The Marks Post: Well... maybe I am bad luck

A few years ago, Oakdale held football coach Destin Dieterich called me bad luck because his team won the games I missed that season. The more time that goes by, the more I think he’s right. The latest instance is when I went to Hattiesburg, Miss., Sunday to cover LSU in the NCAA Regional Tournament.
I drove into Hattiesburg that morning and got to the stadium just before Southern Miss’ game against Kennesaw State started. I found me a seat in the club level down the third base line and enjoyed an afternoon of baseball ... in the heat. It was actually an exciting game. Southern Miss rallied back and won in extra innings. With the win, they advanced to face LSU that night.
Between games, I moved my car closer to the stadium in the media lot and went check out the hospitality room in the St. Thomas Aquinas Parish Hall. On the menu was corn on the cob, carrots, and red beans and rice. They also had cheesecake for dessert. When I went up to the dessert counter, my eyes got big because I thought they had bread pudding, but it was actually peach cobbler. Good thing it wasn’t bread pudding because I would have needed a nap for sure.
After that I went on the field because I was taking pictures during the game. I weaseled my way to the LSU bullpen down the right field line and out there for a few minutes while the guys were warming up. When the game got close to starting, I made my way to the camera well that was adjacent to the LSU dugout and stood up while taking pictures.
But, my camera started having issues. Remember back in the day when we had to blow into the Nintendo game cartridges to make work? That’s what I had to do to the camera to make it work.
The game bogged down during the middle innings, and I needed to find a place to sit. Years ago, standing up for a long period of time like that didn’t bother me. But, I am getting older. More on that next month.
I went up to the press box to find a place to sit, but there was no room at the inn. I grabbed me a bottle of water and went sit in the media workroom. While in there, Southern Miss scored three runs to grab the lead over LSU. I’m not really superstitious, just a little stitious, so I went back into the camera well thinking it would turn the game back into LSU’s favor.
Well, it didn’t. The damage was done. And, for good measure, Southern Miss added on a run or two. I brought LSU bad luck. If they would have won the game, they would have won the tournament. Since they lost, it forced a winner-take-all game on Monday. I didn’t stick around for that. I left as soon as the game was over Sunday night.
All things considered, it was still a fun trip. The best part about it was that it was fuel economical. Or, is it fuel efficient? What I’m trying to say the trip was good on gas. I left with three-quarters of a tank and only burned half a tank of gas on the way there. I put $40 of gas when I left Hattiesburg, and that put me 7/8 of a tank. I got back home with an eighth of a tank left, and that’s with taking the long way back through New Orleans.
As for going through New Orleans in the middle of the night, with rampant crime in the Big Easy, it’s a minor miracle I didn’t catch a stray bullet on I-10. That was a bit of good luck, I guess, on the trip.
As a side note, apparently my bad luck, like my bad reputation lingers because LSU lost again Monday. Now, I don’t have to worry about bringing my bad luck to the Super Regionals.