Bob Lobel: Lights Out in New Orleans
Wednesday, February 06, 2013
I need to share this story because it includes some Providence lore. In 1986, we were covering the Patriots down there. Late one night prior to game day, my producer, Alan Miller, now with the Globe, and I were heading from Pat O'Briens back to Bourbon Street when we ran into none other than Buddy Cianci, then mayor, and the governor.
As we were talking, out go the lights on Bourbon Street. So we move on to corner of Bourbon and the street we were on and find a small café on the corner with candles and sparsely clothed women on a stage inside. Not a place for recognition, we quickly tried to exit.
A patron already seated, yelled, “Hey, it's Bob Lobel from Channel 4.” Horrified, I simply turned away and said, “Sorry, but no, I'm Mike Lynch of Channel 5.” Then left. Who knows if the pathetic try at deception worked.
It seemed safer on the street than anywhere so we walked and soon the lights were back. A much shorter outage than Sunday night.
Sunday night, the Twitter world was amazing. I just think if you're going on Twitter and want to contribute, you should be creative. There were many tweets that were just that—only I can't repeat them here. Well, maybe one: “MVP of the Superbowl will be the drunken electrician from Biloxi that they dragged out of the stands.”
I can say despite the few good commercials, the highlight of the off field stuff was the Newtown, Ct. Sandy Hook Elementary chorus for God Bless America. I'll bet they will be at Fenway very early in the year since this is what the Red Sox do best.
Very exciting game and a relief that Ray Lewis is gone. The media just kept bombarding us with Lewis stuff. It got really old, really fast. Of course we wonder if the Patriots would have beaten the 49ers, and I have no clue. It probably would have played out in similar fashion. Brady would not have been better than Flacco, but Kapernick might have had his way with the defense. It probably would have been another 3-point Super Bowl win for the Patriots. And by the way, Bill Parcells was a highlight as well.
Now, we turn our full attention to other stuff. Spring training for a team with a much better bull pen in a much tougher division, will be front and center. There is no doubt the Red Sox are a better team than the disgrace of last year. How much is to be decided.
I never understood the fans' anger about the sell out string continuing. Fans just seem to hate the fact the team announced a sell out when seats were clearly empty on the telecast. The team maintains the seats were sold and that was that. Now that they have the all time sports franchise record for consecutive sell outs, will it change? I don’t think so. They say season ticket renewals are down about 10 percent, but there is no doubt they will sell those elsewhere. People that haven’t been to Fenway have it on their bucket list. And what father doesn’t want to take his son or daughter to the Park at least once? Believe it or not, a lot of people have never been in person.
Time for optimism for the Bruins and the Red Sox. We may have used up our championship chips, but as we have learned, things can happen. Short memories are a good thing to have in sports. Losers have to forget they are losers and winners need to do the same. Who throws out the first pitch? Parcells? Sandy hook elementary? Ben Affleck? At least in this department, the Red Sox will do the right thing.
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