SPORTS

Pat McAfee: First tomato thrown, he'll walk off stage and kick footballs

Dana Hunsinger Benbow
dana.benbow@indystar.com

CARMEL — The good news: There is a no-produce policy at the Palladium.

More good news: No tomatoes allowed means no tomatoes thrown at the face of Indianapolis Colts punter Pat McAfee as he embarks on his first solo, standup comedy special at the theater this weekend.

McAfee jokes about the produce policy. But deep down — in that funny, sarcastic soul of his — he's hoping he doesn't bomb his "Pat McAfee: Uncaged" premiere.

He hopes the sold-out theater with "1,300 of his closest friends" watching the two nights are satisfied; chuckle, giggle, laugh and get their money's worth. He hopes they want more.

Because if he bombs, and the tomatoes come out (figuratively speaking), he'll take that as a failure. And he likely won't try this again.

"Then, I think you just go ahead, walk off the stage, give the people their money back and then just kick footballs," he said Thursday as he stood on the exact stage he will take Saturday night. "I think that's probably the way to roll."

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It's not the way McAfee thinks things will roll, though. He's confident as he looks out upon the darkened theater of empty seats in his shorts, T-shirt and baseball hat turned backward.

"It's my job to give them a good show. And that's what I'm going to do," he said. "I've been working hard to get them (a good show) because people spent money on this, which is so humbling and mind boggling to me. But, people bought tickets."

Did they ever buy tickets. Within 10 minutes of going on sale May 29, all seats to Saturday's McAfee comedy show were gone. Two hours later, a second show was announced. It immediately sold out.

On StubHub, people were selling the tickets — which ranged from $30 to $100 for VIP — for hundreds of dollars. McAfee says he hopes no one actually paid that for his show, but if they did, he will do his best to make it worth their while.

The show won't be knock-knock jokes or corny jokes or one liners.

"I'm not a joke teller. I'm not smart enough to tell those knock-knock jokes and those other jokes and stuff like that," he said. "All my material comes from life experiences. My journey to the NFL was a ridiculous one. And then my travels since I've been in the NFL are pretty ridiculous. So, you put those together and you've got a recipe for a long night of fun story telling."

He's not nervous.

"Noooo," he says. "No-no-no-no. Mostly excited. (I've) just been looking forward to the night, to get it rolling and see how much happiness we can deliver to people."

Among those people will be his parents, girlfriend, family and friends. And his Colts teammates, who McAfee purposely reserved seats for, not in the first row, but in the fourth.

"Row four, it's like the exit row on a plane, so it's like extra space and all my friends and my teammates are huge humans so I'm putting them in that row," he said. "They might feel disrespected for it, but it's only because they're huge humans."

And as McAfee continued to laugh and be his funny self, the seriousness of what's about to happen this weekend came out.

This show is no joke. This is what McAfee wants to do after his NFL career. He wants to be a stand-up comic.

"Yeah, I think so, because you have no boss," he said. "We'll see what happens. I'd never really thought about a life in standup comedy, but when I've done it, it was a lot of fun and it seemed as if I did well."

And what better job to have — except maybe punting a football in the NFL — than making people laugh.

"I think people undervalue making people happy," he said.

Follow Dana Benbow on Twitter: @DanaBenbow.