OldRightHander
07-29-2005, 12:09 PM
For starters, this story has nothing to do with the trading deadline or Adam Dunn. Anyway, we have to go back a few years on this one, 1994 to be exact. I was living over in Kentucky back then, in an apartment out in Erlanger. I worked a third shift job, so I would go to a lot of day games or night games on my off nights. I didn't have a car in those days, so I often would ride the bus home from the games. This particular game was a Friday night against the Expos. The Reds tied it late and went into extras. I was nervously looking at my watch, realizing that if the game went too long, I might miss the last bus out of downtown. By the 12th inning, I had a decision to make. I had to leave then to catch that bus, but the game wasn't over. I concurred that since I only lived eight miles from the stadium and it was a pleasant night out, I could just walk home if I missed the bus. The walk would only take a couple hours and I didn't really have anything better to do.
So Reggie Sanders sent me on my trek with a walk off bomb in the bottom of the 13th and off I was. I walked across the bridge, through Covington, and out to Pike Street and up the hill to Dixie Highway. I got up the hill into Ft. Wright and decided that I would stop for a snack and a soft drink to keep me company, and I wandered into a Shell gas station for a coke and a couple candy bars. I was a very healthy eater in those days. By this time, I've been walking for about an hour and a half and it was now close to 2:00 am. There also happened to be a police officer who thought it was somewhat odd to see someone taking a stroll down Dixie Highway at 2:00 am drinking a coke and eating a candy bar, so he stopped to see what was up. I said, "No problem. I'm just on my way home from the Reds game." He gave me a weird look and said, "That game got over an hour and a half ago. Why are you walking." I explained that I didn't have a car and that I had missed the last bus to see the end of the game and he didn't like that answer too much and asked to see my I.D.
Now wouldn't you know that he just had to take my I.D. and run it through his cop computer to see if I was up to anything, and apparently I was up to something because he came back out and put the cuffs on me and took me back down to Covington. I was asking him what was up because I had never done anything and he just kept repeating that there was a warrant out for me and he was taking me in. I asked him what the warrant was for and he said that it was from the Kenton County library. I then remembered something. It turns out that when I have moved out of an apartment a couple years before, I had left a couple library books in a closet and the landlord had turned one of them back in but the other one remained missing. The darn library issued a warrant for my arrest because I had a library book checked out for over two years!
So there I was, sitting in a holding cell with a cast of characters I will never forget. Most of them were drunk and sleeping, but a couple of them were awake. One of them had bruises on his face and he told me, "My old lady beat me up and I'm the one who gets arrested." I kept my distance. One of them asked me what I was brought in for and I said, "Overdue library book." That elicited much laughter and made me the hit of the holding cell, at least until they figured out I didn't have any smokes anyone could borrow. When we went to see the judge at 8:00 am, he took one look at my case and just laughed. He dismissed all charges and told me to just be sure to go to the library and pay them for the book.
Is there a point to this story? Maybe, but I'm having trouble figuring out exactly what it is. Maybe it is to illustrate what we will go through for baseball sometimes. Maybe it's to show you why you should return your library books. Or maybe it's to say that you should always be sure of your transportation home when you go to a night game. Or maybe it's this. Never leave a game early. You never know what will happen if you stay 'til the end.
So Reggie Sanders sent me on my trek with a walk off bomb in the bottom of the 13th and off I was. I walked across the bridge, through Covington, and out to Pike Street and up the hill to Dixie Highway. I got up the hill into Ft. Wright and decided that I would stop for a snack and a soft drink to keep me company, and I wandered into a Shell gas station for a coke and a couple candy bars. I was a very healthy eater in those days. By this time, I've been walking for about an hour and a half and it was now close to 2:00 am. There also happened to be a police officer who thought it was somewhat odd to see someone taking a stroll down Dixie Highway at 2:00 am drinking a coke and eating a candy bar, so he stopped to see what was up. I said, "No problem. I'm just on my way home from the Reds game." He gave me a weird look and said, "That game got over an hour and a half ago. Why are you walking." I explained that I didn't have a car and that I had missed the last bus to see the end of the game and he didn't like that answer too much and asked to see my I.D.
Now wouldn't you know that he just had to take my I.D. and run it through his cop computer to see if I was up to anything, and apparently I was up to something because he came back out and put the cuffs on me and took me back down to Covington. I was asking him what was up because I had never done anything and he just kept repeating that there was a warrant out for me and he was taking me in. I asked him what the warrant was for and he said that it was from the Kenton County library. I then remembered something. It turns out that when I have moved out of an apartment a couple years before, I had left a couple library books in a closet and the landlord had turned one of them back in but the other one remained missing. The darn library issued a warrant for my arrest because I had a library book checked out for over two years!
So there I was, sitting in a holding cell with a cast of characters I will never forget. Most of them were drunk and sleeping, but a couple of them were awake. One of them had bruises on his face and he told me, "My old lady beat me up and I'm the one who gets arrested." I kept my distance. One of them asked me what I was brought in for and I said, "Overdue library book." That elicited much laughter and made me the hit of the holding cell, at least until they figured out I didn't have any smokes anyone could borrow. When we went to see the judge at 8:00 am, he took one look at my case and just laughed. He dismissed all charges and told me to just be sure to go to the library and pay them for the book.
Is there a point to this story? Maybe, but I'm having trouble figuring out exactly what it is. Maybe it is to illustrate what we will go through for baseball sometimes. Maybe it's to show you why you should return your library books. Or maybe it's to say that you should always be sure of your transportation home when you go to a night game. Or maybe it's this. Never leave a game early. You never know what will happen if you stay 'til the end.