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[QUOTE=SAR I;4502278]Nice to see you supporting your new MLB team.
Are you going to have a day with the New York Rangers next?
SAR I[/QUOTE]
I was there to support a charity and rooting for the Indians, but if my buddy gets me rink side for a Ranger game, and a meet and greet with players, I don't care if it's with a loser organization.
I grew up playing ice hockey, played goalie for about 18 years. Hockey players are the best athletes in the world for my money, most articulate too.
I would love to meet Henrik, any NHL goalie really.
Actually, the guy who was our host was Ray Negron, pretty interesting guy. Here is an article on him:
Ray Negron knows a thing or two about getting tough love from George Steinbrenner. The Boss caught a then-teenage Negron spray painting graffiti on the side of the old Yankee Stadium years ago.
In fact, it's how Negron eventually wound up being a special adviser to Steinbrenner for 38 years.
"I was 16," Negron remembers about the moment Steinbrenner caught him red-handed with a can of spray paint outside of Yankee Stadium. "He grabbed me and he put me in a holding cell that they had in the Stadium at the time. Minutes later, he took me into the Yankees locker room, gave me a jersey and I was the bat boy later that night."
Just like that, Steinbrenner had changed Negron's life, the way the Yankees owner did with countless individuals. It's why the resident of the Bronx took Tuesday's news of Steinbrenner's death due to a massive heart attack especially rough.
"The pain is instantaneous because you know one of your best friends in the world you're never going to see again," Negron said. "Seeing his compassion for the less privileged let me know that I had a shot as a minority. He gave me life . . . he gave me life."
Negron says his nearly 40 years of working for Steinbrenner was a priceless experience.
"How can you describe working for one of the most powerful men in the world?" Negron said. "You can't. Him saying, 'Hey pal,' to me on a consistent basis, means the world to me. He was the Babe Ruth of owners. As a historian of the game, I can tell you that's how Babe Ruth greeted kids, too.
"To a lot of us he represented a father, a brother, an uncle and a friend all wrapped into one," Negron added. "You hear about the lion that he was, but to me and others he was a man with a gigantic heart. He had an incredible sense of humor and a wonderful heart."
Negron said it was Steinbrenner who inspired him in 2006 to pen his first children's book, "The Boy of Steel: A Baseball Dream Come True." The book, based on events as told by Babe Ruth's granddaughter, Linda Ruth Tosetti, made The New York Times bestseller list and raised $300,000 for charities, prompting Steinbrenner to personally write a letter to Negron that he will always cherish.
"He wrote me a letter saying that the book rated on top with his world championships," Negron was quoted telling the Daily News in 2008, the same year he released his second children's book. "I keep that letter in my wallet. It's my most prized possession."
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