Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Judgments, Assessments and Evaluations

September 9, 2006
Once we got invited to go the Boston Red Sox game in Boston when they were playing the Yankees. Naturally, we said yes. So, he asked us to come down and visit the next day. He got us a hotel; Paula and I. He put us up for the night in Boston. So the next day we go down to his office. Then he gives me one of those registered drawings of Reggie Jackson. The guy knew how to take care of people.

First of all, I had never been to a game in a sky box. You know sky box? Twenty people fit in the sky box.

We were like the first ones there, right? We’re in this thing and it is freezing. I’m like, “oh man, we’re freezing to death.” The guy comes and he pulls the windows, they slide right open. So the air conditioner is on and they got the windows wide open.

It was great food. Everything you want. Not bad, right? And the best thing about it was it was the last game. Yankees had won four games from the Boston Red Sox, and this was the fifth game. They won the fifth game. So I was real happy.

The guy’s night was not so happy, because he’s a Boston Red Sox fan to begin with. Can you picture this? Pay all this money. Real nice guy.

Anyways, so I say, “Geeze, I feel a little bad that the Red Sox lost and all that stuff. That’ll teach you to be a Boston fan.” Anyway, the guy’s got a good sense of humor.

The point I want to make is we’re walking out of the stadium, it’s night, right? So, we’re walking up the street, people are coming out of the stadium, and you’re not paying any attention, conversations are going. And all of a sudden there’s this conversation going on with a young lady, probably in her mid twenties early thirties, and she is cutting somebody up unbelievable.
Complain, complain, complain, complain. And I couldn’t believe the stuff she was saying about the person. “I can’t believe…disgusting.. the worst…”

You know, you’re not paying attention to the conversation but you’re picking up certain words. You don’t want to listen in. Then all of a sudden you go, I want to listen in. True? So all of a sudden, it’s going and I heard, “Yankee fans are the worst fans in the world.”

And she goes on. And the venom that’s coming out of this girl’s mouth is actually unbelievable. You’d think she was about the Taliban. I swear. And she’s going and going and going and going.

I go, I got to see what this person looks like, right? I’m listening to how she is so upset. Now naturally, they lost five games, right? To the Yankees. And she is so upset and I turn around, I want to see who she was. Very attractive young lady with a young man who’s trying to quiet her down. You know when you try to quiet somebody down, and they don’t want to be quieted down, they get louder and louder. That’s what was going on. Anyway, she’s going “Yankee fans, they’re the worst fans in the world, they’re lowlifes. They’re scum.”

I mean, every derogatory thing that you could think about saying about somebody you hate with a passion was coming out of her mouth. And you think she would stop? We’re walking quite a way to get to the end, and she’s going and going and going, and going. She was like the Eveready battery. She would not stop. And finally, they’re walking to the other side of the street, but she’s still going. Upset about how terrible us Yankee fans are.

“And they’re ALL the same!” That was the one that really got me.

Now we get up to the end of the street, and they’re selling the T-shirts. Here are the T-shirts: “Jeter sucks.” Next shirt: “A-Rod sucks.” There wasn’t one shirt up there with Boston. There wasn’t a Boston shirt. You couldn’t get somebody, you know, like Ortiz. They weren’t up for sell. All the negative stuff about the Yankees. It was hate the Yankees. And I’m realizing that in the stadium, every time Johnny Damon got up to bat, who used to play for the Red Sox, it was like, “BOO!” Not giving him a break.

Now here’s the thing I want to tell you. I’ve been to Yankee stadium many, many, many times. And I’ve seen them play many teams. I’ve never once seen them say, whoever that team player was, they suck they’re no good. Never. No negative. You may get somebody every once in a while they get up and they boo, like you hear that, but not this constant everything is boo, boo, negative.

Why am I telling you this? They’re very unhappy. Like upset. You go, this is unbelievable. This isn’t life and death. This is a game. This is about people playing the game making millions of dollars, and we’re there supporting them playing the game. Get this? I’m saying, what in the world? Your world’s got to be that small that that’s the thing in the world that upsets you? The Yankees beating the Red Sox?

We All Get Righteous
Now, we all do this, right? Where we get upset about something. We’ve got the right to be upset. Except when you start thinking about it you go like, how ridiculous is it? I mean, I really was, “Oh my God. How ridiculous.”

“Oh my God, no wonder people kill people and are willing to go to war with people.” Because the belief systems automatically run you, and it’s the truth. All the Yankee fans are the most nasty, terrible people that ever walked the face of the earth.

What do you think? Is that where you play? Is that your assessments, judgments and evaluations – your righteousness keeps killing off what could be for you?

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