We watch... so you don't have to.
Meet Me at Hel... er, Foxwoods
Because I now live in Los Angeles, which adds considerable drive time to the 15 minute commute between my old apartment and the Oakland Coliseum, I bought the Major League Baseball Extra Innings package. That delivers roughly 60 baseball games to television set each week, ensuring each of the following things will take place sometime during the 2004 season:
* My weight should swell to more than 400 pounds by the All-Star break, after half-a-season's worth of couch-bound immobility;
* My wife will leave sometime in August, and I'll be so enraptured by a meaningless Brewer-Pirate game beaming to me on Fox Sports Pittsburgh, I probably won't even notice until the off-season; and
* The Foxwoods Resort Casino jingle is going to slowly drive me mad.
Foxwoods is an Indian casino located in beautiful Mashantucket, Connecticut -- "within easy driving distance from four of the East Coast's major cities," the casino's Web page happily declares. And the folks at Foxwoods have composed a jingle to convince gambling-starved New Englanders to take the perilous journey down the I-95 to Exit 92. It's a jazzy little number sung by... well, not a Frank Sinatra impersonator exactly -- more like a Frank Sinatra Jr. impersonator, if such a thing is possible.
Take a chance
Make it happen
Pop the cork
Fingers snapping
Spin the wheel
Round and Round we go
Life is good, life is sweet
Grab yourself a front row seat
Let's meet and have a ball
Let's live for the wonder of it all
Oh, it's a catchy little tune. And it becomes catchier when the New England Sports Network broadcasts the Foxwoods commercial -- and I'm just making a rough estimate here -- almost continuously.
NESN, which is your cable home for the Boston Red Sox, airs the Foxwoods commercial and its attendant jingle seemingly between every half inning. It broadcasts it during pitching changes, breaks in the action, whenever Kevin Millar or David Ortiz step up to the plate. When Sox third-base coach Dale Sveum flashes the sign to the batter, I'm assuming he's telling Manny Ramirez or Johnny Damon or whoever's at the plate to "Let's meet and have ball, let's live for the wonder of it all." That or he's flashing the bunt sign.
So exposure to NESN Red Sox coverage courtesy of Major League Baseball Extra Innings has scarred the Foxwoods Resort Casino jingle into my brain. Between that and the Dunkin' Donuts commercial where Curt Schilling touts a visibly unappetizing breakfast sandwich, I'm beginning to gain special insight on why Boston fans walk around so miserable all the time.
