1995 Wildcard - Game 2!!
October 4th, 1995 - Yankees host the Mariners
The Leyritz home run game!
Handwriting is a little more sloppy on this scorecard, so I obviously found some time for pregame drinks, whereas I did not partake before game 1. But it is all highly legible, so I was coherent and lucid, unlike, say, game 6 of the 1996 World Series...but we'll get to that in due time.
The cynical bastards that we were, we were already joking about the bunting adorning the tiers. We were already tired of looking at it, and thinking about it now it was something we grew to completely take for granted. "Looks like Grandma sewed that fu*king stuff." someone said.
"Welcome to the fu*king show!" howled the burly Captain Bob, with both beefy arms held aloft. I remember when he got so excited about the Yankees even getting a sniff of first place during a regular season campaign...I have a picture at home of Captain Bob holding up a newspaper aloft in the street by the Stadium, with Jim Abbott pitching on the back cover, with the headline tag, "Hey,Abbott, Yankees are in first!" And there is Bob in the picture, with the biggest shit-eating grin ever, celebrating a first-place tie in the month of July...did not take much to please a Yankee fan in the dark days.
Phil Rizzuto threw out the first pitch, which caused people to yammer on and on about how much he was missed in the TV booth. There was a guy going topless on this cool, drizzly night, but knowing he was inviting trouble in his attempt to get on TV he had "I'm an asshole" painted in blue paint on his back. "What an asshole" we muttered, as he walked by.
While we settled in we discussed our pregame activities, which included a "God bless the bowling alley bathroom" from me. Hell, they just closed down that bowling alley this year of 2010, and I wanted to out there to light candles and hold vigil. There had been a guy walking around outside the Stadium beforehand, gladhanding and drinking out of a bag, dressed as the Pope with big Pope hat and everything. We looked around for him in the bleachers as he was last seen by the gate, but to no avail. "He must be in Stans, drinking out of the almighty chalice" someone speculated.
I gave a nod to the true old-schoolers who were on hand. From Captain Bob to our loud friend Kevin, Animal to Elder George, Queen Bee Tina to Cowbell King Ali, and a cast of thousands that "no one wants" - it was all for them. Tina was on seat patrol, and got into quite the spat over a corner seat that she would not relinquish. "What, is your name on that seat?" one guy snapped, to which Tina shot right back with "as a matter of fact, now that you mention it..."
I see where we were hung up over a bad call on the field for a while. It even got a "bull-fu*king-shit" out of someone named Joey three different times. Someone blamed it on us all standing up during the play. "Every time we stand up, something bad happens." he grumbled. Wish I could have introduced him to Junior years down the line, who would stand up at something as meaningless the appearance of a bird. Regarding the call on the field, someone shouted, "Ump, you couldnt lead Ray Charles through the forest! You asshole!"
We were keeping a running tab on bad umpire calls, and it reached 3. And, in quite the coincidence, Buck Showalter made 3 different appearances on the field to question calls on that cool October evening.
A fistfight actually broke out, and to no one's surprise our very own Animal was involved. I wrote down an abridged play by play - a guy was arguing over a seat, Animal told him to get to stepping, he went after Animal, and a third guy jumped in. Well, first guy and third guy gone, Animal gets to stay. Amazing how that worked in our own gated community out there.
"Bear Ass", my tagalong stuffed bear, was back on hand, with the Yankees record with him now on hand standing at 12-1. The unthinkable happened as he dissapeared at exactly 8:08, and I thought he was stolen and cut to shreds for shits and giggles, but he reappeared at 8:20. In a comic note, I handed him off to one of the old crew to "babysit." The babysitter on that night? Some fine chap named John Hughes. You know, the guy that was later "arrested for counterfeiting money." This was a story I made up years later to explain his sudden dissapearance. Of course years laster he shows back up, and everyone thinks he just got out of jail for counterfeiting money. Meanwhile, he was out getting an education.
He ended up autographing the scorecard (another bad gimmick bought back for the playoffs) as did Syphills Joe, who even added the tagline, "Syphillis....it all started with a simple kiss!"
This game went deep, into the 15th, and by the time I got to page 2 "The Pope" from outside reappeared. "Jesus Christ, the Pope is here!" someone howled, bemused. By then the ground beneath our feet was covered in a sea of empty beer cups and George, among others, proudly announced, "after we win, these cups are going that way" - pointing either to the field or to the people in front of us that annoyed us all night by standing up for all the wrong reasons.
When I remember in my head some of the funny lines over time and recount the simplicity of some of our wit and humor, this one always came to mind, and it was from this very night....a guy with a Gilligan hat was one of those people standing up and blocking our view at all the wrong times, and finally fed up with it someone shouted, "Down in front, Little Buddy!"
Its amazing at how, even during a playoff game, we could find time to argue about something dumb, or wonder about stupid minutia that has nothing to do with the task at hand. After a couple of innings of seeking out the answer we finally learned that the song that "Dancing Homer" did his thing to was in fact called "The Baby Elephant Dance."
I went through both sides of the scorecard during this extra inning tilt, and Page 2 has the 11th through the 15th innings, and even that late we were still grousing about the umps. "The ump needs to get out of here early, he has to get up in the morning for umpire school." someone reasoned. "Even the OJ jury would not find those umps innocent of killing us" someone chirped in. "This is a tragedy...a debaucle" someone surmised.
But all is well that ends well. I dont remember exactly what happened, but leading into Leyritz' home run apparently the Yankees got handed an "even-up call." "I can hear the ump now" someone said just before Leyritz laid into one. "Games over, Yankees win, go home."
You always get some of these...I had to comment on the spate of people that actually got up, collected their coats, and left with a 4-4 playoff game in front of them. I understand the game ended up at 1:20 in the morning, but come on now...
And after that ending, one of the moments out there that will stay with me FOREVER, maybe the first one I experienced of dozens of magical moments the next few years. 10 minutes of celebrating in the rain, singing to New York New York, hugs and handshakes, dancing on the benches, slipping off and falling down, only to clamber up again. Someone passed around a flask, and we struggled to light soggy cigars. But that singing....I will never forget the Stadium singing in unison, and our high hopes for the rest of the playoffs. And it was incredible to spend it with that crew that was out there on that night, in that fashion. Good times, good times...
I'll make this quick. You dont need a recap from me on a playoff game, and this is long already. Here are your starting lineups for posterity...the Yankees marched out 3B Boggs, CF BW, RF O'Neill, DH Sierra (a few "where's Strawberry"s were uttered despite Sierra's monster spurts), 1B Mattingly, LF Dion James (lol), C Leyritz, SS Fernandez, and 2B Velarde. Your Yankee hurlers on the night were Pettitte, Wickman, Wetteland, and Rivera, who went 3.1 innings of scoreless ball to notch the W just a day after I had written down that he was not eligible for the playoff roster.
And Sierra did it AGAIN. Another home run, and for the second time in a matter of weeks a home run right to our little gaggle out there in Section 39. Don Mattingly, in the middle of his last stand, followed that with a home run of his own, there to lead off the 6th, and put the crowd all agog.
The Mariners countered with LF Coleman, SS Sojo, CF Griffey, DH E Martinez, RF Buhner, 3B Blowers, 1B Tino, C Wilson, and 2B Cora. That pesky bastard. On the hill we saw Andy Benes, Bill Risley, Charlton, Jeff Nelson, and of course, Timothy Belcher, who belched up the winning HR.
5 hours and 12 minutes to play. Yes, 5 hours and 12 minutes. 57,126 on hand, with no less than 678,203 claiming they were there that night currently. Your umpires on hand were none other than Dale Scott, Jim McKean, Larry McCoy, Rich Garcia, Mike Reilly, and the ever-popular Jim Joyce.
And THAT puts a wrap on the playoffs of 1995. And what comes next but 1996.....the jokes will become more biting, the characters the more vivid, the beer even better.
See you soon with your first installments of the wild ride that was 1996!!!!!!!!
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
PLAYOFFS! 10/3/95 - Yankees / Mariners Game 1!
PLAYOFFS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
October 3rd, 1995 - Yankees host Seattle
GAME 1 - Wild Card 1995
"check him out, getting high on the handy horn."
Its ironic, I actually flipped on a Yankeeography the other night (I generally avoid them, i like my pancakes with not so much 'syrup') and the subject was Don Mattingly, and they went into depth about the crowd reaction when he took the field on this fateful night. I remembered all of that but it was nice to watch it again. I do remember a lot of things regarding that game...it was only in later playoff games in later playoff runs where I would get sloshed.
In a prophetic note I wrote "Beginning of a Run" in the "Date" section, and oh, was it ever the beginning of a run, for the Yankees and we fans that merrily followed along.
I was very cogent of my surroundings on this night, as although the scorecard is full it is legible (attributed to little to no drinking) and therefore not the funniest card I had seen. There was business at hand! In the intro section on the card I also remarked on the "bunting" we would get to know so well in future years, and that I forgot my friend, the little stuffed bear "Bear Ass", an inexcusable faux pas, as the Yankees were 11-1 with my furry friend on hand.
This was a year where we had our tickets taken care of us beforehand, as during the last game of the season elder George and Queen Bee Tina had gone up to the Yankee offices with $600 or so, cash money, and secured our ducats. This was a wonderful and pretty much exclusive privelage which died in later years, mainly cause some of us could not keep our fu*king mouths shut.
Before the game a "mystery guy" in a Seattle uniform was down and hurt on the warning track. Took a BP fly off the noodle, apparently. We later learned who it was, but it never made the scorecard, and its now lost to time.
They actually carted out what was then an 11 year old to sing the Anthem, which bought snickers and some groans. I mean, really, this was the best they could do? Joe DiMaggio threw out the first pitch, and we all remarked how nice it was to see the Yankee Clipper. I tagged on the names not eligible for this rounds go-around, including - lol - Jeter, Mariano, Melido Perez, Jimmy Key, and the other Joltin' Joe, Mr. Ausanio. I noted one thing from the introductions, the fact that Steve Howe was "booed." Of course, by this point whenever he entered a game someone would invariably mutter, "Howe big a disaster is this?"
We were letting all of our friends and familiars nudge in with us no matter where their ticket was, and the seats were packed, but you guys all know that well. Nothing new. I actually kept my headphones on that night, and listened to the WABC-Radio feed during the game, which bought me a lot of little bon mots and pearls of wisdom that I added to the card. It also screwed up the normal run of jokes I would have heard and later shared.
For one thing, if I marked this correctly, the Yankees were 10-15 on the season if Randy Velarde was not in the starting lineup. Who woulda knew? During much of the game you could hear a lone voice chirping up in favor of Seattle over the radio feed, causing John Sterling to muse, "99.9% of those on hand are rooting for the Yankees...the other .1% is right here next to me." I got to hear the always smarmy Michael Kay, then Sterlings running buddy in the booth, refer to someone as a "dolt", as he broke that one out when a fan ran onto the field during the evenings proceedings.
People were ID'ing me across the board, with one fan telling me I looked like Don Mattingly, and another fan mistaking me for "Cousin Brewski." "Got the night off?" he asked, patting me on the back. In a little hilarity old Cowbell King Ali swiped Fat Daddy Chico's walker and hid it up by us, shrugging and explaining, "Chico can roll his ass out of here."
Your regular quips were flying from 39. After a call that did not go our way someone moaned, "all this money you got, Steinbrenner, and you can't buy the ump?" I mentioned that the Mayor was taking what was soon to be the obligatory trip to the radio booth, which raised a, "thats why the city sucks." Someone even found the time to mention that Gloria Estafan was "accident-prone."
I happened to be sitting behind the tallest guy in the whole place...I am sure many of you have been there. I actually looked around, all the way down the rows in front of me, and could not find anyone even remotely as tall as the guy that was sitting directly in front of me. And of course the fact that fans filed into the seats little by little, all the way to and above the 5th or 6th inning of play, was mentioned ,with a surly scrawl.
There were few Seattle fans out there in the bleachers, but they were there. One of them completely "ran the gauntlet" as he took the stairs all the way up to the top, and heard it from the rowdy mob step by step. Another Seattle fan was greeted with a "Seattle jerkoff" tag, and told to "step on a mine." I later remarked that "Seattle hats flying all over" so there must have been more of them out there than I implied, and by the end of the night they were lid-less.
"Fu*k you, Buhner!" was an epitaph that got through, as I remarked on a remarkable lack of security out there. There were innings at a time where there was stone-cold NONE. Of course, that would change in later years. Vince Coleman was met with a loud, "shoulda stayed with the Mets, you fu*king prick!" Tina gleefully added, "you fu*king National League piece of shit!" Ken Griffey Jr was also "ripped" just so he would not feel left out.
It was a little disheartening to see The infamous "Wave" making its way around the Stadium during a playoff game. And humiliating, no way for a Yankee fan to behave. I am shocked and appalled. To top all of this off, there was a smattering of rain throughout the game, dunking the 57,178 on hand.
I heard a great quip regarding the quick shot off a weedy one-hitter, as someone said, "check him out getting high on the handy horn."
One of our friends who carted beer let us know that once this season finally wrapped up, he would not longer be around. "Don't retire" we pleaded in earnest. "We're already short beer guys." Playoff game or no, Crazy Devil Fan Billy was regaling us with his tales of visiting the Dawg Pound in Cleveland, and how he had a picture at home where fully half of them were giving him the finger. When we said that was nothing special cause we did the same thing to him he added, "the other half were throwing shit at me."
Yankees won this one 9-6, of course, with David Cone pitching 8 before John Wetteland made it interesting in a bad way in his one inning of work, giving up 2 runs on 3 hits and a walk. It got so bad that when Wetteland ran up 2 strikes on someone one of our fellow fans snarled, "one more, dickhead!"
Yankees had home runs from Wade Boggs and Ruben Sierra, with Boggs, Sierra, and Bernie each driving in 2. Chris Bosio started and was rocked by the Yankees, and was followed by Jolly Jeff Nelson, my archnemesis Bobby Ayala, Bill Risley, and Bob Wells, a complete facial clone of Ayala.
The Yankee lineup for this first playoff game in eons was 3B Boggs, CF BW, RF O'Neill, DH Sierra, 1B Mattingly, LF James, C Stanley, SS Fernandez, 2B Velarde. The Mariners countered with LF Coleman, 2B Cora, CF Griffey, DH E Martinez, 1B Tino, RF Buhner, 3B Blowers, C Wilson, and SS, our friend, Luis Sojo.
Game slogged along, played in 3:38, and your umpires on hand were Mike Reilly, Dale Scott, Jim McKean, Larry McCoy, Jim Joyce, and Rich Garcia.
Thanks for reading!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
October 3rd, 1995 - Yankees host Seattle
GAME 1 - Wild Card 1995
"check him out, getting high on the handy horn."
Its ironic, I actually flipped on a Yankeeography the other night (I generally avoid them, i like my pancakes with not so much 'syrup') and the subject was Don Mattingly, and they went into depth about the crowd reaction when he took the field on this fateful night. I remembered all of that but it was nice to watch it again. I do remember a lot of things regarding that game...it was only in later playoff games in later playoff runs where I would get sloshed.
In a prophetic note I wrote "Beginning of a Run" in the "Date" section, and oh, was it ever the beginning of a run, for the Yankees and we fans that merrily followed along.
I was very cogent of my surroundings on this night, as although the scorecard is full it is legible (attributed to little to no drinking) and therefore not the funniest card I had seen. There was business at hand! In the intro section on the card I also remarked on the "bunting" we would get to know so well in future years, and that I forgot my friend, the little stuffed bear "Bear Ass", an inexcusable faux pas, as the Yankees were 11-1 with my furry friend on hand.
This was a year where we had our tickets taken care of us beforehand, as during the last game of the season elder George and Queen Bee Tina had gone up to the Yankee offices with $600 or so, cash money, and secured our ducats. This was a wonderful and pretty much exclusive privelage which died in later years, mainly cause some of us could not keep our fu*king mouths shut.
Before the game a "mystery guy" in a Seattle uniform was down and hurt on the warning track. Took a BP fly off the noodle, apparently. We later learned who it was, but it never made the scorecard, and its now lost to time.
They actually carted out what was then an 11 year old to sing the Anthem, which bought snickers and some groans. I mean, really, this was the best they could do? Joe DiMaggio threw out the first pitch, and we all remarked how nice it was to see the Yankee Clipper. I tagged on the names not eligible for this rounds go-around, including - lol - Jeter, Mariano, Melido Perez, Jimmy Key, and the other Joltin' Joe, Mr. Ausanio. I noted one thing from the introductions, the fact that Steve Howe was "booed." Of course, by this point whenever he entered a game someone would invariably mutter, "Howe big a disaster is this?"
We were letting all of our friends and familiars nudge in with us no matter where their ticket was, and the seats were packed, but you guys all know that well. Nothing new. I actually kept my headphones on that night, and listened to the WABC-Radio feed during the game, which bought me a lot of little bon mots and pearls of wisdom that I added to the card. It also screwed up the normal run of jokes I would have heard and later shared.
For one thing, if I marked this correctly, the Yankees were 10-15 on the season if Randy Velarde was not in the starting lineup. Who woulda knew? During much of the game you could hear a lone voice chirping up in favor of Seattle over the radio feed, causing John Sterling to muse, "99.9% of those on hand are rooting for the Yankees...the other .1% is right here next to me." I got to hear the always smarmy Michael Kay, then Sterlings running buddy in the booth, refer to someone as a "dolt", as he broke that one out when a fan ran onto the field during the evenings proceedings.
People were ID'ing me across the board, with one fan telling me I looked like Don Mattingly, and another fan mistaking me for "Cousin Brewski." "Got the night off?" he asked, patting me on the back. In a little hilarity old Cowbell King Ali swiped Fat Daddy Chico's walker and hid it up by us, shrugging and explaining, "Chico can roll his ass out of here."
Your regular quips were flying from 39. After a call that did not go our way someone moaned, "all this money you got, Steinbrenner, and you can't buy the ump?" I mentioned that the Mayor was taking what was soon to be the obligatory trip to the radio booth, which raised a, "thats why the city sucks." Someone even found the time to mention that Gloria Estafan was "accident-prone."
I happened to be sitting behind the tallest guy in the whole place...I am sure many of you have been there. I actually looked around, all the way down the rows in front of me, and could not find anyone even remotely as tall as the guy that was sitting directly in front of me. And of course the fact that fans filed into the seats little by little, all the way to and above the 5th or 6th inning of play, was mentioned ,with a surly scrawl.
There were few Seattle fans out there in the bleachers, but they were there. One of them completely "ran the gauntlet" as he took the stairs all the way up to the top, and heard it from the rowdy mob step by step. Another Seattle fan was greeted with a "Seattle jerkoff" tag, and told to "step on a mine." I later remarked that "Seattle hats flying all over" so there must have been more of them out there than I implied, and by the end of the night they were lid-less.
"Fu*k you, Buhner!" was an epitaph that got through, as I remarked on a remarkable lack of security out there. There were innings at a time where there was stone-cold NONE. Of course, that would change in later years. Vince Coleman was met with a loud, "shoulda stayed with the Mets, you fu*king prick!" Tina gleefully added, "you fu*king National League piece of shit!" Ken Griffey Jr was also "ripped" just so he would not feel left out.
It was a little disheartening to see The infamous "Wave" making its way around the Stadium during a playoff game. And humiliating, no way for a Yankee fan to behave. I am shocked and appalled. To top all of this off, there was a smattering of rain throughout the game, dunking the 57,178 on hand.
I heard a great quip regarding the quick shot off a weedy one-hitter, as someone said, "check him out getting high on the handy horn."
One of our friends who carted beer let us know that once this season finally wrapped up, he would not longer be around. "Don't retire" we pleaded in earnest. "We're already short beer guys." Playoff game or no, Crazy Devil Fan Billy was regaling us with his tales of visiting the Dawg Pound in Cleveland, and how he had a picture at home where fully half of them were giving him the finger. When we said that was nothing special cause we did the same thing to him he added, "the other half were throwing shit at me."
Yankees won this one 9-6, of course, with David Cone pitching 8 before John Wetteland made it interesting in a bad way in his one inning of work, giving up 2 runs on 3 hits and a walk. It got so bad that when Wetteland ran up 2 strikes on someone one of our fellow fans snarled, "one more, dickhead!"
Yankees had home runs from Wade Boggs and Ruben Sierra, with Boggs, Sierra, and Bernie each driving in 2. Chris Bosio started and was rocked by the Yankees, and was followed by Jolly Jeff Nelson, my archnemesis Bobby Ayala, Bill Risley, and Bob Wells, a complete facial clone of Ayala.
The Yankee lineup for this first playoff game in eons was 3B Boggs, CF BW, RF O'Neill, DH Sierra, 1B Mattingly, LF James, C Stanley, SS Fernandez, 2B Velarde. The Mariners countered with LF Coleman, 2B Cora, CF Griffey, DH E Martinez, 1B Tino, RF Buhner, 3B Blowers, C Wilson, and SS, our friend, Luis Sojo.
Game slogged along, played in 3:38, and your umpires on hand were Mike Reilly, Dale Scott, Jim McKean, Larry McCoy, Jim Joyce, and Rich Garcia.
Thanks for reading!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Monday, November 22, 2010
September 23rd, 1995 - Im 48 sheets to the wind!
September 23rd, 1995 - Yankees host Detroit
A double-dipper! End of regular season, bitch!
Contrary to popular belief, I was not 3 sheets to the wind on this day. I was 48 sheets to the wind. At one point on this scorecard someone blamed it on Gang Bang Steve and admonished, "Steve, why did you let him get SO drunk?"
This was an old trick of mine in which I am not proud, but years after the fact as I lounged at my computer table chattering with my daughter, who was drawing on her leap pad to my left as I first prepped this blog entry, I can laugh about it. I used to get bombed even before game one, and hear the inevitable, "um, you got 7 more hours to go, dude" as I was helped up the stairs. During one legendary doubleheader a couple of my cronies got tired of holding me up and walked me outside to "get some air." I ended up going to sleep on the sidewalk, where people shuffled around me for the next 30 minutes before I woke up in time for game 2.
But I digress, lets go to 9/23/95, shall we?
Top left margin was pretty clear cut, as Steve crytically penned, "Tom is seriously drunk." So this entire card was his baby, I did not even attempt to write the lineups, which I often did even under the influence, in comic fashion. Someone else who had taken one look at me said and transcribed for posterity "this is going to be an ugly day."
Ugly enough that early on a fan in the box seats, who was under verbal attack, snapped the finger at us and was booted for his efforts. This is the sort you hope came all the way in from Monticello for the day, only to get thrown out 3 innings into the first game of a doubleheader. What a tool. But it was even uglier before the game started as none other than Meatloaf sauntered onto the field to sing the National Anthem. "Meatloaf?" someone whined. "I'd rather have steak."
Steve was actually enough on point to mention my little bon mot about the Yankees being 9-1 with my teddy bear "Bear Ass" in attendance. By the end of this day they would make that 11-1, and the playoff possibilities were endless. But for the rest of the day Steve simply kept to the business at hand, the game, and did not really get into the bufoonery around us in the bleachers. With me essentially out of commission there may not have been much.
So I wont get too deep into Game 1, aside from telling you that the Yankees won 5-2 with David Cone besting Jose Lima (2-9 in his first year of regular work) John Wetteland notched save 28, striking out the side in the 9th, and Ruben Sierra hit a Yankee jack. Your Yankee lineup was 3B Boggs, CF BW, RF O'Neill, DH Sierra, LF James, 1B Mattingly, C Stanley, SS Velarde, and 2B Jughead. Tigers countered with CF Curtis, SS Gomez, 3B Fryman, DH Fielder, 1B Clark, RF rookie Bobby Higginson, LF Phil Nevin, C John Flaherty, and 2B Steve Rodriguez. (lol) - Lima was followed on the mound by Greg Gohr, Dwayne Henry, and Ben Blomdahl. I mean, why even bother showing up if thats what you are going to parade out there?
GAME 2
I seem to have come around a bit, although Steve wrote "Tom's still piss drunk." For some reason this game was scored on yellow paper. I had some cool scoresheets I had run through and i had taken to photocopying more, but for some reason I went with the mustard hue. To celebrate the last regular season game I would attend in 95? Who the Hell knows, but it does look ghastly.
I actually managed to pick up the pen during game 2, but added nothing, really. I wrote "Curtis sucks" and "Sweep!" I also mentioned we started a "Central Park Killers!" chant at a band of brigands hanging around the railing. We were in the mood to compare fans with criminals I see, as there was also a Unabomber chant.
Other notes of interest - Steve sang a "good" Gang Bang, a man was walking around with a sticker on his back, Curtis "looked at us", and a stringent observation by Steve that "there's an asshole born every day." The old even then line of "Higginson, you suck so bad you aren't even in the video game" was dusted off.
At one point, with yet another beer in hand, I lifted it up for a toast, waving Bear Ass around in my other hand, and announced (or I should say slurred) "this is the best $6 I spent this year."
Yankees won this too, notching Bear Ass's mark in attendance to a cool 11-1. This was a 3-1 win, behind Scott Kamienieki of all people. He evened up his season mark to a middling 6-6. Wetteland fanned 2 in the 9th for his 29th save, so he pitched a perfect 2 on the day, fanning 5 of the 6 men that came up to face him. Then again, this WAS the Tigers..
For the Tigers Felipe Lira was the hardluck loser, and he had the ignomity of being followed by Brian Bohanon, Brian Maxcy, and Mike Meyers. Lira especially had a fun day, throwing two wild pitches and plunking Jughead Kelly. The Yankee lineup facing the Bengal arms in game 2 was 3B Boggs, CF BW, LF O'Neill, DH Sierra, a rare appearance by Strawberry in RF, 1B Mattingly, C Leyritz, SS Velarde, and 2B Jughead Kelly. The Tigers "countered" with CF Curtis, SS the aged Allan Trammel, 3B Fryman, DH Fielder, 1B rookie Tony Clark, RF Higginson, LF Phil Nevin, 2B Scott Fletcher, and C Ron Tingley.
Sad day for the city of Detroit, 9/23/95, cause not only were their Tigers getting swept in New York, but fabled Tiger alum Lance Parrish was wrapping up his great career in a Toronto Blue Gay uniform, out at Fenway on this Saturday.
I was not going to do a profile, but seeing Ron Tingley's name made me laugh, so he it is. A good old "backup catcher" that managed only one seasons worth of ABs (563) in only 278 games over parts of NINE seasons of mlb baseball. First appeared in 1982 (!) in 8 games for the Padres of all teams, then dissapeared until showing up for the Angels in 1988 (where he stuck around till 93) - he split 94 between Florida and the Chisox, and closed the curtain in 1995 for the Tigers, where he batted .226 in his second-largest amount of ABs in his career (124)
Overall he left the game with a lifetime .195 average - holy fu*k! - with 10 homers and 55 RBIs. Walked 54 times and fanned 165, a ridiculous number. Stole 2 bases over time, and was nailed 5 times. What the Hell was he doing running? This is the kind of guy that was always fun to watch. 10th round draft pick in 1977 by the Padres, he was born in 1959 in that baseball hotbed of Maine. Baseballreference.com page had 1,613 hits as of 11/22/2010. Goodnight Mr. Tinsley, wherever you are!
There were an announced 36,248 on hand for this twinbill, with game 1 being played in 2:44 and game 2 being played in a hyper 2:38. I dont think the Tigers wanted to be there...your umpires on the day were none other than Rich Garcia, Dale Ford, Larry Young, and Mike Reilly.
Thanks for reading, and the regular season on 1995 is a freakin' wrap! Stick around for playoff action!
RON TINGLEY!
A double-dipper! End of regular season, bitch!
Contrary to popular belief, I was not 3 sheets to the wind on this day. I was 48 sheets to the wind. At one point on this scorecard someone blamed it on Gang Bang Steve and admonished, "Steve, why did you let him get SO drunk?"
This was an old trick of mine in which I am not proud, but years after the fact as I lounged at my computer table chattering with my daughter, who was drawing on her leap pad to my left as I first prepped this blog entry, I can laugh about it. I used to get bombed even before game one, and hear the inevitable, "um, you got 7 more hours to go, dude" as I was helped up the stairs. During one legendary doubleheader a couple of my cronies got tired of holding me up and walked me outside to "get some air." I ended up going to sleep on the sidewalk, where people shuffled around me for the next 30 minutes before I woke up in time for game 2.
But I digress, lets go to 9/23/95, shall we?
Top left margin was pretty clear cut, as Steve crytically penned, "Tom is seriously drunk." So this entire card was his baby, I did not even attempt to write the lineups, which I often did even under the influence, in comic fashion. Someone else who had taken one look at me said and transcribed for posterity "this is going to be an ugly day."
Ugly enough that early on a fan in the box seats, who was under verbal attack, snapped the finger at us and was booted for his efforts. This is the sort you hope came all the way in from Monticello for the day, only to get thrown out 3 innings into the first game of a doubleheader. What a tool. But it was even uglier before the game started as none other than Meatloaf sauntered onto the field to sing the National Anthem. "Meatloaf?" someone whined. "I'd rather have steak."
Steve was actually enough on point to mention my little bon mot about the Yankees being 9-1 with my teddy bear "Bear Ass" in attendance. By the end of this day they would make that 11-1, and the playoff possibilities were endless. But for the rest of the day Steve simply kept to the business at hand, the game, and did not really get into the bufoonery around us in the bleachers. With me essentially out of commission there may not have been much.
So I wont get too deep into Game 1, aside from telling you that the Yankees won 5-2 with David Cone besting Jose Lima (2-9 in his first year of regular work) John Wetteland notched save 28, striking out the side in the 9th, and Ruben Sierra hit a Yankee jack. Your Yankee lineup was 3B Boggs, CF BW, RF O'Neill, DH Sierra, LF James, 1B Mattingly, C Stanley, SS Velarde, and 2B Jughead. Tigers countered with CF Curtis, SS Gomez, 3B Fryman, DH Fielder, 1B Clark, RF rookie Bobby Higginson, LF Phil Nevin, C John Flaherty, and 2B Steve Rodriguez. (lol) - Lima was followed on the mound by Greg Gohr, Dwayne Henry, and Ben Blomdahl. I mean, why even bother showing up if thats what you are going to parade out there?
GAME 2
I seem to have come around a bit, although Steve wrote "Tom's still piss drunk." For some reason this game was scored on yellow paper. I had some cool scoresheets I had run through and i had taken to photocopying more, but for some reason I went with the mustard hue. To celebrate the last regular season game I would attend in 95? Who the Hell knows, but it does look ghastly.
I actually managed to pick up the pen during game 2, but added nothing, really. I wrote "Curtis sucks" and "Sweep!" I also mentioned we started a "Central Park Killers!" chant at a band of brigands hanging around the railing. We were in the mood to compare fans with criminals I see, as there was also a Unabomber chant.
Other notes of interest - Steve sang a "good" Gang Bang, a man was walking around with a sticker on his back, Curtis "looked at us", and a stringent observation by Steve that "there's an asshole born every day." The old even then line of "Higginson, you suck so bad you aren't even in the video game" was dusted off.
At one point, with yet another beer in hand, I lifted it up for a toast, waving Bear Ass around in my other hand, and announced (or I should say slurred) "this is the best $6 I spent this year."
Yankees won this too, notching Bear Ass's mark in attendance to a cool 11-1. This was a 3-1 win, behind Scott Kamienieki of all people. He evened up his season mark to a middling 6-6. Wetteland fanned 2 in the 9th for his 29th save, so he pitched a perfect 2 on the day, fanning 5 of the 6 men that came up to face him. Then again, this WAS the Tigers..
For the Tigers Felipe Lira was the hardluck loser, and he had the ignomity of being followed by Brian Bohanon, Brian Maxcy, and Mike Meyers. Lira especially had a fun day, throwing two wild pitches and plunking Jughead Kelly. The Yankee lineup facing the Bengal arms in game 2 was 3B Boggs, CF BW, LF O'Neill, DH Sierra, a rare appearance by Strawberry in RF, 1B Mattingly, C Leyritz, SS Velarde, and 2B Jughead Kelly. The Tigers "countered" with CF Curtis, SS the aged Allan Trammel, 3B Fryman, DH Fielder, 1B rookie Tony Clark, RF Higginson, LF Phil Nevin, 2B Scott Fletcher, and C Ron Tingley.
Sad day for the city of Detroit, 9/23/95, cause not only were their Tigers getting swept in New York, but fabled Tiger alum Lance Parrish was wrapping up his great career in a Toronto Blue Gay uniform, out at Fenway on this Saturday.
I was not going to do a profile, but seeing Ron Tingley's name made me laugh, so he it is. A good old "backup catcher" that managed only one seasons worth of ABs (563) in only 278 games over parts of NINE seasons of mlb baseball. First appeared in 1982 (!) in 8 games for the Padres of all teams, then dissapeared until showing up for the Angels in 1988 (where he stuck around till 93) - he split 94 between Florida and the Chisox, and closed the curtain in 1995 for the Tigers, where he batted .226 in his second-largest amount of ABs in his career (124)
Overall he left the game with a lifetime .195 average - holy fu*k! - with 10 homers and 55 RBIs. Walked 54 times and fanned 165, a ridiculous number. Stole 2 bases over time, and was nailed 5 times. What the Hell was he doing running? This is the kind of guy that was always fun to watch. 10th round draft pick in 1977 by the Padres, he was born in 1959 in that baseball hotbed of Maine. Baseballreference.com page had 1,613 hits as of 11/22/2010. Goodnight Mr. Tinsley, wherever you are!
There were an announced 36,248 on hand for this twinbill, with game 1 being played in 2:44 and game 2 being played in a hyper 2:38. I dont think the Tigers wanted to be there...your umpires on the day were none other than Rich Garcia, Dale Ford, Larry Young, and Mike Reilly.
Thanks for reading, and the regular season on 1995 is a freakin' wrap! Stick around for playoff action!
RON TINGLEY!
Friday, November 19, 2010
September 22nd, 1995 - "This is a Ramily Section! Rit down!"
September 22nd, 1995 - Yankees host Blow Jays
"Sit down, you big booty bitch!"
A Friday night at the Stadium, with the wildcard there for the taking. Lets get on with it.
I must make immediate note of one of the funnier little ditties we came up with out there, a nod to nondescript Yankee reliever Rob MacDonald. Sung to the tune of, what else, Old McDonald Had a Farm. Here goes...
"Rob MacDonald has no arm" (alternated with "Rob MacDonald gave up a bomb") with the tagline chorus being "with an oh, fu*k here, and an oh shit there" -pretty solid stuff from amatuer songsmiths such as ourselves!
Before the game Orlando Cepeda of all people was on the field getting some sort of award or gushing over some cause, and he never seemed to leave. "What, did he take up residence on the field?" someone finallly snarled. A fan was out there with one of those party bags of potato chips, selling the chips in there for $1.75 a bag. He sold his chips, but took a lot of grief while doing so. Some tart then marched out on the field and butchered the national anthem, causing us to wait for the announcement of, as someone groused, "another moment of silence, to mourn the passing of our National Anthem."
How times have changed....someone ticked off the names of the Yankee starting pitchers of Cone, McDowell, Pettitte, Key and Hitchcock and bitched they were making "20 million." Damn, these days that would have only paid for one of them. A few people were pissed off at Key, and someone actually was clamoring for his "release" out there. Stunning.
The law was in full force out there in Section 39 that night. First two kids who had to be around 16 or 17 years old were busted for drinking beer right in front of the security guards. There is something to be said for "act like you belong there or should be doing it and you may get away with it" but, Jesus Christ, these kids did not look old enough to get into a rated R movie, yet alone drink beer. Someone up by us (name withheld or never tabbed at the time) was busted "smoking pot" which caused Sandy the Latina to go bezerk, so it was probably one of the vanful of people she bought along with her. Another in that group, her young daughter Christina, stole my teddy bear "Bear Ass" that night, and held him hostage most of the game.
Our gangly friend Bird was making messes, first knocking over someones beer and then talking the ear off of a security guy against the rail, which bought a heavy downpour of "sit the fu*k downs!" and "fly away, Bird!" 's. Even old Ali the Keeper of the Cowbell got into it, turning to us and snarling, "Bird makes me sick."
Speaking of Ali, already, in 1995, there was talk about what to do with the bell once Ali was no longer around. Although it sadly turns out that he was merely 7 months from his passing, one would not know it as he was a walking party in a ballroom. Queen Bee Tina went so far as to describe a "ceremony" to pass the bell when the time ever came. Mmm, dont remember it transitioning so formally when "Mo Love" Milton took over the important duties that carry to this day.
An Asian fellow was bitching about us and our boisterous behavior to anyone who would listen, and even took a trip to the rail himself to rat us out. For all I know, he could have been the one that pegged the marijuana smoker. People mocked him, of course, he being an easy target Asian and all. "This is a Ramily Section" we smirked. "Rit down."
One funny crack was directed to a busty Latina that was dancing on the seats between innings. "Sit down, you big booty bitch!" someone shouted, adding "you take it up the ass!" Soon enough, though, people were clamoring for her to stand up, with her exotic dances that many of us had seemingly never been privvy to. After Shawn Green doubled in the 9th to make the Yankee lead tenous someone was able to see the bright side of things, as the ball skipped into the corner and bounced around. "Well, at least that got her to stand up again."
After the game ended people were watching her gather her things, getting ready to go, mentioning how they felt they just had a free showing of a "latin porn." As she passed old school Elder George on the way down the steps he sincerely told her, "thanks for not charging us."
Lots of mentions of a security guard named Harold out there, especially on a night like this when things seemed out of control to a point. I actually noted on here that at this point in late 1995 he honestly did not know who Derek Jeter was, although he worked the Stadium. Well, what did we expect, as we noted that he seemed to have an unhealthy obsession with Sandy's daughter Christina. Unhealthy as in I am not even sure she was in double figures in age...we were watching a lovely Latina dance around and here was Harold, feeding Christina potato chips and having a pretend conversation with my stuffed animal "Bear Ass", who was firmly in her grip. Christina herself was very funny, at one point marching up to Tina and saying, "you bleacher bimbo." Someone coached her well.
Some yoke was hanging around, wearing a football jersey with the # 85 on it, and he had to hear the old, "what's 85, the last time you got laid?" Someone than chirped, "nah, thats what he paid for it."
This was one of the very few occassions I was on hand for a homer that dropped in a 2 or 3 seat radius of where I happened to be. It was off the bat of Ruben Sierra, a 3-run bomb in the 8th that basically put it in the books for the Yankees. I remember watching it off the bat, muttering, "looks like it is coming this way.....coming right here....holy shit, thats coming to me." Well, I did not get it, I was knocked down by the wave reaching for it, but I still remember that shot for sure.
Looking at the scorecard I see we played with the names in the lineups again, a little. Ed Sprague was "Ocean" Sprague, and Shawn Green was "Queen" Green. Of course Oleruds name came with a "nice helmet ya got there!" attached to it. Funny moment on the REAL scoreboard, as when Green batted for the first time Roberto Alomar's sketchy looking visage smiled down on us next to Greens stats in err.
I used to have real chops back then, and screamed Mattingly's name a few times during the game. This was pre-roll call, but I got Mattingly to turn around and give a little wave. But even as he was doing that, a ton of people were turning to one another out there and shaking their heads, talking about "Mattingly's last stand." We knew it was done for him.
Yankees pulled this one out, 6-4, behind a litany of pitchers. Jack McDowell started and was beaten about a bit before he left in the 5th. MacDonald came on, and despite our mocking song, caused no harm. Wickman, Howe, and Wetteland finished up, with Howe notching the W and Wetteland the save. For the bats, the Yankees had 11 hits, with Boggs, Sierra and Velarde having 2. The big hit was Sierra's 3-run gift to us in right. Your Yankee lineup was 3B Boggs, CF BW, RF O'Neill, DH Sierra, LF James, 1B Mattingly, C Stanley, SS Velarde, and 2B Jughead Kelly.
Paul Menhart (lol) started for the Jays, and went 7, giving up 10 hits and leaving the hardluck loser. Mike Timlin, a longtime bleacher nemesis, wrapped up for Toronto. The Jays mustered 9 hits of thier own, and Green had 3 of them. Alomar and Olerud also had multi-hit games, with Olerud driving in 3. The Jay lineup was 2B Alomar, DH Molitor, CF Carter (in center!), 1B Olerud, 3B Sprague, RF Green, LF Delgado (lol - Delgado in LEFT!), C Sandy Martinez, and SS Tomas Perez.
For our profile lets go with the esteemable Mr. Menhart. Did not stick around long, but played the vagabond. A year in Toronto, a year in Seattle, and a year in San Diego. It all added up to 41 games (23 in starts) and a lifetime tally of 5-9. A sickly 5.47 ERA, thanks to his 100 earned runs allowed in 164 plus innings of work. In that time he was lit up for 169 hits, and walked 85 to 90 strikeouts. It all started so promising, he was a 9th round draft choice by Toronto in 1990 out of Western Carolina University, a school that bought us the likes of Wayne Tolleson. 95 was indeed his rookie campaign, and Mehnart can always say he was involved in a trade for Miguel Cairo, in December 95. His page on Baseballreference.com has only had 1,455. I bet 1,200 are from people with the last name Menhart. I am happy to have seen him work!!
As for the 21st, the Thursday night game was played in 3:03, in front of only 17,766 fans. Considering the Yankees were clawing for a playoff spot, that is pathetic. No wonder Mattingly was able to hear me at first. Your umpires on the evening were Dan Morrison, Al Clark, Larry Barnett, Greg Kosc.
Thanks for reading!!
PAUL MENHART! GIVE HIM A HAND!
"Sit down, you big booty bitch!"
A Friday night at the Stadium, with the wildcard there for the taking. Lets get on with it.
I must make immediate note of one of the funnier little ditties we came up with out there, a nod to nondescript Yankee reliever Rob MacDonald. Sung to the tune of, what else, Old McDonald Had a Farm. Here goes...
"Rob MacDonald has no arm" (alternated with "Rob MacDonald gave up a bomb") with the tagline chorus being "with an oh, fu*k here, and an oh shit there" -pretty solid stuff from amatuer songsmiths such as ourselves!
Before the game Orlando Cepeda of all people was on the field getting some sort of award or gushing over some cause, and he never seemed to leave. "What, did he take up residence on the field?" someone finallly snarled. A fan was out there with one of those party bags of potato chips, selling the chips in there for $1.75 a bag. He sold his chips, but took a lot of grief while doing so. Some tart then marched out on the field and butchered the national anthem, causing us to wait for the announcement of, as someone groused, "another moment of silence, to mourn the passing of our National Anthem."
How times have changed....someone ticked off the names of the Yankee starting pitchers of Cone, McDowell, Pettitte, Key and Hitchcock and bitched they were making "20 million." Damn, these days that would have only paid for one of them. A few people were pissed off at Key, and someone actually was clamoring for his "release" out there. Stunning.
The law was in full force out there in Section 39 that night. First two kids who had to be around 16 or 17 years old were busted for drinking beer right in front of the security guards. There is something to be said for "act like you belong there or should be doing it and you may get away with it" but, Jesus Christ, these kids did not look old enough to get into a rated R movie, yet alone drink beer. Someone up by us (name withheld or never tabbed at the time) was busted "smoking pot" which caused Sandy the Latina to go bezerk, so it was probably one of the vanful of people she bought along with her. Another in that group, her young daughter Christina, stole my teddy bear "Bear Ass" that night, and held him hostage most of the game.
Our gangly friend Bird was making messes, first knocking over someones beer and then talking the ear off of a security guy against the rail, which bought a heavy downpour of "sit the fu*k downs!" and "fly away, Bird!" 's. Even old Ali the Keeper of the Cowbell got into it, turning to us and snarling, "Bird makes me sick."
Speaking of Ali, already, in 1995, there was talk about what to do with the bell once Ali was no longer around. Although it sadly turns out that he was merely 7 months from his passing, one would not know it as he was a walking party in a ballroom. Queen Bee Tina went so far as to describe a "ceremony" to pass the bell when the time ever came. Mmm, dont remember it transitioning so formally when "Mo Love" Milton took over the important duties that carry to this day.
An Asian fellow was bitching about us and our boisterous behavior to anyone who would listen, and even took a trip to the rail himself to rat us out. For all I know, he could have been the one that pegged the marijuana smoker. People mocked him, of course, he being an easy target Asian and all. "This is a Ramily Section" we smirked. "Rit down."
One funny crack was directed to a busty Latina that was dancing on the seats between innings. "Sit down, you big booty bitch!" someone shouted, adding "you take it up the ass!" Soon enough, though, people were clamoring for her to stand up, with her exotic dances that many of us had seemingly never been privvy to. After Shawn Green doubled in the 9th to make the Yankee lead tenous someone was able to see the bright side of things, as the ball skipped into the corner and bounced around. "Well, at least that got her to stand up again."
After the game ended people were watching her gather her things, getting ready to go, mentioning how they felt they just had a free showing of a "latin porn." As she passed old school Elder George on the way down the steps he sincerely told her, "thanks for not charging us."
Lots of mentions of a security guard named Harold out there, especially on a night like this when things seemed out of control to a point. I actually noted on here that at this point in late 1995 he honestly did not know who Derek Jeter was, although he worked the Stadium. Well, what did we expect, as we noted that he seemed to have an unhealthy obsession with Sandy's daughter Christina. Unhealthy as in I am not even sure she was in double figures in age...we were watching a lovely Latina dance around and here was Harold, feeding Christina potato chips and having a pretend conversation with my stuffed animal "Bear Ass", who was firmly in her grip. Christina herself was very funny, at one point marching up to Tina and saying, "you bleacher bimbo." Someone coached her well.
Some yoke was hanging around, wearing a football jersey with the # 85 on it, and he had to hear the old, "what's 85, the last time you got laid?" Someone than chirped, "nah, thats what he paid for it."
This was one of the very few occassions I was on hand for a homer that dropped in a 2 or 3 seat radius of where I happened to be. It was off the bat of Ruben Sierra, a 3-run bomb in the 8th that basically put it in the books for the Yankees. I remember watching it off the bat, muttering, "looks like it is coming this way.....coming right here....holy shit, thats coming to me." Well, I did not get it, I was knocked down by the wave reaching for it, but I still remember that shot for sure.
Looking at the scorecard I see we played with the names in the lineups again, a little. Ed Sprague was "Ocean" Sprague, and Shawn Green was "Queen" Green. Of course Oleruds name came with a "nice helmet ya got there!" attached to it. Funny moment on the REAL scoreboard, as when Green batted for the first time Roberto Alomar's sketchy looking visage smiled down on us next to Greens stats in err.
I used to have real chops back then, and screamed Mattingly's name a few times during the game. This was pre-roll call, but I got Mattingly to turn around and give a little wave. But even as he was doing that, a ton of people were turning to one another out there and shaking their heads, talking about "Mattingly's last stand." We knew it was done for him.
Yankees pulled this one out, 6-4, behind a litany of pitchers. Jack McDowell started and was beaten about a bit before he left in the 5th. MacDonald came on, and despite our mocking song, caused no harm. Wickman, Howe, and Wetteland finished up, with Howe notching the W and Wetteland the save. For the bats, the Yankees had 11 hits, with Boggs, Sierra and Velarde having 2. The big hit was Sierra's 3-run gift to us in right. Your Yankee lineup was 3B Boggs, CF BW, RF O'Neill, DH Sierra, LF James, 1B Mattingly, C Stanley, SS Velarde, and 2B Jughead Kelly.
Paul Menhart (lol) started for the Jays, and went 7, giving up 10 hits and leaving the hardluck loser. Mike Timlin, a longtime bleacher nemesis, wrapped up for Toronto. The Jays mustered 9 hits of thier own, and Green had 3 of them. Alomar and Olerud also had multi-hit games, with Olerud driving in 3. The Jay lineup was 2B Alomar, DH Molitor, CF Carter (in center!), 1B Olerud, 3B Sprague, RF Green, LF Delgado (lol - Delgado in LEFT!), C Sandy Martinez, and SS Tomas Perez.
For our profile lets go with the esteemable Mr. Menhart. Did not stick around long, but played the vagabond. A year in Toronto, a year in Seattle, and a year in San Diego. It all added up to 41 games (23 in starts) and a lifetime tally of 5-9. A sickly 5.47 ERA, thanks to his 100 earned runs allowed in 164 plus innings of work. In that time he was lit up for 169 hits, and walked 85 to 90 strikeouts. It all started so promising, he was a 9th round draft choice by Toronto in 1990 out of Western Carolina University, a school that bought us the likes of Wayne Tolleson. 95 was indeed his rookie campaign, and Mehnart can always say he was involved in a trade for Miguel Cairo, in December 95. His page on Baseballreference.com has only had 1,455. I bet 1,200 are from people with the last name Menhart. I am happy to have seen him work!!
As for the 21st, the Thursday night game was played in 3:03, in front of only 17,766 fans. Considering the Yankees were clawing for a playoff spot, that is pathetic. No wonder Mattingly was able to hear me at first. Your umpires on the evening were Dan Morrison, Al Clark, Larry Barnett, Greg Kosc.
Thanks for reading!!
PAUL MENHART! GIVE HIM A HAND!
Thursday, November 18, 2010
September 20th, 1995 - Ali needs that marijuana!
September 20th, 1995 - Yankees host Toronto
"He would smoke out of that bell if he could"
This appeared to be a wacky night. I cant believe some of the crap I am seeing on this scorecard.
Old Ali, the Keeper of the Cowbell, was a centerpiece on this night. He started the "Hip Hip, You're Gay!" with a random holler chant, even. He admitted to a bunch of us that he needed "some of that marijuana smoke" to "really go crazy on the bell." When we laughed him off Queen Bee Tina said, "no, its true. He would smoke out of that bell if he could." At one point, feeling the mood, Ali even handed off his bell for a beer vendor to clang in fervor. I got caught up in it and yelled "YANKEES Suck!" really loud, obviously in error during the chorus, totally screwing up as I was drunk. I took the appropriate amount of heat the rest of the night.
The night started off on a funny note, as Laura Branigan of all people sung the National Anthem. I guess Gloria Estafan was busy that night. While she (or I should say the anthem itself) was cheered as she was going off the field, she was booed heading on to it. Someone had a "Bleachers Suck" sign, and he was IN the bleachers. That, predictably enough, did not go over well.
It was "Long Island Firefighters Night" at the Stadium, and I remember getting all excited that I saw someone way down and way to the right in the same old black and yellow snazzy windbreaker jacket I was issued back in my Wyandanch Fire Department days. I finally put down my beer and made the long trek over there to see which friend of mine it was, and saw he was not even in my department. But I saw that they did indeed have the same exact color scheme and lettering inside of a cool yellow circle out there in Malverne...then a couple of innings later I noticed so did another fireman from Patchogue, and a third from Ronkonkoma later in the night on the beer line. Friggin A, didn't any fire department in Long Island have an original jacket, including my own? Geez, what a downer that was.
A buzzcutted blonde guy leaned over the loge to take a gander at us, and was met with a friendly, "jump, you fu*king Nazi!" We then turned our attentions back to the field and the idiot Robert Perez in right. "Perez, your Mom buys quarter Sun-Dew drinks!" someone howled in a friendly nod to his ethnicity. Our good friend Bird, the gangly and boring guy that everyone avoided, strolled up. "Bird, fly away already" someone grumbled.
A skinny elderly man with a white beard shuffled up the steps in sandles, and was promptly dubbed "Santa Lite." But in the true groaner of the season, and maybe of all-time, I mentioned that with all the beer that we drank, we truly made the mens room a "Urine-Nation" and wrote it on the card. Ugh....
The scoreboard filled us in on a fancy "this date in baseball" tidbit, accompanied by funny calliope music. In 1992 Mickey Morandini notched an unassisted triple play, so we ruminated on those for a while. At least we were talking baseball. The baseball talk turned to the Yankees, and Roy Firestone's recent and public observation that "Mattingly may be done." How right he was.....but I had been saying that since Opening Day, 1994. Tina, however, was already pushing him as the next manager of the Yankees. 15 years down the line, Id say she's a little off on that. At least she was ready to push him off the field, too.
The cotton candy guy was still catching shit after debuting the game before. "Hey, cotton candy, where's your clown?" someone asked. The beer guy was not spared our barbs either. While he dilly dallied on the lower reaches someone snapped, "what are you doing down there, brewing it?" When he finally started up the steps a bunch of impatient yokes, led by me, started exorting, "Run, beer guy! Run!"
"Im a a Former minor leaguer" Chris was on his "Jughead" kick when it came to Pat Kelly again, howling things like, "way to go, Jughead!", "Nice try, Jughead!" and "Kick him in the head when he slides in like that, Jughead!" We were still trying to incorporate Mike Huff's last name into obscene chants, with "Perez huffed it" being one of the lamer efforts, and a few more "huff and puff and blow" jokes. A girl was on hand with a Tenessee cap, which caused someone to crack, "You should be proud...Tenessee is the only state Arkansas can pick on."
Seven mystery outs on this thing. I seem to get worse with mystery outs as the seasons plod along. Too many distractions. Elsewhere around the circuit, history was being made as Joe Roa was making his major league debut for Cleveland, and Sam Horn and Chris Howard were both playing in their final major league contests for the Texas Rags.
We actually had a pitching duel for once, won by the Yankees and Sterling Hitchcock of all people. Fearing a misprint, I did check baseballreference.com and sure enough, he went the full 9 and gave up only a single tally (in the top of the 1st) on 6 hits and a walk through the game. Upped his mark to a piddling 9-10. Pat Hentgen was the hard luck loser, going 8 and giving up both Yankee runs in the first as well, so we saw a lot of blank frames after that early stage. After Hentgen threw 8 innings, giving up 5 hits, the nondescript Tony Castillo finished up for Toront-blow.
3 of the Yankees 5 hits were in that first inning, and this was your lineup. 3B Boggs, CF BW, RF O'Neill, DH Strawberry (who Windmill-ie Randolph got nailed at 3rd in the first), LF James, 1B Mattingly, Stanley, SS Velarde, and 2B Kelly. For the Blow Jays we saw SS Gonzalez, DH Molitor, LF Carter, 1B Olerud (nice helmet ya got there!), 3B Sprague, CF Huff, RF Perez, 2B Cedeno, and C Randy Knorr (lol)
Lets roll out a profile, and we will go with Mr. Knorr. Stuck around from 91-2001, but here were his game totals by year. 3, 8, 39, 40, 45, 37, 4, 15, 13, 15, and 34. The CONSUMATE backup catcher. 253 games total, in 11 seasons. A season and a quarters worth of at-bats, with 676, in which he mustered a cool 24 homers and 86 RBIs. It was the lifetime average of .226 that did not do him any favors. Never had more than 132 at-bats in a season, and this was the year, 95. Born 11/2/1968, he was a 10th round draft pick in 1986 by Toronto, whom he logged time for in 91-95. Moved on to Houston, Florida, Houston again, Texas, and wrapped up in Montreal. His career ended 2 days before 9/11. NEVER stole a base, but did manage to get caught once. Has become a vaunted minor league manager of note, and all with the middle name of Duane! Baseballreference.com page has 2,512 hits as of 11/18/2010. I miss him!
As for the 20th, another weak crowd of 20,541 saw a blazing quick game, played in 2:16. This may have been the quickest one I have officially scored to this point. I marked at the end of the 8th that it was only 9:47. When the game starts at 7:30 and change, you got something there. Your umpires pushing it along were Greg Kosc, Dan Morrison, Al Clark, and Larry Barnett.
Thanks for reading!
HEY! ITS RANDY KNORR!
"He would smoke out of that bell if he could"
This appeared to be a wacky night. I cant believe some of the crap I am seeing on this scorecard.
Old Ali, the Keeper of the Cowbell, was a centerpiece on this night. He started the "Hip Hip, You're Gay!" with a random holler chant, even. He admitted to a bunch of us that he needed "some of that marijuana smoke" to "really go crazy on the bell." When we laughed him off Queen Bee Tina said, "no, its true. He would smoke out of that bell if he could." At one point, feeling the mood, Ali even handed off his bell for a beer vendor to clang in fervor. I got caught up in it and yelled "YANKEES Suck!" really loud, obviously in error during the chorus, totally screwing up as I was drunk. I took the appropriate amount of heat the rest of the night.
The night started off on a funny note, as Laura Branigan of all people sung the National Anthem. I guess Gloria Estafan was busy that night. While she (or I should say the anthem itself) was cheered as she was going off the field, she was booed heading on to it. Someone had a "Bleachers Suck" sign, and he was IN the bleachers. That, predictably enough, did not go over well.
It was "Long Island Firefighters Night" at the Stadium, and I remember getting all excited that I saw someone way down and way to the right in the same old black and yellow snazzy windbreaker jacket I was issued back in my Wyandanch Fire Department days. I finally put down my beer and made the long trek over there to see which friend of mine it was, and saw he was not even in my department. But I saw that they did indeed have the same exact color scheme and lettering inside of a cool yellow circle out there in Malverne...then a couple of innings later I noticed so did another fireman from Patchogue, and a third from Ronkonkoma later in the night on the beer line. Friggin A, didn't any fire department in Long Island have an original jacket, including my own? Geez, what a downer that was.
A buzzcutted blonde guy leaned over the loge to take a gander at us, and was met with a friendly, "jump, you fu*king Nazi!" We then turned our attentions back to the field and the idiot Robert Perez in right. "Perez, your Mom buys quarter Sun-Dew drinks!" someone howled in a friendly nod to his ethnicity. Our good friend Bird, the gangly and boring guy that everyone avoided, strolled up. "Bird, fly away already" someone grumbled.
A skinny elderly man with a white beard shuffled up the steps in sandles, and was promptly dubbed "Santa Lite." But in the true groaner of the season, and maybe of all-time, I mentioned that with all the beer that we drank, we truly made the mens room a "Urine-Nation" and wrote it on the card. Ugh....
The scoreboard filled us in on a fancy "this date in baseball" tidbit, accompanied by funny calliope music. In 1992 Mickey Morandini notched an unassisted triple play, so we ruminated on those for a while. At least we were talking baseball. The baseball talk turned to the Yankees, and Roy Firestone's recent and public observation that "Mattingly may be done." How right he was.....but I had been saying that since Opening Day, 1994. Tina, however, was already pushing him as the next manager of the Yankees. 15 years down the line, Id say she's a little off on that. At least she was ready to push him off the field, too.
The cotton candy guy was still catching shit after debuting the game before. "Hey, cotton candy, where's your clown?" someone asked. The beer guy was not spared our barbs either. While he dilly dallied on the lower reaches someone snapped, "what are you doing down there, brewing it?" When he finally started up the steps a bunch of impatient yokes, led by me, started exorting, "Run, beer guy! Run!"
"Im a a Former minor leaguer" Chris was on his "Jughead" kick when it came to Pat Kelly again, howling things like, "way to go, Jughead!", "Nice try, Jughead!" and "Kick him in the head when he slides in like that, Jughead!" We were still trying to incorporate Mike Huff's last name into obscene chants, with "Perez huffed it" being one of the lamer efforts, and a few more "huff and puff and blow" jokes. A girl was on hand with a Tenessee cap, which caused someone to crack, "You should be proud...Tenessee is the only state Arkansas can pick on."
Seven mystery outs on this thing. I seem to get worse with mystery outs as the seasons plod along. Too many distractions. Elsewhere around the circuit, history was being made as Joe Roa was making his major league debut for Cleveland, and Sam Horn and Chris Howard were both playing in their final major league contests for the Texas Rags.
We actually had a pitching duel for once, won by the Yankees and Sterling Hitchcock of all people. Fearing a misprint, I did check baseballreference.com and sure enough, he went the full 9 and gave up only a single tally (in the top of the 1st) on 6 hits and a walk through the game. Upped his mark to a piddling 9-10. Pat Hentgen was the hard luck loser, going 8 and giving up both Yankee runs in the first as well, so we saw a lot of blank frames after that early stage. After Hentgen threw 8 innings, giving up 5 hits, the nondescript Tony Castillo finished up for Toront-blow.
3 of the Yankees 5 hits were in that first inning, and this was your lineup. 3B Boggs, CF BW, RF O'Neill, DH Strawberry (who Windmill-ie Randolph got nailed at 3rd in the first), LF James, 1B Mattingly, Stanley, SS Velarde, and 2B Kelly. For the Blow Jays we saw SS Gonzalez, DH Molitor, LF Carter, 1B Olerud (nice helmet ya got there!), 3B Sprague, CF Huff, RF Perez, 2B Cedeno, and C Randy Knorr (lol)
Lets roll out a profile, and we will go with Mr. Knorr. Stuck around from 91-2001, but here were his game totals by year. 3, 8, 39, 40, 45, 37, 4, 15, 13, 15, and 34. The CONSUMATE backup catcher. 253 games total, in 11 seasons. A season and a quarters worth of at-bats, with 676, in which he mustered a cool 24 homers and 86 RBIs. It was the lifetime average of .226 that did not do him any favors. Never had more than 132 at-bats in a season, and this was the year, 95. Born 11/2/1968, he was a 10th round draft pick in 1986 by Toronto, whom he logged time for in 91-95. Moved on to Houston, Florida, Houston again, Texas, and wrapped up in Montreal. His career ended 2 days before 9/11. NEVER stole a base, but did manage to get caught once. Has become a vaunted minor league manager of note, and all with the middle name of Duane! Baseballreference.com page has 2,512 hits as of 11/18/2010. I miss him!
As for the 20th, another weak crowd of 20,541 saw a blazing quick game, played in 2:16. This may have been the quickest one I have officially scored to this point. I marked at the end of the 8th that it was only 9:47. When the game starts at 7:30 and change, you got something there. Your umpires pushing it along were Greg Kosc, Dan Morrison, Al Clark, and Larry Barnett.
Thanks for reading!
HEY! ITS RANDY KNORR!
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
September 19th, 1995 - "Sticky that cotton candy up your ass!"
September 19th, 1995 - Yankees host Blow Jays
One out - One week to go
The "Last Stand." A week to go, and one game out of the wildcard. I am stunned to this day to see there were only around 15,000 on hand with the Yankees one game out of the hunt, which got a succinct "where the fu*k is everyone?" tagged on the scorecard. The temp was getting cooler, as it was noted that the grounds crew actually were not wearing thier khaki "safari shorts" on this Tuesday night, having moved on to "pants"
Not only was the mood tense, it was a bit maudlin as there was announcement before the game that a "longtime ticket taker" had died. Of course, leave it to one of us to put it in perspective. "So what?" Gang Bang Steve groused. "He never passed me no bones...no free tickets. I dont care."
But we came in giddy nonetheless...during BP a fan in the bleachers took a batted ball off the head. Chris, the self-proclaimed "former minor league ballplayer" took a gander at me grabbing a chaw of Red Man that was offered and snarled with derision, "Red Man?? If I want candy I will bring a lollipop." Ironically enough this appears to be the first appearance of Cotton Candy out there, or at least the first time we noticed it, as this scorecard is littered with nods to that concoction known as Cotton Candy. "Take that shit to the carnival!" was one, as the vendor ambled on up. "What is this, Dodger Stadium?" was another. "Stick that cotton candy up your ass!" was a third, which was later amended to "sticky that cotton candy up your ass!" since it was cotton candy and, well, you know - sticky.
In the first inning a fan stood up holding a big sign, trying to get on TV. And he did not sit down...Hell, the seats were empty, he probably was not blocking anyone, so he felt free to continue his charade. We put a clock on him...he actually stood for over 4 minutes with his sign over his head, until the inning ended. Then he put the sign away for the evening. For some reason I did not save what exactly the sign said for posterity, but I am sure it was dumb.
There was a Met fan on hand trying furtively to hide his cap from view, but we saw it and were all over him. His "Where's Waldo" backpack did not help his cause any. An ugly girl strolled by, causing someone to crack, "Shit...I would not touch her with a 4,916 foot pole." Someone told us to tone it down, as there was "family about." "Yeah, family." we mused. "A bunch of bitches, motherfu*kers...." No one was safe from our barbs....when a Latino lad did not sit down fast enough to suit us at the beginning of a frame someone shouted, "down in front, beans and rice!"
I think the price of beer was getting to us, as we had a long talk on the subject of "Beer-noculars" and the benefits of such. "Hell, 16 ounce Beer-noculars won't do it for me." someone said. "I need at least a 32 ounce telescope to hide my beer in." Soon enough it was time to heckle the Toronto contingent, and that included a "dont you wish you were still in Cleveland, you fu*k?" addressed at Mr. Joe Carter in left. Someone actually thought calling him "Joe Farter" would be funny....then again, I wrote it down on the scorecard, so I am no better.
Other minor notes of interest.....Chris and I actually sung a duet version of "Friend of Mine" and everyones favorite, Dancing Ogre guy, was on hand. So was Howard the "anti-comic" lawyer who always got a frowny face on the card. A guy named "Joe from Rock Ridge Saloon" was on hand, that was worth a mention, too. Someone actually jumped up and said, "I'll huff and puff and blow your Mom!" whatever that means, but I am going to guess it was addressed to Mr. Mike Huff in centerfield for the Blow Jays.
The Yankees actually had only 3 hits on the night, but a 5-spot in the 2nd was enough to coast them to a 5-3 win behind Andy Pettitte. Jose Guzman, starting for Toronto walked a ridiculous SIX in 1.1 innings, and therewith lie your problem for Toronto. All 5 runs were tacked to his ledger, dropping his record to a staggering 3-14. Check out this bottom 2 with Guzman on the hill...
Dion James singled, then after a Mattingly flyout to right, Leyritz walked. Velarde singled to center, driving in James. Guzman hit Pat Kelly. Boggs walked. Bernie walked. O'Neill walked. Then Guzman was lifted, and I lost track. He had also walked two in the first, but Bernie Williams helped him off the hook by getting nailed stealing, causing someone to grumble, "he couldn't steal a base with a gun in his hand."
"Walks matter." someone aptly quipped.
Mystery outs all over the place on here. 7 in the 3rd and 4th alone, when I was apparently putting on a show for the kids on hand with my prop, Bear Ass the stuffed animal. I noticed another recurring theme on these recent scorecards....for some reason I was wearing a Hawaiin Lei late in the 95 season, and it appears on every scorecard recently. I was also chewing tobacco. What a freakin' mess I was.
Here was your Yankee lineup on the night - 3B Boggs, CF BW, RF O'Neill, DH Strawberry, LF James, 1B Mattingly, C Leyritz, SS Velarde, 2B Jughead Kelly. Pettitte upped his mark to 11-8, going 8 strong, and John Wetteland finished up for his 26th save, whiffing 2 in the 9th.
Toronto only had 5 hits of their own, including home runs by SS Alex Gonzalez (in his first full season) and Joe Carter. Your Jays lineup looked like this - SS Gonzalez, DH Molitor, LF Carter, 1B Olerud (nice helmet ya got there!), 3B Sprague, CF Huff, RF Robert Perez (lol), 2B Domingo Cedeno (lol), and C Lance Parrish batting 9th. On that team, that was a Hell of an accomplishment. A young Carlos Delgado ended up pinch-hitting for Perez late in the game.
After Guzman's comedy act, the no-name tandem of Ken Robinson and Jimmy Rogers got some work in, and Mike Timlin, that doof, wrapped it up.
For the profile, lets call on Mr Domingo "brother of Andujar" Cedeno. Yet another Dominican shortstop, not so high profile. Stuck around from 93-99, honing his trade for Toronto, the Chisox (12 games in 96), Texas, Seattle and Philly. Never played in more than 113 games in a season or batted more than 365 times. With a .251 average, 15 home runs and 121 RBIs in 1219 at-bats over 429 games, you kind of get an idea why. Did not offer much up in speed either, stealing 14 but getting nailed 12 times. Talk about a roll of the dice sending the runner. Walked 83 times and struck out 280, which is also way too much. He did play everywhere, and I dont just mean his 5 stops along the way. Logged time at second, short, third, and even the outfield. DHd here and there, when everyone else was too hung over to play.
Born on 11/4/68, the lanky Dummy-in-a-can was signed out of the Dominican in 1987 by the Jays scouting machine. His Baseballreference.com page had a paltry 2,333 hits as of 11/17/2010. How can you not be happy that you saw this man in his prime!
As for the 19th, a pathetic showing of 15,772 found it within themselves to attend, and the game was played in 2:52 (it takes a long time to walk so many guys) - your umpires on hand were the esteemable Larry Barnett, Greg Kosc, Dan Morrison, and Al Clark.
Thanks for reading!
DOMINGO CEDENO, EVERYBODY!
One out - One week to go
The "Last Stand." A week to go, and one game out of the wildcard. I am stunned to this day to see there were only around 15,000 on hand with the Yankees one game out of the hunt, which got a succinct "where the fu*k is everyone?" tagged on the scorecard. The temp was getting cooler, as it was noted that the grounds crew actually were not wearing thier khaki "safari shorts" on this Tuesday night, having moved on to "pants"
Not only was the mood tense, it was a bit maudlin as there was announcement before the game that a "longtime ticket taker" had died. Of course, leave it to one of us to put it in perspective. "So what?" Gang Bang Steve groused. "He never passed me no bones...no free tickets. I dont care."
But we came in giddy nonetheless...during BP a fan in the bleachers took a batted ball off the head. Chris, the self-proclaimed "former minor league ballplayer" took a gander at me grabbing a chaw of Red Man that was offered and snarled with derision, "Red Man?? If I want candy I will bring a lollipop." Ironically enough this appears to be the first appearance of Cotton Candy out there, or at least the first time we noticed it, as this scorecard is littered with nods to that concoction known as Cotton Candy. "Take that shit to the carnival!" was one, as the vendor ambled on up. "What is this, Dodger Stadium?" was another. "Stick that cotton candy up your ass!" was a third, which was later amended to "sticky that cotton candy up your ass!" since it was cotton candy and, well, you know - sticky.
In the first inning a fan stood up holding a big sign, trying to get on TV. And he did not sit down...Hell, the seats were empty, he probably was not blocking anyone, so he felt free to continue his charade. We put a clock on him...he actually stood for over 4 minutes with his sign over his head, until the inning ended. Then he put the sign away for the evening. For some reason I did not save what exactly the sign said for posterity, but I am sure it was dumb.
There was a Met fan on hand trying furtively to hide his cap from view, but we saw it and were all over him. His "Where's Waldo" backpack did not help his cause any. An ugly girl strolled by, causing someone to crack, "Shit...I would not touch her with a 4,916 foot pole." Someone told us to tone it down, as there was "family about." "Yeah, family." we mused. "A bunch of bitches, motherfu*kers...." No one was safe from our barbs....when a Latino lad did not sit down fast enough to suit us at the beginning of a frame someone shouted, "down in front, beans and rice!"
I think the price of beer was getting to us, as we had a long talk on the subject of "Beer-noculars" and the benefits of such. "Hell, 16 ounce Beer-noculars won't do it for me." someone said. "I need at least a 32 ounce telescope to hide my beer in." Soon enough it was time to heckle the Toronto contingent, and that included a "dont you wish you were still in Cleveland, you fu*k?" addressed at Mr. Joe Carter in left. Someone actually thought calling him "Joe Farter" would be funny....then again, I wrote it down on the scorecard, so I am no better.
Other minor notes of interest.....Chris and I actually sung a duet version of "Friend of Mine" and everyones favorite, Dancing Ogre guy, was on hand. So was Howard the "anti-comic" lawyer who always got a frowny face on the card. A guy named "Joe from Rock Ridge Saloon" was on hand, that was worth a mention, too. Someone actually jumped up and said, "I'll huff and puff and blow your Mom!" whatever that means, but I am going to guess it was addressed to Mr. Mike Huff in centerfield for the Blow Jays.
The Yankees actually had only 3 hits on the night, but a 5-spot in the 2nd was enough to coast them to a 5-3 win behind Andy Pettitte. Jose Guzman, starting for Toronto walked a ridiculous SIX in 1.1 innings, and therewith lie your problem for Toronto. All 5 runs were tacked to his ledger, dropping his record to a staggering 3-14. Check out this bottom 2 with Guzman on the hill...
Dion James singled, then after a Mattingly flyout to right, Leyritz walked. Velarde singled to center, driving in James. Guzman hit Pat Kelly. Boggs walked. Bernie walked. O'Neill walked. Then Guzman was lifted, and I lost track. He had also walked two in the first, but Bernie Williams helped him off the hook by getting nailed stealing, causing someone to grumble, "he couldn't steal a base with a gun in his hand."
"Walks matter." someone aptly quipped.
Mystery outs all over the place on here. 7 in the 3rd and 4th alone, when I was apparently putting on a show for the kids on hand with my prop, Bear Ass the stuffed animal. I noticed another recurring theme on these recent scorecards....for some reason I was wearing a Hawaiin Lei late in the 95 season, and it appears on every scorecard recently. I was also chewing tobacco. What a freakin' mess I was.
Here was your Yankee lineup on the night - 3B Boggs, CF BW, RF O'Neill, DH Strawberry, LF James, 1B Mattingly, C Leyritz, SS Velarde, 2B Jughead Kelly. Pettitte upped his mark to 11-8, going 8 strong, and John Wetteland finished up for his 26th save, whiffing 2 in the 9th.
Toronto only had 5 hits of their own, including home runs by SS Alex Gonzalez (in his first full season) and Joe Carter. Your Jays lineup looked like this - SS Gonzalez, DH Molitor, LF Carter, 1B Olerud (nice helmet ya got there!), 3B Sprague, CF Huff, RF Robert Perez (lol), 2B Domingo Cedeno (lol), and C Lance Parrish batting 9th. On that team, that was a Hell of an accomplishment. A young Carlos Delgado ended up pinch-hitting for Perez late in the game.
After Guzman's comedy act, the no-name tandem of Ken Robinson and Jimmy Rogers got some work in, and Mike Timlin, that doof, wrapped it up.
For the profile, lets call on Mr Domingo "brother of Andujar" Cedeno. Yet another Dominican shortstop, not so high profile. Stuck around from 93-99, honing his trade for Toronto, the Chisox (12 games in 96), Texas, Seattle and Philly. Never played in more than 113 games in a season or batted more than 365 times. With a .251 average, 15 home runs and 121 RBIs in 1219 at-bats over 429 games, you kind of get an idea why. Did not offer much up in speed either, stealing 14 but getting nailed 12 times. Talk about a roll of the dice sending the runner. Walked 83 times and struck out 280, which is also way too much. He did play everywhere, and I dont just mean his 5 stops along the way. Logged time at second, short, third, and even the outfield. DHd here and there, when everyone else was too hung over to play.
Born on 11/4/68, the lanky Dummy-in-a-can was signed out of the Dominican in 1987 by the Jays scouting machine. His Baseballreference.com page had a paltry 2,333 hits as of 11/17/2010. How can you not be happy that you saw this man in his prime!
As for the 19th, a pathetic showing of 15,772 found it within themselves to attend, and the game was played in 2:52 (it takes a long time to walk so many guys) - your umpires on hand were the esteemable Larry Barnett, Greg Kosc, Dan Morrison, and Al Clark.
Thanks for reading!
DOMINGO CEDENO, EVERYBODY!
Monday, November 15, 2010
September 9th, 1995 - "Pete Rose was kicked out of gambling for participating in baseball"
September 9th, 1995 - Yankees host the Sucks
"He's an idiot...I pay no attention to him."
A Saturday afternoon in the Bronx, and despite a 38-25 record at home the Yankees had managed to find themselves almost 15 games off the pace set by Boston. I was in one of those moods (you know, a drunk one) and its noted on here I was literally throwing ice cubes at Sox fans. I connected on a head shot in the 5th, too! Old-school elder George emphatically stated, "we always beat these assholes" so I guess he had not taken a gander at the standings before heading to the park.
There was a girl on hand with "horse's ass hair." You see, horse's ass hair contains a ponytail that looks like, well, a REAL ponytail. Thats not a good thing. A little boy was walking around with a gaudy beeper to his hip, causing someone to query, "who's going to page him, Captain Kangaroo?"
There were a heap of Sox fans on hand. "They're not used to going to a game and not seeing poles in their way" someone cracked. The old, "ground ball to Buckner....ooops!" ditty was a crowd favorite on this day, and there was a nod to the various "Bleacher Bimbos" who made the trip to look at some real men in the ballpark stands for a change.
THE BEST, though, was a fan who had a pro-Boston sign that mispelled Boston. You can't make this up...the sign apparently said BOSTEN and was referenced on this card more than once. "The only thing Boston is good for is clam chowder." someone said. "Thanks for the Bambino!" was a favorite repeated more than once to the Bostonian visitors, as it is to this very day.
I kind of have an idea where Steve was singing the Gang Bang way back then. There is a telling quote...."if he's here (referring to Saddam on security) I have to do it." So I thinks we had a racket going....since Steve was SO young - 17, at this time, - he would not be tossed as quick as a Captain Bob or an Animal, the sketchy veterans of the group. Its noted on here as FACT that Steve did indeed belt out everyones favorite bleacher jig on 9/9/95, at exactly 3:38 and that it "goes over well" outside of George insisting on including his "O'Neill drops the soap" campaign.
Steve was on point even then and showing knowledge beyond his years, at one point referring to Crazy Devil Fan Billy with a simple, "he's an idiot. I pay no attention to him."
Gang Bang song aside, there were some song controversies out there among the family.....old Ali the Cowbell King himself put a stop to the somewhat obscene "Take Me Out To The Bleachers" refrain, in a tip of the cap to the families taking advantage of the sun on that day. And Queen Bee Tina ALREADY was carrying on her "no Charlie Pride" edict during the Gang Bang.....what was so obscene about that lyric, that did not apply to some of the other humdingers in that song? For the unitiated, its a simple, "Knock Knock!" (WHOS THERE?) "CHARLEY PRIDE!" (CHARLIE PRIDE WHO?) "CHARLEY PRIDE HER LEGS APART AT THE GANG BANG...."
I mentioned on here, complete with frowny face, "just spent $6 on hot dogs." What, that would get me ONE hot dog today, I should have kept it to myself.
In a line I have heard from a few stand-up comics since then someone said, "Pete Rose was kicked out of gambling for betting on baseball." Thats a good one.
Willie McGee, then battling for the tag of ugliest man in baseball with the likes of Otis Nixon and Ron Karkovice, was taking a lot of our shit out there in right. Many an ET joke. "ET, GO home" for example. As always McGee took it not well, and traded barbs over the fence both with us both before and during the game. Another Sox there apparently to make friends was Erik Hansen (who actually went 15-5 in that year, his only one with Boston) who threw a few balls to the Creatures during BP to rampant howls of "throw it back!"
There was a nod to a few of the fans we saw all the time on here. Our VERY elderly old African American friend, the hunchbacked Mickey Rivers was on hand, and that was noted by a "slow down, Mickey Rivers!" barb someone hurled as he shuffled his way around. The annoying Yankee fan with the Uncle Sam tophat and the painted face was there, but sans painted face. So we hardly recognized him. There was also a "Chris Elliot" lookalike, who we aptly told to "Get a life!" There was also a beer vendor that looked like "Ruben Sierra."
Hey, anyone remember the portly hispanic "ex-security guard" that used to come to the bleachers and raise all sorts of tumult? He once went after me, flashing dukes, and we almost got into it. Well, on this day in 1995 he was actually thrown out of the Stadium by his former security brethren for transgressions not noted here.
Here are the useless scorcard tidbits for the day....there was a guy named Coghan on hand all the way from Ireland. Animal was not there (thus Steve sang the Gang Bang) but his brothers were. The hot dog man seemed to have "more rolls in his chin then in his pot." We were discussing the observation that "Red Man" tobacco was "racist" (that always came up) And some guy named "Mike" actually shook a Boston fans hand, which was enough of an oddball sight to make the scorecard. A fan, taking a number of pics, was politely asked, "why are you taking pictures? You're not Japanese."
To the field! An easy Yankee win on this day, 9-1, behind Andy Pettitte, who went 8.2 before Bob Wickman came in for the final out. He upped his mark to 9-8, while Sox starter Zane Smith, that hick looking fu*k, regressed to 7-8 by giving up 5 runs on 7 hits in 2 innings of work. Mike Maddux than came in and pitched to an awesome line - 5 full PERFECT innings, with 4 K's, before Eric Gunderson, Joe Hudson (lol) and good ole Mike Stanton took turns getting clobbered.
On the bat side of things the Yankees mustered 11 hits, including 3 from Sierra (you know, the beer vendor lookalike) and a pair off the bats of O'Neill and Gerald Williams. Williams hit the only Yankee home run, off of Stanton in the 8th. The Yankee lineup read 3B Boggs, CF BW, RF O'Neill, DH Sierra, C Leyritz, SS Velarde, 1B Mattingly (now reduced to batting behind Velarde), LF G Williams, and 2B "Jughead" Kelly.
For the Sox, they squibbed out 7 hits, including 2 each from ET McGee (including a triple) and Tim Naehring. The Sox offered up RF McGee, SS Valentin, 1B Vaughn, DH Canseco, 3B Naehring, LF Greenwell, C Haselman, CF Tinsley, and 2B Alicea. If you stuck around long enough you would have had the privelage of seeing Matt Stairs pinch-hit.
For the profile lets go with Mr. Joe Hudson. A piddling middle reliever who only stuck around from 95-98. His stats are funny in parts. 102 games (all in relief) - In 127 innings he was tagged for 151 hits, and he walked more than K'd besides (73-62). Its a wonder he escaped with only a 4.82 ERA. 95 was his rookie campaign, so we can say we saw the start of this awesome showing, and he appeared in 39 games for Boston, the most he ever showed up for in a year. In 98 he pitched all of one game for the Brew Crew, was torched, and that was it for him. Born in 1970, the Philadelphia native and 27th round draft pick in 1992 was a product of West Virgina U, a school that also bought us the infamous Scott Seabol. My gosh, what was in the water there! His baseballreference.com page, as of 11/15/2010, has a sickly 1,403 views. I mean, does anyone care for this man at all?? Very happy to have seen Mr. Hudson in his prime.
As for the 9th, a whopping 47,719 were on hand to see the game played in 2:49, and your umpires on hand were the veritable Dan Morrison, Al Clark, Larry Barnett, and Greg Kosc.
Thanks for reading!
AN ACTUAL JOE HUDSON SIGHTING!
"He's an idiot...I pay no attention to him."
A Saturday afternoon in the Bronx, and despite a 38-25 record at home the Yankees had managed to find themselves almost 15 games off the pace set by Boston. I was in one of those moods (you know, a drunk one) and its noted on here I was literally throwing ice cubes at Sox fans. I connected on a head shot in the 5th, too! Old-school elder George emphatically stated, "we always beat these assholes" so I guess he had not taken a gander at the standings before heading to the park.
There was a girl on hand with "horse's ass hair." You see, horse's ass hair contains a ponytail that looks like, well, a REAL ponytail. Thats not a good thing. A little boy was walking around with a gaudy beeper to his hip, causing someone to query, "who's going to page him, Captain Kangaroo?"
There were a heap of Sox fans on hand. "They're not used to going to a game and not seeing poles in their way" someone cracked. The old, "ground ball to Buckner....ooops!" ditty was a crowd favorite on this day, and there was a nod to the various "Bleacher Bimbos" who made the trip to look at some real men in the ballpark stands for a change.
THE BEST, though, was a fan who had a pro-Boston sign that mispelled Boston. You can't make this up...the sign apparently said BOSTEN and was referenced on this card more than once. "The only thing Boston is good for is clam chowder." someone said. "Thanks for the Bambino!" was a favorite repeated more than once to the Bostonian visitors, as it is to this very day.
I kind of have an idea where Steve was singing the Gang Bang way back then. There is a telling quote...."if he's here (referring to Saddam on security) I have to do it." So I thinks we had a racket going....since Steve was SO young - 17, at this time, - he would not be tossed as quick as a Captain Bob or an Animal, the sketchy veterans of the group. Its noted on here as FACT that Steve did indeed belt out everyones favorite bleacher jig on 9/9/95, at exactly 3:38 and that it "goes over well" outside of George insisting on including his "O'Neill drops the soap" campaign.
Steve was on point even then and showing knowledge beyond his years, at one point referring to Crazy Devil Fan Billy with a simple, "he's an idiot. I pay no attention to him."
Gang Bang song aside, there were some song controversies out there among the family.....old Ali the Cowbell King himself put a stop to the somewhat obscene "Take Me Out To The Bleachers" refrain, in a tip of the cap to the families taking advantage of the sun on that day. And Queen Bee Tina ALREADY was carrying on her "no Charlie Pride" edict during the Gang Bang.....what was so obscene about that lyric, that did not apply to some of the other humdingers in that song? For the unitiated, its a simple, "Knock Knock!" (WHOS THERE?) "CHARLEY PRIDE!" (CHARLIE PRIDE WHO?) "CHARLEY PRIDE HER LEGS APART AT THE GANG BANG...."
I mentioned on here, complete with frowny face, "just spent $6 on hot dogs." What, that would get me ONE hot dog today, I should have kept it to myself.
In a line I have heard from a few stand-up comics since then someone said, "Pete Rose was kicked out of gambling for betting on baseball." Thats a good one.
Willie McGee, then battling for the tag of ugliest man in baseball with the likes of Otis Nixon and Ron Karkovice, was taking a lot of our shit out there in right. Many an ET joke. "ET, GO home" for example. As always McGee took it not well, and traded barbs over the fence both with us both before and during the game. Another Sox there apparently to make friends was Erik Hansen (who actually went 15-5 in that year, his only one with Boston) who threw a few balls to the Creatures during BP to rampant howls of "throw it back!"
There was a nod to a few of the fans we saw all the time on here. Our VERY elderly old African American friend, the hunchbacked Mickey Rivers was on hand, and that was noted by a "slow down, Mickey Rivers!" barb someone hurled as he shuffled his way around. The annoying Yankee fan with the Uncle Sam tophat and the painted face was there, but sans painted face. So we hardly recognized him. There was also a "Chris Elliot" lookalike, who we aptly told to "Get a life!" There was also a beer vendor that looked like "Ruben Sierra."
Hey, anyone remember the portly hispanic "ex-security guard" that used to come to the bleachers and raise all sorts of tumult? He once went after me, flashing dukes, and we almost got into it. Well, on this day in 1995 he was actually thrown out of the Stadium by his former security brethren for transgressions not noted here.
Here are the useless scorcard tidbits for the day....there was a guy named Coghan on hand all the way from Ireland. Animal was not there (thus Steve sang the Gang Bang) but his brothers were. The hot dog man seemed to have "more rolls in his chin then in his pot." We were discussing the observation that "Red Man" tobacco was "racist" (that always came up) And some guy named "Mike" actually shook a Boston fans hand, which was enough of an oddball sight to make the scorecard. A fan, taking a number of pics, was politely asked, "why are you taking pictures? You're not Japanese."
To the field! An easy Yankee win on this day, 9-1, behind Andy Pettitte, who went 8.2 before Bob Wickman came in for the final out. He upped his mark to 9-8, while Sox starter Zane Smith, that hick looking fu*k, regressed to 7-8 by giving up 5 runs on 7 hits in 2 innings of work. Mike Maddux than came in and pitched to an awesome line - 5 full PERFECT innings, with 4 K's, before Eric Gunderson, Joe Hudson (lol) and good ole Mike Stanton took turns getting clobbered.
On the bat side of things the Yankees mustered 11 hits, including 3 from Sierra (you know, the beer vendor lookalike) and a pair off the bats of O'Neill and Gerald Williams. Williams hit the only Yankee home run, off of Stanton in the 8th. The Yankee lineup read 3B Boggs, CF BW, RF O'Neill, DH Sierra, C Leyritz, SS Velarde, 1B Mattingly (now reduced to batting behind Velarde), LF G Williams, and 2B "Jughead" Kelly.
For the Sox, they squibbed out 7 hits, including 2 each from ET McGee (including a triple) and Tim Naehring. The Sox offered up RF McGee, SS Valentin, 1B Vaughn, DH Canseco, 3B Naehring, LF Greenwell, C Haselman, CF Tinsley, and 2B Alicea. If you stuck around long enough you would have had the privelage of seeing Matt Stairs pinch-hit.
For the profile lets go with Mr. Joe Hudson. A piddling middle reliever who only stuck around from 95-98. His stats are funny in parts. 102 games (all in relief) - In 127 innings he was tagged for 151 hits, and he walked more than K'd besides (73-62). Its a wonder he escaped with only a 4.82 ERA. 95 was his rookie campaign, so we can say we saw the start of this awesome showing, and he appeared in 39 games for Boston, the most he ever showed up for in a year. In 98 he pitched all of one game for the Brew Crew, was torched, and that was it for him. Born in 1970, the Philadelphia native and 27th round draft pick in 1992 was a product of West Virgina U, a school that also bought us the infamous Scott Seabol. My gosh, what was in the water there! His baseballreference.com page, as of 11/15/2010, has a sickly 1,403 views. I mean, does anyone care for this man at all?? Very happy to have seen Mr. Hudson in his prime.
As for the 9th, a whopping 47,719 were on hand to see the game played in 2:49, and your umpires on hand were the veritable Dan Morrison, Al Clark, Larry Barnett, and Greg Kosc.
Thanks for reading!
AN ACTUAL JOE HUDSON SIGHTING!
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
September 8th, 1995 - "Wakefield likes to knuckle-balls, doo-da doo-da"
September 8th, 1995 - Yankees host Boston
Steve does "the Gang Bang" - first time?
Ah, a Friday night in September, with the Bo-sucks in town. Yankees were a staggering 15 ½ games behind 1st place Boston, but the wild card beckoned. There were actually 35,000 in the park, 20,000 more than there were a couple of days earlier when the Angels were stinking up the town.
This one is a mess. I was obviously drinking hard, being a Friday night and all. But there appears to be a tremendous nod to bleacher history and lore on this very card….unless there was some other “Steve” than the one that was my partner in crime back then...helping to keep score even on this very night and pounding beers on the sidewalk outside in my company, GANG BANG STEVE ACTUALLY SANG THE GANG BANG on this night. Duly noted, in drunken scrawl, is “Steve does Gang Bang.” In 1995….this legend has had a long life.
How is this for a prolific fu*king statement. Before the game while Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter played a simple catch on the outfield grass someone – and I don’t remember exactly who, said confidently, “there they are – the future of the Yankees.” I bet they got some upturned brows in the case of Rivera at least, who came out of nowhere of course, but wow did they ever hit that on the head. I wonder if it was actually a quote of my own, but alas no credit given so I'll take it for now. Go me!
People were calling Fat Daddy Chico “the Fridge” and he was milking it up. He had crashed through a few “goal lines” himself in his day, running away with the money he stole from us with his crooked pools. Since Boston was in town we were playing around with our own shanty accents, saying things like “Pahk the cah in the gah-rage” and stuff. We also paid homage to Boston and their storied history in our normally straightforward “you suck” chants, coming complete with such bon mots as “Jerry Remy sucks!” and “Rick Burleson sucks!”
A fan actually mooned us from the box seats, and was ejected for his efforts. A full moon, complete with ass waving back and forth. We also pointed out a chiseled white-haired relic sitting out there, calling him “Donahue in 40 years.” When I first saw that note on here I was thinking our friend Mike Donahuge and I felt a wispy tear of nostalgia coming in, but this was a bit before his time in retrospect. So Phil Donahue it was. Other interesting fans on hand were a “Chinese guy that looked like Phil Rizzuto” and his fellow Asian friend, known as “Chinese James Earl Jones.”
A Boston fan on hand had his cap stolen and thrown – was Justin accounted for on that night? At some point before his hat went flying and he meekly shuffled his way out of the Stadium Steve noted on the card that “Boston fan gets the kitchen sink thrown at him” Through all of this a Little Orphan Annie lookalike was trying to remain inconspicuous out there, but she was met with “where’s your eyeballs?” chants and queries all night.
They were still having problems with the sound system that left the Stadium silent before the game earlier in the week – at one point between innings they started playing a highlight package of Mike Stanley complete with no music at all. Just as we were commenting on how bogus spliced clips of home runs and nailing guys trying to steal looked without the music accompaniment Eddie Layton started playing a bouncy jig on his organ. “Just doesn’t fit” we decided.
Here’s a funny one. Tim Wakefield, that idiot, was on the mound for Boston and we composed a striking little ditty. Sung as yet another “doo da, doo da” song. Here goes - "Wake-field likes to knuck-le balls, doo-da, doo-da.” “Knuckle balls” heh heh.
Some other useless notes - a toddler on hand took Bear Ass from me and tried to feed it her bottle. That was cute. At some point someone asked me my age, and being drunk I gave the wrong one. I actually had an argument with my friends out there over how old I really was (I was 27...not sure if I was claiming 26 or 28…I couldn’t have been 2 years off, could I??)
Ooooh, boy, I see now that this was during my “tobacco experiment” - Steve noted that “Tom is chewing tobacco and liking it.” Welllll….I may have liked it fine, but my stomach sure didn’t. Not sure if this is the game where as soon as the final out nestled into someones glove I yuked all over the place, but there were not many tobacco chewing nights I had out there that I survived intact. There used to be a guy out there, I think his name was Chris…he had played “minor league ball” - (if I had a dollar for every person out there that told me they played minor league ball I would be paying someone to type these for me right now instead of doing them myself) and he was constantly packing a chaw. Come to think of it, maybe he did play minor league ball….the only other thing I remember about him is he disappeared off the face of the Earth soon after and he was a dead ringer facially for knuckleballer from the era Dennis Springer.
The Yankees won this one, whittling the Sox lead to 14 ½…..it was an 8-4 victory for the local heroes. David Cone started and went 7 strong, upping his mark to 15-7, and Steve Howe stayed clean long enough to notch his second save on the year. Wakefield took the loss for the dreaded foes, but his mark was left at a strong 15-4. He was followed by Matt Murray (?), Brian Bark (making his 3rd and FINAL major league appearance on this night) and everyones favorite, Jeff Suppan.
New York scored their 8 runs on only 5 hits, as Boston pitchers walked 9. Darryl Strawberry blasted a 3-run shot in the first inning, and Paul O’Neill homered later in the game and also plated 3. 6 different Yankees scored runs on the night. The Yankee lineup was 3B Boggs, CF BW, RF O’Neill, DH Strawberry, LF James, 1B Mattingly, C Stanley, SS Fernandez, and 2B Velarde. Geez, do any of you guys remember Dion James getting so much playing time as a Yankee? He’s all over these things.
Boston squirted 7 hits off Yankee pitching, by 7 different batters. Your Sucks lineup looked like this – CF Willie McGee (lol), SS Valentin, 1B Ho-Mo Vaughn, DH Canseco (how bout that), LF Greenwell, RF O’Leary, 3B Naehring, C Haselman, and 2B Alicea. And if you were there like I was you actually saw the MAJOR LEAGUE DEBUT of Scott Hatteberg, who came in for Haselman and ended up going 1-2 and scoring his first run. Cheers to that!
For a profile, how bout we stick with someone people may remember (as opposed to someone like Matt Murray who had a lifetime 9-plus ERA in a short stint) - lets go with Luis Alicea. A tenure from 1998-2002 (sans 89 and 90) - he had only this one year with Boston in 95, playing more games (132) than any year but one. He was mainly a 80-120 game kind of guy. Finished up with a respectable lifetime BA of .260, with a mere 47 jacks and 422 RBIs in his 13 seasons of work. Nice walk to strikeout ration, getting 500 free passes while whiffing 624 times. All this came in 3971 official at-bats. Stolen base ratio not as impressive, as he nabbed 81 bags but was nailed 50 times. A pesky sort, played for the Cardinals (88-94), Boston (95), St Louis again in 86, Texas (98-99) and wrapped it up with the Royals for 2001 and 2002. Born in 65 and a product from Puerto Rico, he was a 1st round draft pick by St Louis (23rd overall) in 1986, out of Florida State University. Baseballreference.com page has 5,173 hits as of 11/9/2010. I will never forgot Luis Alicea!!
As for the 8th, there were 35,896 on hand, and they saw the game played in 2:40. Your umpires on hand were Greg Kosc, Dan Morrison, Al Clark, and Larry Barnett. And in another note of interest on the history side of things, elsewhere around the game Luis Andujar and Kevin Sefcik were busy making his major league debut.
Hey! Thanks for reading!
THE EVER-POPULAR LUIS ALICEA!
Steve does "the Gang Bang" - first time?
Ah, a Friday night in September, with the Bo-sucks in town. Yankees were a staggering 15 ½ games behind 1st place Boston, but the wild card beckoned. There were actually 35,000 in the park, 20,000 more than there were a couple of days earlier when the Angels were stinking up the town.
This one is a mess. I was obviously drinking hard, being a Friday night and all. But there appears to be a tremendous nod to bleacher history and lore on this very card….unless there was some other “Steve” than the one that was my partner in crime back then...helping to keep score even on this very night and pounding beers on the sidewalk outside in my company, GANG BANG STEVE ACTUALLY SANG THE GANG BANG on this night. Duly noted, in drunken scrawl, is “Steve does Gang Bang.” In 1995….this legend has had a long life.
How is this for a prolific fu*king statement. Before the game while Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter played a simple catch on the outfield grass someone – and I don’t remember exactly who, said confidently, “there they are – the future of the Yankees.” I bet they got some upturned brows in the case of Rivera at least, who came out of nowhere of course, but wow did they ever hit that on the head. I wonder if it was actually a quote of my own, but alas no credit given so I'll take it for now. Go me!
People were calling Fat Daddy Chico “the Fridge” and he was milking it up. He had crashed through a few “goal lines” himself in his day, running away with the money he stole from us with his crooked pools. Since Boston was in town we were playing around with our own shanty accents, saying things like “Pahk the cah in the gah-rage” and stuff. We also paid homage to Boston and their storied history in our normally straightforward “you suck” chants, coming complete with such bon mots as “Jerry Remy sucks!” and “Rick Burleson sucks!”
A fan actually mooned us from the box seats, and was ejected for his efforts. A full moon, complete with ass waving back and forth. We also pointed out a chiseled white-haired relic sitting out there, calling him “Donahue in 40 years.” When I first saw that note on here I was thinking our friend Mike Donahuge and I felt a wispy tear of nostalgia coming in, but this was a bit before his time in retrospect. So Phil Donahue it was. Other interesting fans on hand were a “Chinese guy that looked like Phil Rizzuto” and his fellow Asian friend, known as “Chinese James Earl Jones.”
A Boston fan on hand had his cap stolen and thrown – was Justin accounted for on that night? At some point before his hat went flying and he meekly shuffled his way out of the Stadium Steve noted on the card that “Boston fan gets the kitchen sink thrown at him” Through all of this a Little Orphan Annie lookalike was trying to remain inconspicuous out there, but she was met with “where’s your eyeballs?” chants and queries all night.
They were still having problems with the sound system that left the Stadium silent before the game earlier in the week – at one point between innings they started playing a highlight package of Mike Stanley complete with no music at all. Just as we were commenting on how bogus spliced clips of home runs and nailing guys trying to steal looked without the music accompaniment Eddie Layton started playing a bouncy jig on his organ. “Just doesn’t fit” we decided.
Here’s a funny one. Tim Wakefield, that idiot, was on the mound for Boston and we composed a striking little ditty. Sung as yet another “doo da, doo da” song. Here goes - "Wake-field likes to knuck-le balls, doo-da, doo-da.” “Knuckle balls” heh heh.
Some other useless notes - a toddler on hand took Bear Ass from me and tried to feed it her bottle. That was cute. At some point someone asked me my age, and being drunk I gave the wrong one. I actually had an argument with my friends out there over how old I really was (I was 27...not sure if I was claiming 26 or 28…I couldn’t have been 2 years off, could I??)
Ooooh, boy, I see now that this was during my “tobacco experiment” - Steve noted that “Tom is chewing tobacco and liking it.” Welllll….I may have liked it fine, but my stomach sure didn’t. Not sure if this is the game where as soon as the final out nestled into someones glove I yuked all over the place, but there were not many tobacco chewing nights I had out there that I survived intact. There used to be a guy out there, I think his name was Chris…he had played “minor league ball” - (if I had a dollar for every person out there that told me they played minor league ball I would be paying someone to type these for me right now instead of doing them myself) and he was constantly packing a chaw. Come to think of it, maybe he did play minor league ball….the only other thing I remember about him is he disappeared off the face of the Earth soon after and he was a dead ringer facially for knuckleballer from the era Dennis Springer.
The Yankees won this one, whittling the Sox lead to 14 ½…..it was an 8-4 victory for the local heroes. David Cone started and went 7 strong, upping his mark to 15-7, and Steve Howe stayed clean long enough to notch his second save on the year. Wakefield took the loss for the dreaded foes, but his mark was left at a strong 15-4. He was followed by Matt Murray (?), Brian Bark (making his 3rd and FINAL major league appearance on this night) and everyones favorite, Jeff Suppan.
New York scored their 8 runs on only 5 hits, as Boston pitchers walked 9. Darryl Strawberry blasted a 3-run shot in the first inning, and Paul O’Neill homered later in the game and also plated 3. 6 different Yankees scored runs on the night. The Yankee lineup was 3B Boggs, CF BW, RF O’Neill, DH Strawberry, LF James, 1B Mattingly, C Stanley, SS Fernandez, and 2B Velarde. Geez, do any of you guys remember Dion James getting so much playing time as a Yankee? He’s all over these things.
Boston squirted 7 hits off Yankee pitching, by 7 different batters. Your Sucks lineup looked like this – CF Willie McGee (lol), SS Valentin, 1B Ho-Mo Vaughn, DH Canseco (how bout that), LF Greenwell, RF O’Leary, 3B Naehring, C Haselman, and 2B Alicea. And if you were there like I was you actually saw the MAJOR LEAGUE DEBUT of Scott Hatteberg, who came in for Haselman and ended up going 1-2 and scoring his first run. Cheers to that!
For a profile, how bout we stick with someone people may remember (as opposed to someone like Matt Murray who had a lifetime 9-plus ERA in a short stint) - lets go with Luis Alicea. A tenure from 1998-2002 (sans 89 and 90) - he had only this one year with Boston in 95, playing more games (132) than any year but one. He was mainly a 80-120 game kind of guy. Finished up with a respectable lifetime BA of .260, with a mere 47 jacks and 422 RBIs in his 13 seasons of work. Nice walk to strikeout ration, getting 500 free passes while whiffing 624 times. All this came in 3971 official at-bats. Stolen base ratio not as impressive, as he nabbed 81 bags but was nailed 50 times. A pesky sort, played for the Cardinals (88-94), Boston (95), St Louis again in 86, Texas (98-99) and wrapped it up with the Royals for 2001 and 2002. Born in 65 and a product from Puerto Rico, he was a 1st round draft pick by St Louis (23rd overall) in 1986, out of Florida State University. Baseballreference.com page has 5,173 hits as of 11/9/2010. I will never forgot Luis Alicea!!
As for the 8th, there were 35,896 on hand, and they saw the game played in 2:40. Your umpires on hand were Greg Kosc, Dan Morrison, Al Clark, and Larry Barnett. And in another note of interest on the history side of things, elsewhere around the game Luis Andujar and Kevin Sefcik were busy making his major league debut.
Hey! Thanks for reading!
THE EVER-POPULAR LUIS ALICEA!
Monday, November 8, 2010
September 5th, 1995 - The Night Ripken Ties Gehrig!
September 5th, 1995 – Yankees host the Mariners
“Ripken will never be Gehrig, even if he dies and comes back 3 times!”
A Tuesday night in the Bronx, and the Mariners were polluting the town. History was being made all over baseball on that night – Cal Ripken Jr was busy tying Lou Gehrigs consecutive games streak at home against the Angels, and elsewhere around the circuit Marvin Benard and Matt Lawton were making their major league debuts. So much going on, and I dont know which story is bigger! Coming in we were 1 ½ out of the wild card, but as I pointed out to all within earshot that night that was “along with almost everyone.”
Queen Bee Tina was in one of her characteristic sour moods, regarding the Ripken/Gehrig link. “Ripken will never be Gehrig, even if he dies and comes back 3 times!” she barked.
Security was in a frowny-face mood, which was not helped when we sang (to the tune of Horse’s Ass) “What’d you get on your police ex-am...you – got – a D!” Security Saddam himself came storming up after a time and told us to quit it with, and I quote, the “Up the Ass - No Vaseline” song. This caused someone to make one Hell of an observation, “Hey, he’s Iraqi. No mentioning any kind of petroleum products!” As Saddam strolled back down the steps someone shouted, “someone throw a SCUD at him!”
I mentioned I was going to donate my liver, or what was “left of it.” With Lou Gehrig’s streak being the talk of the town someone took the occasion to point out a sketchy looking fan (they were crawling all over the place back then) and smirk, “for ever $1.00 you give to Lou Gehrig’s disease that guy gets 30 cents.” Speaking of donations and livers and the like, someone cracked before the game “there will be no National Anthem tonight…Eddie Layton donated his organ.” (GROAN)
Talk turned to that “goody” bag we got the day before, a day I had dubbed “Load of Crap Day.” When I typed up that card I could not remember what was in that bag, but I did write the contents on this scorecard - the game after. In my “party bag” was a little box of Viva paper towels, a mini mouthwash, and a May 1995 issue of the Sporting News. Yeah, I really needed all that stuff to “party hard!”
Before the game Ken Griffey Jr exchanged pleasantries with us, going so far as to call our friend and fabled old-schooler “Jungle” a drunk. He also pulled the old “rear back and make like you are going to throw us a ball but turn around and toss it into the infield instead” trick, which made him a lot of friends in the general area. His buddy Jay Buhner was subjected to an insult we had not heard before, a volley of “Buhner, your mother smokes cigarettes at Yankee Stadium!” Griffey ended up having a busy night…aside from homering off of Mo Rivera this was the game where a fan ran onto the field in the 5th inning and ended up shaking his hand out there in centerfield.
Talk turned to current events, and OJ. In our drunken hues we sort of agreed at the time that OJ did NOT do it, and blame as the actual culprit ranged from Ricardo Montalban to Ron Goldman, and someone even chimed in with “the dog.” Ah, what the Hell, he had blood on him. A couple of denizens reminisced about watching the Bronco chase right out there in the bleacher seats. (I myself was at a Metallica/Danzig/Suicidal Tendencies show in Middletown, New York that night) We then started talking about computers until someone finally snarled, “Why are we even talking about his malarky?” and we decided to get back to watching the game.
For whatever reason old Ali the Cowbell King decided he did not want to ring the bell, and he spent the night telling fans who came up to ask him “no" and not always in the rosiest of terms. Ali, who passed away the following May, God bless his soul, was one of the friendliest and happiest fellows around, but when he would get petulant like that crowds could start to hound him, and he would turn around from the rail and exchange harsh words with them. Ah, the dark side of Ali Ramirez…who woulda knew?
Other notes of interest on here include a mention that we were all getting a “cheap contact high” off of a beer that was spilled on the concrete right in front of us, and the very first ECW wrestling nod, with a simple ECW! on the lower right-hand portion of this crowded card. There was a Vince Colemen firecracker reference as he was leading off for Seattle (“he left New York with a bang”) and a Simpsons reference from when the Simpsons were funny all of the time (“Sit down, Dancing Homer!”) And an homage to The Zoo Bar, which was then between 82nd-83rd Street...who knows if it still is. There is a reference to that as well. I was also carrying around my Yankee bear, “Bear Ass” which caused someone to say, “If I carried that thing around I would be ‘em-BEAR-ASS-ed.”
As for the action on the field – the Yankees dropped this one 6-5, downing my mark in attendance for the year to 17-10. The Yanks had been trailing 6-0 after the top 5, but their plodding comeback fell short. Mariano Rivera started and took the loss, giving up 5 runs on 7 hits in 4-plus innings. Rob MacDonald and Scott Kamienieki mopped up his mess. Bob Wolcott got the W for Seattle, and was followed on the hill by a veritable parade of Bill Risley, Lee Guetterman, Jeff Nelson, and Stormin’ Norman Charlton, who notched his 6th save on the year.
The Yankees did muster 12 hits, so that was not the problem. Boggs, Bernie, Dion James and Don Mattingly all had a deuce, with James and Mattingly each parking one into the seats. The Yankee lineup read 3B Boggs, CF BW, RF O’Neill, DH Sierra (anyone file the missing persons report on D Strawberry yet?) LF James, 1B Mattingly, C Stanley, SS Fernandez, and 2B Velarde.
The Mariners scored their 6 runs on only 8 hits, including 3 home runs. Jay Buhner hit a critical 3 run shot off MacDonald, and Griffey and Luis Sojo added blasts of their own. The Mariner lineup was LF Coleman, 2B Cora, CF Griffey, DH E Martinez (batting .365 coming in), 1B Tino, RF Buhner, 3B Doug Strange, C Wilson, and SS Sojo.
As for a profile, why not Battlin’ Bob Wolcott? 95 was his rookie campaign, and he stuck around till 99, working for Seattle, the Diamondbacks (Seattle lost him in the 1997 expansion draft), and closing shop with Boston. Lifetime mark of 16-21, with a hefty 4.75 ERA to show for his efforts. In 325 innings he was torched for 391 hits, walking 113 and striking out 178. Not all that sharp. Born in 1973, he was a 2nd round draft pick (or should I say bust) for Seattle in the 1992 draft. Did manage to start a game in the 1995 playoffs against Cleveland, and hurled ONE complete game in his time. His baseballreference.com has only been hit a putrid 2,300 times as of 11/8/2010. Good for him! Happy to have seen him ply that trade!
A putrid crowd of only 15,340 were on hand, which I dubbed “a fu*king ghost town.” The game was played in 3:08, and your umpires on hand were none other than Jim Mckean, Vic Voltaggio, Jim Joyce, and Dale Scott.
As always, thanks for reading! And fear not, the playoffs are coming!
LADIES AND GENTLEMAN, BOB WOLCOTT!
“Ripken will never be Gehrig, even if he dies and comes back 3 times!”
A Tuesday night in the Bronx, and the Mariners were polluting the town. History was being made all over baseball on that night – Cal Ripken Jr was busy tying Lou Gehrigs consecutive games streak at home against the Angels, and elsewhere around the circuit Marvin Benard and Matt Lawton were making their major league debuts. So much going on, and I dont know which story is bigger! Coming in we were 1 ½ out of the wild card, but as I pointed out to all within earshot that night that was “along with almost everyone.”
Queen Bee Tina was in one of her characteristic sour moods, regarding the Ripken/Gehrig link. “Ripken will never be Gehrig, even if he dies and comes back 3 times!” she barked.
Security was in a frowny-face mood, which was not helped when we sang (to the tune of Horse’s Ass) “What’d you get on your police ex-am...you – got – a D!” Security Saddam himself came storming up after a time and told us to quit it with, and I quote, the “Up the Ass - No Vaseline” song. This caused someone to make one Hell of an observation, “Hey, he’s Iraqi. No mentioning any kind of petroleum products!” As Saddam strolled back down the steps someone shouted, “someone throw a SCUD at him!”
I mentioned I was going to donate my liver, or what was “left of it.” With Lou Gehrig’s streak being the talk of the town someone took the occasion to point out a sketchy looking fan (they were crawling all over the place back then) and smirk, “for ever $1.00 you give to Lou Gehrig’s disease that guy gets 30 cents.” Speaking of donations and livers and the like, someone cracked before the game “there will be no National Anthem tonight…Eddie Layton donated his organ.” (GROAN)
Talk turned to that “goody” bag we got the day before, a day I had dubbed “Load of Crap Day.” When I typed up that card I could not remember what was in that bag, but I did write the contents on this scorecard - the game after. In my “party bag” was a little box of Viva paper towels, a mini mouthwash, and a May 1995 issue of the Sporting News. Yeah, I really needed all that stuff to “party hard!”
Before the game Ken Griffey Jr exchanged pleasantries with us, going so far as to call our friend and fabled old-schooler “Jungle” a drunk. He also pulled the old “rear back and make like you are going to throw us a ball but turn around and toss it into the infield instead” trick, which made him a lot of friends in the general area. His buddy Jay Buhner was subjected to an insult we had not heard before, a volley of “Buhner, your mother smokes cigarettes at Yankee Stadium!” Griffey ended up having a busy night…aside from homering off of Mo Rivera this was the game where a fan ran onto the field in the 5th inning and ended up shaking his hand out there in centerfield.
Talk turned to current events, and OJ. In our drunken hues we sort of agreed at the time that OJ did NOT do it, and blame as the actual culprit ranged from Ricardo Montalban to Ron Goldman, and someone even chimed in with “the dog.” Ah, what the Hell, he had blood on him. A couple of denizens reminisced about watching the Bronco chase right out there in the bleacher seats. (I myself was at a Metallica/Danzig/Suicidal Tendencies show in Middletown, New York that night) We then started talking about computers until someone finally snarled, “Why are we even talking about his malarky?” and we decided to get back to watching the game.
For whatever reason old Ali the Cowbell King decided he did not want to ring the bell, and he spent the night telling fans who came up to ask him “no" and not always in the rosiest of terms. Ali, who passed away the following May, God bless his soul, was one of the friendliest and happiest fellows around, but when he would get petulant like that crowds could start to hound him, and he would turn around from the rail and exchange harsh words with them. Ah, the dark side of Ali Ramirez…who woulda knew?
Other notes of interest on here include a mention that we were all getting a “cheap contact high” off of a beer that was spilled on the concrete right in front of us, and the very first ECW wrestling nod, with a simple ECW! on the lower right-hand portion of this crowded card. There was a Vince Colemen firecracker reference as he was leading off for Seattle (“he left New York with a bang”) and a Simpsons reference from when the Simpsons were funny all of the time (“Sit down, Dancing Homer!”) And an homage to The Zoo Bar, which was then between 82nd-83rd Street...who knows if it still is. There is a reference to that as well. I was also carrying around my Yankee bear, “Bear Ass” which caused someone to say, “If I carried that thing around I would be ‘em-BEAR-ASS-ed.”
As for the action on the field – the Yankees dropped this one 6-5, downing my mark in attendance for the year to 17-10. The Yanks had been trailing 6-0 after the top 5, but their plodding comeback fell short. Mariano Rivera started and took the loss, giving up 5 runs on 7 hits in 4-plus innings. Rob MacDonald and Scott Kamienieki mopped up his mess. Bob Wolcott got the W for Seattle, and was followed on the hill by a veritable parade of Bill Risley, Lee Guetterman, Jeff Nelson, and Stormin’ Norman Charlton, who notched his 6th save on the year.
The Yankees did muster 12 hits, so that was not the problem. Boggs, Bernie, Dion James and Don Mattingly all had a deuce, with James and Mattingly each parking one into the seats. The Yankee lineup read 3B Boggs, CF BW, RF O’Neill, DH Sierra (anyone file the missing persons report on D Strawberry yet?) LF James, 1B Mattingly, C Stanley, SS Fernandez, and 2B Velarde.
The Mariners scored their 6 runs on only 8 hits, including 3 home runs. Jay Buhner hit a critical 3 run shot off MacDonald, and Griffey and Luis Sojo added blasts of their own. The Mariner lineup was LF Coleman, 2B Cora, CF Griffey, DH E Martinez (batting .365 coming in), 1B Tino, RF Buhner, 3B Doug Strange, C Wilson, and SS Sojo.
As for a profile, why not Battlin’ Bob Wolcott? 95 was his rookie campaign, and he stuck around till 99, working for Seattle, the Diamondbacks (Seattle lost him in the 1997 expansion draft), and closing shop with Boston. Lifetime mark of 16-21, with a hefty 4.75 ERA to show for his efforts. In 325 innings he was torched for 391 hits, walking 113 and striking out 178. Not all that sharp. Born in 1973, he was a 2nd round draft pick (or should I say bust) for Seattle in the 1992 draft. Did manage to start a game in the 1995 playoffs against Cleveland, and hurled ONE complete game in his time. His baseballreference.com has only been hit a putrid 2,300 times as of 11/8/2010. Good for him! Happy to have seen him ply that trade!
A putrid crowd of only 15,340 were on hand, which I dubbed “a fu*king ghost town.” The game was played in 3:08, and your umpires on hand were none other than Jim Mckean, Vic Voltaggio, Jim Joyce, and Dale Scott.
As always, thanks for reading! And fear not, the playoffs are coming!
LADIES AND GENTLEMAN, BOB WOLCOTT!
Friday, November 5, 2010
September 4th, 1995! - "Party Bag Day!"
September 4th, 1995 - Yankees host the Mariners
Its Labor Day! Monday Nitro debuts!
Before this game started we were having a chuckle at the standings around the league, which included the Minny Twins lounging THIRTY-SEVEN AND A HALF behind the pace set by the Indians. We saved some laughter for ourselves, however, as the Yankees were lollygagging 15 1/2 behind the dreaded Bosux, in second place at that. Three cheers to the wild card!
While the Mariners shagged before the game Randy Johnson was skulking around, and someone said, "look, there's the big unit." "You would recognize it" I retorted, and everyone cackled. Bob Sheppard was doing one of those pregame diatribes that tails on forever, causing someone to snap, "what, is he reading a fu*king novel up there?" The grounds crew apparently debuted their "safari look" on this day, or its at least the first mention such a garish getup has recieved on a card.
This was "Party Bag" day at the Stadium. Anyone remember? I forget what was in there now, but it was stupid stuff like a comic book, a pack of tissues, a phony tattoo....shit like that. I have tried to put it out of my memory.
Couple of current events going on....for one thing, the Jets game from the day before. "If you had the Jets + 37 1/2, you STILL LOST" was on there, so you can just imagine what kind of day the Jets had. I also made a mention that later that night the very first edition of "WCW Monday Nitro" was airing live from The Mall of America, where Lex Luger ended up shocking the world by showing up one day after appearing with the WWF, in what was considered major news in the grappling world. To this day, I am still stunned it went down that way!
We were calling Vince Coleman out in left "Urkel" all day, although one of the girls with us thought we were calling him "purple." It was Labor Day, so the drink was on. The scorecard was a mess. We used the Fat Daddy Chico blimp gag again, with a simple "Chico's flyin!" scrawl. I noted that the "homos from Reggie Day" were back, and we also called someone "spaghetti head."
Edgar Martinez hit a Hell of a bomb off of Andy Pettitte in the very first inning, causing someone to scream, "Watch out, sun!!!" Home run be damned, this was the Yankees' day as they torched Saloman Torres for 6 in an innings worth of work, and went on from there. The Martinez homer did get thrown back, which is a wonder as we did not realize someone so high up in the Stadium could have an arm like that.
Old Ali, the Cowbell King, was back on hand following an unexplained absence of a few games, and the bell was officially back at 1:51, duly noted, and people were dancing in the aisles in giddy fashion.
Elder George had a cool Yankee 6-pack bag. The fact that I mentioned it means I did not have one, and I also wonder if that was a regular giveaway yet. For someone who was one of the more noted alcoholics in bleacher lore, I never seemed to have a 6-pack bag. Figure, I went to 60 of 80 every year, and that is the giveaway I miss, while making downer days like "Party Bag Day."
It was 10-1 Yankees by the halfway point, causing someone to joke, "Bring in Wickman and make it a game!" Talk turned to other things, like Queen Bee Tina's job as a waitress. Gang Bang Steve (well, just "Steve" at that point) made a wry grimace and wrote, "Tina a waitress? I dont think so."
The Yankees had an astounding 14 runners reach base by the time there was 1 out in the 3rd. After Torres ran for his life, my arch-enemy Bobby Ayala came in to get some, then Jim Mecir, in his rookie year, came in to pitch in 1 of the 2 games he appeared in 95. Jay Buhner, who started in right, came out for a pinch-hitter and we knew it was simply cause he could not "take our abuse."
20 ounce boxes of Cracker Jacks were making the rounds, and the old "can I get some milk and a bowl with that" chuckle made the scorecard and possibly the bleacher rounds for the very first time. History, I tell you!
Back in the day Captain Bob and Old Schooler Kevin, who still appears out in 39 now and again, shared the Gang Bang crooning duties, and it was Kevin's turn at the mic so to say on this day, and he belted it out at 3:40, in the 8th inning. Where were you at that moment in time?
So the Yankees took this one, roping in the Mariners to the tune of 13-3. Pettitte went 8, evening up his mark at 8-8. Joltin' Joe Ausanio was trusted to close it out. On the bat side of things the Yankees mustered NINETEEN hits, with Boggs, Bernie, O'Neill, and Dion James each having 3. Bernie drove in 4 and hit his 16th home run, O'Neill 3. All nine Yankee starters had a hit, and here they were....3B Boggs, CF Bernie, RF O'Neill, DH Sierra, LF James, 1B Mattingly, C Leyritz, SS Fernandez, 2B Velarde. Ruben Rivera actually made one of his initial appearances, coming in to run (he must have stole something while he was out there)
For the M's, not much juice outside of Edgars sunshot in the first, although Luis Sojo was on hand and had two hits. The Mariner lineup on this day was LF Coleman, SS Sojo, CF Griffey Jr, DH Martinez, RF Buhner, 3B Blowers, 1B Tino, C Chris Widger (lol), 2B Felix Fermin. On the hill after Torres, Ayala and Mecir took their lumps one Scott Davison took the hill for one of his 3 1995 appearances, and one of 8 for the career.
As we are nearing the homestretch on this whole project for 95 lets run our profile. Why not Warren Newson, who came in to play right and bat for Buhner? A career that stretched from 91-95, with the White Sox, Mariners (just 33 games in 95) and the Rangers, he got out of the business with a .250 lifetime average in 489 games (just 992 at bats). Never played more than 91 games or batted more than 235 times in a given season. Hit 34 home runs and drove in 120, but had a decent walk/K ratio with 196 and 292. Although that means he struck out almost once in every three at-bats....holy fu*k. Born in 1964, the Georgia native was a 4th round pick by the Padres in 1986 and a shortstack at 5'7. The most he ever made in a given year was $375,000 for Texas in 1997...nice work if you could get it! According to baseballreference.com, where his page has 19,731 views as of 11/05/2010, he was known as "The Deacon." I am happy to have seen him in his prime!
As for the 4th, only 24,855 came out on Labor Day to see the Yankees hitting parade, and your umps on hand were Dale Scott, Jim McKean, Vic Voltaggio, and the ever-popular Jim Joyce. The game was played in exactly 3 hours.
For those of you who are along for this ride, thanks for reading and some good stuff is to come.
And since im having trouble getting on Beckett.com today, costing you your Newson pic, how about a vintage pic from the 90s? Its, from L-R in back my brother Dan, me, Gang Bang Steve. Your friend and mine Big Tone Capone frolicing in the foreground. Cheers!
Its Labor Day! Monday Nitro debuts!
Before this game started we were having a chuckle at the standings around the league, which included the Minny Twins lounging THIRTY-SEVEN AND A HALF behind the pace set by the Indians. We saved some laughter for ourselves, however, as the Yankees were lollygagging 15 1/2 behind the dreaded Bosux, in second place at that. Three cheers to the wild card!
While the Mariners shagged before the game Randy Johnson was skulking around, and someone said, "look, there's the big unit." "You would recognize it" I retorted, and everyone cackled. Bob Sheppard was doing one of those pregame diatribes that tails on forever, causing someone to snap, "what, is he reading a fu*king novel up there?" The grounds crew apparently debuted their "safari look" on this day, or its at least the first mention such a garish getup has recieved on a card.
This was "Party Bag" day at the Stadium. Anyone remember? I forget what was in there now, but it was stupid stuff like a comic book, a pack of tissues, a phony tattoo....shit like that. I have tried to put it out of my memory.
Couple of current events going on....for one thing, the Jets game from the day before. "If you had the Jets + 37 1/2, you STILL LOST" was on there, so you can just imagine what kind of day the Jets had. I also made a mention that later that night the very first edition of "WCW Monday Nitro" was airing live from The Mall of America, where Lex Luger ended up shocking the world by showing up one day after appearing with the WWF, in what was considered major news in the grappling world. To this day, I am still stunned it went down that way!
We were calling Vince Coleman out in left "Urkel" all day, although one of the girls with us thought we were calling him "purple." It was Labor Day, so the drink was on. The scorecard was a mess. We used the Fat Daddy Chico blimp gag again, with a simple "Chico's flyin!" scrawl. I noted that the "homos from Reggie Day" were back, and we also called someone "spaghetti head."
Edgar Martinez hit a Hell of a bomb off of Andy Pettitte in the very first inning, causing someone to scream, "Watch out, sun!!!" Home run be damned, this was the Yankees' day as they torched Saloman Torres for 6 in an innings worth of work, and went on from there. The Martinez homer did get thrown back, which is a wonder as we did not realize someone so high up in the Stadium could have an arm like that.
Old Ali, the Cowbell King, was back on hand following an unexplained absence of a few games, and the bell was officially back at 1:51, duly noted, and people were dancing in the aisles in giddy fashion.
Elder George had a cool Yankee 6-pack bag. The fact that I mentioned it means I did not have one, and I also wonder if that was a regular giveaway yet. For someone who was one of the more noted alcoholics in bleacher lore, I never seemed to have a 6-pack bag. Figure, I went to 60 of 80 every year, and that is the giveaway I miss, while making downer days like "Party Bag Day."
It was 10-1 Yankees by the halfway point, causing someone to joke, "Bring in Wickman and make it a game!" Talk turned to other things, like Queen Bee Tina's job as a waitress. Gang Bang Steve (well, just "Steve" at that point) made a wry grimace and wrote, "Tina a waitress? I dont think so."
The Yankees had an astounding 14 runners reach base by the time there was 1 out in the 3rd. After Torres ran for his life, my arch-enemy Bobby Ayala came in to get some, then Jim Mecir, in his rookie year, came in to pitch in 1 of the 2 games he appeared in 95. Jay Buhner, who started in right, came out for a pinch-hitter and we knew it was simply cause he could not "take our abuse."
20 ounce boxes of Cracker Jacks were making the rounds, and the old "can I get some milk and a bowl with that" chuckle made the scorecard and possibly the bleacher rounds for the very first time. History, I tell you!
Back in the day Captain Bob and Old Schooler Kevin, who still appears out in 39 now and again, shared the Gang Bang crooning duties, and it was Kevin's turn at the mic so to say on this day, and he belted it out at 3:40, in the 8th inning. Where were you at that moment in time?
So the Yankees took this one, roping in the Mariners to the tune of 13-3. Pettitte went 8, evening up his mark at 8-8. Joltin' Joe Ausanio was trusted to close it out. On the bat side of things the Yankees mustered NINETEEN hits, with Boggs, Bernie, O'Neill, and Dion James each having 3. Bernie drove in 4 and hit his 16th home run, O'Neill 3. All nine Yankee starters had a hit, and here they were....3B Boggs, CF Bernie, RF O'Neill, DH Sierra, LF James, 1B Mattingly, C Leyritz, SS Fernandez, 2B Velarde. Ruben Rivera actually made one of his initial appearances, coming in to run (he must have stole something while he was out there)
For the M's, not much juice outside of Edgars sunshot in the first, although Luis Sojo was on hand and had two hits. The Mariner lineup on this day was LF Coleman, SS Sojo, CF Griffey Jr, DH Martinez, RF Buhner, 3B Blowers, 1B Tino, C Chris Widger (lol), 2B Felix Fermin. On the hill after Torres, Ayala and Mecir took their lumps one Scott Davison took the hill for one of his 3 1995 appearances, and one of 8 for the career.
As we are nearing the homestretch on this whole project for 95 lets run our profile. Why not Warren Newson, who came in to play right and bat for Buhner? A career that stretched from 91-95, with the White Sox, Mariners (just 33 games in 95) and the Rangers, he got out of the business with a .250 lifetime average in 489 games (just 992 at bats). Never played more than 91 games or batted more than 235 times in a given season. Hit 34 home runs and drove in 120, but had a decent walk/K ratio with 196 and 292. Although that means he struck out almost once in every three at-bats....holy fu*k. Born in 1964, the Georgia native was a 4th round pick by the Padres in 1986 and a shortstack at 5'7. The most he ever made in a given year was $375,000 for Texas in 1997...nice work if you could get it! According to baseballreference.com, where his page has 19,731 views as of 11/05/2010, he was known as "The Deacon." I am happy to have seen him in his prime!
As for the 4th, only 24,855 came out on Labor Day to see the Yankees hitting parade, and your umps on hand were Dale Scott, Jim McKean, Vic Voltaggio, and the ever-popular Jim Joyce. The game was played in exactly 3 hours.
For those of you who are along for this ride, thanks for reading and some good stuff is to come.
And since im having trouble getting on Beckett.com today, costing you your Newson pic, how about a vintage pic from the 90s? Its, from L-R in back my brother Dan, me, Gang Bang Steve. Your friend and mine Big Tone Capone frolicing in the foreground. Cheers!
Thursday, November 4, 2010
August 31st, 1995 - "Sbarro pizza is also available at Sbarro"
August 31st, 1995 - Yankees host the Angels
"Hi there, foul pole. You are so yellow"
Despite floundering around 15 games back in the division, the Yankees entered this Thursday nights affair a mere 2 1/2 out of the wild card, so hopes were high. I bought along my little Yankee teddy bear, Bear Ass, whose record on the season was 1-0. Someone wrote the same exact joke that debuted the last time on the last scorecard vs the Angels all over again, that being "Salmon, where do you get your name from, your Moms box!?"
This was one of those games where the sound system was not working for whatever reason before the game. We alternated from yelling at the grounds crew and Al Trautwig, who was waltzing around the field. Later in the game one of the grounds crew workers came up simply to tell me that I had the loudest voice they had ever heard in the Stadium, and that I was clearly heard yelling jokes from the bullpen area. So take that, Bad Mouth Larry and Bald Vinny!
There was a person who really looked to have no idea walking around, causing George to utter, "Uh, oh, we got another loony tune in the house." He looked like he was on every drug in the world. This dope ended up in 37, and someone else decided to act out his meeting with the foul pole. "Hi there, foul pole. You are so yellow." Well, you get the idea.
"Salmon, you Snow-blower!" was a short and sweet barb and a tip of the cap to both Tim and J.T. out there on the field. And, in a more detailed and lurid play on names we shouted, "Salmon goes in 'Easley'" in a nod to Tim and Damion.
Outside of the zombie walking around, there were a lot of other oddities roaming the grounds, to where someone finally lost it and shouted, "Jesus Christ! What the Hell is going on here! You got a skinny lady with a bald head, and that old woman over there speaks for herself.....that guy over there has 12 kids, and there's a guy with a button shirt and a Boston hat....ah, fu*k it..." I have no idea who made that rant, but they should be on stage somewhere.
Yet another fan was walking around with a Yankee jersey with the # 88 on the back. "Are you supposed to be a baseball player or a wide reciever?" someone snapped. To cap off the lunacy, there was also a girl that looked like "Raggedy Ann."
Bob Sheppard was on his game, stepping into the shoes of Captain Obvious, announcing in his voice of God, "Sbarro Pizza is also available at Sbarro." Ya think?
At some point in the game Queen Bee Tina was tossing a baseball around in her hand and a little kid walking by said to her, "You didnt catch that ball." Story came out that one of Paul O'Neills 3 homers on the day went sailing out there and after a series of Keystone Koppish flubs Tina somehow ended up with it. Someone was griping that they had a shot at the ball that Tina now held. This little kid, who apparently cleaned up on errant baseballs himself during BP frankly stated, "I'll give you one of my balls" and because he said that we promptly dubbed him "as queer as a $3 bill"
Tina was something else herself. At one point she pointed down to where Fat Daddy Chico was, chatting with an old man by the rail. "Hey, look - its Laurel and Hardy" she said. Speaking of Chico, his claim of coming to Yankee Stadium "for 44 years!" was being met with a lot of skepticism. "Malarky!" Steve spat. "44 years? My DAD was 6 years old!"
Out on the field it was the Paul O'Neill show. 4 hits, 3 of them home runs, and EIGHT RBIs. The Yankees scored 4 in the first and 3 in the second, which included 2 of the O'Neill launches and another blast by Mike Stanley. Brian Anderson and current bullpen coach Mike Harkey were the beneficiaries of this harsh treatment. The Yankees went on to win 11-6, but not after some scary moments around the 6th inning. After Buck Showalter removed Sterling Hitchcock for Bob Wickman and Wickman started getting tagged Tina snapped, "Thank you, Buck, you fu*king asshole."
In closing, there was a little bit of history made on this same night, as steady vet Mike Moore appeared in his final game in Chicago while all this was going on.
Back in New York the Yankees knocked 15 hits, 3 by Boggs, O'Neills 4, and a pair each for Sierra, Stanley, and Kelly. The Yankee lineup was 3B Boggs, CF Bernie, RF O'Neill, DH Sierra, C Stanley, 1B Mattingly, LF G Williams, SS Velarde, and 2B Kelly.
On the Angel side of things, they had 14 hits of their own including 3 each by Salmon and catcher Greg Meyers. Here was your Angel lineup - 3B Phillips, 2B Hudler, CF Edmonds, DH Chili Davis, RF Salmon, 1B Snow, LF Anderson, SS Easley, and C Meyers.
Hitchcock got the win for the Yankees, not without trying to lose. Upped his mark to 7-9. Wickman, Howe and Wetteland ended up giving up 8 hits in the final 3 innings. The Angels had a veritable parade to and from the mound, with Anderson and Harkey starting the mess, followed up by Bob Patterson, Mike Butcher, John Habyan, and Troy Percival in his rookie year pitching the 9th and fanning 2.
For the profile, lets go with Mr. Harkey, who may very well become the Yankees' pitching coach. One of the bigger busts in recent baseball history - a 1st round pick (4th overall) by the Cubs in 1987. Kicked around from 88-97, for the Cubs, Rockies, A's, Angels, and Dodgers, with only a 4.49 ERA and 36-36 record to show for it. In 656 lifetime innings on the hill he was touched for 720 hits, walked 225, and only wiffed 316. Racked for 75 homers. Should have been ashamed of himself. A San Diego native born in 1966, he was a product of Cal State Fullerton, which also bought us Phil Nevin, Aaron Rowand, Brent Mayne, and Mark Kotsay among others. Hell, even Huck Flener came out of there! As of 11/4/2010, Harkey had 39,550 hits on his Baseballreference.com page. Bottom line, I was proud to see him in his short active stint in the American League, which was encompassed in 1995.
25,633 came out on this Thursday night, and the game was played in 3:21. Your umpires on hand were Dale Scott, Jim McKean, Vic Voltaggio, and Jim Joyce.
Thanks for reading!
"Hi there, foul pole. You are so yellow"
Despite floundering around 15 games back in the division, the Yankees entered this Thursday nights affair a mere 2 1/2 out of the wild card, so hopes were high. I bought along my little Yankee teddy bear, Bear Ass, whose record on the season was 1-0. Someone wrote the same exact joke that debuted the last time on the last scorecard vs the Angels all over again, that being "Salmon, where do you get your name from, your Moms box!?"
This was one of those games where the sound system was not working for whatever reason before the game. We alternated from yelling at the grounds crew and Al Trautwig, who was waltzing around the field. Later in the game one of the grounds crew workers came up simply to tell me that I had the loudest voice they had ever heard in the Stadium, and that I was clearly heard yelling jokes from the bullpen area. So take that, Bad Mouth Larry and Bald Vinny!
There was a person who really looked to have no idea walking around, causing George to utter, "Uh, oh, we got another loony tune in the house." He looked like he was on every drug in the world. This dope ended up in 37, and someone else decided to act out his meeting with the foul pole. "Hi there, foul pole. You are so yellow." Well, you get the idea.
"Salmon, you Snow-blower!" was a short and sweet barb and a tip of the cap to both Tim and J.T. out there on the field. And, in a more detailed and lurid play on names we shouted, "Salmon goes in 'Easley'" in a nod to Tim and Damion.
Outside of the zombie walking around, there were a lot of other oddities roaming the grounds, to where someone finally lost it and shouted, "Jesus Christ! What the Hell is going on here! You got a skinny lady with a bald head, and that old woman over there speaks for herself.....that guy over there has 12 kids, and there's a guy with a button shirt and a Boston hat....ah, fu*k it..." I have no idea who made that rant, but they should be on stage somewhere.
Yet another fan was walking around with a Yankee jersey with the # 88 on the back. "Are you supposed to be a baseball player or a wide reciever?" someone snapped. To cap off the lunacy, there was also a girl that looked like "Raggedy Ann."
Bob Sheppard was on his game, stepping into the shoes of Captain Obvious, announcing in his voice of God, "Sbarro Pizza is also available at Sbarro." Ya think?
At some point in the game Queen Bee Tina was tossing a baseball around in her hand and a little kid walking by said to her, "You didnt catch that ball." Story came out that one of Paul O'Neills 3 homers on the day went sailing out there and after a series of Keystone Koppish flubs Tina somehow ended up with it. Someone was griping that they had a shot at the ball that Tina now held. This little kid, who apparently cleaned up on errant baseballs himself during BP frankly stated, "I'll give you one of my balls" and because he said that we promptly dubbed him "as queer as a $3 bill"
Tina was something else herself. At one point she pointed down to where Fat Daddy Chico was, chatting with an old man by the rail. "Hey, look - its Laurel and Hardy" she said. Speaking of Chico, his claim of coming to Yankee Stadium "for 44 years!" was being met with a lot of skepticism. "Malarky!" Steve spat. "44 years? My DAD was 6 years old!"
Out on the field it was the Paul O'Neill show. 4 hits, 3 of them home runs, and EIGHT RBIs. The Yankees scored 4 in the first and 3 in the second, which included 2 of the O'Neill launches and another blast by Mike Stanley. Brian Anderson and current bullpen coach Mike Harkey were the beneficiaries of this harsh treatment. The Yankees went on to win 11-6, but not after some scary moments around the 6th inning. After Buck Showalter removed Sterling Hitchcock for Bob Wickman and Wickman started getting tagged Tina snapped, "Thank you, Buck, you fu*king asshole."
In closing, there was a little bit of history made on this same night, as steady vet Mike Moore appeared in his final game in Chicago while all this was going on.
Back in New York the Yankees knocked 15 hits, 3 by Boggs, O'Neills 4, and a pair each for Sierra, Stanley, and Kelly. The Yankee lineup was 3B Boggs, CF Bernie, RF O'Neill, DH Sierra, C Stanley, 1B Mattingly, LF G Williams, SS Velarde, and 2B Kelly.
On the Angel side of things, they had 14 hits of their own including 3 each by Salmon and catcher Greg Meyers. Here was your Angel lineup - 3B Phillips, 2B Hudler, CF Edmonds, DH Chili Davis, RF Salmon, 1B Snow, LF Anderson, SS Easley, and C Meyers.
Hitchcock got the win for the Yankees, not without trying to lose. Upped his mark to 7-9. Wickman, Howe and Wetteland ended up giving up 8 hits in the final 3 innings. The Angels had a veritable parade to and from the mound, with Anderson and Harkey starting the mess, followed up by Bob Patterson, Mike Butcher, John Habyan, and Troy Percival in his rookie year pitching the 9th and fanning 2.
For the profile, lets go with Mr. Harkey, who may very well become the Yankees' pitching coach. One of the bigger busts in recent baseball history - a 1st round pick (4th overall) by the Cubs in 1987. Kicked around from 88-97, for the Cubs, Rockies, A's, Angels, and Dodgers, with only a 4.49 ERA and 36-36 record to show for it. In 656 lifetime innings on the hill he was touched for 720 hits, walked 225, and only wiffed 316. Racked for 75 homers. Should have been ashamed of himself. A San Diego native born in 1966, he was a product of Cal State Fullerton, which also bought us Phil Nevin, Aaron Rowand, Brent Mayne, and Mark Kotsay among others. Hell, even Huck Flener came out of there! As of 11/4/2010, Harkey had 39,550 hits on his Baseballreference.com page. Bottom line, I was proud to see him in his short active stint in the American League, which was encompassed in 1995.
25,633 came out on this Thursday night, and the game was played in 3:21. Your umpires on hand were Dale Scott, Jim McKean, Vic Voltaggio, and Jim Joyce.
Thanks for reading!
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
August 29th, 1995! "Salmon! Your Mother is a blowfish!"
August 29th, 1995 - Yankees host the Angels
Bear Ass on hand!
All 9 Yankee starters score a run!
A late summer Tuesday night at the Stadium, and old Ali the Cowbell King was not there again. A night after making her "he's probably dead" crack Queen Bee Tina shrugged this one off and said, "he's probably given up." Coming into the night the Yankees were a whopping 16 games out in the division, but only 4 1/2 in the wild card, it appears.
This was a HISTORICAL NIGHT - it was Jose "Chico" Lind's last ever major league game, and we were there to see it! He went 0-2, striking out in his last at bat, and was released by the Angels 2 days later to little fanfare.
Enough regulars were missing out of the bleachers that night that we did up a "Missing In Action" litany in the right margin. Here are some of the ghosts that haunted Section 39 in 1995, that chose to not show up to this eventual Yankee 12-4 victory. If nothing else, it gives you a good idea of the makeup of the section nearly a decade ago. Missing in action on 8/29/95...
Ali, Captain Bob, Animal, Jeff (Willie Loman), Billy (Crazy Devil Fan), Barry (Blackjack), Syphillis Joe, Hasan, Dave and Chris, the rapper Melle Mel, Redhead Dave, Oriental Girl, Mickey, Randy, Willie, Lou, Cigar Guys, Patrick, Angel, Mary Ellen, Tony, Bird, JR, Lee, and John the Security Guard. And the ever-popular Justin's name was also tagged among the "MIAs" that night. In another nod to the old school, one "Mo" wrote, "I love this game! Yankee baseball till the day I die!" - Milton also signed his autograph on the card, with an inexplicable "Just Call Me Mo!" command next to that.
Tim Salmon threw a ball up to us at 6:40 while the Angels were hitting and shagging. It was towards me but I "missed it" and so did "Dave." Tina ended up with the ball. It did not stop people from roasting Salmon on a spit. "Salmon!" a girl of all people howled, "where did you get your last name from? Your Moms box??" Yet another fan added, "Salmon, your mother is a blowfish!"
We were having a lot of fun with wordplay on names. We broke out the old "Edmonds eats Chili and pees on Snow!" in an ode to Jim, Davis, and J.T. We were in a singing mood - a heap of us belted out, "Cum on feel the Noize, Salmon likes little boys!!" a few times. There was also an attempt to sing some Elvis, substituting "Salmon sucks!" for the "I'm all shook up!" refrain.
This was around the time that the head honcho of the security brigade that looked like LBJ was patrolling the scene out there. Gang Bang Steve always had a quip for him. "Hey, LBJ, how is the man on the grassy knoll?" he hollered on this night.
We heard one of the better moans and groans revolving around a gambling loss on this night, as someone behind us muttered "I lost the house and bought the farm both last night." There was a guy with a tie on out there, and he was getting it all night. "He wont take it off unless the 'lose the tie' message is faxed to him" someone quipped. At one point Tina marched over and asked with a sarcastic grin, "do you hear the abuse they are giving you?" and he shrugged in depracatory fashion and said, "I dont care."
Tina was regaling us with "road stories" while we sat there and watched the Yankees pound one out. These included her spotting Tim Stoddard walking around a team hotel with his penis hanging out, asking someone, anyone, for "a fu*k." She also recanted the time that Spike Owen "mooned her" in Boston.
Its funny to see that even then I marked a little star next to a Yankee getting thrown out at the plate with the message, "Windmill-ie Randolph waves him in" With the Yankees slogging along in the standings as they were there were a lot of nitpicks towards the pinstriped on this night. Someone grumbled the old, "Kelly could not hit water if he fell out of a boat." And during the top of the 2nd we sat there and tried to name "every bad Yankee pitcher in recent history." It must have stretched on for another couple of innings...
Couple of time stamps for posterity, including a warning that came down in the 6th (presumably for a chant that included "fu*k") and a frowny face nod that the "wave goes round" at 9:27. Also a note here that Chili Davis went nuts after being called out on strikes in the Angel 8th and took to exchanging barbs with the home plate ump, and he was ejected for both his troubles and taking up our valuable time.
Hey, anyone remember Bear Ass? He may have been my first gimmick out there...he was a little teddy bear that used to drive around with me in my car that I ended up bringing to games.....yeah, I dont get it either....one Bear Ass moment I wont forget is when someone once wryly said to me, "No wonder you call him Bear Ass - if I carried around a bear like that I would be Em-Bear-Assed." : 0
By this point in his Yankee tenure some fans had taken to calling Pat Kelly "jughead." Next to an E4 someone wrote, "thattaboy, Jughead." While Kelly was helping out on a double play, someone in the stands howled, "turn that, you jugheaded prick!" After a ground ball to second I noted someone had implored, "throw him out for once, jughead!" So that was where we were at with Kelly in the summer of 95.
And, finally, in the only faux celebrity sightings of the night, outside of LBJ on security we caught a gander at a "very old Hulk Hogan" and a Fabio wannabe we promptly dubbed "Faggio."
As for what was playing out on the field, the Yankees rode the pitching of David Cone (14-7) and 13 hits to tank the Angels 12-4. Bernie had 3 hits and plated 3, and Boggs, Sierra and Stanley each had two. Stanley went deep in the 1st off Angel starter and loser Chuck Finley (13-9) - how many times do you see this...ALL 9 YANKEE STARTERS SCORED A RUN IN THE GAME. This is the lineup that did it - 1B Boggs, CF Bernie, RF O'Neill, DH Sierra, C Stanley, 3B Velarde, LF G Williams, SS Fernandez, and 2B Jughead. Cone went 8 on the hill, and Rob MacDonald wrapped it up.
For the Angels Finley, who was tagged for 5 runs in the very 1st, was followed by good old John Habyan, Mike Butcher ("butcher THIS!") and one Bob Patterson. The Angels mustered only 5 hits, but that included 3 homers, off the bats of Bony Tony Phillips, Tim Salmon, and JT Snow. The Angel lineup was 3B Phillips, SS Owen, CF Edmonds, DH Davis, RF Salmon, 1B Snow, LF Garret Anderson in his rookie campaign, C Fabragas, and 2B Jose "Chico" Lind.
For our profile, lets go with Mr. Butcher. A 2nd round pick by KC in the 86 draft, he lasted for 137 innings between 1992-1995 for the Angels, posting a lifetime ERA of 4.47. A sharp lifetime record of 11-4, with 9 saves to boot. In those 137 innings he walked a pungent 82 while fanning 96. He was also tagged for 130 hits, 14 of which were home runs. On this night in 95 he was tagged for a run on a hit and 3 walks in ZERO innings. Born in 1965 he made his swansong for California in 95 at the tender age of 30, never to be heard from again. We should feel honored to have seen him wrapping things up with such a nice bow!
As for the 29th, 24,233 were on hand to see this drubbing by the Yankees, which was played out in 2:53. Your umpires on hand were the honorable Vic Voltaggio, Jim Joyce, Dale Scott, and Jim McKean.
Hey, thanks for reading!!!!!!!!
Bear Ass on hand!
All 9 Yankee starters score a run!
A late summer Tuesday night at the Stadium, and old Ali the Cowbell King was not there again. A night after making her "he's probably dead" crack Queen Bee Tina shrugged this one off and said, "he's probably given up." Coming into the night the Yankees were a whopping 16 games out in the division, but only 4 1/2 in the wild card, it appears.
This was a HISTORICAL NIGHT - it was Jose "Chico" Lind's last ever major league game, and we were there to see it! He went 0-2, striking out in his last at bat, and was released by the Angels 2 days later to little fanfare.
Enough regulars were missing out of the bleachers that night that we did up a "Missing In Action" litany in the right margin. Here are some of the ghosts that haunted Section 39 in 1995, that chose to not show up to this eventual Yankee 12-4 victory. If nothing else, it gives you a good idea of the makeup of the section nearly a decade ago. Missing in action on 8/29/95...
Ali, Captain Bob, Animal, Jeff (Willie Loman), Billy (Crazy Devil Fan), Barry (Blackjack), Syphillis Joe, Hasan, Dave and Chris, the rapper Melle Mel, Redhead Dave, Oriental Girl, Mickey, Randy, Willie, Lou, Cigar Guys, Patrick, Angel, Mary Ellen, Tony, Bird, JR, Lee, and John the Security Guard. And the ever-popular Justin's name was also tagged among the "MIAs" that night. In another nod to the old school, one "Mo" wrote, "I love this game! Yankee baseball till the day I die!" - Milton also signed his autograph on the card, with an inexplicable "Just Call Me Mo!" command next to that.
Tim Salmon threw a ball up to us at 6:40 while the Angels were hitting and shagging. It was towards me but I "missed it" and so did "Dave." Tina ended up with the ball. It did not stop people from roasting Salmon on a spit. "Salmon!" a girl of all people howled, "where did you get your last name from? Your Moms box??" Yet another fan added, "Salmon, your mother is a blowfish!"
We were having a lot of fun with wordplay on names. We broke out the old "Edmonds eats Chili and pees on Snow!" in an ode to Jim, Davis, and J.T. We were in a singing mood - a heap of us belted out, "Cum on feel the Noize, Salmon likes little boys!!" a few times. There was also an attempt to sing some Elvis, substituting "Salmon sucks!" for the "I'm all shook up!" refrain.
This was around the time that the head honcho of the security brigade that looked like LBJ was patrolling the scene out there. Gang Bang Steve always had a quip for him. "Hey, LBJ, how is the man on the grassy knoll?" he hollered on this night.
We heard one of the better moans and groans revolving around a gambling loss on this night, as someone behind us muttered "I lost the house and bought the farm both last night." There was a guy with a tie on out there, and he was getting it all night. "He wont take it off unless the 'lose the tie' message is faxed to him" someone quipped. At one point Tina marched over and asked with a sarcastic grin, "do you hear the abuse they are giving you?" and he shrugged in depracatory fashion and said, "I dont care."
Tina was regaling us with "road stories" while we sat there and watched the Yankees pound one out. These included her spotting Tim Stoddard walking around a team hotel with his penis hanging out, asking someone, anyone, for "a fu*k." She also recanted the time that Spike Owen "mooned her" in Boston.
Its funny to see that even then I marked a little star next to a Yankee getting thrown out at the plate with the message, "Windmill-ie Randolph waves him in" With the Yankees slogging along in the standings as they were there were a lot of nitpicks towards the pinstriped on this night. Someone grumbled the old, "Kelly could not hit water if he fell out of a boat." And during the top of the 2nd we sat there and tried to name "every bad Yankee pitcher in recent history." It must have stretched on for another couple of innings...
Couple of time stamps for posterity, including a warning that came down in the 6th (presumably for a chant that included "fu*k") and a frowny face nod that the "wave goes round" at 9:27. Also a note here that Chili Davis went nuts after being called out on strikes in the Angel 8th and took to exchanging barbs with the home plate ump, and he was ejected for both his troubles and taking up our valuable time.
Hey, anyone remember Bear Ass? He may have been my first gimmick out there...he was a little teddy bear that used to drive around with me in my car that I ended up bringing to games.....yeah, I dont get it either....one Bear Ass moment I wont forget is when someone once wryly said to me, "No wonder you call him Bear Ass - if I carried around a bear like that I would be Em-Bear-Assed." : 0
By this point in his Yankee tenure some fans had taken to calling Pat Kelly "jughead." Next to an E4 someone wrote, "thattaboy, Jughead." While Kelly was helping out on a double play, someone in the stands howled, "turn that, you jugheaded prick!" After a ground ball to second I noted someone had implored, "throw him out for once, jughead!" So that was where we were at with Kelly in the summer of 95.
And, finally, in the only faux celebrity sightings of the night, outside of LBJ on security we caught a gander at a "very old Hulk Hogan" and a Fabio wannabe we promptly dubbed "Faggio."
As for what was playing out on the field, the Yankees rode the pitching of David Cone (14-7) and 13 hits to tank the Angels 12-4. Bernie had 3 hits and plated 3, and Boggs, Sierra and Stanley each had two. Stanley went deep in the 1st off Angel starter and loser Chuck Finley (13-9) - how many times do you see this...ALL 9 YANKEE STARTERS SCORED A RUN IN THE GAME. This is the lineup that did it - 1B Boggs, CF Bernie, RF O'Neill, DH Sierra, C Stanley, 3B Velarde, LF G Williams, SS Fernandez, and 2B Jughead. Cone went 8 on the hill, and Rob MacDonald wrapped it up.
For the Angels Finley, who was tagged for 5 runs in the very 1st, was followed by good old John Habyan, Mike Butcher ("butcher THIS!") and one Bob Patterson. The Angels mustered only 5 hits, but that included 3 homers, off the bats of Bony Tony Phillips, Tim Salmon, and JT Snow. The Angel lineup was 3B Phillips, SS Owen, CF Edmonds, DH Davis, RF Salmon, 1B Snow, LF Garret Anderson in his rookie campaign, C Fabragas, and 2B Jose "Chico" Lind.
For our profile, lets go with Mr. Butcher. A 2nd round pick by KC in the 86 draft, he lasted for 137 innings between 1992-1995 for the Angels, posting a lifetime ERA of 4.47. A sharp lifetime record of 11-4, with 9 saves to boot. In those 137 innings he walked a pungent 82 while fanning 96. He was also tagged for 130 hits, 14 of which were home runs. On this night in 95 he was tagged for a run on a hit and 3 walks in ZERO innings. Born in 1965 he made his swansong for California in 95 at the tender age of 30, never to be heard from again. We should feel honored to have seen him wrapping things up with such a nice bow!
As for the 29th, 24,233 were on hand to see this drubbing by the Yankees, which was played out in 2:53. Your umpires on hand were the honorable Vic Voltaggio, Jim Joyce, Dale Scott, and Jim McKean.
Hey, thanks for reading!!!!!!!!
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
August 28th, 1995 - Grumpy old men!
August 28, 1995 - Yankees host the Royals
"In the event of an emergency....yell AAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!"
This was a funny one. They were giving away caps with Grumpy of the Seven Dwarves on them to children, and apparently the elderly at the gate as well, to promo a Disney movie or something. One of the bleacher memories that always stuck with me was seeing a pack of like 4 oldtimers shuffling up the steps wearing these caps, invoking the funny - but obvious - refrain of, "hey, look, its GRUMPY old men!"
Before the game there was yet another presentation on the field to boo. During the intro Bob Sheppard ruminated how whoever was on there wasting everyones time was a big sponsor of "youth-related activities." "Yeah" one of us mused. "like drinking, smoking pot, underage sex, and fighting in the streets."
This was not the night she said it, but it was the night it made the scorecard....Angel's infamous "I did not know Ripken was black." line. Turned out she confused Cal Ripkens black undergarment for an African American man's arm while he was perched at short. "Thats like being in Jerusalem and saying "Who is this Jesus guy?" someone mocked.
Talk in the bleachers was about the Columbian soccer player who was murdered for the ignomoly of scoring an "own-goal" against his own team. Universal feeling was that yes, he deserved it.
Some spaghetti-neck came ambling up, and when we hollered at him he snapped a few quips back. "Peggy Fleming is more of a man than you!" someone retorted. Another fan that was catching our special brand of grief was an Asian gent who we promptly dubbed "Hideo Homo." And in yet another true classic and what may be my favorite bleacher line of ALL TIME, his fellow-Asian buddy, who was wearing a home white Red Sox jersey was dubbed "Jim RICE" Rice, asian guy...get it?? LOL
The Grumpy old men came up in conversation again. "Psst...dont tell the grumpy old men, they're actually at the Met game."
Howard "the anti-comic" confided in us that he had joined the Hair Club for Men. Of course as soon as he ambled off to tell an unfunny joke somewhere old-school George cracked, "Yeah, he not only blew the President, he blew all the clients."
For no reason at all someone stood up between pitches and announced in a booming and deadpan Bob Sheppard impersonation, "In the event of an emergency......yell AAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!"
Old cowbell man Ali was not around, and someone asked Tina where he could possibly be. "He's probably dead." she shrugged. Meanwhile Fat Daddy Chico himself pointed up at a blimp hovering over the Stadium and joked, "hey, thats me!"
A fan leaned over the loge and I got him good. I used to jump up real quick and hurl a potent one-liner. This guy not only heard it, but gave me an obscene gesture in return. It was a nice exchange. While all this was going on a man was sitting in our midst calmly eating watemelon, for Gods sake.
Someone was on the phone up in front, and one of us said, "he's on the phone with Whorephone. You'll always get a score." Witty, I suppose...
Elder George was at his best. With a wild-card spot destined for 1995 he was on a "Buck must go" rant. When it came time for the subway race he griped, "fu*k that, it's always the C......or the D." As for the wildcard for posterity I marked "3 1/2 out Wild Card" before the game started. Sad to say, I also wrote "4 1/2 out Wild Card" before I left the Stadium, so there is a result spoiler for ya.
In one of the funnier "overheard lines" in bleacher-dom we heard a young scamp actually ask, "Mom, whats a gigilo?" soon after one of our inane conversations up there. Another dummy was holding up one of those blue "O'Neill" dartboard signs, upside down, which caused Gang Bang Steve to laugh and keep repeating, "it says 'Lilien'o"
Security Saddam on bleacher duty was in his raging heydey around this time, and for the 10000th time we were alerted that the "You suck" refrains would not work out there. He actually, honestly, and literally said, and I am NOT making this up, "You are bad, not you suck" in a way to coach us what to say. Can you imagine? "YOU ARE BAD!" clap "YOU ARE BAD!" Puh-leeeeze.
There were a couple of time stamps on here, including an "aborted bleacher wave" in the 5th, and a "homemade cowbell", also in the 5th. Wow, busy inning there. This is actually a very cool scorecard that always stood out in my collection - I did not have an actual scoresheet so I used a sheet of graph paper and drew in the boxes myself. Not too shabby, I must say. From a distance it looks pretty cool, this is Bleacher Creature Museum stuff for sure.
I did miss a few plays here and there, including a Greg Gagne home run in the 4th, attributed to telling "the dead fish story." Check this one out - I had a fishtank in my apartment back then, and one day I get home and one of my two fish is gone. I mean, not even a bone floating around. I figured the other fish devoured him, and went about my business after saying a quick prayer. Just about every weekend I had friends crashing in the place, on blankets and pillows on the hardwood floor. Well, months after the fish dissapeared my friend Eric (some of you may know him from the Baltimore gunpoint robbery story - two guys and four guns) said, "that was funny that night with your fish." and I am like, "what the fu*k are you talking about, you idiot." and he was like, "how I rolled over on him."
Turns out the fish was not eaten, he somehow hopped the tank. Eric crashed in the blankets that night, and rolled over at one point to hear a crunch. He thought it was "pork rinds" but after a while he went to pick it out of there and it was my fish, dead and hardening. Instead of telling me he simply shoved him under the bookcase. It was only months later he let me in on it. I could not get home fast enough to move the bookcase off the wall. When I did, I had a really cool fossil over there...
Anyhoo.....for all the crap Blackjack McDowell was taking from the fans back then he went another full 9 on this night, but he did take the loss. Yankees went down 4-3, to the laughable Royal revolving door of Dave Fleming, Jim Converse, Dilson Torres, Mike Magnante, Gregg Olson, and good old Jeff Montgomery. Yes, it took SIX of them!!
On the bat side of things, the Yankees managed 9 hits, with Wade Boggs slapping 3 of them and Bernie and Ruben Sierra adding 2 each. Sierra homered, as did Randy Velarde. The Yankee lineup looked like this - 1B Boggs (yes, at first on this night), CF Bernie, RF O'Neill, DH Sierra, C Stanley, SS Velarde, LF G Williams, 3B Russ Davis, and 2B Patrick Kelly. Probably the 20th different lineup in as many games.
The Royals also mustered 9 hits off of McDowell, with Keith Lockhart and Michael "Mother" Tucker having multiple hit games. Tucker homered, as did the aforementioned Greg "I am not the AWA wrestler Gagne of all people. The Royal lineup was CF Johnny Damon in his rookie campaign, LF Goodwin, 1B Joyner, 3B Gaetti, 2B Lockhart, SS Gagne, DH Tucker, RF Howard, and C Brett Mayne.
Lets do a profile real quick....David Howard is as good as any. Stuck around from 91-99 and is hardly remembered by anyone. In all those years he never played more than 95 games, batted more than 255 times...except in 1996 when he INEXPLICABLY played in 143 games and batted 420 times. It is a stark contrast when you peruse his ledger.
For the career he batted a sickly .229, with only 11 home runs and 148 RBIS in 1583 at bats. He played EVERYWHERE, all the outfield and infield positions outside of catching. He even pitched in a game in 1994, sneaking in and out while only giving up 1 run in 2 innings of work. So he was versatile but could not hit a lick and was not much the burner, managing a modest 23 stolen bases while being nabbed 19 times. NOT a good ratio. Originally a 32nd round draft pick (so not much could have ever been expected from him) in 1986, he was born in 1967. I am proud I got to see this everyman play the game in front of me!
As for 8/28, six years to the day where I started classes at SUNY New Paltz, only 23,595 were on hand to see a game played in 2:49. Your umpires on hand were Jim McKean, Vic Voltaggio, Jim Joyce, and Dale Scott.
"In the event of an emergency....yell AAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!"
This was a funny one. They were giving away caps with Grumpy of the Seven Dwarves on them to children, and apparently the elderly at the gate as well, to promo a Disney movie or something. One of the bleacher memories that always stuck with me was seeing a pack of like 4 oldtimers shuffling up the steps wearing these caps, invoking the funny - but obvious - refrain of, "hey, look, its GRUMPY old men!"
Before the game there was yet another presentation on the field to boo. During the intro Bob Sheppard ruminated how whoever was on there wasting everyones time was a big sponsor of "youth-related activities." "Yeah" one of us mused. "like drinking, smoking pot, underage sex, and fighting in the streets."
This was not the night she said it, but it was the night it made the scorecard....Angel's infamous "I did not know Ripken was black." line. Turned out she confused Cal Ripkens black undergarment for an African American man's arm while he was perched at short. "Thats like being in Jerusalem and saying "Who is this Jesus guy?" someone mocked.
Talk in the bleachers was about the Columbian soccer player who was murdered for the ignomoly of scoring an "own-goal" against his own team. Universal feeling was that yes, he deserved it.
Some spaghetti-neck came ambling up, and when we hollered at him he snapped a few quips back. "Peggy Fleming is more of a man than you!" someone retorted. Another fan that was catching our special brand of grief was an Asian gent who we promptly dubbed "Hideo Homo." And in yet another true classic and what may be my favorite bleacher line of ALL TIME, his fellow-Asian buddy, who was wearing a home white Red Sox jersey was dubbed "Jim RICE" Rice, asian guy...get it?? LOL
The Grumpy old men came up in conversation again. "Psst...dont tell the grumpy old men, they're actually at the Met game."
Howard "the anti-comic" confided in us that he had joined the Hair Club for Men. Of course as soon as he ambled off to tell an unfunny joke somewhere old-school George cracked, "Yeah, he not only blew the President, he blew all the clients."
For no reason at all someone stood up between pitches and announced in a booming and deadpan Bob Sheppard impersonation, "In the event of an emergency......yell AAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!"
Old cowbell man Ali was not around, and someone asked Tina where he could possibly be. "He's probably dead." she shrugged. Meanwhile Fat Daddy Chico himself pointed up at a blimp hovering over the Stadium and joked, "hey, thats me!"
A fan leaned over the loge and I got him good. I used to jump up real quick and hurl a potent one-liner. This guy not only heard it, but gave me an obscene gesture in return. It was a nice exchange. While all this was going on a man was sitting in our midst calmly eating watemelon, for Gods sake.
Someone was on the phone up in front, and one of us said, "he's on the phone with Whorephone. You'll always get a score." Witty, I suppose...
Elder George was at his best. With a wild-card spot destined for 1995 he was on a "Buck must go" rant. When it came time for the subway race he griped, "fu*k that, it's always the C......or the D." As for the wildcard for posterity I marked "3 1/2 out Wild Card" before the game started. Sad to say, I also wrote "4 1/2 out Wild Card" before I left the Stadium, so there is a result spoiler for ya.
In one of the funnier "overheard lines" in bleacher-dom we heard a young scamp actually ask, "Mom, whats a gigilo?" soon after one of our inane conversations up there. Another dummy was holding up one of those blue "O'Neill" dartboard signs, upside down, which caused Gang Bang Steve to laugh and keep repeating, "it says 'Lilien'o"
Security Saddam on bleacher duty was in his raging heydey around this time, and for the 10000th time we were alerted that the "You suck" refrains would not work out there. He actually, honestly, and literally said, and I am NOT making this up, "You are bad, not you suck" in a way to coach us what to say. Can you imagine? "YOU ARE BAD!" clap "YOU ARE BAD!" Puh-leeeeze.
There were a couple of time stamps on here, including an "aborted bleacher wave" in the 5th, and a "homemade cowbell", also in the 5th. Wow, busy inning there. This is actually a very cool scorecard that always stood out in my collection - I did not have an actual scoresheet so I used a sheet of graph paper and drew in the boxes myself. Not too shabby, I must say. From a distance it looks pretty cool, this is Bleacher Creature Museum stuff for sure.
I did miss a few plays here and there, including a Greg Gagne home run in the 4th, attributed to telling "the dead fish story." Check this one out - I had a fishtank in my apartment back then, and one day I get home and one of my two fish is gone. I mean, not even a bone floating around. I figured the other fish devoured him, and went about my business after saying a quick prayer. Just about every weekend I had friends crashing in the place, on blankets and pillows on the hardwood floor. Well, months after the fish dissapeared my friend Eric (some of you may know him from the Baltimore gunpoint robbery story - two guys and four guns) said, "that was funny that night with your fish." and I am like, "what the fu*k are you talking about, you idiot." and he was like, "how I rolled over on him."
Turns out the fish was not eaten, he somehow hopped the tank. Eric crashed in the blankets that night, and rolled over at one point to hear a crunch. He thought it was "pork rinds" but after a while he went to pick it out of there and it was my fish, dead and hardening. Instead of telling me he simply shoved him under the bookcase. It was only months later he let me in on it. I could not get home fast enough to move the bookcase off the wall. When I did, I had a really cool fossil over there...
Anyhoo.....for all the crap Blackjack McDowell was taking from the fans back then he went another full 9 on this night, but he did take the loss. Yankees went down 4-3, to the laughable Royal revolving door of Dave Fleming, Jim Converse, Dilson Torres, Mike Magnante, Gregg Olson, and good old Jeff Montgomery. Yes, it took SIX of them!!
On the bat side of things, the Yankees managed 9 hits, with Wade Boggs slapping 3 of them and Bernie and Ruben Sierra adding 2 each. Sierra homered, as did Randy Velarde. The Yankee lineup looked like this - 1B Boggs (yes, at first on this night), CF Bernie, RF O'Neill, DH Sierra, C Stanley, SS Velarde, LF G Williams, 3B Russ Davis, and 2B Patrick Kelly. Probably the 20th different lineup in as many games.
The Royals also mustered 9 hits off of McDowell, with Keith Lockhart and Michael "Mother" Tucker having multiple hit games. Tucker homered, as did the aforementioned Greg "I am not the AWA wrestler Gagne of all people. The Royal lineup was CF Johnny Damon in his rookie campaign, LF Goodwin, 1B Joyner, 3B Gaetti, 2B Lockhart, SS Gagne, DH Tucker, RF Howard, and C Brett Mayne.
Lets do a profile real quick....David Howard is as good as any. Stuck around from 91-99 and is hardly remembered by anyone. In all those years he never played more than 95 games, batted more than 255 times...except in 1996 when he INEXPLICABLY played in 143 games and batted 420 times. It is a stark contrast when you peruse his ledger.
For the career he batted a sickly .229, with only 11 home runs and 148 RBIS in 1583 at bats. He played EVERYWHERE, all the outfield and infield positions outside of catching. He even pitched in a game in 1994, sneaking in and out while only giving up 1 run in 2 innings of work. So he was versatile but could not hit a lick and was not much the burner, managing a modest 23 stolen bases while being nabbed 19 times. NOT a good ratio. Originally a 32nd round draft pick (so not much could have ever been expected from him) in 1986, he was born in 1967. I am proud I got to see this everyman play the game in front of me!
As for 8/28, six years to the day where I started classes at SUNY New Paltz, only 23,595 were on hand to see a game played in 2:49. Your umpires on hand were Jim McKean, Vic Voltaggio, Jim Joyce, and Dale Scott.
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