I'm Steve Karsay

Frankly, I have no idea how the hell I missed this news when it broke last week. Actually, yes I do -- sometimes I fail to notice things. But my deficiencies aside, I bring you now, a couple days late, an absolutely spectacular piece of information: There is a man here in New York who has been going around town impersonating Steve Karsay. Apparently (according to the New York Post Page 6) this relief pitching doppelganger was at a comedy club the other night just generally acting like a prick -- making out with a woman in the bathroom, trying to leap over the bar, skipping out on his tab at the end of the night -- which is exactly what we would expect from the real Steve Karsay. Actually, I don't really know that to be the case. For all I know, the real Steve Karsay is not at all the type to misbehave at a comedy club and would be just as likely to be the polite man sitting in the back laughing at all the right moments and calmly sipping out of his two-drink minimum at evenly-timed intervals.

Though I clearly have little insight as to what would bring a man to want to impersonate Steve Karsay and nor do I know much of anything about how the real Steve Karsay behaves (though I'd be curious to learn more about both topics), I can provide some unique insight into some of the Karsay impersonator's behavior that was not published in the newspaper. According to a friend of mine (we'll call him Jeff), the other day a guy he knows (we'll call this guy Luther) was on the Great Lawn in Central Park, baseball glove in hand, when a man approached him and asked if he could borrow his glove to have a game of catch with his wife.

When Luther responded in the affirmative, the man said, "Thanks," and then added after a pause, "I'm Steve Karsay."

Luther, not being much of a baseball fan, found it slightly odd that this man had introduced himself using both surname and family name, but opted not to waste too much time worrying about it. Then, a few minutes later, the man (whom we will heretofore refer to as Stevie Boy) returned. Apparently the "wife" wasn't so good at throwing the ball around, and Stevie Boy was hoping Luther might want to join him for a game of catch. Luther agreed, they played catch, and when they were finished, Stevie Boy returned Luther's glove.

When he did so, he said, "Thanks for the game of catch. I'm Steve Karsay."

A minute later, after Stevie Boy was gone, someone who had been standing nearby during the exchange walked up and said to Luther, "Wait, did that guy say his name was Steve Karsay?"

To which Luther replied, "Yes."

I have a few things to say about this story, which I will now share with you in a unique new format I like to call the "numbered list":

1) I'm pretty sure I butchered this story at least a tad bit, for it was told to me by Jeff only once and it's likely I mangled a few minor details. But the jist of the story, I do believe, remains intact.
2) One detail I'm certain I didn't get wrong is that Stevie Boy went out of his way not once, but twice, to say, "I'm Steve Karsay." Which I think is tremendously awesome.
3) I feel rather confident that the person in Central Park was indeed the same Steve Karsay impersonator mentioned in the NY Post.
4) With that in mind, it seems to me that if I were a Steve Karsay impersonator, the last thing in the world I would want to do would be throw a baseball. For it seems unless you threw the ball like a man who was once an extremely hard-throwing Major League pitcher, you would essentially be going out of your way to blow your cover. But then again, if you're the kind of guy who's generally acting like a dick at comedy clubs, maybe you're so confident in your resemblance to Steve Karsay that you just don't worry about being caught.
5) Or maybe, if you're crazy enough to impersonate somebody, you just don't care that much about being caught.
6) Though I know it's actually kind of against the law, I must say I think there's something great about the fact that there's a Steve Karsay impersonator somewhere in this town. I don't know about you but I take comfort in that. It's good knowin' he's out there. Stevie Boy. Takin' 'er easy for all us sinners.
7) I stole that last line from The Big Lebowski.
8) Question: Given all of the uncertainty created by this situation -- i.e., if the real Steve Karsay isn't actually Steve Karsay -- how can you tell that this blog was actually written by the real OCC?
9) Answer: Because who else would waste so much time on this topic?

Lastly...

10) I haven't really coined a lot of phrases on this site that I'm aware of, but I would like to nominate one right now: I'm Steve Karsay. Kind of like "I'm Rick James, bitch," but different. If you're all interested, I'll get to work on printing some t-shirts.