ELMONT, NY – Vince Lombardi’s famous quote/turned cliche, “Winning isn’t every thing, it’s the only thing,” was put to the test yesterday at beautiful Belmont Park under equally pretty skies.
Sometimes, it isn’t whether you win or lose a game – as the Mets fell to the Yankees – or which side you root for, 
or the number of dollars you win or piss away on an animal running around an oval, but rather the company you keep while watching sports and even gambling a buck or two.
All I know is I spent eleven races and six hours with some people I’ve known for a lifetime and some others that I’ve known for a short time (but feel like I’ve known forever), and another that I met for the first time having a beer, a gnosh and… a great time.
I was a winner, regardless of my plus/minus dollar amount from the betting at the track’s windows of broken dreams. No, I was a winner the instant we all got together to share a great effin’ time. All in attendance yesterday, despite being from very different walks of life, have the common DNA trait of not taking themselves too seriously – how could we contribute to MTM if we did, after all? Ethnicity didn’t matter… skin color didn’t matter… religion didn’t matter. What mattered was we were all together – an eclectic family of sorts – talking, laughing, drinking, eating, talking sports… and flexing.
Short Matt was smart enough to take some group pictures to serve as filler for the remaining words allotted for this post and hopefully, your comments and those of the attendees will cut the mustard. And to my fellow attendees: Thanks for making it what it was—the best first weekend of summer!
Tune in tomorrow for West Coast Craig, who along with Grote2DMax and Lori Levine, was sorely missed…
