his segments.

So I get in the game with my credential, but the radio guy didn't have one, so the basketball staffers weren't letting him in. He's starting to get agitated, then he spots me and tells them, "Baron will vouch for me. He knows me." Basketball staffers look at me, and I look back at them, and say, "I've never seen him in my life."

Radio guy's jaw drops, basketball guys tell him to go buy a ticket. I wait a minute or so, when the radio guy left, then I went over and told the staffers he really was a radio guy, so they called him back over and let him back in. I figured the radio guy would have just ripped me on his show, and I didn't want the attention.

So the radio guy comes back through, and I go up and tell him, "I figured you'd just read my stuff anyways, so you might as well work for it." Radio guy looked pretty sheepish. He actually was a pretty nice guy who was well-loved in the community for his work with kids and was just a PTer at his station in addition to a full-time gig as a government worker, but he was just clueless on journalism ethics.

 

You didn't bother to get rosters pregame and decided to make up for it by stealing from someone who did the legwork? Classy.

 

Nobody is clapping for Danny Hope now

 

Good grief. If she was that close to due, what was she doing at a game?

 

Somebody I follow on Twitter RTed a NASCAR writer complaining about somebody taking a massive dump at today's race that stunk up the entire press box.

 

The unmentioned side effects of eating Martinsville's hot dogs ...

 

I think that's a problem with almost any televised professional team event. Those humps can never just bag up their shit and walk out quietly.