April 19th, 1994 - "Yabba Dabba Douchebag!"

April 19th, 1994 Yankees vs Mariners
"Get over it...Chivarly is dead"

Moving forever onward...

I have no idea where I was during the first weekend series against the Tigers, maybe camping or something. There's beer out there in those woods, after all. Nonetheless, my second game in 1994 was not until a Tuesday against Seattle. I have to think this is a day game, as a grumbly scrawled "we have more day games than the Cubs" is a hint. Actually....no, this was NOT my second game in 94, as I am seeing now I wrote "3" under game number, so there is a scorecard missing. D'oh! There was probably a triple play in that game that I lost to time.

First thing I noted on the scorecard was that there was "still a mystery blue jacket" in my bag. Someones jacket had ended up in my duffel bag, and I dont think we ever figured out the original bearer of such. It became a running gag, and it was never claimed.

My cranky brother Dave was there with his friends Jay and Bill. Dave said he would make "20 games" and "this was one." By the end of the year I believe he notched "three." His friend Jay was busy that night, even "reasoning with a Seattle fan," which is a nice way of noting he was telling him in a friendly fashion it was in his best interests to keep the lips zipped or he would be pummelled.

"Freddy has one eye!" is on here, with exclamation point. Ah, good old "Freddy Sez." Geez, even then Freddy was trying to spread joy, clanking his tin pan, showing off his corny signs, and catching shit about his eye.

"Yabba Dabba Douchebag!" was one invective that was hurled. The howler of this jeer was being ejected at the time. "What, do you comb your hair with a sponge?" made its inaugeral appearance as a bleacher barb, to a fat bald man. I wonder how many times I had that grenade tossed in my direction without realizing it as I moved about out there over ensuing years.

In the current events of the day - I noted that "Space Ghost rules!" Speaking of TV at the time, you also see "Paul Olden sucks!" on here. And, since then, Olden has moved from polluting the booth to handling the same role the legendary Bob Sheppard did for decades, as Stadium PA.

Looks like Dave "the Animal" was in jail. In two seperate spots on here you can read "Dave in jail." There are no further details to report on this breaking story. Well, breaking 17 years ago, anyway...whats funny is both times it was noted that he was in jail were written by me, so I must have been drunk again, or really trying to hammer the point home to put it on here more than once.

Eric Anthony was playing left for the Mariners, and we correctly ID'd him as a "former Houston Ass-blow." A woman gave us a grimace and a disgusted sigh, so we told her "get over it...chivalry is dead."

Even then there were still morons walking around with tags hanging off the caps. "Yo, G-Money, take the tag off" made the card.

The weather was a problem. Not much in the way of a breeze ("The flags are limp" was an observation) but we were being spritzed with annoying drizzle. It rained early on as I blamed one of the "mystery outs" on it ("wiping off my seat") but it picked a funny time to REALLY hit, in the bottom of the 9th with the Yankees down 7-0 and Don Mattingly leading off the frame. The tarp actually came out.....that must have went over well, huh...I likened the fleeing masses to roaches on the wall (and as a fairly new resident of NYC, I surely knew what that looked like)

Check this, it was a whopping NINE minute rain delay. Shit, I would have thought it would take them that long to run it on and off the field alone. It ended at 9:27 PM, so there goes my theory about being a day game. We should have expected the bottom of the ninth monsoon, as I see mentions of thunder and a sketch of an ominous cloud scrawled with an arrow connecting it to the top of the ninth inning.

Of all people we were shut down by Greg Hibbard. Coming in I marked next to his name that his "ERA looked like an AM radio frequency." So he promptly went out and pitched into the ninth, when the Mariners turned to Jeff Nelson (who made 71 appearances in that, his second year in the league) and finally, one Tim Davis, in his debut season. Not even a household name in his own household, to be sure.

Jay Buhner was at it again, with two home runs, aptly dubbed "moonshot" in the 3rd and "a longer moonshot" in the 5th. In the 7th he flied out to center and made a show of it, fooling just about everyone who were convinced off the bat that it was yet another moonshot.

What a goofy lineup for Seattle. Brian Turang was leading off, and playing DH. Not many DH's lead off, period. And fu*king Brian Turang...lol! The Mariner lineup also included stalwarts Greg "my last name is a line on an eyechart" Pirkl at first and the affable Felix Fermin at short. And our old friend Mike Blowers was at third. Not only did Buhner jack two, Rich Amaral plopped one of his own over the wall.

Jim Abbott started for the Yankees (Jesus Christ, every time I was there Abbott was pitching...but I missed the no-hitter. Go figure) - he left after 5 putrid innings, and Pope Don Pall came in to throw a gemstone 4 shutout innings, giving up but 2 hits.

Not much going on on the Yankee end of things. Ended up with the one run, on 6 hits. Mike Gallego was still locked in as the Yankee leadoff hitter. Bernie Williams was hitting 7th, with O'Neill right in front of him.

So with all this one-sided bitchsmacking, Queen Bee Tina lost her patience and when someone had the temerity to yap back at her, she promptly marched to the rail and had security come back and sternly warn them to shut up or face the old heave-ho.

In the main oddity of the nights, there were ZERO double plays in the entire game. None, zippo, zilch.

There were only 21,148 on hand (geez, these small crowds are funny) on this gloomy evening, and your umpires were Ted Hendry, Mark Johnson, Chuck Meriwether, and Drew Coble.

Thanks for reading!