September 3rd, 1993! The Ump is a Cockhead!

September 3rd, 1993 - Yankees host Indians
Manny cracks two jacks!

A Friday night at the Stadium, with rain about. The combination of rain and lots of beer made the scorecard a bit messy, shall we say. Bob Ojeda was on the mound for the Indians, so the "Take Me Out To The Ocean" ode we penned to remember the Indians boating crash was being belted for sure. In the linescore, someone actually wrote "Boats" in the visitors column, and "good guys" for the Yankees. Well, we are not all Ernest Hemingways.

The very top of the scorecard, which is usually reserved for a REALLY FUNNY joke, or an important note regarding the days affairs, has something lost to the annals of time....it says "I'm Kirby the....." and then indecipherable scrawling. Wayne Kirby, the guy who laughed when we sang "Row Row Row Your Boat" to make fun of the fatal Indian crash, was the beneficiary of that lost gem. Even now, in sober state, I cant come up with anything funny to complete the line.

A "Spanish family" was on hand, and after they looked piqued at some of our rowdy verbiage, we actually cursed in Spanish for them. Two shifty looking guys were called "Omar and Ishkabibble" whatever that means.

Our buddy Saddam on security was busy that night. Warnings were afoot. "Cops is filmed live before a studio audience" was noted as he came up for the first time....little did we know in a few years we WOULD have real cops stationed all around our rowdy bunch. Someone did a funny speech, mimicing Saddam....it went like this...

"In my country, if you sing "Horses Ass" you are taken out and shot, no questions asked."

I noted a lot of the trouble was caused by a "bleacher virgin" who did not deserve to lead chants or shout jokes in boisterous fashion. So the term "bleacher virgin" was alive and well in 1993, and it did not simply refer to all the girls that said no to us. The bottom of the 2nd was noted as a "VERY rowdy inning....disgraceful" on this scorecard. I wish i knew why!

The first pitch was not tossed until 7:39, which was at least 3 or 4 minutes late. "Well, its worth it for Hispanic Night" we wrote, and yes, according to us, the hispanics were simply being honored on that night for "not yet stealing my car."

Again, there are autographs all over the scorecard. To think about how dumb this was, imagine if during our heydey I would have Grover, Gang Bang Steve, or Big Tone Capone autographing the scorecard 10 times a year...it makes no sense! Some of the scribes on this night were our good buddy Dennis, who had already signed this year a handful of times, bleacher stalwart George (you know, Angel's ex) and Melle Mel, the real rapper and member of The Furious Five that ran with Grandmaster Flash.

Melido Perez started for the Yankees...apparently I stuck up for him, spurring someone to write "Thomas thinks Melido is not that bad....how many beers has he had?" I dont know what is more a head-scratcher, the fact I was sticking up for Melido, or the fact that someone was calling me Thomas out there.

Lots of snide comments directed at the Yankees' play during this game, including "we can't run" and "what the fuck." I missed a few plays, with excuses like "too busy saying go down" and "handing out cigars" and "too busy telling jokes." As to that, too bad no good ones made this card.

Someone DID write "we already heard that one..." with a frowny face attached...how catty. Can you imagine if we commented on every joke, line and remark we heard out there in the rightfield bleachers? Sadly, everything seems to be recycled.

Manny Ramirez was still a no-name merely irritating us at that point, and he was doing so from a distance, DH'ing and not within shouting distance. He did get to say hello with a monster crank in the 6th inning, then he poked one out to left in the 8th, which literally bought down rain. While the next batter was settling in, it started to pour. We even called it "BIG rain" They apparently played through this as the last two innings have that "wet pen" look about them. As for Ramirez' first home run of the evening, it was noted that "we HEARD that one."

Ramirez was not the only bugaboo that night. Paul Sorrento was killing us. He had been in the league since 1989, but whoever wrote the lineups and the bulk of the comments on here (not me, I was too drunk, a Friday and all) wrote "Us, the scoreboard, and the Yankees dont know who this guy is, and he is 2 for 3 with a double and a home run."

Someone wrote "the umpire is a cockhead" and signed their autograph. I have no idea if they meant to say COKEHEAD, or if cockhead was their intention. I think I like cockhead better. It seems back then there was a lot more anger towards the umpires, there are anti-umpire rants, even signs in the crowd, all over these scorecards.

Celebrity lookalike sightings included WWF wrestler Razor Ramon, and Mr. Clean. Unlike many of the previous offerings that were pretty cleanly scored, there were SEVEN "mystery outs" (still called WW's - wasnt watching's) - thats more like it!

Out on the soggy field, the Yankees dropped the game by a 7-2 score. Ramirez was 3-4, with 2 jacks, 3 runs scored, and 3RBIs. That idiot Carlos Baerga had 3 hits and plated 2, and Kenny Lofton led off for the tribe and scored twice. Other luminaries that appeared in the Indian colors on that day were ex-Yank Alvaro Espinoza, a young Jim Thome, that madman Albert "Joey" Belle, and Felix Fermin. Jerry Dipoto, of all people, notched the save.

Melido was hit hard, giving up 6 runs on 9 hits in 5 innings of work. That nerd Paul Gibson actually threw 3 decent innings in relief, before Steve Howe put down the pipe to pitch an uneventful top 9.

Mike Stanley had ANOTHER home run.

29,041 were on hand...I would KILL for that kind of crowd on a Friday night and the room it affords out there, and they got to see Ed Hickox, Ted Hendry, Jim Evans, and Terry Craft ump the game, which went on for 3 hours and 12 minutes.

Thanks for reading!