Fresh off my red eye back from Vegas, I’m back on the clock until after the Draft. I was just going through all my emails, and this was sent from a friend. Funny ESPN.com column on the NHL’s retort to Tiger Woods’ shot.

Thought I’d share this quick Vegas story. 

The other night my brother and I are at the Mirage. I sign up for a single table Holdem tournament, pick my seat, look across the table and staring right back at me is Ray Romano.

Romano’s playing the Mirage right now with Kevin James and in a few weeks Richie Minervini (if you haven’t ever seen Minervini’s act and have a chance, see him because he’s hilarious. Minervini is the brother of one of my closest friends, Florida Marlins and Panthers announcer Craig Minervini).

Romano turns out to be the nicest, most down-to-earth celebrity I’ve ever met. Although, it was quite weird the two or three times we clashed hands and you suddenly realize, “I’m trying to get a read off Ray Romano.”

We got to talking, and when I told him I was a sportswriter, he said, “I was a sportswriter, too.” I said, “Yeah, but you were a much better paid sportswriter.” He agreed wholeheartedly. 

What was so cool about the experience is I felt like I was in the World Series of Poker. With the table down to four, I knocked out two guys with pocket kings. It got down to us at the end, and suddenly, I noticed there was an audience wrapped around the table.

Finally, at about 9:30 p.m. after sitting there for more than an hour, about a dozen girls swarmed Romano for pictures. My brother told Romano, “You can either love me or hate me because I was responsible for that. I told them you’re over here.” Romano said, “No, that was a good rush.”

It got so close to Romano’s show though and no end in sight to our little battle, Romano proposed we split the payout, which we did.

Not thinking, I should have asked him to throw in some tickets to his show, but I missed out on that opportunity.

The coolest thing was signing the tournament payout distribution sheet and seeing my autograph right next to his.

OK, that’s it for now. I promise to get back to work here after my half-dozen, re-energizing mini-vacations.

Later.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 9th, 2008 at 1:36 pm and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.