2004 Barry Bonds Poster

One nice summer day, George Loft called me at work to tell me he had great tickets, right behind the visiting team dugout at Shea Stadium for that night’s game against the Giants, with Barry Bonds playing, and asked me if I would like to go. I told him that I would love to go, but I could not, because I had a very important meeting with NASA at work, which I could not miss. After I thought about it, I realized that my mother had suddenly and unexpectedly taken ill. I told the people at work about this, begged off, and skipped the meeting. Fortunately, my mother suddenly got better, and I went to the game. The seats were every bit as good as George had promised, four rows behind the dugout. However, in the row in front of me was an annoying kid with a sign, which was undoubtedly provided to him by his equally annoying father, who egged the kid into waving the sign so that people on the field could see it. Prior to the game, Bonds was on the field, talking to Jennie Finch, the great softball pitcher, perhaps 20 feet from us, surrounded by reporters and photographers. As it turned out, Bonds had a cold and did not play in the game, which was probably the reason that the Mets managed to prevail and win the game.

The following morning I was back at work, and I got a call from Dan Marino, asking me if I had seen that morning’s edition of the Daily News. When I said that I had not, he said that I had better go out and get a copy of it and look at the back page, which was always the sports page. I went out at lunchtime and did so. I was shocked to see a picture of my own face, looking unhappily over the annoying kid’s poster, which read “Do Yoga Not Steroids,” showing there for all the world to see. Not only that, but I was also on the back page of the New York Post. Fortunately, the NASA visitors, who were still there from the day before, apparently had not seen the paper, because none of them asked me if I had enjoyed the game. Phew…………..