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Pat Toy is a large, fair-haired, Irish-Catholic New Hampshireian (Hampshirite? Hampster?) account executive in the Cyclones ticket office. So, naturally, he's in charge of Jewish Heritage Night in Brooklyn. Below, Pat checks in on the blog with an update on the night (luckily, Andrew Stern helped him with some of the vocab):
Here’s my shpiel...ever wonder who is the greatest Jewish baseball player of all time?
Some say Hank Greenberg, others say Brooklyn’s own Sandy Koufax, and Cyclones’ employees are forced to say Steve Cohen. (He can be a bit of a shmegegge, but we love him.)
On Jewish Heritage Night you will be able to meet the man who puts the argument to rest, Howard Megdal. Howard is the author of The Baseball Talmud: The Definitive Position-by-Position Ranking of Baseball's Chosen Players. Howard will be signing copies of his book and will be available to schmooze and answer any of your favorite "Hammering Hebrews"-related questions.
You’ll absolutely plotz when you see all of the pre-game festivities we have in store for you! We’ll nosh on knishes when we have our knish eating contest. And we’ll supply the chairs and music...you just bring your dancing shoes, because we’re also getting our hora on in center field before the game.
All that, plus the first 2,500 fans in attendance will receive Brooklyn Cyclones’ Playing Cards presented by Harrah’s.
The game is on Tuesday, 7/7, with first pitch at 7pm, and tickets start at… $8 (so close). So get your tickets now, and grab the Manischewitz, because it’s time to party like it’s passach at Mel’s house (the good one) with the Brooklyn Cyclones on Jewish Heritage Night.
Just got word (thanks, Billy) that John Maine and Oliver Perez are going to be pitching for the Cyclones this weekend, on rehab assignments.
No offense to Tom Martin, Mike Stanton, or Alay Soler, but Maine and Perez will be the biggest pitchers ever to rehab with Brooklyn. Maine's start will, unfortunately, be in Aberdeen on Saturday night, but Brooklyn fans will get to see Perez at KeySpan Park on Sunday.
Ollie's sporting a new mohawk and (more importantly) apparently has his mid-90's fastball working, so it should be a fun night at the park!
Ol-lie! Ol-lie! Ol-lie! Ol-lie!
By the way, Ollie...we're undefeated at home. No pressure.
-- Dave
UPDATE: Just saw on SNY that Maine got another cortisone shot and will miss his next start. So he won't be pitching at Aberdeen. Maybe it'll work out that we get him at home whenever he's ready. We'll see.
And I'm not just patting ourselves on the back (like Steve). My favorite blogger (and Joyce's second-favorite), Ben Hill, said so, too. And he pays attention to this stuff for a living. The Associated Press also ran a great story on the night (which you can read here), and it has been picked up across the country, and across the Internets so Baracklyn has once again gone global.
All kidding aside, the Baracklyn Cyclones night really was a huge success, with fans still buzzing this morning. We drew a fantastic crowd of 8,760, and had first pitches from Obama Girl (my new crush) and the president himself (sort of). Secret Service took a bullet baseball in the chest to protect the POTUS (video below), and the bobbleheads were a tremendous hit, with some fans lining up as early as 12:30pm (for a 7pm game), and one fan(atic) driving all the way from Boulder, CO to get his bobble!
We had two people named Barack get in for free (OK, one of them was "Barak," but we let him slide), and one "Joe the Plumber" pick up a set of free tickets with his plumber's union card (one for himself, and one to spread the wealth). The jerseys looked great, too, and we raised a substantial amount of money for the Jackie Robinson Foundation by auctioning them off.
The Baseball Hall of Fame even requested a game-worn jersey from us as part of their efforts to "continually document and preserve the game in Cooperstown." So, starting pitcher Brandon Moore is now going to the Hall of Fame. Well, maybe someday. For now, it's just his jersey. Still pretty cool.
All this hooplah and publicity, despite MLB's best efforts to upstage us with some much-less-important Obama news of their own!
Here are some photo and video highlights of the night:
Wow. Sunday night was a beast. We pulled the tarp five or six times (it felt like even more), but we got the game in, and got the win!
The Eurythmics made rain sound great. Like a spiritual rebirth. Pouring on my head like a memory. Falling on my head like a new emotion. Um, no, Annie. It's none of those things. Not on a game day, at least. Not even close.
I can't really describe what it's like to sprint at full speed from the Press Box to the field, through a crowd of 9,000, while everyone else is going the other way. Normal people are trying to get away from the rain, and we're running into it. I imagine it's a bit similar to this.
Then we get the signal from the umps and heave and ho until our new extra-mammoth-sized tarp is rolled out and ready to be pulled. It weighs a ton, the wind is whipping, fans are mad at us for covering the field...and, oh, yeah, it's pouring rain. Add in the mud, gravel, and God-only-knows-what-else that is being kicked up in our faces (and into our mouths, ears, and just about everywhere else), and you have a thoroughly unenjoyable experience.
Now do it half a dozen more times on the same night, and you have a legendary Father's Day Sunday. Not the good kind.
Hopefully this week will bring better weather. I'm all tarped out, and it's not even July.
The Brooklyn Cyclones are a Class-A affiliate of the New York Mets. The team plays a 76-game schedule from June through September, with home games played at Coney Island's MCU Park. Tickets are available at brooklyncyclones.com or by phone at 718-507-TIXX. For Ticket Plans or group outings, fans can call 718-37-BKLYN
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