The Major-Leaguer Just Down The Street

One of the houses in the development my fathers live in belonged to Manute Bol.

Being an alum of the University of Maryland, I've often seen players on their various teams out and about in the city. Steve Blake once held the door for me when I walked into Wawa.

I saw Greivis Vasquez a few times at a now closed bar in College Park and even saw his father in there once or twice.

 

He didn't live down the street, but years ago I was taking photos at the local youth baseball field when you used to publish those and I saw Steve Howe, who was on one of his many drug suspensions.

His sister lived in our town and he was watching his nephew play.

 

Fixed.

 

Whoops.

Nope.

 

One of my best friends in high school regularly house sat for a NBA player (well-known, but not a star on any level) who lived near us. We lived in a planned community and my friend's mom was the manager for the whole area. The player was gone during the summer and my friend would take care of his house, and I would back him up when my friend went on vacation. They paid me $200 a week to feed his fish, bring in his mail and mow his lawn. It was insane. Eventually, we split duties, I would mow the lawn and he would handle the mail and the fish. The guy had a huge aquarium.

The day we got the tour of the house, he showed us how to use the TV (he got the Playboy channel, which was a big deal in 1989) and asked both of us if we brought girls over, not to use his bed. (This was never an issue.) I'd love to be able to say we threw parties there, but we were both so worried about losing the gig that we treated his house like a fucking museum and almost never brought anyone into the house.

He then got cut and played over in Europe for a couple years. He kept the house, but I don't think he was ever home before he sold it when we were seniors in high school. Only interacted with him a handful of times...

 

No wonder he can fart in three octaves today.

 

Living in the Dallas suburbs, I've got an innumerable number of current and former pro athletes living in my area, a few of which I am acquainted with. Deion Sanders' mansion is a landmark that everyone refers to, and quite a few of his buddies live nearby. Several ex-Cowboys have ranches in the area.

As far as anything more than just proximity to someone, I got to know Brian Downing's family pretty well until their kids graduated from high school and they moved back to Cali. Same with Craig James, but after the Mike Leach flap and his ill-fated Senate run where he tried to run to the right of the Taliban, he must've gone into the witness protection program. He took a well-deserved drubbing on both counts.