Chuck loves goats. If you know him, you know this about him. They are like his favourite animals. He follows 100% Goats, because they guarantee 200% goats. And in late summer of 2019, we decided to spend our vacation following a few different kind of GOATs. And it was 1000% worth it.
U.S. Open
Our first stop was spending five steamy days in Queens, New York City at the Billie Jean King Tennis Center to take in the 2019 U.S. Open. This was at the top of Chuck’s bucket list, just under a visit to the Holy Land. Look at how happy he is.
In the four days we spent at the Open, we watched at least 11 matches, got close to the players on the practice courts, bought over-priced merch, spied celebrities in the stands and drank a lot of refreshments. It was scorching!
🥂 Side note: The Kentucky Derby has the Mint Julep, Wimbledon has the Pimm’s Cup and the US Open’s got the #HoneyDeuce. And they are DANGEROUS. I could down one in a minute. Especially in the NYC heat.
It’s made with 2 oz Grey Goose, 1/2 oz of raspberry liqueur and lemonade. It’s topped off with three honeydew melon balls on a skewer, which look like yellow tennis balls in the drink. Looked good, tasted good, made me feel good. I may have brought home 12 of those souvenir cups, I left another 12 behind. 🥴😵🥴
But enough about delightfully refreshing beverages, let’s talk GOATs…
Federer
Chuck is a much bigger tennis fan than me. But if either Federer or Serena are playing, I’m watching. I could never describe watching Federer play better than how David Foster Wallace did in 2006. I read that piece then and have been hoping to experience a ‘Federer Moment’ live since. This excerpt sums it up nicely:
Federer is able to see, or create, gaps and angles for winners that no one else can envision, and television’s perspective is perfect for viewing and reviewing these Federer Moments. What’s harder to appreciate on TV is that these spectacular-looking angles and winners are not coming from nowhere — they’re often set up several shots ahead, and depend as much on Federer’s manipulation of opponents’ positions as they do on the pace or placement of the coup de grâce.
Roger Federer as Religious Experience, by David Foster Wallace
The match we watched wasn’t particularly exciting. Fed was above and beyond his opponent. But watching him live confirms things you see on TV and also gives you surprises. Like, he really is super quiet, unnervingly so. He is quick, methodical, slight, yet deadly. Nothing seems hard. And he’s as wonderful as everyone says.
Even Anna Wintour cracked a smile for him (she was sitting in his family section with his wife who was wearing a leather jacket in 30 degree weather! Good on her).
Federer truly deserves all the fan love. And boy, do the US Open fans love him. Almost as much as…
Serena
When Serena strolled into the stadium for her afternoon match you could have heard a pin drop in the stadium it was so hushed. A revered silence. I imagine this is common when people of her type of greatness enter a room.
I was a bit shocked at how quiet she was as well. That’s never the press she gets. She’s confident, not cocky. Polite, not rude. Full of grace and strength. She was a lot smaller than I expected, but a lot bigger too. Does that even make sense? I was so in awe, my eyes watered. I’m sure I was far from the only one.
We watched her power in action and it was splendid. She’s so fast and her serves are deadly. You can see her opponents just wither in front of her. She’s definitely one of those players that you have to play the game of your life against just to have a shot.
And that smile… beautiful. Serena has a much brighter smile than…
Rafa
Rafael Nadal’s smile is more a grimace. An adorable grimace though. He looks like a grump, but I think he’s the opposite. Rafa is Chuck’s fave player ever. He adores him. And this is the second tournament we’ve attended where Rafa won the whole kit and kaboodle.
Spain’s ‘Raging Bull’ is a beast. He’s loud, he stomps around a bit and he grunts when he’s smashing the ball across the court. Look at how far back he is on the court? He’s not scared of nothing. Our night session crowd was anticipating a great show between him and Marin Cilic, who is also a power hitter. It was one helluva match. Chuck was in tennis heaven.
But one of my favourite things about watching Rafa live is you get to test your math skills. Like, how many times will he turn his water bottles on the ground so perfectly that the labels face out (laces out, Dan!). Or how many towels will he take after each rally? Two, the answer is always two (he only uses one, the other is a ‘security blanket’ I guess). Or how many parts of his body does he touch before each and every serve? Six to seven! In order, it goes:
- Left shoulder shirt grab
- Right shoulder shirt grab
- Nose wipe
- Left hair tuck behind ear
- Nose wipe
- Right hair tuck behind ear
- And a butt pick finish! Sometimes you get two butt picks, depends on if there is time left on the serve clock.
And the reason that serve clock exists is prob due to him. He needs to get all those moves in. Every. Single. Time.
I guess it could be exhausting to watch if you’re not a Rafa fan, but I just find it so fascinating to watch him. It’s fascinating to watch all these players (except Novak) perform alone on a big stage. It’s like peering into a fishbowl. They have nowhere to go if shit goes bad (except Novak, see below), so they must feel completely alone out there, with every emotion they have on display on the big screens. That’s rough.
I once watched Andy Murray berate himself — loudly — for two minutes straight during a timeout. Not his opponent. Himself! It’s like he doesn’t have a clue millions are watching him, but he totally knows. In team sports you can hide your crazy, not so much in an individual one.
The opposite of Rafa’s time-consuming superstitions/rituals is Federer. I literally watched him win a game, grab a ball from the ball boy and serve an ace within 15 seconds max. The man lives and breathes efficiency. A finely tuned luxury Swiss watch.
Rafa is a wonder to watch on court. But that night the crowd was also obsessed with watching another GOAT…
Tiger
We didn’t watch him play, but he was sitting in the box behind us watching his friend Rafa play. They were shouting at each other at the end of the match; giving each other “no, you’re the greatest” shout outs. It felt like a largely attended meet-cute.
Djokovic
He’s great, but both of us don’t love him. I don’t even like him. We did watch Stanislas Wawrinka pummel on him for two sets before he pouted, gave up — as he sometimes tends to do — and walk off the court to a huge chorus of boos from the crowd. I can’t blame them for booing, Arthur Ashe seats aren’t cheap, yo!
It was so easy to see that his leaving the court had to do more with Stan crushing him — in what was going to be straight sets — than a sore non-hitting arm. And you could easily tell he was pissed the crowd was cheering harder for Stan than him. A part of me feels for him, but then I remember it’s Nole.
Bianca
The Canadian who won it all. Bianca Andreescu seems like a GOAT in the making. Hopefully she can keep it going. Anyone remember future Canadian tennis Goddess Eugenie Bouchard?? Yeah, no, didn’t think so.
We watched Bianca play after Nadal late one night. She was playing an American so she definitely did not have the crowd rooting for her. And boy did that set her off… for awhile. She threw a few tantrums and rackets, but eventually found her game and won the match handily.
Boris
I was a big fan of Boris Becker when I was a kid. I didn’t watch a ton of tennis in my youth, but I do remember crushing on Boris. He looked great in shorts. 😉😉 Forgive me for objectifying. 😬
We spotted Boris in the ESPN section (he’s the blonde standing in a navy jacket possibly looking right at me — I wish!). And I was like so ga-ga that I didn’t even notice Alec Baldwin sitting up a few seats from him. And if you looked even a bit further up, you saw…
The McEnroe’s
John and Pat are the ultimate tennis callers. And John is the ultimate sports bad boy of the 80s. God, his whole look and schtick was glorious, wasn’t it? One of the best parts of being at the US Open is that you can listen to them call the matches.
Chuck got us free radio lanyards from American Express on our first day at the Open and we used them religiously at each match. Sometimes you would listen to another match happening in another stadium, but for the most part, we were listening to the McEnroe bros call the Arther Ashe matches. And those little ear-pieces worked like a dream. There was no delay. You could hear the ball bounce perfectly in sync with the live match. Best money we never spent at the event.
NFL Kickoff Weekend
After a whirlwind of a week at the Open, we moseyed over to Boston to take in my sports pilgrimage: Watching the New England Patriots season opener with Bill Belichick (The Hoody) and Tom Brady. They were playing the Steelers and if you know anything about this particular matchup, you know that the Steelers were a long-shot to win. Due in large part to…
Belichick
Where other coaches bring a double-sided laminated play sheet, Bill comes with a double sided 50 page booklet. He’s that guy. He’s hated, he’s mean, gruff, kind of an ass (ok, definitely an ass). He can’t smile, can’t put a helpful post-game sentence together (“We’re on to Cincinnati”), but I adore him. He’s a little turd of a man among big, brash larger-than-life gladiators. He’s the David to all those Goliaths. His situational football knowledge mixed with his cutthroat sensibility makes for a winning combination. It’s dirty sometimes, but I can’t help but enjoy watching it… and him.
🤓 Nerd note: Years ago, I read Education of a Coach and thoroughly enjoyed it.
👕 Merch note: I wanted to buy a hoodie with Belichick-approved sleeve and neck cuts and I couldn’t find any anywhere in that stadium. Total merch failure.
Anyways, I think I watched Bill more during the game than I did the actual game. Weird. But I also made sure to divert some attention to…
Brady
Seeing Brady open up the 2019 season (his last one with the Pats) in Gillette Stadium was certainly a treat.
It was 2006 when I started to really get into NFL. And for a newbie, you tend to choose a good team to root for. I was certainly not going to pledge allegiance to the Browns or Jets, I mean, c’mon, no one needs that amount of sadness in their sports life. So, I settled on the Patriots and their cute quarterback who I had heard of. But over time, it was the chess-like way the team played that sucked me in fully.
So, as Brady leaves this year to another team, I wish him well, but I follow the Hoody now. Even if his team has some of the worst fans I’ve encountered. Ever. On par with Flyers fans.
🚗 Transport note: Getting to Gillette Stadium was a total nightmare. Hours waiting on a highway way out in the boonies (3 hours there, 2 hours back). Why do people build stadiums in the middle of nowhere?
Boston Red Sox at Fenway
Chuck and I are not baseball fans. Far from it. We do however recognize that if you are going to be in Boston when the Sox play the Yanks, it is your obligation to go.
Fenway Park
Fenway Park is definitely a beauty. First built in 1912, the stadium exudes a great amount of history mixed with a touch of modern. Not much modern though. Pretty sure our seats were still from 1912. Ouch.
But whether you were strolling inside the stadium or adjacent-to, the place lives and breathes cool.
What wasn’t cool was the game itself. The teams were lacklustre… at best! They weren’t bringing anything to the plate. Figuratively and literally. We waited until the 7th inning stretch to see if anything interesting would happen. It didn’t. So we left and got nachos. What a sad performance for a storied rivalry. Oh well.
The fans however were the exact opposite. They were an enthusiastic bunch; passionate about baseball, chatting up their seat-mates, yelling at umpires and calling out all other sports annoyances. So that felt right.
And before the game started, we got a HUGE surprise when the first pitch was thrown out by…
Big Papi
He’s so loved in Boston. People were going absolutely nuts for him. We even found ourselves going nuts and we don’t follow this sport at all. An icon is an icon, after all.
So that was our bucket-list sports pilgrimage. We saw a few of our favourite athletes/coaches ever compete and received a few surprises along the way. We definitely planned-out a winning trip. 💯
And if you’re wondering what we liked the best. It was — hands-down — the US Open. I love that tennis tournaments give you a ‘choose your own adventure’ experience. Whether you get tickets for an afternoon session or a night session, you are guaranteed two matches, but you can easily go watch more. Or go watch your favourite players practice. There were a few times we would leave ‘bigger’ matches to follow the cheers coming from other stadiums (Arthur Ashe stadium tix give you access to all matches in the other stadiums).
⚾ Funny video alert: I’m throwing in this SNL skit of Kenan Thompson’s Big Papi because it made us spit with laughter; he impersonates Ortiz so well. And before meeting Chuck, I had no idea how BIG a pot could be.
