Celebrity Bowling Bash

Generally, I have a “keep your posts short” rule when it comes to blogging, but since this is a recap of an event, it’ll be longer. Deal with it. So, last night, Showman and I attended the Gonzalez Sports Academy “Celebrity Bowling Bash” in TJ, err, Eastlake… the Tavern and Bowl. Last week, Darren Smith and Marty Caswell at xx1090 had a trivia question that I tweeted the correct answer to, and BOOM, LobShots in the house. After a ton of traffic, and a long line to get in, we immediately spotted a ton of future, past and present San Diego sports stars. In no particular order, here are the guys we recognized: Ryan Mathews, Seyi Ajirotutu, Vincent Jackson, Adrian Gonzalez, Edgar Gonzalez, Nick Hundley, Will Venable, Winston Venable, Kassim Osgood, Randy Jones, Royce Ring, Miles McPherson, Cam Thomas, and John Carney. In addition, the local personalities included Coach Jon Kintera who was on live with xx1090, Marty Caswell, camcorder in hand, and Mark Neely, who emceed the event. At the door, they gave all the bowlers a goodie bag and 2 drink tickets. After befriending one of the lovely volunteers, she hooked us up with 8 free drink tickets, and our awesome waitress honored them in the form of doubles. Jackpot. Couple drinks later we were ready to mingle with all the “celebrities”.

Mark Neely seemed a pretty cool dude, kinda boring in the booth, but a super nice guy who didn’t look thrilled to be rockin’ a suit when everybody else was in a tshirt and jeans. Neely, you gotta feel for the guy, Matty V leaves town, which he’s gotta believe is his big break, only to have one of the legends of broadcasting quit his cushy job and decide to come to San Diego. Tough break. Next, we chatted up Marty Caswell, and that was great… she was filming Adrian talk to John Carney, then the Venable brothers, etc. She stopped for a few minutes and we joked around and had a good time. She’s good people. TINY too. We shook hands with a bunch of the athletes and spoke with them briefly. Adrian just kept saying “thank you” over and over again. Overall the event seemed to be more of a celebration of his time in SD, and a hometown sendoff to Boston. There were a TON of folks sporting Red Sox shirts… I wanted to kick each one of them in the jugular. Ryan Mathews seemed nice, shy, same with Seyi. Miles MacPherson is just a great person, great for the community, so it was cool having him there. Nick Hundley had a Jedidiah tshirt on… my favorite clothing company, so loved that, nice dude, looks jacked too. Dave Roberts was nice, and honestly, he might’ve been the biggest star there… guy single-handedly changed the course of Red Sox history in 2004. Stud. Winston Venable is fresh off his season at Boise State and even though he’s 4 years younger than Will, he looks 2 year older… oh, and Will only looks about 14. Seemed pretty shy too. Osgood loved being the center of attention, had an entourage around him just in case anybody he didn’t want to talk to got too close… and if you weren’t female, he didn’t seem too interested in chatting.

Best conversation of the night: Randy Jones. Dude is freakin stud. We talked to him for about 15 minutes and he’s hysterical… dropping F*bombs every 4 seconds talking about how he wants to create his own GPS navigation system that curses at you and calls you names when you make a wrong turn. We asked if he’d seen any of the prospects we got for AGo trade, specifically Kelly or Rizzo, and he said he hadn’t and didn’t care too… not until they were on the big league team and producing. He did say he liked the trade though, since we only had AGo for one more year. That brought us back to the Texas trade that got us AGo in the first place, along with C.Y. and he said, “Who’d we trade for him anyway, Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder?” He had us cracking up. Good times.

Worst conversation of the night: Vincent Jackson. First of all, VJax was the biggest football star there, and he wasn’t even advertised on fliers for the event, which I thought was bizarre. Anyway, here’s how my convo with VJ went down. “hey VJ, how’s it going” as we shake hands “good man, how you been?” (we’ve run into each other a few times at Miller’s Field and Shore Club in PB, so he might’ve recognized me) “great, man. so glad you came back… was really nice to have you out there. I hope you stay for next year.” His response? “Bro, I live here, I never left.” and he walked away. What a dick. Listen, VJ, I get that you’re pissed at AJ about the contract and the money you lost, but guess what… nobody cares. You handled that situation like a dumbass and so did he, and you both paid the price. The Bolts missed the playoffs and you missed your payday. You never left? You left the field, dude. You think when AGo is playing in Boston next year he’s gonna tell Padres fans he never left b/c he still owns a place up in Mt. Soledad? No, b/c he’s not an idiot. So, get off your high horse and carry out a conversation with someone who’s clearly complimenting you and your play on the field. Off the field? Just one more ‘case in point’ of your idiocy and poor judgment. Oh, and you suck at bowling too.

In the end, after all the mingling and drinking… the crowd thinned, and we decided to bounce… didn’t even bowl. Reality is this, there was a bunch of “celebrities” there that I didn’t recognize, and the one at my lane, sure enough, was VJax. Figures. Everybody else? Pretty much a buncha dorks with some extra cash that wanted to rub shoulders with some athletes. I had zero desire to spend time with any of them, just as they wouldn’t want to hang with me. So, we said our goodbyes and took off. Glad we went for sure, it was fun, especially since we didn’t pay and got 10 free drinks. No complaints.

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