The other night, Chan and I were walking home from Saigon Grill. I had our food in one hand and a can of soda in the other. Two dudes were having a catch with a football along the sidewalk. (Completely unnecessarily, as there's a park across the street from where they were. I think they just enjoyed making people avoid a football as they innocently walked down the sidewalk. In other words, they were assholes.) As we approached them, I knew that I'd have trouble making a play, should the ball get away from one of them, seeing as my hands were full. Which was a shame, since my favorite play in football, aside from the onside-kick, the flea-flicker, and the hook-and-ladder, is the the tip drill.

So the far guy throws to the near guy, and I can see right away that with the height and speed of the throw, there's gonna be a chance that the ball tips off the near guy's shoulder, and comes floating toward me. And sure enough, it happened. Somehow, with my left hand, the one holding a heavy bag of Curry Tau Hu and whatever Chan ordered, I manage to catch the ball, cradling it between my elbow and my body.

I kind of leaned upward so the near guy could take the ball from me. He gave me a stoned-sounding "Good lookin' out, man."

We kept walking, and as we passed the far guy, instead of hearing, "Hey, good job over there, most people don't catch my purposely errant throws even with two free hands," he starts in with the Red Sox-bashing.

"Yo, they just got swept, you still wearin' it?" (my hat).

"Uh, what?"

"Yo, no other team in baseball got swept, at least the yanks went five games."

This was the point where I realized there was no use talking to this guy.

Long story short, the kid gave me all the pre-2004 bullcrap, as if last year had never happened. He wasn't specifically mentioning the yanks, though, so I asked, "What's your team?"

"The Mets," he said.

"What kind of Mets fan are you, being so pro-yankees," I asked.

"Cuz' it's New York."

"I live here," I told him.

More talk of 86 years followed, and with each thing he said, he'd turn away to throw the football, leaving my rational responses to go unheard.

"AL East Champs!" he bragged. (You know, about his "other" team. So please don't believe that "One or the other and nothing in between" crap about New York.)

It's just so funny how they make fools of themselves. A yankee fan, or whatever he calls himself, bragging about his team tying the Red Sox, then suffering an equal fate in the post-season, a year after losing in historic fashion to the Sox.

It once again goes to show that this never was about baseball. It's about pathetic people needing to feel good about themselves. The Boston "B" will always say to them, "That person's below me." Here's something funny to imagine: Say the Sox go on to tie the yanks in terms of total championships. Even if takes 300 years. There's no doubt in my mind that yankee fans will still come up with some ridiculous reason why they will always be better than us. "Everybody knows those last twenty were flukes." And I'm sure the "class" issue will still be raised, even if the entire yankee team ends up being convicted for murder at some point.

And, as was brought up in my comments, why do they feel the need to go up to total strangers to attempt to put them down? And this wasn't joking around, more like he really was thinking about physically fighting me. A stranger. On the street.

Here's the bonus. As we walked away, with me yelling "terrible job," Chan told me he'd seen the same kid a few days earlier with a bat and a ball, and was getting ready to hit the ball over 2nd Avenue, despite the fact that Chan was walking by right in front of him. Chan hustled out of there.

Terrible job, kid.

Putting people down to make yourself feel better, hmm, sounds like a documentary I just watched called Flight From Death.

Actually, I would have brought it up anyway, because it was co-written and co-produced by Greg Bennick, someone I'm proud to be a friend of. He did some great work. Check out the site and read about it, and if it sounds interesting to you, you can buy the DVD there. Or go to a Virgin Megastore, that's where I got mine. Put simply, t's all about how death affects life. Really interesting stuff. And I'm not getting paid for this. He doesn't even know I'm plugging his work, and as far as I know, isn't even aware of my blog.