I Get Paid For This?
My mania for the Phoenix Suns has translated into a paid gig at Slate.com. Based on the last five minutes of responses, I have a feeling that I'm going to get more letters on this topic than I ever did when I was complaining about the Anschluss of the Christian right. Anyway, tonight is Game Two. Joe Johnson is still getting fitted for his special mask. Wouldn't it be funny if he found a magical mask in a museum that made his eyes bulge out when he saw a pretty lady? I should be publicly executed for that last reference alone. Prediction: Brent Barry does not score 21 tonight.
To answer one correspondent already: I am aware of the entertainment value of the Suns' lovable 12th man, Paul Shirley. But "Sports Nut " columns can only run 1,000 words, and something had to go. The writer David Roth--because you can never have too many writers named Roth--provides all the Shirley information you need to know here.
Getting paid to write about the Suns has long been one of my two greatest dreams. The other was getting paid to write about the Dodgers, which GQ Magazine asked me to do last summer, though they never ran the article. I got to set in the press box next to the despicable but entertaining T. J. Simers, who spend the entire game (where the Dodgers were completely shut down by Carlos Zambrano), trying to get a press aide to take him to Tommy Lasorda's box, where Lasorda was entertaining Loni Anderson. In the 9th inning, I got to go down to field level and interview Frank McCourt, the Dodger owner. Maybe GQ didn't want to publish an article called "Frank McCourt Is A Lying Douchebag," or maybe I held back too much and they would have published it if I'd gone all the way.
Regardless, I'm vaguely hoping that someone with clout will read my Slate hagiography of the Suns and invite (or assign) me to sit on the Suns' bench for games 3 and 4 in San Antonio. The thrillingly named SBC Center, let me just add, is precisely 80 minutes driving time from my back door. So it's not like you'll have to buy me a plane ticket, o mysterious benefactor.