Nick Mamalis is a full time baseball "beerman".
Okay, so it has been a few days since the beer man has posted a column but no sweat, I am back and ready for more! For those of you who are used to my view points, I will go ahead and grace you with some more of them. It has been a very interesting and exciting week in sports, especially Florida sports. We have the first place Rays and Marlins, the Heat in the playoffs and lots going on with the Buccaneers and their OTA’s. I will stop ranting now and start ranting!
Did you all know that there is a draft going on at this very moment for MLB? Neither did I and really, how much attention do the masses really pay to the MLB draft? So we will move on from that and head straight into the surging Rays. Both the Orioles and the Rays went into the weekend series on losing streaks, both falling victim to sweeps, neither one wanting to lose or get knocked from the top. Game one went to the Rays in a 5–0 shutout, game two, a fantastically pitched game went to the Orioles and in game 3, the Rays took sole possession of first place with an 8-4 win. What a weekend though!
Your beer man had a lot of fun this series. The Saturday concert with LL Cool J certainly brought its fair share of old school rappers and want to be rappers alike, not to mention older folk who don’t know what rap is. All in all, I made some new friends, added some new people to Facebook and learned some new things about the wonderful city of Baltimore. What was it I learned? I learned that there are easier ways to get through the construction and tiny shorts, so tiny the rear pockets hang out and hang lower than the shorts are okay in that city as long as the person wearing them also wears an Orioles jersey. Sadly some of the folks wearing those shorts really shouldn’t have! My eyes are repairing themselves as we speak.
The Rays will be heading to Miami shortly, splitting a home and home series in the same month. I will sadly miss the Rays-Marlins series at Trop in order to make my first road trip to Washington D.C. to work the Nats-Yankees series followed by a Rays series! Yes, the Rays go to D.C. this year but with the addition of the N.L. East to our schedule, we are forced to suffer through the attendance of a second New York team this year: the Mets. At least Met fans aren’t as obnoxious as Yankee fans with their 27 World blah blah blah. I had to take a Yankee fan down a peg the other day because he started that 27 blah blah talk and I found out he was from Milwaukee! Of course you cannot be from Milwaukee or any other city and become a self-proclaimed Yankee fan just to tout World Series wins.
Moving on … The Miami Marlins are in first! The other lovable team from the state of Florida is in first, even with the Nats and ahead of the Braves and yes, Mets too. The Marlins start a 3-game series against the Braves on Tuesday, 3 against the Rays starting Friday and then 3 against the Red Sox. The East is invading Miami! How will the Sox and Rays like the new ballpark? We shall see at the end of this 9-game home-stand. Go Florida teams!
Did you know that football season is not that far away? With preseason games in August and OTA’s going on as we speak, there is football in the air and watch out Tampa fans, there are lots of things going on! I know that I am a Tampa resident but I work for a lot of football teams and my goal here in this column is to talk about what and where I do actually work. Here is a list of teams that I do and can work:
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Jacksonville Jaguars
Miami Dolphins
Atlanta Falcons
Baltimore Ravens
Washington Redskins
Philadelphia Eagles
Dallas Cowboys
New Orleans Saints
Kansas City Chiefs
Many more
When I report back to you, it will not just be about the Bucs or the Fins but about the teams and games I worked that week, including college and knowing that, it will be a lot of variety to read and follow. I hope you like. I mentioned the Bucs and their OTA’s, just watch and see what goes on, expect a ton of changes this year making for a more competitive team. That said, everyone be safe and responsible and until we meet again, be good.
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