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| Andrew Van Cleve, Kurt Smith, The King and I |
I'm talking about Andrew Van Cleve aka the Ultimate Sports fan who just moved to the City of Brotherly Love after spending the last 17 years of his life in Chicagoland. He spent the last ten years up the block from Wrigley Field.
He was forced to move because his lovely wife Nicole aka the Ultimate Sports wife got a job as a professor at Temple University.
Andrew is also the proud father of Dylan Salvatore aka the Ultimate Sports baby who has the unique distinction of seeing his first sporting event at Wrigley Field at a mere three days old. He's been to over a hundred live games since.
We were also joined by Kurt Smith, the author of ballpark e-guides. Kurt felt like he was out of his league because he doesn't have the time to attend nearly as many live sporting events as the rest of us. He was privileged and honored to be sitting at a table at Jon's Bar & Grille which is located a few blocks from Andrew's new home with us sports travel legends. He deemed it a Kodak moment.
Kurt has a baby on the way who's due to arrive in February so that will further prevent him from going to games live.
Regardless Kurt is a great guy who has to continue to find a way to support his latest family addition. With that being said, he has his side business of writing and selling ballpark e-guides which are tremendous sources of information for sports travelers as well as people in general. He has put lots of time and effort into producing these which he sells for a mere $5. I strongly suggest that if you haven't gotten one for your local team that you do so. He has done a number of them. Believe me, you can't go wrong and you'll be supporting a good cause in the process.
It was great to see Kurt again. He came in special from his home in South Jersey to meet up with us. Even though he couldn't make the football game, we still got to spend some quality time together. I want to thank him for giving us some of his precious time.
As for the football game, the King and I drove Andrew there with us.
We wound up working some royal magic as we met up with our good friend Frankie Centola who lives in Philadelphia. We all got to see the game from the club level, royal treatment indeed. We showed Andrew some of our own Brotherly Love.
With Andrew relocating to the Northeast, I fully expect to see him more often.
As for the game we saw, the Eagles raced out to a 28-0 lead over the Jets with 9:57 still left in the second quarter. The Jets cut into the lead as they trailed, 28-13 at halftime. They got the ball first in the second half but they continued to make costly mistakes which prevented them from pulling off another miraculous comeback on the road. They wound up losing to Eagles, 45-19.
Andrew decided to depart a little early since the game was over for all intent and purposes. By doing so, he was able to get back home to see Nicole and Dylan.
I want to thank Andrew for spending the rest of the afternoon with the King and I. As always it was an absolute pleasure to see him again.
Thank you for reading and following along.
Yours truly,
Gary Herman
1 comment:
Quite an assembly! Wish I could have been there!
By the way, I've purchased one of Kurt's e-Guides, and they really are great resources, so I second the notion that readers should check it out!
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