Hey, listen up, and listen real good. This with regards to the dude arrested at the Jays game(picture is posted way back). I DID not try to infiltrate the dugout in a retro uniform( Ernie Whitt's name on the back by the way....and I saw him at Laguardia and we chuckled over it a few months later). I was just really hammered on 8 dollar beer and feeling a little frivilous.....the spirit of Robbie Alomar pulsed through my veins, and well, I hopped the wall with a long black wig on and wanted to do what no fan had ever done before. I dove headfirst into the pitchers mound. My dad, mom, sister, brother, and best man of my wedding(which happened 2 days later) all witnessed the $hit$how live. My dad actually approached me after with a steely stare and said, "you little ba$tard, I always wanted to do that myself!" Of course the wig fell off, I got handcuffed and Sports Illustrated claimed i was trying to infiltrate the dugout in a 1970's jersey. Beauty time anyways.....now thats the real story, and I made SI. Nice webpage. By the way, Iorg should be proud of me, he and Ernie were teammates.

Exchange with a friend about a reader's letter to Barry Scanlon of the Lowell Sun re: A-Day....

TJ:

This is a very funny read!

So in response to a cultural swipe at Alabama football fans (no, I didn't read the article), this letter's author takes great pains to catalogue the state's industrial and scientific triumphs.

Okay, but who really cares what a sportswriter--worthy opinion-maker though he may be--in Lowell, MA, thinks about Alabama football and its fans? Nothing says "insecure" like a disproportionate response.

Maybe it's enough for Alabama natives like you and me to know in our hearts that (some of) those perceptions are outdated or simply never meshed with reality. Leave the litany of Dixie accomplishments to the Chamber of Commerce. (Unless this feller IS the Chamber of Commerce.)

Jason

(By the way, we may want to discuss before claiming Wernher von Braun as one of our own.)

----- Original Message ----
Sent: Sunday, June 10, 2007 8:37:26 AM
Subject: Forwarded Letter

No doubt the guy received thousands of such letters...and probably some that were less eloquent. It's funny that the fan support that Scanlon found to be repugnant is helping to bring top recruits to Alabama again.

------------------------------

Many of you may have seen the recent article from Lowell (MA.) Sun
sportswriter Barry Scanlon reviewing the annual A Day game attendance!!

It begins:

"On Saturday, thousands of University of Alabama football fans stuffed chewing tobacco into their mouths, jumped into their pick-up trucks, and made their way to Bryant-Denny Stadium."

If interested - you can read the whole article at: http://www.lowellsun.com/sports/ci_5732145

I couldn't help but to email Mr. Scanlon and the entire staff at the Lowell Sun. Here is my response (my haste probably prevented a better thought out letter - but maybe this gets the point across).

Dear Barry:

No doubt your brilliant Northern education is shining through with such creative prose as presented in your opening sentence:

"On Saturday, thousands of University of Alabama football fans stuffed chewing tobacco into their mouths, jumped into their pick-up trucks, and made their way to Bryant-Denny Stadium."

I'm sure all the folks around the news room had a good old knee-slappin' time reading your words of wisdom and wit. It may have sparked what will prove to be your "15 Minutes of Fame." While I'm not sure of your motivation - other than envy - no doubt the Crimson Tide can't hold a candle to the excitement of the Lowell Spinners or Devils, the UML River Hawks or God forbid - the Northeastern Huskies in the mighty Colonial Athletic Association!

Hey Barry - don't pretend to be so sanctimonious - I've been to Fenway!

As for us - we'll continue to chew our tobacco - but please forgive us if some of our residents have traded in their pickup trucks for one of the 5 automotive brands which are now manufactured in Alabama (Mercedes, Honda, Toyota , and Hyundai). Or if they do need a truck, maybe they can buy an International diesel which is built in Alabama or one from Isuzu which just announced their first North American plant to be built in Birmingham . Or they may just wish to drive an Indian motorcycle which recently moved their manufacturing plant to Alabama . And there's no place better to chew tobacco and test drive your car, truck or motorcycle than the new world-renowned Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham which is home to the only Porsche Driving School in America - by the way Barber's is regarded as one of the best motorsport tracks in the world. Maybe you saw it on TV this past weekend when it hosted the AMA Honda Superbike Classic. If you need something a little bigger - maybe you can take a spin around the Grand Old Lady at Talladega Superspeedway - or you can wait another couple years for the opening of America 's newest $500 million NASCAR complex in Mobile .

Barry - you'll have to forgive other folks for not responding to your article - but we've been knee deep in tobacco juice in our successful efforts to bring the world's biggest names to Alabama . You may have heard, Mobile is about to be named home to the largest industrial manufacturing facility which has been built in the past 30 years in America - the Germans from ThyssenKrupp are coming to build the country's largest steel mill. They'll join EADS (Airbus) from France down there for their first North American production facility (they'll be building jumbo jets). They've been building other flying machines down in South Alabama for a while - maybe you've seen some of those fatcats up there being ferried around in Sikorsky helicopters - Sikorsky is doubling the size of their Alabama plant - that means more high paying jobs and expendable funds for chewing tobacco and maybe an extra shotgun. They join some other aerospace companies like Boeing and Lockheed Martin who have had manufacturing facilities in Alabama for years.

Skipping up to North Alabama , our redneck rocket scientists in Huntsville are designing the next generation Space Shuttle at the Marshall Space Flight Center . You may have heard of Marshall and the Redstone Arsenal - they were home to a tobacco chewer named Wernher Von Braun who led the design and production of the Saturn V rocket which carried America to the moon and opened space exploration.

And Alabama is home to seven research universities and 90 biotech companies. Alabama has produced six FDA approved cancer drugs, and is on the forefront with major initiatives for flu, vaccines, the NIH Roadmap, cancer, AIDS research and more.

I didn't mean to bore you with all this - just thought you should know. If you ever decide to take a vacation - maybe you can come down here to visit us in Dixie - we've got the cleanest, most pristine white-sand beaches in America at Gulf Shores - and if it strikes your fancy - you can even depart for a Carnival Cruise which recently started operating from the Port of Mobile . And as you know - you can probably catch a good football game in the fall - if you don't mind occasionally wiping tobacco juice off your shoes.

Keep it down home cuz -