DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum Fun Run Ins With Local Sports Figures

Have you ever run into Browns players or any other Cleveland Sports figures around town? One of my friends saw Josh Cribbs at National City Bank in strongsville doing some banking a few days ago. My friends occasionally run into Varejao on West 6th. Another one of my friends used to go trick or treat at Manny Ramirez's house (he gave out autographed baseball cards of himself instead of candy!) Anyone have any fun stories??

i was once hiding him some bushes, and ran into scott sauerbeck

Keith Hernandez spit on me once. JK!

This wasn't a Cleveland area player, but I went swimming with Edwin Encarnarsion and his roommates when he played for the Dragons. He likes being called Eddie.

I once punched Steve Everett (Browns center) at a metal show in the Agora. He later bought me a beer. (hey he started it)

I met Mike Tyson at Forbes house in Cleveland when we were doing work there. Shook our hands.....really talks like you hear about.

I met Craig Ehlo once in a bar. Guy was a Brick Poop house. I could NOT believe how big he was.

In 1998 I ran into Richie Sexon and Jaret Wright at some bar just west of Cleveland. I walk up to the bar on Richie's right, order two beers and tell him he had a good game today (we won on his homer in the 8th or something).

As he was saying thanks some bimbo walked up to Jaret, and he looked BOMBED off his butt by the way, and said, "Hi, I'm Amber and you're going home with me tonight." Then she's tongues his throat for 10 seconds and walks back to her friends. Jaret doesn't flinch.

I turn to Richie and ask, "Does that happen to you guys a lot?"

He says, "You have no idea."

Well some people wont call these sports figures, But.....

Eat breakfast at Mcdonalds with Larry Nixon professional fisherman, we were practice fishing for a tournament the next weekend and he was up there doing the same but for a bigger tournament next month. One of the nices guys a person would ever wanna met.


Have sat & talked to Kevin Van Dam worlds greatest fishermen (ok that my thoughts) (hard to contest his success) a few times. Worked a few sports shows at his brothers store. Great guy, very down to earth, we were all sitting around talking fishing & hunting and Kevin's phone rang, Kevin got up and answered it, His brother said laughing, watch Kevin will have to go, his wife has him bye the nads.....after about 2-3 minutes Kevin came back and said well guys have to cut it short, Got some things to do, we all started in on him and teasing him about his wife wearing the pants in the family, he tossed a few items at us, shacking his head, laughing all the time, great guy some pro's would have taken offence to that jabbing, Kevin laughted right along with us, Remember this is the guy who has won over 2 million dollars in fishing tournaments, The whole Van Dam family is very well grounded,

Talked with Jimmy Jackson at a Defjam concert years and years ago.

Shook Patrick Ewings hand not quite as many years ago.

Hit a golf ball into Rick Mirers parents pool when I was in college.

Played pickup ball against Sean Kemp when I was in college and he was in h.s.

BUT, you said Browns players. All I have their is seeing many of them this weekend, shaking hands with Quinn and Cribbs - and honestly, they looked at me surprised - surprised I asked for a handshake instead of an autograph I guess. (of course, I had nothing to autograph, either.

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BUT, you said Browns players.

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He did? Oh, I guess I won't tell you all about how I met Troy Polamalu at Chili's right after training camp then.

I had a few drinks with Bill Laimbeer in my dad's watering hole. He was there sitting by himself getting hammered. Chatted with Sam Rutigliano at the Browns training camp in '81....he was just jabbering away and we actually had to cut him off because our ride was leaving. Chatted with Mike Eruzione, Artis Gilmore, Igor Larionov, Mickey Redmond, Jim Jackson and Brian Smolenski.

Not sports related, but my biggest celeb contact was with my musician idol, John Entwhistle of The Who. We caught his solo act in Detroit and met him when he exited. He was bitching about his ex-wife and was a riot. He signed my bass. RIP JE.

He's a distant cousin. I've never spoken to him, unfortunately. Everyone with that last name or it's variations can be traced to a single person who died in the 1700's. It's an interesting story involving a kidnapping by Indians and selling the boy to a French military officer who created that sirname.

wow.

he's a hell of a hockey player

I helped Tony Fisher with a car alarm and Dajuan Wagner with a portable DVD player when I worked at HH Gregg...

Zydrunas Ilgauskas was in line next to me at the BMW getting his license back when he got a DUI. He had to stand like 5 feet away from the eye test machine to be able to bend down and look into that thing...

Another Z story... I wasn't there, but a few of my buddies worked at Boston Market in Mentor and Z and Bobby Sura came in there with some girls. Z was walking out and talking to one of them, then turned around and smacked his face into the doorway. <---- kinda like that lol...

Also I golfed in a scramble last year with Kelly Pavlik. Not in his group, but the same outing...

I've also met a few at bars... Kenny Lofton, Joe Jurevicius, Roethlisberger

A buddy of mine caddied for Derek Anderson at Little Mountain Golf Course last spring. He also caddied for Austin Carr there too.

In high school, I used to volunteer in the library (yes, I was a dork...but I wanted the lunch period that came with going to the library instead of study hall and I kept getting booted out of the library for talking - imagine that).

Well, the assistant librarian was the girl bball coach and the head of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. It was his job to bring in inspirational speaker to the FCA. Mr. Jones had stepped out of the library and left me in charge. So when the phone rang, I answered it. On the other end was Mark Price. He was accepting an invite to speak at our school. I had his home number in Hudson for quite a while.

He was such a nice guy and had a great sense of humor. Before I knew it was Mark Price, I thought it was the school's Athletic Director, who called often and joked with me about Mr. Jones. They sounded a good deal alike on the phone.

I've had the pleasure of meeting or running into many athletes in my life. My 2 favorites (though not loca;) have been...

Michael Jordan - I was walking across a bridge on our work campus head down reading something and looked up briefly to see an entourage of tall people...but made eye contact with one, looked back down to continue reading and did a double take to those same eyes. Michael. He seemed to love it, smiled and nodded back at me. I just smiled and nodded back. Wanted to tell him how much I hated him for the shot over Ehlo, but I really like the guy...

Charles Barkley - I was in our employee store probably 5 or 6 years ago again head down looking at product and went around the corer of a table and saw shoes, looked up to see where I was going and saw a chest. A big chest - looked up and Barkley was standing there. I smiled, said hi and apologized for almost bumping into him. He smiled, no problem and we moved on. You have to understand when athletes are on campus or at the store they are to be treated as humans, not athletes - no drama, no autographs, nothing but respect. So, I left him alone,went about 15 feet away and called my college roomie who loves Barkley (named his dog Barkley) and left a message stating I was standing a few feet away. We kept passing each other as we were winding through tables/fixtures and would smile - he made a couple comments making small talk, but nothing major until this woman from the front of the store let everyone in Oregon and Washington know that Charles Barkley was in the building, then came running towards him. Obviously not an employee. I just looked at Charles, he rolled his eyes and I just said "sorry", He smiled back and said thanks and dealt with the woman pretty well.

There are many others, but these are my favorites.

Don't really know him very well but EX-Buckeye and NFL Pro Bowler Jim Lachey is my cousin.

Sam Hornish Jr. is my first cousin. 3 time IRL champ, Indy 500 winner, current NASCAR driver............does that count as celebrity?

I don't see him as much now, since he went to nascar........but we still have Christmas and Thanksgiving get togethers........and he showed up at our r.v. in Bristol at the spring race.

all joking aside, i've never really met any cleveland area athletes outside of the free signings they used to do at euclid square mall. i met carlos, kenny, thomes, manny, etc.. but those were all set up, i've never really had a run-in with a local athlete.

my cousin used to do play by play for the florida panthers, was in the booth when they went on that insane run to the finals, my grandfather, and uncle took me to detroit to see my first nhl game, and afterwards i had dinner with some of the players on the team, the only guy i remember was dave lowry, who now coaches in the league (last i remember he was an assistant in calgary) the guys were really cool, i was a freshman in high school just starting high school hockey and they were all about answering questions.

i'm always afraid of meeting famous people, and having them big shot me, or blow me off, and then me not enjoying their work afterwards.

my mom had a funny run in with lebron a few years ago, i think i have told that story a few times on here.

I've met and dealt with a lot of famous people actually. I guess the latest athlete was Dan Marino. I was the lighting designer for a fundraiser that he showed up for.

I also used to meet a lot of Cleveland athletes when I was younger. My father was a landscape designer. We frequently worked on athletes lawns. It all started with John Farrell actually. He then started talking about it to other people in the Indians locker room and it eventually spread to the Cavs and Browns.

One lawn we actually did several times. I want to say it was Carlos Baerga's house? Anyways, after he left the Tribe, he kept the house and leased it out to current Indians players. With each new player that lived there, we came in and redid everything to their liking.

Andra Davis came in the store I work at one day about a week before the season started. I was on break so I chatted with him for a few minutes. Phil Dawson was in a couple days later, but I was on the clock so I didn't get a chance to introduce myself. I was bummed, because he's one of my favorite guys on the team. I guess Lebron was in there not too long ago, but I was off that day.

Saw Drew Gooden at a Panera Bread a couple years ago.

I got to meet Dan Dierdorf the year he was inducted in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. It was during one of my middle school football practices. Dustin Fox, whom I grew up with, was on that team and my little brother swears TJ Downing was as well, he and my brother were 7th graders at the time. Dan was in Canton for the induction and drove down 38th St. saw us practicing and decided to stop by since it was his old middle school. The coach stopped practice and Dan spoke to us for a few minutes. It was a pretty cool experience. He even mentioned it during his interview with 1480 WHBC a couple of days later.

One time I was in the same building as Brady Quinn and we walked by each other, well, I was actually higher up than him looking down, but I said hello, well, Im not really sure if he heard me or not, but he looked in my direction so we pretty much met, it was sweet....and the Browns won that day.

I played pickup hockey with Jack Lambert and Jay Caufield.

I was in the locker room of a Pens Playoff game at the igloo and got to meet Super Mario and Ronnie Francis.

Almost got run over in the parking lot of Michigan Speedway by Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Met John Cooper when he came to recruit my team mate in high school

Hooked up with a girl at a club who was having a affair(ok not a affair but he would come by for a booty call here and there) and he came and knocked on the door as I was leaving. I still wonder if Omar got my seconds



KING

I got to meet Bud Carson who helped us film a recruiting ad for the Marine Corps back in '90 or so. Korean conflict veteran. That made it special.

The ERock was a "no autographs" rookie until he saw my son holding a copy of BNI with his picture on the cover in UCLA garb,.....

Caught Clay on his way to practie in Berea one morning with 3 gallons of milk in one hand and six boxes of doughnuts under his other arm,....man he was a beast,....

And just at the MNF game vs. the Giants, got to chat with Eric Metcalf on his way into the Alumni Entrance,...he STILL has an old Marine Corps t-shirt my boss gave him back in the 90's. (The one that says "Big Dogs Don't Hide Under the Porch,...")

At a charity fundraiser in Gahanna (93 ?), shared stories about Okinawa with Lou Groza, where he fought in the Army in '44, and listened to Steve Luke explain how he didn't blow the coverage on Logan's catch vs. Green Bay,...he said it was the other safety,...

Back in the early 90's when the Cav's were having their good years and goin against the Bulls I worked security for a local company (was a supervisor). One of our posts was the Radisson in Montrose. The Cav's were still playing in Richfield but would stay in Montrose.

My ex-hubby was one of my guards at this post and got to know the Cavs players. I left the company and went back to management in fast food.

Was a swing manager at the Chapel Hill McDonald's and Mark Price and his family would come in all the time. Mark remembered me from the security company and would always make a point of saying hi to me and asking how everything was. Real nice guy.

It was a hoot the first time he hollared at me and asked me how I was.....the guys on grill were falling all over themselves to see him. They couldn't believe that he talked to me and knew my name.

mid 90's i was at MIS and a friend of my uncles went to school with Jack Roush, and also was pretty good friends with Neil bonnet. So for a few years, every time i'd go to MIS, i'd watch the race/qualifying etc from Mark Martins trailer and challenge him to arm wrestling..lol, also had lunch with neil bonnet and Dale Sr. several times, met all the drivers from back then, its was great growing up in that environment. Met Charles Woodson a few times...he's an ass

I repossessed the cars of a former Browns wide receiver and running back. Also repo'd the cars of a former Cleveland Cavalier and Cleveland Force player.

A ton of Browns used to work out at the B-W rec center when I was in college.

Not exactly "local" sports figures but when I wrestled professionally I worked on shows with many former/current WWF/WWE, WCW & ECW superstars.

I met Kamerion Wimbley at Pizza Hut. My friend called him overrated and that he owed his paycheck to Ted Washington. Wimbley was a sport and laughed it off.

I literally ran into D'Qwell Jackson at the mall. I'm not tall (maybe 5'11) and I almost mowed him over. Felt bad about it, but he was nice.

I shook hands with Donte Stallworth on the day of the opener this year at Panera. He did NOT pull his quad while shaking my hand.

I have a few others, but those are the best. Especially the Wimbley one.

I met a Browns player that few remember here......RB Tony Baker at a charity basketball game in Ravenna.
When the NFL used to do Air It Out Tournies at Brookside Park,Mike Baab was always there, Baab has a very "good ole boy" sense of humor.
Met Len Dawson at the Hall of Fame 4 years back......he's the got the best signature of any athelete.....it doesn't look like a doctors scribble.
Talked to Bobby "Bingo" Smith and Jim Chones at the Gund.
Bob Golic stops in the local Walgreens on his way from Solon to his radio gig
in Kent.
Went to a party in Bentleyville back in the early 90's......ended up taking Lawyer Tillman home cause was just hammered.

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I literally ran into D'Qwell Jackson at the mall. I'm not tall (maybe 5'11) and I almost mowed him over. Felt bad about it, but he was nice.

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In a "before they were famous" moment, I went to high school with D'Qwell. My brother ran into him somewhere last year and they started talking. He couldn't figure out why his last name sounded familiar until it hit him...he actually remembers me

Did he really have a green tongue?? Growing up, all of us kids swore he tattooed his tongue green.

no he did not

Most of mine are hockey stories as that's been my life since I was 6...

Met Grant Fuhr in an elevator and got his autograph at a hockey tournament in Buffalo.... he was in his pajamas and going to the penthouse floor.

Played ball hockey with Pavel Bure... won a face off against him. Allthough he wasn't really trying to hard as I was only 8.

Played in a tournament with Joey Mullen's kid... talked to Joe and got his sig after the game as well.

Went to high school and was pretty good friends with Tim Connelly who plays for the Sabres... very quiet kid, who was very smart. Played pickup with him many times. Awsome hands and was really smart with the puck. Remember when he was a rookie for the semi-pro team here in Erie... he got in a fight and got his butt handed to him and had a nice shiner the next day and we laughed about it.

Met Mario and Jagr during an intermission between periods that I played in when I was a little man... scored a goal in front of 15,000 people.

My Dad, who was a police officer, has met many celebrities doing events at the Civic Center. He says his most memorable was meeting/seeing Sargent Slaughter get pissed at the no-name guy he faced for elbowing him in the face too hard and they went at it in the back. He had to break them apart. Also he said from a physical standpoint he was terrified of the Ultimate Warrior. Said he was freakish in athletic ability and strength. Guess thats what roids do.

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terrified of the Ultimate Warrior. Said he was freakish in athletic ability and strength. Guess thats what roids do.

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...How can you say that....The man was a god...all natural power....


I saw the man in Toledo, was two rows away from him he was ungodly huge. I did hear that he died, but some say it was a rumor, I never heard one way or the other.

I used to work with Mike Pagel on some engineering jobs he needed designed. I never met him in person but I got a kick out of some of the stories he would tell me. To this day he is one of my favorite Brown. Not because he could play ball, but because of how he loved the team.

welp. it finally happened to me.

i met (sorta) someone famous tonight...

i had a game, met up with my buddy on the team in the parking lot, we're shootin the you know what walking into the rink, we sign in, and as we enter the rink from the lobby, i see someone standing about 30 feet away, i do a double take, yep, it was him. i turn to my buddy, and say, dude, look straight ahead. he asks what the f i am talking about, and i say, just watch dude, we walk past him, and yes, it was none other then mario freaking lemieux.

unbelievable. one of the 2 or 3 greatest skaters in the history of hockey. his daughter's team is in town, and they happen to be playing before us..

i walked past him, looked at him, and he smiled. i said how ya doin, and he just shook his head. i wondered why he smiled, and then it came to me, i had a browns hoodie on, i think me and him had a cleveland/pittsburgh rivalry moment. i shoulda said go browns.

the guys in the locker room told me to grab an autograph, but i didn't wanna bug the guy. after a minute i decided that maybe i could use my phone and grab a picture, but he was gone.

still really cool, i was totally starstruck. it's too bad he didn't stick around because we played a hell of game, we were short, i shoulda asked if he wanted to skate, lolz.