Don’t Judge A Book By Its Cover – Read The Full Story

Before you click away in disgust over the picture, stop! Get over it and read the story below before you judge.

In September of 2007, myself and three friends took a trip to New York and Boston for a week of baseball. We visited Yankee and Shea Stadiums in New York and Fenway Park in Boston. Some love for Fenway is at the bottom of this post.

The picture above was taken on Paul’s (the other guy in the picture) birthday. Not many people have seen the picture before and there is obviously good reason for it. Just looking at the picture by itself you may say, what the heck? That’s because you don’t know the story that goes with it.

The four of us were at a restaurant in Times Square after an afternoon game at Yankee Stadium. We were celebrating Paul’s 25th birthday. I don’t remember if it was the ESPN Zone, but if it wasn’t it was something very similar. Food, bar, games, etc.

When I had returned from the bathroom I was told there was a girl who wanted to take a picture with me. “Haha ok. Very funny guys. Where is she? Let’s take this picture.” I told them.

I knew my friends talked to some girl and begged or paid her to pretend she thought I was cute and that she wanted to take a picture with me. So I knew I had to play along. I was going to play along with their joke.

They waved the girl over to our table where she made a little bit of small talk on how she thought I was cute and wanted to take a picture with me. Blah, blah. I laughed, thanked her, played along, and took the picture.

Paul wanted to get in it too so I let him. I figured he must have wanted to be in on the joke so he could laugh about how he tricked me, even though I wasn’t tricked. So we took a couple pictures, she made some more small talk, I thanked her and said I needed to finish my nachos. She walked off and I went back to my food as my three friends huddled around the camera laughing uncontrollably.

I said, “guys, it’s really not that funny. I know you probably bought her a beer to get her to come take a picture with me. You could have at least found a smoking hot blonde that I might have been slightly nervous around, but I wasn’t even attracted to that girl.”

The uncontrollable laughter didn’t stop. “Are you going to show me the picture or what?” I asked.

Finally they let me see the picture. They wouldn’t hand me the camera because they were scared I would delete the photo. As I looked at it for a minute in my friends hand that was shaking from laughter, I tried to figure out how I didn’t see the shirt that she was wearing while I was talking to her. Did I really rush the picture that much that I didn’t even look at her? No. It’s because she had her sweatshirt zipped up and had unzipped it right after she stood next to me to take the picture.

“Wow that is awesome! I can’t believe you guys pulled that one off!” I said.

There response was, “What?!?! You aren’t mad?”

But why would I be mad when I knew I was getting setup? I played along only to have gotten setup times two! It explains my goofy, thumbs up, lets be cheesy pose in the picture. I wanted to look like a big dork so my friends would get more satisfaction in their prank that I wasn’t falling for. It just makes it better that she was wearing the shirt that she was, because it made it twice as funny for them and now also funny for myself as well.

Good job guys! Prank well done!

Now the point of this story isn’t that girls who live in New York are kinda trashy and wear shirts like this. It’s not that I got pranked. The point is, a lot of times you may see a person or person in a picture and judge it without knowing the full story. I know I have and I am sure you have too. If you just saw the picture and didn’t read this story, you probably would have said what kind of guy is this Chris Loach character anyways?!?

So I hope that you read the full story and now understand that I don’t love what the picture above says I do. And I also hope you don’t judge others by the first appearance either.

Ok, now laugh and make fun of me for getting setup. Enjoy!

Here is the A’s bullpen in Fenway. Haren was pitching his last bullpen session of the season and Braden was kicking a baseball around the outfield like a hacky sack. Good times in NY and Boston.