Fitzy Proudly Presents: “Let’s Go Pats 2008!”

Night of the Joestown Flood

Greetings boys and girls, welcome to the first installment of Boston sports and townie topicality in a blog in which I’ve decided to forgo the tedious tradition of a clever name for a rotating series of bad puns, pompous alliterative allusions, and Carlos Quintana references. Tonight’s title: The Night of the Joestown Flood.

In honor of the imminent destruction of the Yankee’s glimmering ode to the kind of Soviet Bloc concrete stark-itecture that brought us Government Center, Sullivan Stadium, the UMass Dartmouth campus and Chet Curtis’s hair, I thought I’d take a look at the new ballpark being built in my adopted home here in the Boogie Down Bronx. As it turns out, the Yanks are giving us 800 million more reasons to hate them, one for each dollar that taxpayers are kicking to Steinbrenner and Co. to tear down one of the oldest stadiums in baseball, bulldoze a popular children’s park, and build a luxury-box infested baseball shopping mall that will have fewer seats at higher prices. Congratulations Gotham!

It isn’t the first time either, in 1972 New York bought Yankee Stadium for $24 million—more than twice what George Steinbrenner would buy the entire team for a few months later. The city then renovated the stadium for $160 million, and leased it back to the Yanks for about the same price I pay for my apartment. What did city taxpayers get in return? For starters, a giant wall that ended a 50-year tradition of catching a glimpse of the game from the elevated train, a spike in ticket prices, and a brand new four-story garage (what hip-hop historian Jeff Chang called “the most secure parking lot in the South Bronx”) that made it easier for suburbanites whose tax dollars weren’t paying for the stadium to get to games without having to use public transportation or patronize any non-stadium purveyors of food and beverage.

All this while the city was literally going bankrupt and the South Bronx neighborhood that the new stadium was supposed to “revitalize” was falling prey to a wave of apartment fires, drugs and violence that led one local doctor to call the area Necropolis, “a city of death”—think “The Message” by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, who got their start a few blocks from the stadium. Maybe it had something to with the few dozen fire stations the city closed, or the 5,000 cops they fired on a single day in 1975 to try and trim the budget. But hey, all that money left George Steinbrenner with enough cash to buy Reggie Jackson a Rolls Royce Corniche, make illegal campaign contributions to Richard Nixon and threaten to move the team to Jersey?

Fitzy’s FANalyst Funspot - Week 1 Picks

Fitzy Visits Yankee Stadium For The Last Sox/Yanks Game

Fitzy Roasts George Takei

Fitzy’s FANalyst Funspot: The “Tight Ends, Kickers, and D” Edition

A Sight for Sore Eyes & A New Site For Your Eyes

You gotta admit, The Goosebump-o-Meter was turned up to 11 when Ted Kennedy came out the other night.  I’m already voting Obama (SPOILER!), and am a Masshole through and through, but this was PFI: Pretty Fahkin’ Inspiring!

Around Your Mom’s Horn…

Hear ye!  Hear ye!  Townienews.com relaunches this week, and it’s gonna kick serious ass (kinda like the Sox did tonight).  That’s right - your #1 source for Fitzy-related madness and Wicked Pissah Webcastery is relaunching, and we’ll be offering everything you want (and THEN some).  In addition to videos and blog posts, we’ll be offering…

Fitzy LIVE in Foxboro this Saturday night! (Now Includes Bonus Fantasy Football Advice Video)

Yes indeed, your old pal Fitzy will be opening up for none other than the star of “Insomniac” and “The Gong Show”, funnyman DAVE ATTELL this Saturday night, August 23rd, at Showcase Live at Patriot Place in Foxboro...and it’s all thanks to you (assuming YOU voted - if not, well GFY - but come see the show anyway).

You good peoples voted me in as the opening comic for Dave this Saturday, and I plan on bringing the GFY magic full-force.  Good times and laughs ahoy this Saturday.  Please come check out the show and see the madness you helped get in (or thought about helping but were too lazy to send a text) at this kickass new venue.  I always wanted to perform where TFB QB’s.  Well, this is as close as I’ll get, and it’s pretty friggin’ cool.

FOR TICKETS, CLICK HERE.
For info on the new venue, click here to go to SHOWCASE LIVE website.

Dave Attell @ Showcase Live
(w/some hump named Fitzy opening for him)
8pm
Saturday August 23rd, 2008
25 Patriot Place, Foxboro, MA

ALSO...about to draft your fantasy team?  Need help finding that stud receiver (or 3rd option who’s mostly on the bench) that will send your team over the top this season?  Have no fear - Fitzy’s FANalyst Funspot: The Wide Receiver Steals edition is here!  Or actually after the jump…

Fitzy’s Fantasy Football Advice Column…In Video!

Also from this week…

Fitzy’s Wicked Pissah “Favre & Manny Can GFY” Webcast

And…

Fitzy’s “Rhymes With Pedroia” Challenge

Vote For Me To Open For Dave Attell In Foxboro