Passing out at the ball game

Overnight Andrew Rector has become the most famous baseball fan in New York. He’s the man who was caught on ESPN snoozing during the fourth inning of the April 13th Yankees – Red Sox game at Yankee stadium.

The video clip would have been long forgotten except that this week Rector sued the announcers, ESPN, and Baseball for $10 million claiming he was the victim of a “Avalanche of disparaging words.”

“Vituperative utterances” is how the lawsuit described it. His mother said Andrew got so much ribbing he’s left the country.

The lawsuit is going nowhere, for one thing the spelling and grammar is so bad it looks like it was thumb-typed on an old cell phone.

But let’s look at the other side for a moment. In baseball, there are games where the pitching is so good, that what you have is essentially a two and a half hour game of catch occasionally interrupted by a hit. Which usually occurs while you’re either in line for a beer, drinking the beer, or at the rest room expelling the beer.

The reason most of your legendary announcers are baseball announcers is because it takes real talent and considerable stamina to fill the yawning gaps generated by the typical baseball game.

Which is why, even though Ryan Roberts was at bat and took four pitches, the camera and the announcers focused on Andrew Rector for a minute and 10 seconds – because at that point in the fourth inning, the most interesting thing going on in Yankee Stadium was that a man had fallen asleep! Which says as much about baseball as it does about him.