Charity Soccer Event

My buddy Anthony LaPaglia was having a charity soccer event in Boston a couple weeks ago, and he invited me to attend. My personal biographer, Matty the Mainer, was also in the city that weekend for more blog material. I figured I'd take him along, because he couldn't get into too much trouble sitting on the sidelines. Was I wrong.

One team was short a player, so they sent Matty in as a striker. I knew things would be bad, when he made a move into the box, then fell over the moment he felt David Caruso touch his leg. He first rolled around in apparent fake pain. Then he jumped up and yelled at the ref, Mandy Patinkin, for not only not giving him a penalty, but for not carding Caruso.

Later he berated Jon Cryer for not "finding him in space", which made zero sense to Cryer or anyone else there. When I did find him near the goal mouth, he shot a laser at the guy from CSI with the funny hair, who was their keeper. He was only two yards from the net, and he gave the goalie a Spaulding tattoo on the lower left side of his abdomen. The ball went in, and Matty stood over the guy talking trash.

The last straw came when Poppy Montgomery was trying to take the ball from him on defense. He was shielding her with his back while he looked for his opening. Poppy stuck her foot in, trying to make a play, and Matty hauled off and elbowed her, opening a sizeable gash in her forehead. LaPags was pissed, and I had to grab Matty by the arm and run.

He apologized later, saying that when the competitive juices start flowing, it's hard to turn them off. In that moment, he reminded me of a Norwegian I used to know, so instead of scolding him, I took him out for a beer.