August 4th, 1993 - "The Animal House that Ruth Built"

August 4th, 1993 - Yankees host Toronto
"THE ANIMAL HOUSE THAT RUTH BUILT"

Well, I had mentioned that things were starting to get out of hand during this Yankee/Jays series, with the Yankees so close to first place, and the anti-Canadian sentiment running high so many years before the South Park movie.

This night, August 4th, 1993, also goes down in history for another baseball milestone...in Texas, Chicago's Robin Ventura was plunked by Nolan Ryan and charged the mound. As we all know by now, Ryan put him in a headlock and started churning punches to the head, in windmill fashion. But lets get back to New York and the calamity set to unfold....

A couple of days before the NY Post had a backpage headline "The Animal House That Ruth Built" with a pic of some crazy fans on the back. This was spurred by the booing of the anthem, some fans taking a skip and a jaunt on the field, and a number of fisticuffs in the seats. I taped that back page on to my closet and it remained there for a couple of years before I redecorated by putting up different stupid pictures.

At the time of this game, the Yankees had moved from a tie for first, to a full 3 games behind the rampaging Jays. Things were tense, indeed.

Despite public pleas to stop, the Canadian Anthem was booed lustily again. This had all spurred Toronto's Joe Carter to proclaim it made him "embarrassed to be an American." Of couse the Stadium, and the bleachers in particular, were eager to make him pay for such sentiment. A common refrain was, "well, that makes us even...Joe Carter makes me embarrassed to be an American."

My priorities were different back then. I even marked on the scorecard that my friend Chris paid me back some money he owed me. How I had money to lend anyone at the time beats me....

If people remember the scorecards I used, they had a little space for you to fill in "Date" and "Played At" - I used to scrawl in little chuckles. Like, under date you would not be surprised to see something like "wish I had one!" or "with 5000 other drunks" and under "played at" you would see "1st Place Place" or "a slow pace."

On this day the date was "another night I would not see a Yankee no-hitter" (oh, that would change in a couple of years) and the game was played at "an Un-American place." Well, now when I mention these increasingly unfunny quips in those spaces in the future, you will know what they are about.

The scorecards I used were from a baseball board game, and they had something called a "reduction" which you could use in addition to the player cards. So there was the word "reduction" in boldface over the pitchers names on my scorecards, and of couse being the wit I was back then I wrote the word "Breast" in front of it.

Many of you old-schoolers would remember a fellow named Dave, better known as "Animal". He was the loud and brash one out there those days, helped along by a healthy dose of alcohol. Back then in 1993 he already had the "drink for a while and come in late" thing down, that took me almost another 8 years to finally master. By 2010 I have moved on to the "drink outside for so long dont even make it inside at all" thing.

Well, being he came in late and we were doing anything to entertain ourselves, we started a poll on "what time will Animal come walking in." For a 7:30 start I wagered 8:04, Dennis picked 8:12, an Ian went with 8:25, and a John said an hour late, at 8:30. I scored the win as he came sauntering up the ramp, yelling at Joe Carter, at 7:55.

Back then Ali would ring the bell well before the game started, just to prep the crowd and get everyone singing and dancing in the aisles. First pitch this night was not until 7:37, but Ali's first cowbell serenade was at 7:05. As I was already inside, beer were obviously still being sold inside the bleachers. Once they banned it from our seats, pregame was used more wisely to get in as many beers as we could outside.

I kept the Horses Ass and "....Takes It Up The Ass" song tallies again....that would not last much longer. Horses Ass was belted out only 4 times, and "Takes It up the ass" was sung 3. Looks like people were too busy fighting out there to sing.

For some reason beachballs were flying. And, undoubtedly, getting popped. Rickey Henderson was out in centerfield, and he saw fit to give us the finger. Of course we gave it right back, and then some.

In one of my favorite lines to date, we went with the Canadian theme and shouted "Carter MOUNTIES Alomar!!" Heh, heh, thats a good one.

There must have been someone that looked like Elvis back then that sat in the bleachers. Cause this is not the first scorecard as I am going through these were I see the line "Elvis has left the bleachers" on them.

Looking over the scorecard someone ruminated that "Pat Kelly is among the Yankee stolen base leaders....he has 1." Just under that quip is a notation that some guy was facing the bleachers and posing like "Mr. America" for absolutely no reason. Maybe thats where i stole it from.

I am seeing fights noted here and there. I ended up dubbing this "Fight Night" - the first scrum broke out in the top of the 3rd, at exactly 8:22. So, at that point, Animal had been in the house for 27 minutes.

Remember I mentioned my Toronto Blow Jays pin that people would confuse for a, well, BLUE JAY pin? Well, it happened again. I mentioned that the pin got me in trouble with Paul Molitor at the plate in the 4th. Some drunk walking up the stairs started haranguing me for wearing a "Blue Jay pin." Although I did not mark it down, I must have taken it off at this point, and it was soon retired for good.

"First projectile thrown" also came in the 4th. I did not mark where it came from, but the entire Stadium was in a frisky mood. I marked down at some point that Dennis was my "3rd pinch-scorer" and that means I made 3 beer runs......hurray me!

There were stupid conversations even then. I made up a story that Wang Chungs "Everyone have fun tonight" song was voted "most innovative song ever" on a Long Island radio station. This spurned an argument that went on through the entire 7th inning, and even involved yelling. People were so gullible back then.

In another amusing note, none other than weak-stick Yankee Jim Mason (he of the .203 lifetime batting average) actually made a Yankee Quiz on the scorboard. Upon mention, his name was greeted with boos all those years later.

NOT ONE mystery out on the whole scorecard. Holy fuck, did things deteriorate from there.

Things looked good for a while on the field, with the Yankees building a 6-0 lead after 7, behind the inexplicable solid pitching of Scott Kamienieki. That Eddie Munster lookalike Mike Gallego of all people had a home run for the Yankees, and Paul O'Neill was 2-4 with 3 RBIs.

Things got a little worrisome in the 8th, as the Jays ended up plating 2. "Lock the bullpen gate!!!!" went up the hue and cry. After Rich Monteleone and Paul Assenmacher somehow managed to put a stop to things, Steve Farr came out to cringes, shudders, boos, and swears in the 9th and somehow locked it down. 6-2 final or no, this was another "sweat out a 6 run lead" type of game.

In a nice capper to Blue Jay woe, Henderson was nailed trying to steal in the 7th, and the crowd rejoiced.

Another big, and raucous crowd in the Bronx with 48,250 paying their way in. Your umpires on this Wednesday night were Rick Reed, Tim McClelland, Joe Brinkman, and Derryl Cousins.

Thanks for reading!