A writer from the New York Post says she will attend a night in her honor at Frontier Field next summer here in "grim and depressing" Rochester.
That’s how Maureen Callahan described Rochester in a column about her fellow downstaters who flocked to a new Wegmans store in Brooklyn. The description generated a lot of response from Rochesterians, much of it not so kind.
Callahan says the real point of the article was to poke fun at her fellow New Yorkers who were so excited by the opening of a grocery store.
“I thought if I was going to hear anything in terms of outrage, it would be from the people I was actually making fun of, my fellow downstaters. Not a peep," she said. “I just thought to myself, I never once, as a kid dreaming of what life might be like in Manhattan, thought I would attend the opening of a supermarket.”
Callahan says she prefers the urban experience, and upstate is “just a different animal.”
She will take in a game at Frontier Field, along with other New York Post staff members, at the invitation of the Rochester Red Wings.
Red Wings Director of Communications Nate Rowan says the club has an annual appreciation night for Rochester, and next season they'll add a "Maureen Callahan Night" to the schedule.
“Basically in her writing this, it gave us our night, our night to celebrate all things Rochester,” he said. “This way, we're able to show somebody who's not from Rochester, who has an opinion that we don't agree with, show them and we'll sway their opinion a little bit.”
"Maureen Callahan Night" is scheduled for August 21st at Frontier Field, and Rowan maintains this is not an evening to bash the author, but Callahan expects fans at the game will get plenty of opportunities to do so when she throws out the first pitch.
“It's part of the invitation, I feel I have to accept,” she said. “It's probably going to be very humiliating. But you know, I can take it.”
Further details of Callahan’s visit to Rochester and her night at Frontier Field still have to be finalized.