Rick Sutcliffe, Not Sober and Not Joe Namath

facebooktwitterreddit

My tastes are simple. I like $300 jeans and William Gaddis novels and the cuisine of Ferran Adria. But most of all, I like it when ex-athletes get ripped up drunk and embarrass themselves in front of a national audience.

The latest victim: Rick Sutcliffe, 1979 Rookie of the Year and 1984 Cy Young Award winner. (Since I don't know how to hyperlink yet, here's the audio: https://images.gaslampball.com/images/admin/sutcliffe.mp3) Anyway, both Rick and his beard (http://www.shaveyourhead.com/2005/Wrigley05/612_sutcliffe.jpg) were noticeably intoxicated at a recent Padres game, and hearing his sweet slurredness brought me back to one of my favorite days, not even three years ago, when Joe Namath made the clumsiest pass at a woman I've ever seen. And on national TV no less. The video is here (http://thatvideosite.com/view/937.html). It takes a while for the video to buffer (can a video buffer? What is buffering? I've just written a variation of the word "buffer" four times in 30 seconds and I'm giggling. I'm six years old. Honestly.), so here's some transcript in the meantime:

Suzy Kolber (ESPN sideline announcer): Joe, it's been a tough season for Jets fans. What does it mean to you now that the team is struggling?

Namath: I wanna kiss you now. I couldn't care less about the team struggling. What we know is we can improve. Chad Pennington, our quarterback, missed the first part of the season, and we struggled. We're looking to next season, we're looking to make a noise now, and...I wanna kiss you!

Kolber: Thanks, Joe!

Namath: YEAH!!!

**

Goosebumps. I have goosebumps.

Buffer.