It was turning colder.
But that was years ago.
Last I heard she had
Moved to Boulder,
But where she's now, I don't know.
There's something about
This time of year,
That spins my head around.
Takes me back,
And makes me wonder --
What's she doing now? ..."
-- "What's She Doing Now" by Garth Brooks. Of every song he's ever done, none of them hit me as raw, as this one does ...
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One of the things that came up in my first group meeting as a member of the Chiefs Fan Focus team was that as good as most of us think the Kingdom Rewards site is (and I am a fan), for most of 2017, the Chiefs rarely if ever offered Redeemable Prizes. Now, to be fair, they really never have; the only "redeemable prizes" I've ever cashed in over the last five, six years were the (for now) late, great Early In Pass, the Meet-and-Greet in Houston for the playoff game (gulp) three years ago (that we wound up not even attending), and the annual Draft Party pass.
(Which I redeemed on Wednesday ... and yes, the Draft Party is set for Friday, April 27th. For those of you thinking there's a trade back into round one coming via Mr. Veach's trades so far (and I am one of you) ... read into that what you want.)
This week, however, was different, and I'd like to think that it's as a result of the conversations that occurred last Tuesday. Because one thing some of us stressed was that the whole point of being a season ticket holder (other than the game itself) was the unique access (or whatever you want to call it) that being a STM affords you. You have skin in the game, so to speak, and we thought it'd be cool if the Chiefs would recognize it and offer some redeemable prizes, especially at times like right now, when the non-STM account points are resetting to zero.
This past week, the Chiefs offered two redeemable prizes, and I cashed in points for both of them. And yes, to be fair, these prizes were nothing more than some intern assigned to cleaning out the closets at One Arrowhead Drive ... but still, baby steps.
The first prize was the Chiefs 50 Year pin that I swear I have somewhere in my cigar box of memories ... only I can't find the damned thing. They only wanted 1,000 points to get one; given that I had over 25,000 points, I figured it was worth the investment.
The second prize though, was really intriguing, if you're into goofy potential endings like me. The second prize cost you 8,000 points ... but it was so tempting I had to read.
The Chiefs would send you a game-used jersey from 2010-2017 ... picked at random. You would have no idea who you were getting -- stud like Eric Berry, solid pro like Alex Smith, in over his head like Matt Cassel, Brady Quinn, Tyler Bray, Aaron Murray ... hell, pick a Chiefs backup QB here from the last eight years, or a practice squad dude, or some dude who got cut in the Round of 75 or Round of 53 cuts. It was a total crapshoot.
(Pause).
Damned right I clicked "buy".
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I got home tonight (this is Friday, in case I "imbibe heavily with stress over tomorrow night's KU game" and fail to finish this until Saturday morning), and both purchases were laying outside my bedroom door * . So, after I made myself a solid 7&7 ** , I grabbed them, headed into said bedroom, and decided to see whose jersey I bought.
Here is said jersey front ...
... and said jersey back ...
(image credit: me, via my iPhone 8 something *** .)
... and that is what inspired this post: going down the rabbit hole to figure out who the f*ck number 54 from the 2015 season was, with the last name of Moore.
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(*: I honestly thought I'd hate living with another person again. I hadn't done it in almost eight years before I moved to south Waldo over a year ago. (Let's just say the last arrangement eight years ago, with the artist formerly known on this site as "The Champ", did not end well for anyone involved.)
But Louie (the landlord / roommate) is awesome. It's his damned house I'm renting a wing of ... and he has yet to enter said wing of the house, other than to drop off my mail in front of the door, or figure out dinner plans on the rare night he's here. (He works evenings, which makes the arrangement even better.) (old guy in "grumpier old men" voice) "Just goes to show ya.")
(**: I don't get my drinking habits at this point either. Until about two, three years ago, you could mark in Sharpie, Seth Davis style, my drinking habits. January to early April: Weller and Dr. Pepper or Diet with Lime. Early April to mid June: the reddest wine in the fridge or wine cabinet. Mid June to early September: Coors Light or Shiner Bock, with the occasional "my row in The Beer Machine is empty" improv purchase. Early September to end of December: Tito's and Gatorade, with the occasional Fireball shot during the game.
Now? I've been on a 7&7 kick (although with Sprite instead of 7UP) for three weeks now, and every one tastes better than the last one. (again -- the old guy in "grumpier old men" voice in the clip linked in the last * above) "There ain't no point to this ... I just like that story.")
(***: I got the friendly reminder from AT&T via email (how personal!) that I'm eligible per my plan to upgrade to the iPhone 10 or X or whatever the f*ck they're calling it, as of Monday. For the first time since I switched to the "new iPhone every year" plan half a decade ago ... I might not head the six blocks to my (less than) helpful and friendly AT&T store there at 81st and State Line on Monday. I actually love the 8. (Pause). Yeah, got to. (neil lomax in "planes, trains, and automobiles" voice) "Those aren't pillows!")
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So, back to the subject at hand.
I think I have a starting point -- some dude named Moore, who wore number 54, at some point during the 2015 season -- training camp, preseason, regular season, practice squad, postseason.
I base this on the fact that (a) the jersey number is 54, (b) the name on the back says Moore, and (c) the interior tag says 2015. Hey, if you come up with a better idea? Then I defer to you.
I also can reasonably deduce this is not someone who made the final roster, because I already knew that number 54 in 2015 was worn by a linebacker by the name of Dezman Moses. I know this, because my friend and great tailgating buddy Ryan (whose last name is Moses), wore his jersey to every game in 2015. (I swear, the sh*t I can remember stoned and/or beyond intoxicated ... and yet, I couldn't tell you what I had for lunch yesterday.)
Also, based on the number, I can reasonably deduce this dude was a linebacker or offensive lineman. (Believe me -- when I first saw 54, for a brief moment I thought I'd gotten Brian Waters. Talk about a c*ck block style defeat of the ego ...)
So, what would any enterprising investigator do in 2018 when beginning a search? Of course -- Wikipedia!
I pulled up the Chiefs 2015 Wikipedia page. I fully expected this to end the suspense, make this a solid Friday evening "mail it in effort" to rival the one I gave at work today **** , and successfully kill the couple hours between beginning this post, and the BuKCs / Lakers tipoff at 9:30 CT tonight.
(With a win and a Pistons loss, the BuKCs clinch at worst the 8 seed, with six to play ... and with a 76ers loss, would move within one in the loss column of the four seed ... and Milwaukee closes against Philly in two weeks. As bat sh*t crazy as the West is -- ten teams within sixgames of the three seed, with the first two seeds clinched -- the East ... well, the eight getting in are pretty set, but there's only one game that separates six from eight, and the current four (Philly) just lost Joel Embiid for two to four weeks last night, and they're within striking distance for any of the teams five through eight.)
(Anyway, back to why you're here -- the rabbit hole!)
Let's scroll through the available sections, shall we?
* Reserve / Future Free Agent Contracts: nobody named Moore.
* Cuts: nobody named Moore.
* Trades: nobody named Moore ... although it did reignite my irrational hatred of Ben Grubbs for about ten seconds.
* Free Agents: nobody named Moore.
* Draft Class: nobody named Moore ... although it did cause me to pour drinks two, three, and four, to deal with the trade of Marcus Peters.
* Round of 75 Cuts: nobody named Moore. I should note, this kind of reassured me -- it probably means he wasn't / isn't a player with the talent of, uuh, me, on the gridiron.
* Round of 53 Cuts: nobody named Moore. This one stunned me. Because I swear, I could not recall a dude named Moore on the Chiefs 2015 roster. And again, I knew Dezman Moses wore 54 for the 2015 Chiefs.
* The Roster: surely -- surely! -- this Moore tito has to be listed somewhere in here, right?
He's not. (the late, great leslie nielsen in "airplane" voice) "And don't call me Shirley!"
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(****: to be fair, I'm done for the month with my programs. But in the interest of disclosure and honesty -- two things I'm rarely accused of being interested in, uuh, disclosing, to be, uuh, honest -- I spent my day playing Word Wipe on the USA Today site for literally eight hours. I reached Level 15 twice. I also apologize for nothing.)
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So, if Wikipedia can't help, perhaps the Chiefs website can? I mean, after all, the coolest thing (at least to me) in the Hall of Honor is that every damned player who has ever made an appearance for the Red and Gold in a game, is in there somewhere on those turnable blocks.
So, let's visit that site next, shall we?
(Note: I chose Team - History - Uniform History, to attempt to get my answer.)
Only ... the page wouldn't load:
(image credit: me, via whatever the hell the Snag-It tool on a Chromebook is.)
(lily in "how i met your mother" voice) sumb*tches!
Undaunted ... I have one last resort.
Which is probably what many of you would have suggested, as the first to try.
Google Search.
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(image credit: me, via whatever the hell the Snag-It tool on a Chromebook is.)
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So ... is this the dude?
(image credit: me, via whatever the hell the Snag-It Tool on a Chromebook is.)
Sio Moore, linebacker, from UConn.
According to his chiefs.com profile page (yes, it exists!), he played exactly zero games for the Chiefs ... in 2016. He was a camp invitee -- so perhaps the 2015 tag on the inside of the jersey was a red herring? Maybe the new 2016 jerseys hadn't arrived yet, so the Chiefs were still using the 2015 model in Training Camp?
It has to be him, right?
I think it almost has to be.
Just to be sure, I then pulled up the 2016 Chiefs page on Wikipedia.
And after scrolling through everything I, uuh, scrolled through previously on the 2015 Chiefs Wikipedia page ... there finally, possibly, emerged my answer:
(image credit: me, via whatever the hell the Snag-It tool on a Chromebook is.)
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So, I'm choosing to believe it's Sio Moore, whose jersey I now have to break down and buy a tastefully made yet cheaply sold picture frame for, to hang on a wall somewhere in my wing of the casa.
Good luck finding a spot on the Chiefs / Royals wall:
(image credit: me, via my iPhone 8 something. I'm thinking below the Chiefs certificate ... or below the signed Eric Berry football my brother got me for Chrismukkah. Also, I suck as a photographer; I swear that wall of the room isn't slanted 30 degrees into the ground ... )
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It has to be Sio. It has to be.
It just has to be.
Because no matter how much it hurts -- I'm usually wrong. Constantly, totally wrong.
(Except when even in defeat, I'm still right.)
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Oh -- and to answer the other Captain Oats question in the room?
Sio Moore is currently a free agent.
Gee, anyone know a certain team that plays at One Arrowhead Drive, with a need for semi-competent interior linebackers that'll work for cheap? Because I think I do now ...
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