Milk Money

Have you ever heard of the "milk gallon challenge?" Basically, it says that it is impossible to drink a gallon of milk in one hour...and keep it down. (Well, OK, not impossible. Joey Chestnut can do it even faster than that, but he's a pro, so that doesn't count.)

Somehow, the challenge made its way into a Ticket Office conversation, and Brian the Intern (that's the name on his birth certificate) immediately boasted that he could easily accomplish the feat. The T.O. then brought said challenge to the attention of the Blog, and here we are.

No one believes it's possible -- especially for someone who is 5'3" and 95 pounds -- to drink a gallon of milk in an hour and keep it down...but we're willing to hang out for an hour after work to see the results. (Not Steve. Steve just kind of shook his head and said "If he dies, and I'm around...that would suck." Then he walked out the door.)

Despite dozens of absolutely disgusting videos to the contrary, Brian the Intern was ready to proceed ahead and try to prove us all wrong. And here's how it all went down (spoiler alert: and back up again):

With many staff members already gathered, Brian the Intern (BTI) burst through the door to the players' lounge looking disturbingly like Paulie Bleeker, but not quite as buff. Seriously. The kid was wearing wristbands, a yellow headband, a toddler's t-shirt, shorts, and white socks pulled up to his mid-calf. Not exactly an intimidating sight. But I will say this...he talked a good game.

Before he even popped the top of the milk gallon, his bravado actually had me thinking twice about my prediction. And then the challenge began.

BTI chose to "enhance" his milk with chocolate powder (which I still think was his biggest mistake, since all that does is make it thicker and heavier, but hey, whatever). He poured the first cup, stirred in the mix, and away we went. With the stopwatch keeping the pace, BTI chugged the first cup, then the second, then the third. He was a milk-drinking machine, pulverizing the pasteurization. And what started out as competitive bravado became over the top braggadocio. He was talking smack between cups, doing cartwheels (or what were supposed to be cartwheels), challenging Ricky to a post-challenge race, etc. There was no way he wasn't going to crush this challenge.

Then the half-hour mark hit.

BTI was talking less and less, and taking deeper and deeper breaths. The lighting in the room wasn't ideal, but I swear he started to turn a shade of yellow, and I think I saw his pupils getting grey. More importantly, his sips were getting smaller and smaller. And he was starting to sweat.

Throughout the whole process, we, as a staff, were nothing but supportive. And by "supportive," I mean we were trying to make him puke. Pat and I discussed the merits of eating whole sticks of butter. Ricky gave us a physical description of how the milk was interacting with BTI's stomach acids. KJ had some interesting theories on how BTI would likely be spending the remainder of his evening. Things like that.

At first, BTI laughed it off, and even had some good retorts, but as time kept ticking, he seemed to find it all less and less amusing. Which, of course, made it more and more fun.

The 40-minute mark brought the turning point. BTI simply started shaking his head -- slowly, but steadily. I asked him if that was a "no problem, I got this" confident head shake, or an "I don't think I'm going to make it" head shake. Without changing the expression on his face, BTI simply stared straight ahead and said. "It's not looking good." And that, dear friends, was the beginning of the end.

Approximately three minutes later, BTI told Ricky to get his camera ready (video to come eventually) and started doing this thing with his neck and shoulders that my grandmother's cat used to do right before it coughed up a hairball. Seconds later, BTI and his Bleeker headband were buried, ostrich-like, in a giant garbage can, with various sights and sounds coming from the depths below that elicited a deafening roar from the crowd.

It wasn't quite as dramatic as the infamous Stand By Me barf-o-rama (PG-13...go look it up, Joyce), but it did send some of the weaker-stomached scurrying for the doors.

Milk, 1. BTI, 0.

It was a valiant effort, but -- like his performance in the Full-Time vs. Intern Softball game -- BTI proved more talkin' than walkin'.

Don't worry, BTI. Your career in the minors is only beginning. Like they say in Brooklyn: Wait Til Next Year!

-- Dave