So Why Now??

In most of the memories I have of my childhood anytime before the age of 6, NY Mets games used to play on my TV in the background.  My dad is a Cincinnati Reds fan (his favorite player growing up was Tony Perez) so for the one year he and my mom lasted, he watched Mets games to satisfy his need for NL baseball.  My uncles, unlike my dad, were all hooked on the Mets, sort of like that drug the 1986 Mets team was on to win the World Series (but thats another story).  Anyways, the point is, I've been around sports for a looooooong time.  Being Dominican, baseball runs in my blood (whether thru skill or knowledge).  So how was I able to avoid the disaster of being a Mets fan?  I actually got into basketball before I got into baseball.  First favorite basketball player? Patrick Ewing.  I was lucky to see the Ewing/Oakley/Starks Knick teams and the Houston/Sprewell teams that followed before the disaster of the new millennium.  I fell in love with baseball after going to a Yankees game in summer camp back in 1993 and getting an autographed batting glove from Paul O'neill (which I of course lost even before I got home that day).  So in a family chock full of Mess fans (yes, I said Mess fans), the Lord saved me from embarrassment and blessed me a Yankee fan.  As for NFL, I kept that simple.  My mom (whom I was able to convert to Yankeeism along with my sister) unknowingly bought me a Cowboys jumpsuit from YoungWorld (raise your hand if you remember those from back in the day) right before they won their first of three Super Bowls in the 90s.  Yes, call me a bandwagon but I stuck with them during the Chan Gailey, Dave Campo years dammit!

As a kid, I did it all.  Collected sports cards, sports summer camps, after school basketball, etc.  Kids watched cartoons in the morning before school, I was already on SportsCenter.  Sundays meant the NBA on NBC and the greatest sports jingle ever.  As an altar boy, I used to have a walkman under my robe to keep up with early Knicks playoff games.  I left my grandmother's funeral early to catch Game 1 of the NBA Finals in '94 (and till this day my mom says God had a hand in the Knicks losing for me doing that).   I went to high school 3 blocks away from Yankee Stadium.  I got to enjoy the 4 championships of the late 90s and 2000 and then go thru the Curse being Reversed.  Thru it all, me and my closest friends would talk sports and I would make brandish predictions and analysis and people would be stunned at how accurate I would be.  I still remember picking the Kings to beat the Jazz in the first round of the playoffs in 99 and looking like a fool after the got clobbered in Game 1 by 30.  Granted they lost the series, but they could've in their last possession of regulation in Game 5 and they became a very good team after that.

So you'd figure I'd pursue a career in sports, right??  I did.  After finally shaking off the thought that I had a chance to make it in the NBA (because teachers tell kids they can be whatever they can be when they grow up, freaking liars!)  I went to Suny Albany for college to pursue a career in sports journalism.  I was undecided about what exactly I wanted to do.  I had thoughts on sports management as well, whether as an agent or working for a team.  Whatever the case, everyone that I meet in my time at Albany would tell me I had a voice for radio.  After suffering an injury playing intramural basketball, I was forced to move back to NYC and I went to the College of Mount Saint Vincent.  While at CMSV, I got the chance to write for Manhattan College's student paper and follow their basketball team during their back to back NCAA tournament seasons.  More importantly during my time at CMSV, I took my first actual sports journalism class (which I slammed dunk with an A).  More importantly, my professor was an ex-writer for a NJ newspaper and he followed the Nets.  An ex co-worker of his happened to work for MLB Productions and made a presentation at one of our classes and I was hooked and got an internship.  Fast forward to today and I'm an editor with MLB Productions.

I love my job.  I believe I'm one of a few people in the world who can wake up and not complain about their job (except the damn commute to Secaucus!!).  But for the last couple of years, I've had this itch and this constant voice in my head telling me I haven't really done what I've wanted to do.  So here it is (along with my twitter account www.twitter.com/duro_sports) my first true start into doing what I really want to do: talk about sports all day.  Hope you all enjoy and please feel free to leave your comments!