Last Wednesday, we loaded up the ’68 VW bus for a drive to Baltimore and then a train to New York. Six days later, the wake-n-bake-mobile rolled back into the garage.
In between, we had a great, albeit at times exhausting, visit to the Big Apple for the NFL’s primary offseason oasis, the first-ever three-day draft. The initial night had the feel of a rock concert -- loud and chaotic and crowded. But also awesome. The second night featured a thinned-out media throng and thus more elbow room for yours truly and Rosenthal, even though the quarters were sufficiently cramped for me to knock over a Pepsi near his laptop as I was making my exit for the night. Saturday provided a very relaxed feel, with only a sparse crowd in the orchestra level at Radio City Music Hall and an even sparser media contingent. But I can’t think of a better place to hang out for seven-plus hours on a Saturday afternoon.
Then we did the Broadway thing on Saturday night (Rock of Ages) and Sunday afternoon (American Idiot), an NBC update with Jimmy Roberts on Sunday morning, and the Sports Emmys on Monday night. Along the way, I met Ice Cube and Mike Breen and Chris Carlin and outgoing NFL V.P. of officiating Mike Pereira and NFL scheduling guru Howard Katz and former Browns president (and current NHL COO) John Collins, who rather graciously and with a smile on his face quoted back to me an article from December 2005 in which I described him as a “new level of asshole.”
So it was a blast. But the best part was getting home to Florio Jr., who greeted us with this familiar refrain: “What did you bring me?”