End of an Errors
I don't remember the first thing Wilbon said to me but I know it came with one of his all-enveloping handshake/hugs that ensconce you in a cocoon of velour certainty. It was probably, “Blah blah blah, Chicago.†;) Kornheiser, though? "Rent! Don’t buy! We’re going to be cancelled in the first commercial break.†The first of many super galactically incorrect pronouncements from Mr. Tony, thankfully. He best sees the future when he’s wearing the earrings for Fortune Teller.
2850 shows, maybe 10,000 errors and omissions. Everything from stats to geography to geopolitics. My favorite: Wilbon not knowing he was wearing a Team Russia jacket while covering the Salt Lake Olympics. Most frequent: Hockey is a co-national sport of Canada, along with lacrosse, per the Canadian National Sports Act of 1994. There have been lists and Mount Rushmores and more lists and more Mount Rushmores. (Top 10 public colleges in America, Reali, Go! Mount Rushmore of vegan quarterbacks, Go! Maxim’s 100 Hottest Hotties, Go! Go! Go!) Some errors were made before we went to air; I’m pretty sure we wished Happy Birthday to Don King twice in one year. (Only in America.) Others were made by myself while making corrections. After I got Roger Staubach’s total Super Bowl appearances wrong I’m pretty sure we got an email. From Roger Staubach’s manager.
13 years in television is 130 years in real life. My 13 years with Tony, Mike, Rydholm, Kelliher, Suzuki, O'Connor, Maurer, McHale, Ouano, Nation, Morrell, Hardwick, Lyght, Daniel, Corrigan, Howard, Berko, Cohen, Brofsky and everyone who has walked passed our oddly (ahem) shaped desk have been the best 13 of my life. My early 20s and my mid 30s, my prepubescent face and my first whiskers, my food poisoning from Pittsburgh Airport sushi and my food poisoning from mussels from Brussels, the Pardon the Turnover office basketball team and the 12-time (and reigning!) Office Fastest Bowler. There was a wedding proposal in between the men’s and women’s bathroom at LaGuardia to Stat Girl and this past August our Stat Bambina! Life happened in between errors and omissions without any pardon or interruption. It’s been a great blessing to share it with this family.
So it’s with great sadness and a greater love and appreciation I leave home. There's no way I'm making it through this last show dry, but that’s ok. I've been crying daily since we’ve had Francesca anyway. But I’ve got a bigger problem; how do you thank someone you owe your whole career to? If it's not by making Goodfellas videos and spontaneously yelling "Yow!!!" and "Ball Night!!!" to strangers in the street in perpetuity I'm screwed.
I’ve always said if I wasn’t working on PTI I’d be watching it every day and that’s the role I’m going to be playing going forward. Horn is staying Horn, "Good Night, Canada!" is becoming Good Morning America. Surreal. Honored. Grateful for the lessons I’ve learned at PTI and take with me. One of those lessons is to always end with a Big Finish and since we're running out of show, Big Finish!!!
1 hope, 1 dream, and I'll hang up and listen. The hope is the same hope I have whenever I find myself separated from someone I love and will miss; that sometime in the future we get our Andy Dufresne and Red moment on the beach of Zihuatanejo. Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and I hope I get to see Wilbon and Kornheiser and all of the PTI crew in their bathing suits stripping the paint off a boat. I hope to shake my friends hands. I hope there’s a Uranus joke. I hope.
The dream is a hope plus a fear, because what's a dream without a little agita. It’s me, coming to my end, finding myself at the pearly gates, facing St. Peter. I always loved St. Peter, like a rock. Well, my hope is St. Peter takes my meeting and greets me. That'd be a good sign. The fear comes soon after when St Peter turns to his sidekick and says “Time to find out what you messed up, Stat Boy.â€
You guys were clean. You don't have to try to do better next time, it'd be impossible. Thank you, thank you, a million times thank you.
Your Boy,
Anthony Joseph Paul Reali
September 5, 2014
PS. OWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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