Jeffrey f-ing Maier. That little bastard. He reached his glove over the blue Yankee Stadium right field wall on a breezy October night in 1996 and absolutely robbed outfielder Tony Tarasco, the Baltimore Orioles, and their fans, namely me. He robbed us, no doubt about it. It was obvious fan interference and is such a bigger deal than that Cubs, Steve Bartman overblown crap. That was a foul ball, this was a game-tying home run. This one should have been called. That's why I must digress. I don't blame Jeffrey Maier. If I was a 12 year old kid, I'd do the same thing. Scratch that. I would do that right now, hell, I would do that if I was 80. He became a hero in Yankee Stadium that night. He was awarded a god damn key to New York City by Rudy Giuliani. It was probably the highlight of his life. He might have even profited on the situation, I don't know. But it's definitely not the kid's fault. The umpiring crew should have identified that as fan interference and called Derek Jeter out.
Rich Garcia, the umpire responsible for making that call and thusly a fucktard, retired from umping in 1999 and currently resides in Clearwater, Florida. Clearwater just so happens to be the Scientology capital of the world. I'm not saying he's in a cult, but I wouldn't be surprised. He is, after all, a bit of a kook. Idiot. Moron.
I decided a couple days (minutes) ago to track down Jeffrey Maier. See what the guy is up to. What I found was unexpected, but not all that shocking. He is now 23 years old and living in Boston, Mass. He works for Brown Brothers Harriman & Co., one of the nation's most successful banking firms. But that's not the interesting part, in fact that's kind of boring. No, that's really boring. It's a bank.
The cool part about the way Maier's life has unfolded is his involvement in the game of baseball, the same game that brought him death threats and made his name a hated household buzzword for many O's fans. Maier played college baseball at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut and was a first-team all-conference selection in his senior year. Scouts said it was "50-50" on whether he'd be drafted. He wasn't taken. Maier was given a few tryouts, including one for the Yankees. He wasn't signed, but still, that's amazing, right? I'm not finished. Maier immediately went into scouting after no teams showed interest. He worked as a scout for ESPN's Peter Gammons in the Cape Cod League during the summer of 2005. After that, he became a special consultant for the New Haven County Cutters of the independent Northeast League. Over the next couple years he had a few interviews for front-office jobs with MLB teams and in 2007 the Milwaukee Brewers hired him as a scout. He spent only one year with the team before deciding to head off and make some real money in banking. I'm thinking this banking crap is just a stopgap before he is hired as an assistant General Manager by some team. He's working on his money-sense with this banking hullabaloo so he'll be good and ready to write up contracts and orchestrate trades when the time comes. Jeffrey Maier is going to be in a front office in my lifetime. That's rough. I think I'm rooting for him. Once again, I don't blame the kid. Rich Garcia, on the other hand... I hope on Drink the Kool-Aid night over at the Scientology center, Garcia volunteers to go first. And it's videotaped. (Woah.)
The cool part about the way Maier's life has unfolded is his involvement in the game of baseball, the same game that brought him death threats and made his name a hated household buzzword for many O's fans. Maier played college baseball at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut and was a first-team all-conference selection in his senior year. Scouts said it was "50-50" on whether he'd be drafted. He wasn't taken. Maier was given a few tryouts, including one for the Yankees. He wasn't signed, but still, that's amazing, right? I'm not finished. Maier immediately went into scouting after no teams showed interest. He worked as a scout for ESPN's Peter Gammons in the Cape Cod League during the summer of 2005. After that, he became a special consultant for the New Haven County Cutters of the independent Northeast League. Over the next couple years he had a few interviews for front-office jobs with MLB teams and in 2007 the Milwaukee Brewers hired him as a scout. He spent only one year with the team before deciding to head off and make some real money in banking. I'm thinking this banking crap is just a stopgap before he is hired as an assistant General Manager by some team. He's working on his money-sense with this banking hullabaloo so he'll be good and ready to write up contracts and orchestrate trades when the time comes. Jeffrey Maier is going to be in a front office in my lifetime. That's rough. I think I'm rooting for him. Once again, I don't blame the kid. Rich Garcia, on the other hand... I hope on Drink the Kool-Aid night over at the Scientology center, Garcia volunteers to go first. And it's videotaped. (Woah.)
