Why are you doing this?
Why are you doing this?: Did you go to "Ron Guidry Night" at Heritage park in the mid 1980's?
Well, I did. In fact, that was one of the defining moments for me in my cultural sense of SmAlbany. There we were - literally thousands and thousands of people - standing in every possible corner of a terrible Double-A baseball field, just to watch Guidry pitch a few inninngs during a rehab stint.
It was my first sense of one of the funnniest and greatest nuances of SmAlbany culture - the need to get WAY too excited about little things that happen in your city, especially sporting events. Think about it:
1995 NCAA tournament comes here: first time the NCAA's ever sell out the first round games.
Siena basketball: outdraws the rest of the MAAC combined each year.
Ron Guidry night: 15 thousand people show up on a weeknight to watch him throw 3 innings.
But here's the kicker: if you google "Ron Guidry Night," virtually nothing comes up. It's largely forgotten.
I'm running this blog so that things like that aren't forgotten, and so that Albany culture - past, present, and future- has a place where it can be documented for all public display. And I don't mean those stuffy historical-society type documentations. That doesn't capture true culture - it badly captures high-brow culture. On this blog, we're after it all - high, middle, and low brow. If it's Albany cuture - if it's SmAlbany - it will be here.
Well, I did. In fact, that was one of the defining moments for me in my cultural sense of SmAlbany. There we were - literally thousands and thousands of people - standing in every possible corner of a terrible Double-A baseball field, just to watch Guidry pitch a few inninngs during a rehab stint.
It was my first sense of one of the funnniest and greatest nuances of SmAlbany culture - the need to get WAY too excited about little things that happen in your city, especially sporting events. Think about it:
1995 NCAA tournament comes here: first time the NCAA's ever sell out the first round games.
Siena basketball: outdraws the rest of the MAAC combined each year.
Ron Guidry night: 15 thousand people show up on a weeknight to watch him throw 3 innings.
But here's the kicker: if you google "Ron Guidry Night," virtually nothing comes up. It's largely forgotten.
I'm running this blog so that things like that aren't forgotten, and so that Albany culture - past, present, and future- has a place where it can be documented for all public display. And I don't mean those stuffy historical-society type documentations. That doesn't capture true culture - it badly captures high-brow culture. On this blog, we're after it all - high, middle, and low brow. If it's Albany cuture - if it's SmAlbany - it will be here.
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on Monday, May 02, 2005 at 12:03 PM.
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