VIDEO: Charles Barkley rides the subway for the first time and it rules

Charles Barkley appropriately summed up the circus stir he created when he took the New York City subway to work from Manhattan to Barclays Center in Brooklyn on Thursday night.

"Hell, I'm from Alabama," the former NBA star-turned-analyst said. "I've never taken the subway before."

SI's Richard Deitsch was there (with a pair of cops, a PR exec, a Turner VP, two camera operators and a security officer) to recap the trip for the good of all mankind:

[Courtesy: SI]

From Deitch:

3:50 p.m. In the lobby of his hotel, Barkley cracks his first joke about the struggles of the Knicks and Nets. "I left two tickets for this game at the front desk last night," Barkley says, laughing. "This morning I checked on them and I had six."

3:54 p.m. Barkley greets a hotel worker on his way out the door. Time for another Knicks crack. "You are not going to Knicks game, are you?" he asks. "Sh--, they should pay you to go."

4:12 p.m. We hop on the C train. The camera phones come out. Someone asks Barkley if he is going to the Knicks-Nets game. Time for another crack. "I'm going to a pillow fight," he says.

4:27 p.m. Barkley hears a baby crying in the subway car. "I'm going to see the Knicks and Nets so I know exactly how that baby feels," Barkley says. The car erupts in laughter.

4:29 p.m. Someone asks Barkley who will win the Knicks-Nets game as a voice informs riders that the next stop on the train is Clark Street. "It don't matter, man," Barkley says. "Zero plus zero is still zero."

Read the complete timeline here.