Diamond Hoggers does Vegas

“The town will never be the same. After the Tangiers, the big corporations took it all over. Today it looks like Disneyland. And while the kids play cardboard pirates, Mommy and Daddy drop the house payments and Junior’s college money on the poker slots. In the old days, dealers knew your name, what you drank, what you played. Today, it’s like checkin’ into an airport. And if you order room service, you’re lucky if you get it by Thursday. Today, it’s all gone. You get a whale show up with four million in a suitcase, and some twenty-five-year-old hotel school kid is gonna want his Social Security Number. After the Teamsters got knocked out of the box, the corporations tore down practically every one of the old casinos. And where did the money come from to rebuild the pyramids? Junk bonds. But in the end, I wound up right back where I started. I could still pick winners, and I could still make money for all kinds of people back home. And why mess up a good thing? “ — Sam ‘Ace’ Rothstein

I haven’t felt like writing about baseball all week because the Reds are miserable to watch when they win and they’ll make you made enough that you want to kick your pets when they lose (I don’t own a pet).

Tomorrow I’m headed to Vegas with some close friends and former teammates for my bachelor party. This is the first time in the existence of this blog that I’ll have been to that city of lights. I’ll try and check in with something noteworthy in between the blackjack, the poker, the tequila sunrises, and the scotch. My friends and I agreed to all sit down in the sports book out there one day and throw some money on the Reds and get hammered for 9 innings. They said things like ‘we can’t lose that bet’. Uh, we sure the Hell can and will.

I just really hope I don’t lose my ass out there. Both in a monetary sense but more so in a sense that I get too hammered and aimlessly wander around the streets of Vegas for half of a day without food, water or toilet. You might laugh, but the last time I was out there it was close to that. I’m going to use this trip as a yard stick to see how my maturity has grown since my first year out of college.

We’ll be meeting at the MGM Grand tomorrow night around 6:00 Vegas time. Grades, Tyler, Sal, Bob, and Uncle Frank: bring me home in one piece!