Eyes Wide Open - September 11, 2001

I went to bed on Sept. 10, 2009 thinking about what I had to get done the next day. I woke up on Sept. 11, 2009 thinking about Sept. 11, 2001. I remembered the pain, the fear, and the complete lack of security I felt that morning 8 years ago.

My personal involvement in the tragedy of September 11 was rather mundane, and paled by comparison to thousands of others. I had arrived at my office in Chicago that morning, and found everyone in the CEO’s office. They were standing in front of the big screen television. When I asked what was going on they all turned, and looked at me in disbelief. “We are at war.” Someone said. I didn’t understand the answer. Rather than explain, they moved aside so I could see and hear the CNN broadcast. We stood and stared at the television, eyes wide and mouths agape, while the towers burned and collapsed to the ground.

On the screen were the World Trade Center towers, one was ablaze. Along the bottom of the screen was the ticker scrolling that we had been attacked. We watched the second plane impact the second tower. We watched the tower erupt into flames. The moments that followed were a bit of a blur. Everyone was confused. Some were screaming and crying and shaking. I remember a number of people looked at me and asked “Aren’t you from there?”

Yes, I am from there. As a matter of fact, my uncle worked THERE, 2 of my good friends worked THERE, and my brother worked very near THERE for the fire department.

I excused myself from the room. I spent the next four to five hours, trying in vain, to complete a call back home. All of the phone lines in the NYC area were busy or down. I drove around and called, I sat still and called, I paced around a local park and called some more. Luckily, as I found out some time later, my uncle was not in the World Trade Center at the time of the attacks. My friends were fortunate enough to get out of the building unscathed.

At the time, my Mother worked for a government agency conducting interviews. She had arrived at her appointment that morning on time. The woman who answered the door was hysterical. It was a few moments before my Mom understood why. The woman’s husband worked in the North Tower and had not been heard from yet.

Instead of rescheduling the interview, Mom decided to sit with this woman and her young child. Together they sat and watched the television. They cried and prayed for the return of the woman’s husband. My Mother stayed the entire day. She was still there when the woman’s husband arrived home. He had made the last ferry off Manhattan and made his way back to his family. My Mom hugged the woman and thanked God for the safe return of her husband. She hugged this man that she had never met, and accepted his thanks for spending time with his family. The three of them sat together and prayed for the people that had not been so blessed.



On the way home, my mother took a route that had a clear view of the NYC skyline. She saw the plumes of smoke along the way. She had expected to see the skyline when she reached the top of the hill, but another site caught her attention. A crowd of people had gathered in a cemetery off to her right. They were standing there, eyes wide, and mouths agape as they stared. This group of people, who knew nothing of each other that morning, cried and prayed together, for the people they did not know.

My brother John was in the car, on his way to work, when he heard the news. When he arrived at the Paterson Fire Department he was told that they were going to support the Hoboken Fire Department. Hoboken was the first responders to head into the city to search for survivors. John wasn’t always the most cup-half-full guy around, but his heart was as big as a freight train. Everyone knew that if they ever needed anything, Big John had their back, no questions, no worries, and no strings attached. John was also well known because he played the bagpipes for the NYC Police and Fire Department Marching band. He was more of a melancholy, but loveable old-world Irishman.

It was no surprise to any of us that he was right there, going in to help when help was needed. John was at the disaster site for nearly 50 hours straight. I can’t be sure, because to this day he still doesn’t talk about it. The things John saw during his search changed him. Those things took part of his youth and made his life a living nightmare. The search results were not positive. The task was basically to find what you can. Treat anything organic with the respect it deserved, and move on. This would have been more than enough for most people, but John wasn’t done with his contribution yet.

John began to receive requests in the days and weeks that followed the disaster. First, just a few trickled in. Then, a flood of requests came in. They all asked if he could please come and play the bagpipes at the memorial services for their lost loved ones. It was an honor to John to be asked to play. He wrote personal letters back to each and every family. He accepted their requests with reverence. John played day after day. He played for friends and he played for people he didn’t know simply because someone had asked. Often, after playing, he sat with grieving loved ones and remembered better times.

John was there for every request, without fail, for over 70 families. Often times he played more than one service per day. He always consoled them, and vowed to help whenever he could. He never missed a request, and never let them see his pain. I respect him more than I could explain for the depth of compassion and selflessness he had shown. These days, therapy has healed some of his wounds. His nightmares are fewer, and his sense of humor has begun to return. I am glad to see my brother come back, I’ve missed him.

Here we are 8 years later. I spoke to him yesterday, and he told me that he was invited to play at the Ground Zero Remembrance Ceremony. He said he was honored, and he played as he always would, with his heart.

This is my story of September 11, 2001.

What the Hell Happened ? The Finale .....

The differences in the costs to enjoy sports over time are mind boggling. How did we let this happen? How did the fans, the people who pay the tab, let this happen? Make no mistake; we have the power to stop it whenever we want to. If the fans get together and say NO to ridiculous ticket prices, NO to $8.00 cups of beer, and NO to $25 parking fees then maybe we can begin to take back our sports. This money doesn’t go to the players, oh no my friend, we are being gouged by plenty of other people just because they can.

Team owners charge companies (vendors) to have concession stands in their arenas. These charges go up every contract so the vendors jack up the prices we pay for their wares. Of course, the vendors are also increasing their profits and why shouldn’t they? Vendors judge us on general stupidity, the logic being "If these morons will spend $200 for an uncomfortable plastic seat to sit on, of course they will spend $8.00 for a cup of beer". Relatively speaking, a $75 sweatshirt could be looked at as a bargain. Hell, it’s December in Chicago, its cold. They know that the fans could buy the same hat at Lids for $28 but since the fans are at the stadium, they figure they can go $45. The lucky fans will have the memory of buying the hat here and that’s priceless isn’t it? No, in this example, it costs $17 thank you very much. The beer, the food, the sweatshirt, and the hat all add up to one seriously overpriced day.

The cost of cable television is another example. Television costs skyrocket because of the ridiculous sums of money the leagues demand to allow us to see them play. The costs are not just for the fans, the REAL fans get to pay extra for the ‘season packages’ made available to them. People who don’t even like sports are kind enough to help out with the tab just so they can see their favorite sitcom or history show every week. Those poor people just have to have their NCIS, can’t miss Made Men, must see Oprah….that’ll be $50 a month please. Remember when TV was free? When the advertising dollars were enough that as long as you bought a tv you could actually watch it! Not anymore boys and girls. There’s more dollars for the cable company, the owners, the players, their agents, and so on down the line. What are you going to do to fix this?

I can tell you what I have done, and will continue to do. I do not attend the events anymore even though I would dearly love to. I do not pay for the NFL ticket (or any other sport package) on satellite. I have also curtailed my collectibles purchases significantly. These small things represent the best that one man can do. Oh yeah, I also write these blogs, and tell everyone that will listen that this is totally insane! I am a sports fanatic that has been driven away from the games I love, by the games I love. This cycle hurts, but it is a growth experience for me. Sports fans of the world unite! Do not let this system continue to run all over you . I have told you what I am doing, now what are YOU going to do?

Stop Your Whining!

Stop your whining sportsfans, when did everyone on the planet decide they need to make excuses for the stupidity of some athletes? Plaxico Burress plea bargained his illegal gun sentence down to 2 years today and all I hear from the talking heads at Sportscenter is how wrong this is. Roger Cossack whining about how better served NY would be if they gave Plaxico 1000 hrs of community service to help educate the youth of America. NO!! The education of the youth (and the professional athletes and everyone else) is being done quite well thank you by the exposure of this case.

What Plaxico did was monumentally stupid and could have led to significant injury or even death for an innocent bystander. It did not, therefore he was charged with exactly what he did. The mandatory sentence for his offence is 3.5 years in prison. Plaxico chose to plea it down to 2 years and according to his attorney, he will serve at least 20 months of this sentence.

Why do all these people believe this is wrong? He broke the law. The gun was not registered in NY, he said it was registered in Fl. (it was not, the registration had lapsed). He did not need a gun to go to the club. If you regularly attend clubs that require guns for safety then perhaps either choose a better class of club or make sure your gun is legal. Plaxico did not do either of these things. Therefore, since he broke the law he should go to jail. It’s pretty damn simple and clear to me.

I used to live very close to Manhattan and if I go home to visit family, I will be sure to not bring a gun to any clubs in the city. Why would I choose not to bring a gun you ask: BECAUSE IT IS AGAINST THE LAW! This is also why I choose not request all the money from my local bank, nor do I attempt to enter stores while they are closed. Laws are there to protect us from our stupidity and the stupidity of others.

Plaxico Burress taught many people a valuable lesson today. If you bring a gun into a public place in New York and shoot yourself in the leg….you will go to jail.

What the Hell Happened ? The Next Step

I previously discussed the unbelievable rise of the athletes’ salaries. I’ve received some feedback intimating that I am unfairly attacking athletes for their financial windfall. This is not my point at all. My problem is with the system within which athletes have to operate. Everyone has a right to go for all they can get in this wonderful country, I just feel that we have to control the demand and let the market work it out. Today, the topic shifts to the other more subtle ways we pay out to the sports gods. The pro sports system gouges us for massive ticket prices, the infamous PSL’s, parking fees, souvenirs, and those wonderful concessions.



First, I must share my thoughts on PSL’s. For those of you who are not familiar a PSL or, Personal Seat License, gives the person ownership of the rights to their seat in the stadium. I remember back in the day when you were a season ticket holder it meant that you received the tickets for your seat or seats for every game of that season. The owners, God bless their money hungry little hearts, came up with a new plan. Let’s tell the season ticket holders that if they don’t buy this new license for their seats, we will force them to forfeit those seats back to us. The best part is that the better the seats are, the more we can charge for them! It’s sheer brilliance, the better seats are held by the fans that have had them in their families for generations.



These tickets are a part of their family history. They will pay almost ANYTHING to keep them. If not, we’ll find some other idiot (sorry, devout fan) with deep pockets to buy the seats and we’ll offer the original owner some upper tier nosebleed seats to make it seem as if we care that they come back. We will tell these deep pocketed idiots(sorry, devout fans) that they own this license, and if they ever want to sell their season tickets they can also sell this license as an asset. They actually completely fabricated a “middle step” in season ticket ownership and passed it off as an asset! Did the people stand up and say NO? Well, not very loudly. Here in Chicago, they whined for a few months, but in the end they ponied up the cash. Those that couldn’t afford it were forced to give up their seats and took lesser seats with no PSL attached to them, or just lost their seats entirely. This was the reward for having been a fan for your whole life. This was the reward for your grandparents and parents having been fans for their entire lives.



Sorry Mr. and Mrs. Fan, times are tough for us owners and we NEED this additional revenue to keep up or the quality of our team may suffer. Really, do we think that the majority of this money went to the players? I can tell you that I don’t. I believe that it is just more profit being made by the machine at our expense. If it did, then perhaps we need to reel in the spending and make the sports what they originally were, entertainment for the family. How did we let this happen? What are we going to do about it?



Next blog, I complete this topic by digging into the other revenue streams of the sports machine and share my personal solution as well as what I have done to back up what I say.

What the Hell Happened ?

What exactly happened to the world in the last 30 years or so? I remember a time when athletes made a very fine but reasonable living. A family of 4 could go to see their local sports team play without it qualifying as a “life decision”. How did athletes become market proof in an economic time when record numbers of people are unemployed? Please don’t come at me with “Movie stars make $20 mil a movie, why are you picking on athletes”? Guess what, when a movie ticket goes up to $40 or $50 a pop I’ll be roasting them too. One fight at a time, kids.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the mean (average) income in the US in 1975 was $13,779 ($45,894 in 2006 dollars). In 2006 the mean income was $66,570. This means that in 31 years, the mean income for American workers has gone up 45%. I’ll just use an average and say it has gone up 1.5% per year for John and Jane Q. Public.

Now, “Mr. I Play Sports” has a slightly different story. For example, in the NFL the mean salary of a player in 1975 was $42,500 ($142,555 in 2006 dollars). The mean salary in 2006 was $1,400,000. That was not a typo; it went from $142.5k to a cool $1.4 mil. That’s a ridiculous 882% increase over the same 31 years! Our annual estimate for them shows a 28.5% per year increase. The average NFL player has received a raise each year almost equal to the raise we have received in the last 31 years combined! Are you kidding me with this?

Why get a degree when you can make 100x the money if you can jump, run, catch or shoot? Don’t get it twisted; I don’t blame the athletes for taking what they can get. What I am angry about is that WE let it happen. WE drank the kool- aid down to the very bottom and have begged for more, please. My frustration is with us, you and me and everyone else who still buy the tickets, buy the jerseys, and buy the hats. It is us, the rabid fans that can’t wait to see Sportscenter because T.O. and OchoCinco are on our fantasy teams. We need to stop being part of the problem and start being a part of the solution. So, my question is, what are we going to do about it?

Next blog, I look at some other ways we all pay homage (and cash) to the almighty sports machine.