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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Friday, June 26, 2009
“Hi Everyone, I’m coming in this week for the Sox series. Are there any decent sportsbars near the ballpark?” one apparent Red Sox fan asked on the Nats’ online forum.
“There’s only a beer garden next to the park,” replied one famously instigator from the team’s boards. “you’re better off up the street on Capitol Hill, Remingtons (639 Pennsylvania Ave SE) is a NE Patriots bar so they’ll probably have a large Red Sox crowd this week.”
If you have a well-developed sense of skepticism, here’s where you might start to doubt this story.
Childish? Sure. Was the guy kind of asking to be trolled, in the “there are mean people on the internet” sense, and would a modicum of street smarts probably help him out? Sure. Does the headline curiously act like this was more than one incident and also invite question as to why on earth this is a story for TSN? Sure! It’s still funny.
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1. Steve Balboni's Personal Trainer Posted: June 26, 2009 at 04:02 AM (#3233725)In Chelsea, there's a gay sports bar that I visited to catch the Ravens on a Thursday, back when NFL Network was not available in Manhattan. (I used to stay at the cheap hotels near Chelsea for business, now I stay at the Chelsea.)
Anyway, place is like any other sports bar--bunch of dudes hanging out watching football--however drink specials don't end, bartenders won't cut you off, and fantasy takes on a completely different composition.
Suffice to say, Tom Brady was not popular there, however Payton Manning has an additional demographic of supporters should he seek to do more commercials. Also, T.O. should call his agent.
Dude, you wouldn't believe.
/Haven't been back in a few years, so fashions may change.
That is all.
Anyway, place is like any other sports bar--bunch of dudes hanging out watching football--however drink specials don't end, bartenders won't cut you off, and fantasy takes on a completely different composition.
Suffice to say, Tom Brady was not popular there, however Payton Manning has an additional demographic of supporters should he seek to do more commercials. Also, T.O. should call his agent
There's a gay sports bar here in Chicago that I'd like to check out some time. I'm sure the experience would be similar. However, I'm a little shocked that Tom Brady isn't popular among gay sports fans. He's the NFL's Beckham, no?
Brady hate could have been some kind of flirting thing, actually. I look a little bit like him, only really noticeable to New Englanders, though there it's enough to get me a free upgrade to a Days Inn room with a micro-fridge. (I completely travel in style on business.)
/The "fantasy" part of things at GSB's is the player you most want to sleep with... T.O. #1 by far, truth be told, but Payton was second.
it's enough to get me a free upgrade to a Days Inn room with a micro-fridge.
Has this happened more than once, or are you just extrapolating? And how on earth did that conversation go?
"You resemble Tom Brady in a passing manner. I will now upgrade you for resembling a celebrity of whom I am fond."
Also, this story is pretty funny.
N-FLIC must have a good arm then.
I get chatted up routinely by gay guys at work every day, and I can charitably be described as "beefy".
Keep your mentos in your diaper, huh?
I've been to a few gay bars. A few times with a gay friend of mine, a few times by accident. No big deal. Now, gay night clubs are another story.
There actually is a gay sports bar in DC as well. But it's not the one this particular cluelessly naive Red Sox fan was directed to.
Mm-hmm.
Seriously! I'm totally serious! I thought she was a chick!
If you order mixed drinks, the pour at gay bars is better, at least in DC. You get more for your money.
I believe it. There's a certain sophistication to the scene that I expect the average bleacher bum would find very strange.
Agree completely. There's something somehow liberating about not having to compete with every other straight guy in a bar, when there just aren't that many straight guys. I come off as fairly androgynous sometimes anyway. Sadly, it is often because I don't act like a misogynist.
There's a certain sophistication to the scene that I expect the average bleacher bum would find very strange.
I find these two statements slightly incompatible. :)
That's because you're not fabulous.
Of course, gay men are likely to come on to you there and they can be aggressive. Our usual cautiousness kind of disappears in such spaces, because we assume no straight dude would be caught dead in our bars or clubs - ergo, all men in here are fair game.
I can see this, but I've never been propositioned. My god, I am one ugly ###### aren't I?
True that. I probably find it liberating because I'm not uncomfortable with being propositioned by men. I'm not interested, but it's kind of flattering regardless. It is a bit uncomfortable having to spend eight hours a day in the same room with many gay men who are often trying to gauge my interest. I imagine it feels a bit like a woman does being at a workplace full of straight men.
Often I don't think it matters what you look like--just how you carry yourself.
No clue.
Because there traditionally was no media-defined standard of what gay men were supposed to find attractive, there has been a wide divergence of opinion on the subject, meaning that at some level it doesn't matter what a guy looks like as much as one might think considering that we're talking about men.
As gay culture has mainstreamed, and as Madison Avenue has caught onto what an amazing target market we are for certain products...I have noticed more body image pressure on men, especially gay men.
I was just kidding with you guys. I know the answer to the question from the reactions I get from small children and animals.
If you're just now realizing this, you're dumb, too.
If you're just now realizing this, you're dumb, too.
But I have a good personality, right? Right?
If they're your coworkers telling them once will usually end all that. No guy can necessarily help who he has the hots for, but not bothering hetero men is kind of a survival skill for us.
If they're your customers or something, well, take advantage of it. Lord knows attractive women do.
I have no firsthand knowledge, but my impression from the media during the building of the stadium is that the stretch of gay bars/clubs in that area were not especially sophisticated. I don't understand why gays wouldn't have classy bars and sleazy bars and everything in between just like the rest of us.
Let's put it this way, when I heard kevin was banned, I thought "Oh good, no more from that NYC stockbroker guy". And I knew kevin as well as just about anyone around here outside of those who met him.
Well, I know for sure my heart's not in the right place, so I'm looking at a golden sombrero here. Maybe I should buy a car...
In a place like DC, there's a definite range.
Hmm...the gay district that existed where Nationals Park now stands was about the furthest thing one could imagine from refined and sophisticated.
I don't have a ton of experience with Capitol Hill bars, but it's probably still a pretty urbane crowd there given the city. The main home base for the gay community is over in NW - namely the Dupont Circle and Logan Circle neighborhoods.
You have given me an onion!
This. A thousand times this.
Honestly, unless I'm out with straight buddies looking to meet women, I'd probably rather hang in the gay bars anyway. The drinks tend to be better and it's fun to get hit on once in a while. It's like getting to play "hot chick for a day".
I stuck with them because Grandpa was one of the original season ticket holders and I looked up to him more than I did anyone else in my life. It would be just too bizarre for me to switch allegiances at this point.
Oh, yeah, we're not talking about that. Tom Brady is teh hot and Peyton is goofy looking, albeit with a lovely rear. I know I'm biased. :)
There are a lot of "T.O. is gay" rumors floating around. All the drama antics, the crying, the ridiculously chiseled body..it would certainly make sense.
I was mesmerized by the waitress, started chatting her up, only to be informed by my buddy's sister..... um, you have no shot, and I mean NO SHOT.
duh.
Nothing like being young and stupid.
A little Bill Belichick goes a long, looong way.
Yeah, that's the level I get it that I referred to in #49.
Those are the clues that led my friends to realize I was gay, after all . . . .
Long before Stonewall, and before I'd even heard of gay bars, I walked into a bar & grill on Wisconsin Ave. in Georgetown with my girlfriend and her two year old boy, not having a clue as to the nature of the place. I wasn't propositioned, but m.o.m., if looks could kill, we would have all been dead before we even sat down. I think that everyone thought we were trying some sort of reverse sit-in just to bait them.
I remember when the stretch of 14th between Mass and U, the new focus of DC gay yuppie life, was freakin' scary looking.
"This gay bar doesn't have a fire exit!"
The name of the bar was the Georgetown Grill, and I'd walked by it a million times without having any idea what it was, which is obviously why I went there with my girlfriend and her little boy. It was on the east side of Wisconsin just below Dumbarton, right around the corner from when Au Pied du Cochon was for many years, and when it closed down, I think they wrote it up in one of the papers as having been some sort of a local landmark.
EDIT: In what is one of the funniest books ever written, the 1951 Washington Confidential, Chapter 2 is called "'Gorgeous' Georgetown," and the summary goes on to say:
No mention of the Georgetown Grill, though. Apparently the authors got sidetracked peeking into Dean Acheson's bathroom.
Au Pied, IIRC, was where the G'Town branch of Five Guys (the first 5Gs I ever went to) is now. I went to it a few times in that location. It was a landmark in part because there was a high profile assassination there.
I actually find some of the cuter soft butches attractive. I'm not sure what this says about my sexuality or if it explains why I'm still single after all these years.
Who got assassinated? Or was it covered up?
Don't recall the name but I'm pretty sure it was a Russian defector. It was either late '70s or early '80s.
Murph and Sully aren't generally really comfortable with the gay community. They've as a group grown more accepting of gays since many of them have a cousin or something who's since come out, and because a few years ago all the Southerners came up there and told them how awful Boston was because they weren't trying to drive their gay people out of the state.
If you want a blue-collar New England man to do something, be an outsider and indignantly tell him that he can't do it. He'll find a way.
Don't recall the name but I'm pretty sure it was a Russian defector. It was either late '70s or early '80s.
As it turns out, it wasn't really an assassination. Here's the dirt from a 2004 DCist "obituary" for Au Pied du Cochon:
What's embarrassing for me is that I had a book shop on Dumbarton in 1985, but I'd completely forgotten about this.
Taking advantage of the average Red Sox fans massive homophobia?
Having the average straight guy learn that almost all gay men have no desire to sleep with them?
For me, it's more a distaste for the Masshole. And I've never forgiven them for getting rid of their awesome "Pat the Patriot" unis in favor of the USFL tripe they currently wear.
Last time I lived in that neighborhood, I remember Remmington's having a bad look from the outside anyway. Kind of like Badlands was near Dupont Circle. It doesn't take much common sense to suss out it's element. Easier to drink cheap at the Tune Inn with the animal heads.
They're no worse than anyone else's fan base. Last time I checked there was a gay bar practically across the street from Fenway Park.
Not universally true. There is a class of gay male that seems to only fall for straight males.
Fine, the average guy who would go to a sports bar.
There is a class of football fans that seems to only root for the Patriots, too.
Every group has their embarrassing outliers.
Yes, those are the ones constantly writing to Dan Savage.
"I think you might be Tom Brady, slumming it at a Days Inn as part of a bizarre sociological experiment. As such, we're upgrading your fridge."
It's the one in Danvers, MA, that the good pizza place down the road doesn't deliver to. It also happens to be the only TripRewards hotel partner I've ever been to that is not staffed up front by individuals from the Asian Subcontinent.
I've been there four times over the past couple years, primarily for events organized by Cecilia Tan (to bring it back to baseball). I know from experience, only 15 of the available rooms have fridges, only five that allow smoking. You prepay with Days Inn to get a 20% discount.
On three of those occasions, the clerk said, oh, how about a room with a fridge? Twice, she added, "anyone ever tell you: you look like Tom Brady?"
1-star hotels are all about micro-fridges. You people are so freaking impressed with me now, aren't you?
/Deep South, it's cheaper to Priceline for a downtown hotel within staggering distance of bars than try to drive it from the burbs, but these are genre shows we're talking about, Boston/RI area is under-Inned, and when on business I just want good beer that I can keep cold while hopefully catching a Law & Order marathon.
Didn't know that New England was under-inned but I guess that makes sense. I just stay with the family or with friends if I'm crashing in Boston.
Straight and married, actually :) I've been to other gay-ish bars in the past, and didn't have guys fawning over me or anything, but I live on the red line in DC, so the the only stop that had more than 2 or 3 places was Dupont Circle. These days I do my drinking on the road (Laws are such that you can't get good beer in Montgomery County.)
With New England, at the cheaper hotels anyway, I've noticed a lot of college kids renting rooms for the weekend to "party"--sit around and drink, mostly. I've heard at some of the schools alcohol policies are pretty severe, so that might explain availability (and room conditions!) even in the burbs.
It was pretty easy to get alcohol at Dartmouth in the 1990s; not sure how it is now.
One of my favorite moments, ever.
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