Amazin' Avenue, a New York Mets community

" My excuse for being late to the office involves Moonshine, pretty sure I win – no?" I was very lucky to attend the benefit for Bryan Stow last night at Yoshi’s in San Francisco. Tim Flannery and his band the "Lunatic Fringe" performed to a sold out house for a wonderful cause, Giants fan Bryan Stow. Notable attendees included: -- Amy G looking even better in person. -- Pat Burrell whom I saw on multiple occasions distributing bottles of fine domestic beer to those around him. Seriously: dude had 3 beers in each hand numerous times. Love that guy, and he got a great ovation. --J.T. Snow who for a while was sitting at the table with Burrell, not sure there’s a cooler table to be seated at. --Hammerin’ Hank Schulman who had a nice seat up front. -- Dave Righetti who was there when Flan met his wife (just celebrated 30 years together) at a strip-club in Montreal. Yeah, you read that right. /not sure if serious.jpg The man of the hour was Tim Flannery. This was my first time seeing Flan and he’s got a great voice. The band was fantastic. Great version of John Prine's "Angel from Montgomery" with special guest Kate Gaffney knocking the vocals out of the park. Tim introduced the song "Pieces of the Past" with a funny story about Andres Torres who he dedicated the tune too. He remarked that Andres is one of the best humans in the world (duh) and referenced his struggles with ADHD. He described coaching 3B with Andres on third and telling him exactly what Andres' play would be depending on where the ball was hit, explaining in quick detail...and then have Andres immediately ask him to tell him again. "Gotta take your pills, Andres!"..."You take your pills, I'll take my pills..and we'll get through this" - (paraphrased quotes) Flan also referenced singing the National Anthem with Bob Weir & Phil Lesh (former members of the Grateful Dead) last year, and then went on to praise the GD culture and spirit in San Francisco. There were countless musical highlights and some really great jokes but everything is a little bit foggy to me right now because...Flan drinks moonshine. And he likes to share. Passed a mason jar around the stage with the musicians and then at the end of the gig passed it through the crowd. We had a nice pull off the jar (he did make fun of a woman up front who tried to pour some in her glass - LOL HER) and then passed it along. The lights came up and I saw some folks holding the jar and looking confused, made eye contact with them and they handed it to me. Myself and my friend ended up finishing it. Oops. Flan was hanging out at the merch table signing and selling CDs (proceeds to the Bryan Stow foundation) so I got to shake his hand and say hello. Told him how much I enjoyed the Andres Torres story and that I really hoped to see him in a Giants uni next year. "I really hope so too" was his response. He signed my ticket stub which I then placed in the empty moonshine jar and informed him it will be displayed amongst my bobbleheads. I was reminded today that I was interviewed after the concert by a videographer in which I excitedly raved about moonshine and the generous spirit of Barry Lamar Bonds who is paying to put Bryan Stow's kids through college. Not sure why I was interviewed, but I imagine they'll have their hands full with the necessary subtitles. All in all a wonderful evening, we rolled over to Rasselas and caught some bop jazz and had a couple more drinks which I'm going to go ahead and blame Flan's moonshine for. I hope to see him perform again soon, and I'll bring a notebook to jot down details in case the moonshine is flowing freely again.

I'm posting this article about Andres Torres because I went to dozens of games in 2008 where I saw him up close and personal at AAA Iowa. This seems to have become a trend in the last three years, in which the Cubs have either just missed on a prospect, or given up on him entirely only to have him see success with other teams. I'm looking at YOU Casey McGehee and Angel Pagan! That's the real bitter pill we've had to swallow as a result of aging players attached to long term contracts.