< Back to front page Text size – +

Where's George Costanza when you need him?

Print | Comments () Posted by David Beard, Globe Staff December 18, 2007 07:09 PM

Tweet
E-mail

Talk about a George Costanza moment.

Costanza, the loser sidekick character and onetime Yankee employee on "Seinfeld,'' missed another opportunity to rise on Tuesday. That's when real-life Yankees traveling secretary David Szen was fired after pleading to filing a false tax return and failing to report more than $50,000 in tips. Szen, suspended earlier, had been replaced by Ben Tuliebitz, the Yankees' assistant media director.

In Costanza's sitcom world, as the Yankees' assistant traveling secretary, he would have been perfectly positioned for the job.

Alas.

Throughout the series, Costanza was frequently fired. However, his stint with the Yankees was his longest. He was promoted twice, and once had the brainstorm of lengthening the stadium's bathroom stalls to the floor, so no one could see who was there.

In one episode, he had extraordinary success -- for a while --- when he did the opposite of everything he would normally do. "Every instinct I had is wrong," Costanza would say.

How true.

Costanza's end? Being traded to a food concessionaire for a supply of chicken snacks and fermented drinks.