Comments on: Jason Varitek

By: Brewer Bertram

Brewer Bertram — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 00:38:33 +0000

14. Anytime baguettes and guns mix, the ending result can never be good.

By: ellen9

ellen9 — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 21:38:29 +0000

13. I corroborate both the Nightbirds story and the Old Town pre-Gang of Four narrative; I was there for both. It was mdr1994′s Rangers-related taunts that lit the fuse, but that’s for hockey blog.

My fight career began and ended on the diamond. In first grade, during a softball game. A larger, meaner girl, a real bully who had been torturing my bookish self for months, was pitching during recess, and when I came to bat, she began throwing the ball directly at my head.

I couldn’t see very well, and couldn’t wear glasses at bat anyway. In a literally blind rage, I charged the mound, head down, delivering a solid punch to her stomach that knocked her on her ass. She immediately started crying profusely.

In the principal’s office, the nuns, oddly enough, told her she got what she deserved and I was never punished for my all-out aggro fit.

Which I never repeated. Career record, 1-0.

By: Joe Romano

Joe Romano — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 21:04:20 +0000

12. Josh,
The last time I got tossed from a bar (Old Town Bar on 18th Street) was the last time I was with your brother. He had nothing to do with it and didn’t get tossed. It was before a Gang of Four reunion show at Irving Plaza a couple of years ago. I was with a few people and we had been waiting quite a while for a table. One of the guys made the mistake of asking one of the patrons if they were going to be leaving soon. The waitress absolutely FREAKED and the bartender, who I don’t think even knew what was going on came to her defense and threw us out. The bartender was right to defend the waitress, but she totally overreacted.

By: Josh Wilker

Josh Wilker — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 19:45:10 +0000

11. 10 : Yes, in my memory at least, if the night we got banned from Nightbirds were a hockey game (and in fact it was the first ever drinking of the Ray Ferraro Pitcher, that yearly tradition based around the Rangers' first goal scored of each season), you would have been the fiesty Tikkannen guy fanning the flames, specifically by chattering inflammatory rhetoric into the ears of our team's 6'4" Joey Kocur (my brother).

By: rangers1994

rangers1994 — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 18:41:20 +0000

10. (ramblin’ pete, don’t read the second paragraph below)

In some versions of the Nightbirds story, I get mentioned as an instigator, although I don’t remember that specifically. But I did go through my time as a tough drunk, despite my diminutive size.

When I was in college, I got into a fight with a dude who went on to play for the scab Giants as an offensive lineman. He said something to me I didn’t like, and I was really wasted, so I slugged him, knocking him down. A friend of mine from the football team lifted me up and carried me away — to save my life. For weeks I was told to mix up my routes to classes so the guy wouldn’t be able to find me and get even.

Freakin’ scab.

By: mbtn01

mbtn01 — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 15:13:01 +0000

9. I’ve been waiting for more than a year to hear the randomly-punched-in-the-face story referred to in your profile. That’s it, huh?

I’m also a terrible fighter moved to acts of foolish bravery when it comes to my brother. I once destroyed a bullying classmate of his who’d stolen his hat. My brother came over to thank me and I was trembling, “Stop getting your hat stolen, you wuss! Get the F out of my face!”

My last fight was extremely one sided — guy started wailing on me while I was seated and not even looking — but I suffered more injuries running away than I did getting hit.

By: Josh Wilker

Josh Wilker — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 01:17:07 +0000

8. 7 : A painful memory. I rationalized its absence from the list because it repeated the "seeing red when my brother is involved" element of the "Calm down, Hooters" incident. But more honestly I just didn't want to think about it. But now that you mention it, I think the incident you mention occurred after we'd already been officially tossed from the bar, and the only people left inside were my brother and me, and the two of us were in a screaming match with the bartender. I don't remember how the whole thing started, but as with the other incident it was rapidly escalated by the chip-on-shoulder feeling that we were being treated like dirt by an arrogant person. Good times!

By: ramblin pete

ramblin pete — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 00:16:17 +0000

7. How about that time you spit on a barkeep during the wee-hours fracas that got us eighty-sixed, en masse, from the East Village watering hole ‘Nightbirds?’

I believe you also knocked the levers for all the taps to “On” so that our exodus was accompanied by the whoosh of free-pouring beer.

I still don’t know what happened with that guy punching you in the face outside the International, but it still seems quite shocking. If I recall, that was very short night.

Anyway I’m glad you’re in my corner.

By: joe in boston

joe in boston — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 21:26:15 +0000

6. Sorry y’all. He’s just not that good anymore. Going thru a divorce can’t help – and don’t forget … when he had that run-in with AROD, he kept his mask on like a pu$$y

By: Josh Wilker

Josh Wilker — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 16:27:54 +0000

5. 4 : "He looks fine, to all appearances . . ." I was thinking the same thing, comparing his still-decent swing to the deteriorating swing of the catcher who preceded him as a pennant-winner on the Sox, Rich Gedman, who near the end took his cuts like a cross between Charlie Lau's worst nightmare and an axe murderer with Parkinson's.