Long story short...

Fiance's brother is a groundskeeper for the Reds. End of the season, Rijo takes the groundscrew out for dinner and drinks at a real swany hotel lounge. Her brother was in a car accident that day, and his car was fucked up, so he asked if I could drop him off. I said sure. Pick him up, take him over, drop him off. He leaves his celly in my ride, and he needed it to call me later to pick him up. I didn't want to go in, but I needed to give him his phone back. Parked the ride in the pull up area of the hotel real quick and ran in. FOund them and slipped him his cell, and I was on my way out when I heard this Dominican dude yell "HEY - wer doo yoo tink yer going?" It was Jose, and he thought I was part of the groundscrew for a quick second. Doug (fiance's brother) explained the situation real quick, and Jose told me to sit. He wouldn't let me leave. I tried to just have a beer, he ordered me a monster steak and kept feeding me drinks. Awesome guy, so down to earth, just made me think so much of him by what he was talking about. He was taking some of the old equipment (cages and stuff) from Riverfront/Cinergy back to the island with him for his youth baseball program. Awesome guy, great heart, horrible english. When he'd get really excited, he'd start slipping into hi-speed spanglish and I couldn't keep up.

Athlete's really are just regular people. Rich people that play for a living. Some of them go a little bit above and beyond and do good, and some don't. Just like regular people.

Jose Rijo, besides being the GOAT of the 1990 World Series, was one hell of a cool cat, and a very gracious individual.