So I was on a plane to Florida…

Posted on May 19, 2011 by Not Your Typical Girl

Monday morning after only a couple hours of sleep thanks to a late night at Yankee Stadium, I boarded a plane from LaGuardia Airport to Palm Beach to visit my parents. It was just another too early Monday morning flight, I settled into my seat and soon fell asleep. Somewhere over North Florida I woke up, found out we’d be able to see the Space Shuttle Endeavor, I moved over to the window seat and with my iPhone (airplane mode on) in my hand, took a few pictures that over the next 48+ hours, would make their way around the world.

After landing and while waiting for my suitcase at baggage claim I checked into the airport on Foursquare and then I tweeted “Three things about my flight: I can lay down across 3 seats just fine, it was freezing & I got to see this.” I included the following photo:

Space Shuttle Endeavor from Delta flight 2285

Next thing I knew I had to turn off my Echofon mentions on my phone because my phone wouldn’t stop vibrating. Turns out the picture above and the photo below had gone viral!

What has happened over the last few days has been, for lack of better words, crazy and overwhelming. My picture has been tweeted by @BreakingNews, @NASA, @WeatherChannel and @JimCantore (of the weather channel), just to mention a few and now my 2 tweeted photos have been viewed almost 800,000 times!

I have been interviewed by (please forgive me if I missed one):

MSNBC
AP
CBS (New York, West Palm Beach and National)
ABC (Miami, West Palm Beach and National)
Star Ledger
MJ Morning Show (Syndicated)
NPR
Palm Beach Post
St Petersburg Times
Washington Post (the photo immediately above, ran in the Tuesday print edition)
Time
Mashable

And possibly the coolest thing…Brian Williams from NBC blogged about me!!

I know there are other blog posts and articles about the photos and me, but I can’t list them all. I suggest you just Google my name if you really care that much. A cousin of mine posted on my Facebook page that she had and suggested I do the same. All I did was type in “Stefanie” and my last name was the first name to pop up! I was above Stefanie Powers (I spell my name with an F because of her, my Dad liked the spelling).

I’m not going to go into anymore details because, well…you’ve probably already read them in any of the above pieces or saw the interviews on TV or read my tweets.

If you didn’t know all of this, you must have been living under a rock!

Suddenly my Twitter following has gone from just about 1,800 on Monday morning to over 5,400 as I type this on Wednesday night. I had intended to write this blog post Tuesday morning but because of interviews all day Monday and Tuesday and then spending the day with my mom for her birthday today, I find myself finally getting around to finishing my side of the story.

This whole viral situation has completely caught me off guard. I never thought anything of the magnitude my photo would have when I sent an innocent tweet moments after I landed in West Palm Beach. I am still in shock about it all. Will this lead to bigger and better things? Well as someone who is currently seeking full time employment….I hope so. As a matter of fact my Twitter friend @Metsgrrl suggested I tweet that I’m looking for a new job and to post my Linkedin profile. So that’s exactly what I did!

http://twitter.com/#!/Stefmara/status/70255265643102208

So far nothing solid has come though, but there are a few possibilities out there.

If you have found my blog because you clicked on a link in an article about me, or on my twitter page, HI! Thanks for reading. I tweet mainly about sports, and only once in a while about Space Shuttle launches. I take pictures of everything from Yankees games, to crazy clothes I see in stores, to random amazing things I see while walking around cities such as Manhattan. Photography is a hobby. I blog mainly about my experiences in life, sporting events I attend, or sports in general. I don’t blog just to blog. I blog because I have something to say and I think one or two people might want to read about it.

Monday morning I boarded a plane for a week of relaxing, sending out resumes and most importantly, to celebrate my mom’s birthday in Florida. Monday afternoon I became an instant “15 minute celebrity” for a few pictures I took with my phone.

Posted in career, Social Media, Travel, Twitter, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 252 Comments

Cluelessness and Sexism is Alive and Well in Sports

Posted on May 10, 2011 by Not Your Typical Girl

As a female sports fan I would like to believe that in 2011 sports teams, leagues and companies recognize they have a very large female following and they would do their best to market not only to men, but to the knowledgeable female base as well.  Within the past few months I have been led to believe the opposite.

As baseball fans we all know about the “Fan Cave” and that on Opening Day they had a Victoria Secret model answering fans baseball questions.  Yes, this was to cross promote with the VS Pink/MLB line of clothing.  However, this and the idea of the Fan Cave…or Man Cave if you will, caused an uproar amongst female baseball fans almost everywhere. Caryn over at Metsgrrl.com wrote a great piece before the season started about the Fan Cave as did many other female bloggers.

Last month I received an email from Steiner Sports, more specifically from the owner of Steiner Sports, Brandon Steiner.  The email was promoting meeting the Manning brothers, Eli and Peyton for charity.  Mr. Steiner was having  a fundraiser for a girls home.  Part of the email read:

Imagine giving this gift to your son, your nephew, your grandson, or just someone you care about….

As a football fan I thought, why does this have to be a gift for only males?  In my disgust I wrote the following correspondence to Mr. Steiner:

Mr. Steiner,

As a female sports fan I am disheartened by the email I just received.  Why does this gift have to only be focused on being for a son, nephew or grandson?  I am a football fan, more specifically I am a Giants fan.  While I cannot afford to donate to your fundraiser, I am disgusted that it seems you think only males will appreciate this opportunity.  I am a Yankees season ticket holder, the account is in my name…not a male’s.  I have
purchased from Steiner for ME, not only for my dad or my brother or a male friend.

Your fundraiser is for a GIRLS home…yet you only think only males would enjoy meeting Peyton or Eli?  I would appreciate if you somehow acknowledged that your email below was extremely short sighted.

Shortly after I sent the email I received an email from an employee of Steiner Sports with an apology from Mr. Steiner and an invitation to the signing, which unfortunately I cannot attend.

Most recently, as I was checking my email this morning, I read my daily media industry e-newsletter from Cynopsis.com.  Under “Sponsorship & Promotion” header was:

SportsNet New York is undergoing a rebrand, and launching a new series of ads under the banner “More Sports. More Testosterone.” The concept was conceived by Ogilvy & Mather New York to promote the networks extensive coverage of the total New York sports scene and features a series of ads that depict the positive impact watching sports has on a man’s testosterone levels. One ad focuses on how it has a positive impact on a man’s libido while another hones in on muscle development. The channel’s previous campaign touted “NY NY Sports Sports.”

I read this a few times to make sure I was reading it correctly and then thought, and tweeted, “Are you kidding me?!” after the new tagline.  As a Yankees fan I admit, I rarely watch SNY, but in the times that I have, I have only once seen a woman on camera representing the network and that’s for their show “Beer Money”.  So of course SNY would think that only guys watch sports right?  Notice to SNY: You are wrong!

I know that it is thanks to my father and grandfathers, not my mom or my grandmothers, that I am the sports fan I am today. Also thanks to my dad and grandfathers I know how to read a fly ball, know that the 1927 Yankees is the best team in the history of baseball, know what icing the puck means and I don’t ask “what inning is it?” at a hockey game… side-note: a girl actually asked me that at my brother’s high school ice game and it is still a joke between my dad and I 20 years later.
However, if the day ever comes that I have a daughter, I will be the one to teach her the things I know about sports.

There are teams and leagues that have embraced their female fans as a knowledgeable base and not just pink wearing, I’m going to the game with my boyfriend/husband/guy or sports groupies.  It’s time for all sports entities to acknowledge that there is a large fan base of women that will only wear their team colors, that don’t want rhinestones and hearts on their sports clothing and most importantly….know more about what is going on on the playing surface than many men.

Posted in Social Media, Sports, Twitter | 64 Comments

What a Difference a Team Makes

Posted on April 25, 2011 by Not Your Typical Girl

March is always circled on the calendars of rabid baseball aficionados like myself.  When we flip our calendars to March it means baseball is only a month away from returning to our lives full-time. It is the time of year when all fans from those of the World Series champions to those of the last place team have hope for the season ahead.  Some fans are lucky enough to travel to either Florida or Arizona to see their teams prepare for the long season ahead.  In previous years my father and I would visit the Yankees training facility in Fort Lauderdale and then eventually in Tampa.

We last took our annual trip in 2007 as my previous job had prevented me from traveling during much of February and March the past few years.  Last month I traveled to Tampa for two Spring Training games.  Dad stayed on the east coast of the state and I took in a few games with friends.  These games were my first Yankees Spring Training games in over 10 years, as Dad and I would go the week position players reported.  Nothing like four hours a day of batting practice and fielding drills to get you pumped for a season…seriously!

My first game was in Dunedin where the Toronto Blue Jays were hosting the Yankees.  As I was driving to the ballpark, I looked at my GPS and saw I was less that half a mile away.  I asked my friend Alison, “Where is the ballpark?  We’re in the middle of a neighborhood!”  That’s right, Florida Auto Exchange Stadium is neighbors with a library and Mr. & Mrs. Jones.  One could say it is a charming ballpark.  It is everything you would expect from a minor league park.  The ballpark holds just over 5,000 fans, has a chain-link fence around the field, and features a pretty simple scoreboard. The field and bullpens are very accessible to the fans. I even got Andruw Jones to sign a baseball for me during batting practice!

Neighborhood sign less than a mile from the Blue Jays Spring Training Complex

Eric Chavez during Batting Practice with the basic scoreboard behind him. Photo taken from my seat.

Fans hang out on the fence as Sergio Mitre warms up to enter the game

During the game, much like a minor league game, a MC was in the crowd.  There were contests for the loudest section, giveaways to various restaurants in the area and a gentleman in my section won a free case of Bud Light.  I only wish I could remember why!  Throughout the concession area the line-ups were posted, a silent auction was being held with signed memorabilia for a local charity (I bid on a Curtis Granderson ball…someone outbid me.  Maybe next time.), there was also an area called the “Canadian Grill”.  I didn’t see anything different in the Canadian Grill that you couldn’t get at and of the other concessions.  Maybe it was just a place, in the shade, our friends from North of the Border could feel comfortable?

Line-ups

List in the Blue Jays program of how to pronounce Yankees names. I hope that Jeter kids makes the team… *

The next day I was on my way to George M. Steinbrenner Field (GMS Field), previously known as Legends Field, to see the Yankees yet again take on the Toronto Blue Jays.  Since I had been to this ballpark before I knew what to expect. GMS Field is the exact opposite of Florida Auto Exchange Stadium, it holds about 4,000 more fans, is surrounded by a community college, car dealerships and Raymond James Stadium (home of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and my University of South Florida Bulls football teams). GMS Field is also on a major roadway.

GMS Field feels like you’re walking into a mini Yankee Stadium, which of course was done on purpose, even the dimensions of the field are the same as in the Bronx.  Much like during the regular season in the Bronx, only fans with field level seats were permitted down to the field inside the bases during batting practice, Paul Olden was the in-house announcer, in-between innings there wasn’t an MC giving away free beer, but there was the great “New York Subway Race” and “Who’s That Baby Bomber?”.

I took this photo in 2005 (except for the name change it hasn’t), but notice the difference in scoreboards between Tampa and Dunedin

View from the outfield patio at GMS Field.

I was able to move around pretty easily along the inner concourse during the game.  Except for the patio area, I was not able to stop and watch a few pitches before a security guard told me I needed to move on.  Below are some photos I was able to take while wandering around:

Under the stands bullpen.

Mark Prior warming up under the stands.

Mariano Rivera in the bullpen which is down the right field line

Alex Rodriguez taking a pitch

Overall the experience between the two games was night and day.  I viewed the game in Tampa as a warm up for the season for everyone, not just the players.  I have never been to a game in Toronto, so I cannot compare the Spring Training and regular season game experience like I was able to for the Yankees.  I do however, have a feeling that what I saw in Dunedin is not what you get in Toronto.  As much as I love the Yankees and their tradition, I think I enjoyed the overall atmosphere of the game in Dunedin.

Next year I hope to travel to more Spring Training parks around Florida and hopefully one day make good on the promise to myself to travel to Arizona for Cactus League Spring Training.  After all, there is no such thing as too much baseball.

Photo credit: *Alison Faye Johnson.  All others: Stefanie Gordon
Posted in Sports, Travel, Twitter, Yankees | 3 Comments