Best's best retort to a ref

Last night I covered the annual induction ceremony of the Pacifica Sports Hall of Fame for the Pacifica Tribune, where one of the inductees was retired NASL referee Klaus Kretschmer.

Kretschmer, a German immigrant and a Pacifica resident for almost five decades, related stories of his old refereeing days, including an encounter with soccer legend George Best (below). Kretschmer said the fiery Best, who like many aging European stars of the 1970s (e.g. Pelé*) was earning a past-his-prime paycheck in America, had a verbal issue.

George Best as a San Jose Earthquake.

“George Best had a problem with the English language — all he knew were the cuss words,” Kretschmer joked.

Best, then with a previous incarnation of the San Jose Earthquakes, had been previously carded by Kretschmer, who was about to book him again.

A cursing Best came running up to Kretschmer, and the referee said he’d pretend he didn’t hear Best’s verbal assault.

“You’re not just blind, you’re deaf too!” was Best’s reply.

* Or David Beckham and Thierry Henry these days.

No such thing as too much ice cream

Ian and I went to McDonalds in Pacifica today, and I ordered a burger and he ordered a sundae. The sundae was ready before the burger and a worker put it on our tray. I handed it to Ian and asked him to find a seat.

Another McDonalds worker helping the first, not seeing that we had already received it, looked at our receipt and helpfully went to get us our sundae. When he brought the sweet back, I pointed out we had already gotten our sundae.

I was told I can keep it, as it would just be thrown away. My lucky day!

Time to pay it forward -- I saw a homeless guy in front of the restaurant who looks as if he could use a couple bucks.

A day at the beach

Ian at Pacifica State Beach, April 20, 2009.

There was record-breaking heat in the San Francisco Bay Area on Monday, prompting a heat advisory, in fact. So Ian and I made lemonade from lemons, metaphorically speaking, and went to the beach.

Ian's school is literally about two blocks from the beach,as I've outlined before. So after grabbing him, we headed down to the shore. As an indicator of the heat (86F/30C, but it felt hotter), we had to circle the lot three times to get a parking spot.

The boy wanted to take off his shoes and run on the beach as soon as we got on the sand, only to tearfully beg me to pick him up as soon as he realized the sand was blazing. But once we got to the tide line, Ian had a blast. He ran in and out of the small waves (the tide was receding) and seemed to get a great thrill from throwing small rocks out to sea.

We were covered in fine, black sand afterward but had a good time over about half an hour. But I'm already done with summer and it's still only early spring. Bring on the April showers!

It's all over but the equinox

It's still blazing hot, the days are still much longer than the nights and Fall technically doesn't start until Sept. 22, but summer's over for me.

Technically in the Bay Area (at least the north Peninsula), you can tell it's the end of summer when the weather actually begins to get warm. But for me, the traditional end of summer is the start of the high school football season. Last night, I covered my first game of the season for the San Mateo Times.

It was actually a decent kickoff for the gridiron season. Terra Nova scored a touchdown in the last 65 seconds to beat visiting Burlingame, 15-10. You can read my story online. (As an aside, whenever I have a game at Terra Nova, I have a ritual of eating my pre-game meal at the world's most awesome Taco Bell, literally built on stilts above the beach in Pacifica, near Ian's school).



The only disappointing thing was the new field at Terra Nova. There was a beautiful Field Turf carpet, but I think Terra Nova was one of the few fields around here that didn't need one. Unlike the ratty fields at, say, our local high school (which shall remain nameless), Terra Nova's had a well-drained, lush field of green grass -- which is what the game should be played on.

Sometimes I get a tad depressed that I'm again doing the same primary job (security) that I had 13 years ago, despite getting a pair of bachelor's degrees. I don't, however, have a problem writing about high school football year after year after year. Covering football is a tradition, one I've had every fall since 1992 (except 1996, 1998 and 1999 and not counting spectator attendances in 1987-1991 and 1995). The weird thing? I don't even really like football all that much -- at least above the high school level. But covering football takes me back to my (relatively) youthful days, when I thought I was either going to be the world's most dashing sports writer or foreign correspondent.

Or maybe walking the sidelines with high schoolers every Friday night just helps me forget that I'll be 40 in three years.