Sadly, this is the true account of a dream I had last night.
I am at game 7 of the World Series in the front row with my longest-known friend Tim, from Cleveland. The series is tied 3-3. Two outs, bottom of the ninth, full count and the bags are juiced. Cleveland is up. In Yankee Stadium. (If you’re not a baseball fan, this scenario is impossible on many levels.) Travis Hafner is at bat. He hits a foul ball down the 3B line. Right at us. ARod comes over to catch it for the 3rd out and to send the game into extra innings, but Tim pushes ARod out of the way and catches it himself. Tim’s ecstatic. I’m ecstatic. We high five and look for the TV cameras. Then we realize Tim’s wearing Indians gear. Boos suddenly rain down on us. On the very next pitch, Hafner hits one out of the stadium. Cleveland wins the World Series. Then Erik Proulx, a Red Sox fan and someone I've never even met in person, incites the crowd around us. We start getting pelted with beer and shoes. The cops have to escort us out. Twelve of them. They take our ball and throw it to the crowd – who then lights it on fire. The abuse continues in the mezzanine. Then out of no where, Oliver Blanchard walks by. He’s wearing a ruffley white shirt and skinny jeans. His hair is perfect. He waves to us, even though he doesn’t know my friend Tim because he’s not on Twitter. “Great game, no?” He says and keeps going. Only, there are like 10,000 or so people following him. Texting, talking on phones and taking pictures. We all have to wait. For fifteen minutes. At this point I think about Inception and how maybe I've gone to Limbo. Strangely, the angry mob stops as the procession passes. Really. You could hear a pin drop. When they finally do pass, we bolt across the breezeway just ahead of the enraged fans. I wake up.
W.T.F.?
***
Jim Mitchem/@smashadv
