Do they take care of me at The People's Blogger headquarters or what?
In all the coverage and put-you-right-in-the-action photography I've provided, I neglected to mention that the aforementioned lucky ticket I scored for last week's Michigan-Ohio State game led me to the pristine location of last row in the visitor's section (see right). And the visitor's sections in Ohio Stadium are about as far away from football as you can be in that historic, decrepit facility.
You know those ROTC guards they have stationed way up atop each of the four posts inside the stadium? I looked down on them. Actually, I could turn around and look down on pretty much all of Columbus—from crowds gathered around the Jumbotrons that lined the stadium's perimeter, to nearby St. John Arena, former home to Buckeye basketball, and its current home, the Schottenstein Center a few blocks away.
And to my right, downtown Columbus, eighteenth largest city in this fine nation of ours, its skyline peaking over the stadium's top rim (see pic below). Sitting quietly before the cityscape, Nationwide Arena, home to the NHL's perennially futile Columbus Blue Jackets, pouts dormant and gray, its cancelled All-Star Weekend the latest casualty of the league's season-threatening lockout.
It was my own virtual sightseeing tour, and it was my free bonus for having a seat location just a row or two in front of parking deck B.
Nonetheless, it still afforded me a chance at some history of my own... and the opportunity to immortalize myself in the video history of college football's biggest rivalry.
After Denard Robinson's electrifying touchdown run put Michigan ahead 20-17 pending the point-after-touchdown, ABC cut to a long-angle shot of the jubilant Wolverine fans high up in the closed end of the 'Shoe. And there I was, in all my glory (see below; circled fan in last row to be exact). In fact, you can clearly see that I am already hard at work, generating some of the stunning photographs you would soon be seeing on this very site.
(By the way, I'm still wearing the oh-so-stylish "HAIL" shirt, it's just hidden deep inside my large gold-and-gray parka... did I mention it was cold outside?)
Emails hit my phone with screen grabs from the broadcast. Sure, the title lines may have had "LOL" or "WOW UR SEATS SUCK!" And most couldn't even identify me due to the images being so tiny and distant. But it's very clearly me. If you can imagine me wearing enough thermal gear to make a channel-surfing Eskimo stop and think, "Oooh where'd he get that?"
Yet I couldn't help but reminisce about one of my favorite commercials of all time, a classic Miller Lite spot featuring baseball's most familiar nobody, Bob Uecker. Speaking to camera inside a baseball park, he covers the obligatory product features while seating himself in a prime lower-deck box (see below).
His monologue is interrupted by a ticket usher kicking him out of the seat he's chosen. To which Uecker replies, "Oooh... I must be in the front row!"
Following a gratuitous condescention-covered product shot, we cut to a far-away shot of an empty upper deck. We see only two people in the stands, and it takes a camera zoom to reveal that one of them is Mr. Uecker. "Great seats, eh buddy?" he says to the other fan, before jumping up with outrage at a close play at the plate a quarter mile below. "He missed the tag! He missed the tag!" he screams.
I feel ya, Bob.
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