This Book Has Balls Page 7

  The Oakland Raiders had real grit, real personality, and real fucking edge. What the hell is Vegas’s personality? What the hell is the brand now? Who the hell are the VIP guests at home games? The cast of The Beatles Love show? Louie Anderson and David Copperfield? Sinatra, Sammy Davis, and Elvis have left the building, my friends. What the hell is it gonna look like when the camera pans up to Mark Davis’s suite and it’s full of clowns, monkeys, ballerinas, and mimes? Oh, and look who’s in the suite today: it’s Monte the Tiger and Bobo the Fuckin’ Clown from The O Show. It does not fit the Raider brand! Oh shit, is that Chris Angel in a half shirt and makeup with a woman cut in half up there? How cute. People want fucking Raider Nation, man!

  And what about the cheerleaders? You think your cheerleaders are going to be happy making $150 a game in that town? Sorry for the newsflash, but if you’re good-looking, great at dancing, can do the splits, and you’re a female in Vegas, there’s a little job called stripping that can make you a millionaire in twenty-six months. Who the fuck is going to pick prancing around on Sundays for twelve dollars an hour when you can go to Crazy Horse 4 on a Wednesday afternoon for brunch and walk out with four grand and an offer to fly on a private jet to Cancun? Hmm, should I spend the week coordinating a dance to a Bruno Mars song for a third-quarter routine or walk to Olympic Garden, do some splits, and listen to some fat fuck millionaire while he eats chicken tenders and offers to pay my mortgage? I know what I would do. Yeah me, Michael Rapaport. I’d go there right now in a pink dress and dance my ass off for three grand an hour. Fuck it, life is short. I’ll feed him the chicken tenders myself.

  What kind of fans will the Raiders have in Vegas? Whoever the fuck puts money down on them to win. If the Raiders don’t cover the spread, they won’t have fans. They miss a field goal, they lose a fan. At least the Oakland Raiders had loyal-to-the-bone, true-blue gangster fan shit going on over there. They lived by a code, on some real G shit. N.W.A rocked Raider gear as a tribute to Raider Nation and what it represented. Trust me when I tell you you’re gonna be begging for the Mexican gangs to be your fans again. You don’t want a gang full of degenerate gamblers and derelicts as your fan base. Yeah, I get it, there are real people and families in Vegas blah blah fucking blah. Let’s be honest. I’d rather have five hundred members of random street gangs having my back than a crew of cab drivers and toothless roulette players. I don’t know, man. The shit just makes no sense to me, and the shit makes no sense to some of the best fans in pro sports.

  The Las Vegas Raiders? Get the fuck outta here with that bullshit.

  Shame on you!!!!

  Fa Fa Fantasy Football

  Up until 2014 I thought fantasy football was a fucking joke. I thought it was some stat nerd, Dungeons & Dragons, goofball, computer-geek foolishness for backdoor creeps who never played sports and definitely never played real-life tackle football. I thought it was for chumps to take out their frustrations after years of being headhunted in schoolyard dodge ball. Nonetheless, I never played it, never wanted to play it, and considered it really stupid.

  All of that changed when a man named Gary Dell’Abate, executive producer of The Howard Stern Show, invited me to join the Stern Show Fantasy Football League. If you don’t know Mr. Dell’Abate by his government name, you may know him as Baba Booey or the Horse-Toothed Jackass or maybe Fla Fla Flunky. These are all nicknames Gary has been given over the years by the Stern show staff and fans. Nonetheless, being a big fan of The Howard Stern Show and knowing that my twelve-year-old son, Maceo, and his best friend, Gray, actually did play fantasy football, I thought it would be harmless fun. So, since fantasy football isn’t actual football, it’s just a fantasy, and since the Stern show league was only $150 per person buy in with no big prizes at stake, I assumed the camaraderie between the fantasy players win, lose, or draw would be worth the experience. I could let the twelve-year-olds do the drafting and handle my team and all the football operations, and I, of course, could sit back, have a good time, and focus on the real-world shit.

  I joined the Stern league with no intentions or thoughts of winning, but once the season started, something changed. Something awoke from the depths of my innards, something I didn’t know existed in me. A raging, erupting, competitive, shit-talking, knuckle-dragging fantasy football gorilla emerged. I was addicted, and it wasn’t even about the game. I didn’t understand the scoring, I didn’t understand how my team could win or lose—the shit felt too mathematical. And I hate math. However, my friends, what I did understand was that I had a primal need to talk shit, antagonize, and mind fuck everyone in my fantasy football path. The craziest and realest thing was that I didn’t care about winning at all. I just wanted that ass-crackin’ action.

  Gorilla Mouth Gary Dell’Abate was my main target, because that’s just the nature of the man. He has a quality that has brought out harassment and verbal assaults from people, friends, and complete strangers for over thirty years. That’s not an opinion, it’s a fact. There’s just something about Fa Fa Fooey’s disposition that makes you wanna fuck with him, and I did. Oh yes, I did, and I did it with the purest form of joy. I started sending group emails to the league, telling Gary that I was gonna beat his team’s ass, and even if I lost, I was gonna have my way with him emotionally and insinuated potential sexual experiences we would share . . . as men . . . together . . . intimately.

  I know that sounds lewd, crass, and potentially threatening, but there’s something very traditional about telling another man you’re gonna sexually violate him when it comes to friendly shit talking. And, as Fantasy God is my witness, none of this was premeditated; it just flowed organically from my core and felt as natural as breathing air. The more Gary—or Fa Fa, as I prefer to call him—would respond to me, the more excited I would get and the more graphic my emails would become. The one that seemed to confuse him the most was when I told him I was lurking outside his window with duct tape, a Wonder Bread bag, and some olive oil, and I needed some alone time with him. Although none of this was real, Fa Fa took it seriously, and I was in heaven.

  I was having a ball with fantasy football, and my team, which I named Rapaport’s DeLight, a.k.a. A History of Violence, a.k.a. Make It Stop Make It Stop, a.k.a. That Thing’s Big, started winning. I didn’t have anything to do with my team’s success; the entire decision making was being done by my twelve-year-old and his friend. Obviously I had to step in and take all the credit, because what else does a great shit talker do to back up the mouth? Real Shit Talkers Do Real Things, and I did. I took full credit from two twelve-year-olds. Fuck it. They have their whole futures in front of them. I was having the time of my life.

  A few weeks into the season, this whole thing was being played out on the Howard Stern radio show. I would call in and talk shit to Gary and the rest of the people in the league whose names I’ll never mention. Why should I give them shout-outs in my first-ever, soon-to-be-bestselling, already-considered-a-classic sports book? I’m gonna let them live in unknown hidden infamy for now. Anyway, those unmentionable faceless, nameless, hopeless fucks would get on the radio and complain about the content of my numerous emails and try to discredit Rapaport’s DeLight’s success and say the kids were doing all the work. They said I was just sneaking in and taking all the credit, which was 100 percent true, but I was in my element now. I was like a happy little homeless pig who finally found a warm bed of shit to roll around in.

  Talking shit and breaking balls is my comfort zone, and has been my entire life. Hanging out in the streets of New York City talking shit—or snapping, which is what most people I hung with called it—was an everyday thing, and it was something I looked forward to. And if you were good at snapping on people, it was like having a superpower, like having a special skill set like playing basketball or fist fighting or rhyming. Snapping on people would essentially keep the others at arm’s length, and I always had a knack for it. I got off on the competitiveness, and some people’s feelings got hurt. That’s too bad, because the one thing yo
u need to know when it comes to high-level shit talking is that you can never take anything personally. But some do, my friend. Some just do. It’s in their DNA.

  Enter Matthew Berry

  ESPN’s Matthew Berry is the world’s most famous fantasy football expert and a good guy. He’s also a true-blue fantasy football snob, and I don’t blame him at all. He’s making a great living off the fantasy of football. He’s a well-known sports personality who most of the fantasy football world turns to for advice about a game based on a real sport that he may never have played, in any form. It’s a beautiful thing, what he’s able to do, but I immediately felt like he didn’t take me seriously as an opponent. Why should he? I had no idea what I was doing, and I had two twelve-year-olds draft my entire team and handle the work. What can I say? They were the brains of the operation, and I was the brawn. But underestimating Rapaport’s DeLight pushed me into fantasy football shit-talking greatness the likes of which no one in the league had ever seen. I chopped Berry down to size immediately because I had to. As soon as I found out he requires you to call him Matthew and not Matt, how do you think I reacted? I think you know. His name immediately became Matt to me. Matt, I’m Gonna Fucking Berry You! Dick move to some. The game within the game to me. That, along with berating him on social media, emails, and the Stern show, worked miracles on Fantasy Matt. One of my favorite fantasy football shit-talking moments came when Berry and I both called in to the Stern show and got into it. We were all arguing and talking shit, but Matt kept at it. He was saying things like “Your team did well, but you don’t know anything about football. Your kid and his friend did all the work and yada fucking yada.” I don’t speak Yada.

  I told him with great articulation and in no uncertain terms, “We beat you this season, we fucked you nice, and we fucked you twice. We ripped your heart out, and fuck you.” Berry came back with a subtle “Who cares? You didn’t do anything to help win the games, and you’re taking all the credit.” Not true, Matt. It’s not easy to count the value of shit-talking in the league, my friend. My final response to him was “You can call it whatever you want, you fantasy fucking nerd, but you either lost to me, a guy who openly admits to knowing absolutely nothing about this game you’re an expert at, or you lost to two twelve-year-olds who at the same time they were whooping that ass were studying for their finals. However you want to slice it up, we dethroned you.” There was silence for a beat, and the silence was euphoric. That was a win to me. That was a high-level championship ball-breaking win.

  Losing in Fantasy Hurts in Real Life

  Shockingly, my team made it to the Super Bowl of the Emotional Friends of Stern Show League in my first season there, but we came up short, and the pain was paralyzing. Monkey Face Guy beat me. I was devastated. Literally crushed. The twelve-year-olds were pissed and upset, but the loss buried me, and it was tough to climb out of. Humiliated and stung, I had diarrhea for three days. When you talk as much shit as I do and you can’t back it up, it stings. It stings fucking bad. And when the dust settles and there are no more quick-witted comebacks or excuses to give, you’re just a looooooser. It’s a tough pill to swallow. Being silenced is deadly for a person like me, who was born and bred for popping shit.

  I realized with that loss that a gorilla can win a fantasy football league. It also hit me that the highs and lows I felt from this ridiculously silly game are ridiculous, too. Ultimately, I had no control over this shit. It’s a real fucking fantasy.

  Regardless of the fact that the DeLight came up short, I have to say that at forty-five years old, I found a new passion in life. I fucking love fantasy football. The competition, the winning, and the losing are all fantastic. But no matter what the results are, nothing beats the high-level shit-talking. I understand now, and it makes perfect sense, why millions of people—friends, family, men, and women—all love it. If you’re not a degenerate professional gambler and you’re playing fantasy for small stakes and complete shit-talking rights, it’s one of the greatest feelings in the world whether you win or lose, like Matt.

  Twenty-Second Time-Out: Hamilton, the Musical That’s Not Hip-Hop

  We’re going to take a twenty-second time-out to get a non-sports-related issue off my chest. I haven’t seen the Broadway play Hamilton, and there’s a great chance I’m never going to see it. I’m not mad at its success, and I’m definitely not mad at Lin-Manuel for breaking barriers and shattering box office records and doing his thing. Go get yours, my man. But I have listened to the soundtrack many times, and we need to get clear on one very simple thing: Hamilton is not hip-hop, and it’s not rap. Just because the shit rhymes doesn’t mean it’s rap music, so sooner rather than later, let’s stop the madness, please. Nobody was calling Dr. Seuss rap, and that motherfucker rhymed twenty-four hours a day. It’s rhyming, not rapping. Hamilton is musical theater, not a hip-hop musical.

  No one is calling me up saying, “Mike, you need to check out this founding father discovery of America Wu Tang–type shit. I haven’t heard anything this sick since Eric B. and Rakim dropped Paid in Full.” None of my friends are asking me if I’ve heard that sick new track about Alexander Hamilton and his girl when they first settled in America. Nobody is bumping Hamilton before they go out partying with their homeboys for the night. This is not the hip-hop get-hyped anthem album of the year we’re talking about. There’s no Hammy Ham mixtape coming out soon, and I’ve never seen a crew of youngsters rocking any Hamilton songs while playing ball in the park. You know why that not happening? ’Cause it’s not hip-hop and it’s just not funky.

  Like I said, I’m happy for Lin-Manuel; I love to see any artist make a hit. I love that your music gets people crazy on the Bar Mitzvah circuit and country club barbecues, but Fat Joe ain’t coming in on the remix vocal sessions, and my man DJ Premier ain’t doing a mashup. Kanye West is not letting you open for him on the 2018 I Ain’t Crazy Tour either. You’re not getting Outkast to spit on the Hamilton mixtape, part 6, just for the love of the game. Kids up in the Bronx are not blaring the shit in their car while kickin’ it to the girls on Fordham Road.

  When you see athletes in the locker room, lacing up their shoes with their headphones on, guess what they’re not listening to: Hamilton. Kevin Durant is not getting ready to take on the Cavaliers in the Finals by playing a song about Alexander Hamilton convincing France to join the Revolution. Nobody is getting game-ready to stop Kyrie Irving listening to tracks about joining the Continental Army. Sorry.

  And my man Lin, can you please stop freestyling everywhere you go? Come on, man. Every show you’re on, there’s another freestyle. I get it. I know the tricks. That shit is not new. That Mother Goose bullshit sounds prewritten anyway. Coming out on The Ellen Show rhyming Ellen with yellin’ and sellin’ and melon? Enough is enough. Hamilton is not hip-hop.

  And don’t get me started on Broadway in general. I grew up around there. It’s overpriced, and the theaters don’t have any legroom. You want to pay four hundred bucks for a seat in a theater where your knees bang against the back of the seat in front of you? Fuck that, I’d rather fly in a middle seat in coach on United Airlines, fight a flight attendant, and go on vacation to Detroit for the same price. So yeah, Hamilton is straight South Pacific musical theater; it’s not bumping, it’s not banging, and it’s not boom bap. It’s not hip-hop.

  That’s my father, my older brother Eric, and our gigantic football at John Jay Park in NYC. If those child-leashing devices had been around in the Seventies, my dad would have been well within his rights to use one on me.

  Catching Punts

  When I look back, I realize that my father was really good at sports. He wasn’t Bo Jackson or anything, but he grew up like most boys in NYC playing stickball in the streets, and legend has it that he even broke a kid’s leg playing football when he was twelve. Dad played tennis a few times a week until he was seventy-eight, when he finally had to hang up the racket due to a back injury. No bullshit: he was known at the Manhattan Tennis Club as a player with “mus
eum quality” strokes. He had a stunning one-handed backhand and looked amazing playing the game.

  But beyond his talent on the clay courts, my dad had an incredible ability to punt a football. I know it’s very specific and not something altogether useful when you have no plans for using it, but as sports-fanatic kids, my brother Eric and I loved it. We would go to John Jay Park on East Seventy-Seventh Street every weekend and watch my father punt the shit out of a regulation football from one end of the park to the other until he was warmed up, and then he would punt it right over the fence at John Jay. I’m pretty sure 99.95 percent of the people reading this book have never been to John Jay Park, so let me lay it out for you. Imagine a standard NYC sports park with a chalk-painted softball diamond on concrete and four single basketball hoops in a square. It’s about a sixty-yard-by-sixty-yard area.

  My father wears glasses, still has some curly hair left, and sports a prominent Jewish nose that was broken many times throughout the years from sports and being in the army. At six foot one and probably around 210 pounds during his punting prime, he was basically a giant version of your prototypical New York Jewish man. A gigantic Woody Allen with a bit of Larry David. He will be so pissed about the Woody and Larry David comparison, but sometimes the truth hurts, Pops.

  Sorry. At least I’m telling the world about your athletic prowess.

  As a kid watching my pops punt the football over and over sky-high into the air and watching the excitement and admiration of all the other kids in the park, I felt special. It sounded like a rocket launch when he made contact with the ball. Boom! I have to mention he was crushing the ball while wearing jeans or corduroy pants. One time when he was punting in Central Park in 1968, a scout for the Philadelphia Eagles approached him and offered him a tryout for the team. That’s a fact. My father was a punting beast, and how he developed that gift, we have no idea. It’s like Dirk Diggler says in Boogie Nights: “Everybody is born with a gift.” Dirk’s gift was a giant loaf, and David Rapaport’s gift was a superhuman leg.