Omaha, Neb. – The peak hours strike different when you trailer a 30 -foot long tiger.
There is no rage behind the wheel – you drive 15 MPH – and no precipitation to go nowhere, just in the streets near Charles Schwab Field, home of men of the world of men.
Zane Greene agitated with his phone on the passenger seat early Tuesday evening, hit the screen and started a reading list that castigated more than four speakers on the back. “LSU PREGAME” was the first song, and Greene’s uncle, Jacob Stone, directed the 15,000 pound glass fiberglass tiger around traffic. A jeep man leaned next to them and rolled on his window.
“It’s certainly a cap,” he said.
Tuesday Gras Mike, a tribute to the LSU mascot, is a creation of Kern studios. Fitz Kern, CEO of the company that produces the majority of Tuesday fat tanks, was inspired to make the float after watching the Tiger walked before the LSU-Ole Miss Miss football match last fall. He wanted to create something that LSU fans could rally.
“We wanted Mike Mike to channel the spirit of LSU fans on Tuesday,” said Kern, “and the spirit of Louisiana”.
The float was unveiled last week at the Alex Box stadium in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, while the fans sent the LSU baseball team to McWs to Omaha. From there, Tuesday Gras Mike made a trip of more than 900 miles to Omaha who was told on social networks. There was a snapshot of Mike at Stade Arrowhead, the Maison des Chiefs de Kansas City, and a small troll photo of the parked float in Fayetteville, Arkansas, at the Arkansas football stadium.
The razorbacks – dry rivals – were LSU’s first opponent in the MCWS. LSU won this match 4-1. They will again be the opponent of the Tigers Wednesday (7 p.m. HE, ESPN) in the MCWS semi-finals. A LSU victory would place them in the championship series.
Fitz Kern hoped that his tigers would survive until this weekend so that he can join Omaha’s pleasure. He stayed behind so that he could help celebrate his daughter’s third anniversary. LSU did its share on Tuesday, beating UCLA 9-5 in the sliced match of a winner. While LSU fans celebrated near the east side of the stadium, Stone stopped the tank in the street. For a while, it was a scene from the house – fans dancing and taking photos with the rumbled tiger. Then, a police officer working on traffic gave him a severe warning to move.
It was Stone’s first day at work. Leon’s farmer Iowa, who sometimes helps Kern studios during Tuesday Gras, received a call on Monday to ask him if he was available to do work at the MCWS. Stone and Greene trained on the ground until 1 p.m., but they got up at 6 a.m. on Tuesday to drive 2 hours and 40 minutes from Omaha.
They did not know that they would lead Mike Gras on Tuesday morning. The drivers they replaced sent them a reading list – mainly LSU combat songs as well as “Eye of the Tiger” and “Born on the Bayou” by Clearywater Revival – and traveled them a few times. Then they went to the airport.
The rain was in the forecast on Tuesday in the South Center of Iowa, so Stone and Greene had just planned to sit inside looking at the westerns anyway. Because they spend most of their time feeding their cows and balanced hay, none of them is interested in university baseball or sports in general.
They seemed disconnected by the thousands of people around them who get up and fall on the trajectory of a baseball. In the middle of the afternoon, however, Greene picked up the jargon and the hand signals.
“Many people throw the” L “,” he said, “what, I think, meant” loser “. But these are LSU fans.”
Wherever they went, people caught their phones and took photos and videos. LSU fans shouted, pointed, jumped and nodded, as if they had seen an old friend. A guy in a firefighter’s hat seemed that he was going to jump into the truck.
The only negative feedback that Greene and Stone lived, at least in the first eight hours of the day, were a few inches of opposing fans.
Around 6 p.m., the float headed south, through the old market, and the guests sitting on the patios raised their glasses and applauded. Then Tuesday Gras Mike made another trip to the Embassy, the Team Hotel for Tigers, while random people in the street shouted: “Tigers!”
Almost everyone smiles as the float passed.
“This is how Gras Tuesday is also,” said Stone. “Everyone is just happy.
“How many people can do this in their lives?”
