Wake Up, Warren!

By sbozos_admin
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Updated: 04/20/2021

Back in ’98 I’m working for a couple of months in Tampa and one of my co-workers and I decide to hit the Trop and go to a Yankees-Devil Rays game. As Division rivals Tampa and New York play 19 times a season. The Devil Rays don’t really draw and when they do the fans from the other team usually outnumber the Tampa fans. This is especially true when the Yankees, who have held spring training in Tampa since the 70’s, before the existence of the Devil Rays, are in town.

The Trop is not ‘Hallowed Halls”. I grew up going to the old, then the revised Yankee Stadium, not this indoor gym excuse for a ballpark. So we stow away the snobbery and take our seats. We plop down behind the plate, up around thirty rows and join the other 2000-3000 dreary souls there for an afternoon game in June in this pit in St. Pete. The Yankees played Tampa 19 times that year and lost just once. Guess which game I picked? 9-0 Tampa.

Anyway, between beer runs, I notice a huge chonker of a man seated about 10 rows in front of us. No one within 5-6 seats of him on either side. Maybe 30-40 people in the general area loosely paying attention to this slugfest. It’s the quietest I’ve ever experienced at a ball game in my life, you can hear whispers and echoes and the hot dog guy in left field.

I tell my buddy who knows nothing about sports that this big dude a few rows ahead of us is a defensive linemen for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Warren Sapp. He’s relatively famous as a sack specialist and a semi- celebrity. Big # 99. He’s not impressed. So I’m keeping an eye on Warren while watching the borefest.

Warren is so captivated in the big game now and falls asleep. He is snoring. Loudly. Buzz saw stuff. People around him start snickering and giggling as the cadence and volume changes. Wheezy, then mule-ish. Yee- owww.

I pick an especially quiet moment and tap my pal’s leg and scream out as loud as I possible can, so even Chuck Knoblauch looks up, “WAKE UP WARREN!!!!”

Chonker nearly falls out of his row seat, struggles to regain his balance. Embarrassingly looks around angrily to see who the F is messing with him. Straightening his wrinkled shirt and wiping the drool, he is scouring the rows behind him for the culprit.

Of course I pull the old turn around and look for the guy who yelled out like everyone else, hopefully blending in while praying not to be exposed. My fellow fans do not give me up and are cracking up at the sight of Sapp trying to slyly determine who could have ruined his nap.

One of the funniest few minutes ever spent at a baseball game. Wake up Warren!