The Bryant Blog: Life, Wrestling, Pop Culture

Monday wasn’t a stressful one by any means, but there was something that just said “blah.” I’ve also had Surfin’ Bird stuck in my head all day courtesy of last night’s Family Guy. Reminded me of a painful memory back from my senior year in high school. So here’s a slight walk down memory lane …. (wavy lines, wavy lines).

When I was a senior in high school, Women’s Pro Fastpitch came to Hampton, Va., as one of the six teams in the newly-founded professional women’s softball league. The team, the Virginia Roadsters, didn’t have a PA announcer, so I threw my name in the hat. I put in a tape and had an extensive background in fastpitch from covering an ASA team the previous two summers for the area’s weekly paper. At the time, I was the youngest professional PA announcer in the country, at 17-years-old. It wasn’t “pro” by any means compared to Major League Baseball … or even the WNBA, but it was a start.

Well, one day my senior year, I left school early to announce a double header between the Roadsters and the Carolina Diamonds. This was to be one of my last events on the WPF circuit. I was working at the Daily Press at the time and Dave Fairbank, one of our top writers, was covering the double dip. The previous day was rained out, so I was set for 14 innings of softball. Around the fourth inning of the first game, I played “Surfin’ Bird” and the fans got into it — all 500 of them. Believe it or not, the Virginia franchise did average a few thousand a game during that season, but I wasn’t around to see it. The first game droned on … no runs, extra innings, no hits, extra innings –  and the first game, which started around 3 p.m. — finally came to a merciful end about four hours later. Then a 30-minute break, in which I figured I’d play “Surfin’ Bird” again.

Game Two started around eight. Typically, games would only last two hours, which made this a pretty easy gig … until the second double header. Yes, we went 13 innings and scored one run in the second game. Between the seventh, 11th and 13th innings — “Surfin’ Bird” got the airplay. By that time, only 30 people remained and I don’t think they cared what was blaring out over the PA system to start with. Fairbank and I would have rather been hanging from the rafters than watch another pitch of the WPF.

There’s no Four Points today, because this is more of a billowing rant about life. I couldn’t sleep well last night and found myself finally retiring around 5 a.m. — hours after watching the Angels stave off elimination and beat the Red Sox in 12 innings.

I also had my GPS stolen out of my truck on Friday afternoon in the office parking lot. I hadn’t even had it a year. My auto insurance won’t cover it, because it wasn’t installed in the vehicle, rather on the dash (which is my own fault) with a suction cup. I filed a police report, which took me seven different numbers only for them to tell me I can file a report online. It’s like the Family Guy reference with Movie Phone last night, too.

Now, it’s Monday Night Football … and time to, as my roommate puts it, watch the Vikings lay another egg. I can’t get any Bucs games up here, but at least I’m not inundated with Philadelphia sports news.

On the Wrestling 411 side of things, I put in a call to one of my friends in the 2 Skinnee J’s (concert notes were back in August, if you’re feeling froggy) and got permissions to use certain instrumental tracks from keyboard/samples guru Stephen Light (aka Stevie Spice). This is good news for me, because it will help the show get rid of any stock soundtracks and give it a fresh sound.

Some real wrestling news coming tomorrow … oh, and I quit that Roadsters gig about a week after the painful twinbill.

Gas: $3.07
Weather: It was 70 and warm today …