Catman gets out Foxed

So while I was in Atlanta watching the game last Thursday night, sometime in the 3rd quarter Fox Sports announcers Darryl Johnston and Dick Stockton made a comment about the empty seats at Bank of America Stadium. They said in a push to keep people in their seats for the remainder of the game that some lucky fan in attendance would be given a free car. Just about then my wife calls to tell me the same thing and that I should make sure and call the guy that bought my tickets and relay to him that a car was not part of the deal.  

Upon arrival back into Charlotte my wife informs me that all they showed on TV was that our own Hall of Fame fan Catman was the winner of a little toy car. She said they did not make it clear if this was a model of the real car and not much else was heard on the subject. That is until last night when I got the skinny from Catman himself. It appears that the Fox network decided to play a little preseason prank and Catman was the mark.

Sometime late in the game a little clipboard carrying flunky wearing an Acura ballcap walks up to Greg 'Catman' Good's perch on the section 104 wall and asks him the rhetorical question "Are you going to be staying for the entire game?" Catman naturally bellows back that he is indeed going to stay just as he does for every Panther game. Then from out behind Mr Clipboard lurches the Acura t-shirt wearing assistant clipboard dude who declares with the sincerity of Ryan Seacrest "You are SOOO lucky you said yes!". Now that they had hooked the Catman, the senior clipboard guy takes down Greg's vitals such as his name, age, address, height, weight, etc. While this is going on, Fox sideline report Tony Siragusa is standing nearby looking at Catman like he is going to be coming over during a break.

Some time passes and then Mr Clipboard walks back up to Catman and repeats "Man, you are so lucky" and then walks away again. Catman now feels that he is winning a car or something because all the empirical evidence is there in front of him. Then came the break and up walks Siragusa who presents him with the toy car on camera. Being in the moment and figuring that they could not drive a real car onto Mr Richardson's field during a game, Catman decided to play along and pulled out one of his Catman Bobbleheads and simulated it driving around the toy car whilst Catman shouted "Superbowl, Superbowl, Superbowl".

With the cameras now off and no follow-up on where to pick up the keys to a new car, Catman began to realize that he had been had. Tony Siragusa walked back up and offered wishes from Johnston and Stockton for being such a good sport.

I guess when you combine off-season Superbowl bound hype with late game preseason football and a Thursday night Charlotte crowd not in attendance because they are roaming the suburbs looking for the latest grand opening of a TGI Fridays's things like this happen to your superfans.