Fake Beer Drinking

I was watching tonight's 30 for 30 about the Red Sox beating the Yankees in 2004, "4 Days in October". I don't really care about the Red Sox or the Yankees (though I am a huge Derek Jeter fan) and get pretty tired of all the Red Sox and Yankees hype. But, in this case, the hype is deserved. The Red Sox pulled off the biggest upset, comeback, reversal of history in the history of baseball and it truly was magnificent. Plus, I love watching what is known as "The Steal", when Dave Roberts steals second to put the tying run in scoring position. Everything about the play is perfect, Roberts' jump, Posada receiving the pitch and in one fluid motion delivering a great throw to Jeter standing in the perfect position to receive the ball and tag Roberts who delivers himself with a perfect head first slide as his hand touches the back corner of the bag. On this occasion Roberts was quicker than the throw and really threw the momentum of baseball history on its ear.

Anyway, that's neither here nor there, what really threw me off in the doc was the fake beer drinking going on by Bill Simmons and Lenny Clarke. For some reason this really irks me. I wrote about it when the show "After the Catch" did it and now I'm writing about for this movie.

It irks me because I don't think Simmons drinks beer. I've read every column of his since 2001, I've listened to every podcast and I've read his books (okay book, I'm not going to read 700 pages on the NBA, but I read Paul Shirley's book because he recommended it, that should count). I know when he drinks, he drinks Patron or flavored vodka drinks with water.

This leads me to believe he had a conversation with the set dresser telling him just the right amount of beer to put in his glass. Throughout the movie, the level never changes, so he definitely never took a drink of it (Lenny Clarke's never changed either). Plus, I'm sure he wanted a beer there because it makes him seem like the blue collar Boston guy he tries to portray himself as. This is a guy who's first car was a Porsche. I'd just like to know if he was nice about asking the guy to dump some beer out so it looked like he drank some or if he was a jerk about it.  The whole thing just made their little barroom interaction/everyman scenes ring false. Or maybe I'm just reading too much into it.

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