When Joe Frazier knocked down Muhammad Ali for the very first time of his career in the first of their three fights, Ali did not allow it to devastate him. Instead, he popped back up off the canvass before the referee could reach the count of four.
Similarly, whenever Brad Lidge blows a save in the ninth inning of a game he does not hang his head in shame when he leaves the mound. Stoically and purposefully, Lidge heads to the clubhouse with his head up and his eyes straight ahead.
After all, to paraphrase a line from Goodfellas, everyone takes a beating every once in a while.
Look at Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty for hells’ sakes. Two of the most admired actors in the history of the cinema are responsible for one of the greatest flops in Hollywood history.
Oh yes, The Podcast of Awesomeness had its Ishtar moment. The only difference is we did not take a net loss of $76 million.
It was as if John Gonzalez and Todd Zolecki were being trotted out for a perp walk when they exited the Wells Fargo Center on Tuesday afternoon. The crime, of course, was lending a hand in steering a burning plane of a podcast into the lake.
Nope, not even an appearance by Dan Baker could save this one.
Still, like Ali, Lidge, Hoffman and Beatty, we’ll be back. Maybe we’ll be a little gun shy when we climb back in there, but in the meantime we had two heavyweights in our tiny studio and we scared them away forever.
It was like we had the cast of Ocean’s 11 and delivered Ocean’s 12.
Sigh.
Anyway, if anyone has two Super Bowl tickets they can’t use, contact Mr. Zolecki. He’ll gladly take them off your hands.