August 9th, 1994! Our last game! We go out loud!

August 9th, 1994 - Yankees host the Orioles
Phil Rizzuto night....the re-scheduled one!

One last one, and its a wrap for 1994!

In a nod to the upcoming strike, the Yankees moved up the eagerly anticipated Phil Rizzuto Day slated for later in August, and made it into Phil Rizzuto night. Knowing what was ahead, I took the occassion as a reason to get sloshed. It was a somber night, even though it was supposed to be celebratory. The Yankees even paraded out "My Life" from the Beatles, as they showed a clip melange of the inimitable "Scooter".

Quite a few dignataries were on hand. Frank Messer, who once read off recipes on the Yankee radio airwaves during a rain delay, was your Master of Ceremonies. Mel Allen, Joltin' Joe Dimaggio, and Enos "Country" Slaughter were there...it was like a parade of the soon-to-be dead. Representing the "still living in 2010" faction were Bill White, Rudy Guiliani, and via taped scoreboard message (and booed lustily upon introduction) Mario Cuomo. Meat Loaf also apparently had something to say on the scoreboard, and we laughed at how bad the dubbing appeared to be with the delays over the mic booming through the Stadium environs. That is what passed for fun with a strike hovering over us like the Sword of Damocles.

This is where Scooter broke down when awarded a meeting with the Pope, and Bill White gave him some sort of ring. Right underneath these notes I found time to scrawl, "no beer guy in 31 minutes" so you see where my priorities lie. Some woman representing the Baseball Hall of Fame paraded out on the field and was showered with "Show Your Tits!" chants from the bleachers.

"Our last game - we go out loud!" was how I headed this thing. Ali the old cowbell King, probably sour at the prospects of the strike and an early hibernation of the bell, played his "first and last bell" of the night at 8:27. Beyond that, this scorecard is a mess. I can not read just about anything on here. I mentioned that a pal named Dennis, in what was his swan-song (unbeknowenst to us at the time) sang "Blender" in the bottom of the 7th??? What the fu*k does that mean? Is that a Nirvana song or something?

A couple of celeb lookalikes were not treated well. "Down in front, "Bleacher Bill White!" was yelled. "Hey, Clarence Thomas, get the beer guy out here!" was another.

People were taking the Leroy Neiman collectors posters of Rizzuto and making them into nifty (and rather large) paper airplanes. They were flying about, and a few landed on the field. Bob Sheppard made an announcement to stop, and sure enough that was simply an invite for a fleet of more planes to sail to the field before he was even done with his first plea.

We sort of mailed it in for this one. Under "Caught Stealing" someone wrote "probably Polonia...but who cares." To the contrary, Polonia stole a base early on. In another case a player box has a groundout to short reported for an out, but an arrow leading out to the margin reads "I dont know, but he's on first..."

There is a mention here of a Broncos/49rs game, and a reference to Steve Young, but it is unreadable. What makes this possibly even more noteworthy is the autograph underneath by a fan at the game, and it looks like our friend Justin, who was a Bronco fan way back then, and a treasured friend of mine to this day. I am trying to confirm if this was indeed the first direct Justin reference on my cards, back there in August of 1994.

To show how stupid the idea of going out on strike was, and a tip and a nod towards Rizzuto, there was an incredibly whopping 50,000 plus on hand for a Tuesday night game. The Yankees dropped this game, but left the Stadium with an 8 game lead on the second place O's. Lots of good it did em!

Its fitting that Jim Abbott started, its long been a joke on here that every time I went to a game it seemed like he was on the mound. He pitched 5.2 sluggish innings, giving up 6 runs in that time, enough to tag the L on the Yankee ledger. The main foe was "Brady's a Lady" Anderson, who went 3-5 with 2 runs and 2 RBIs from the leadoff position. Cal Ripken Jr and Chris Hoiles also had a couple of hits for the birds from Baltimore. The O's proffered up a lineup of RF Anderson, LF Hammonds, 1B Raffy Palmiero, SS Ripken, 3B Leo Gomez, C Hoiles, DH Lonnie Smith (lol), and 2B Mark McLemore.

For the Yankees, they outhit the O's 10-9, with Bernie, Boggs, O'Neill and Stanley (the top 4 hitters) all getting 2 hits. Boggs connected for his 11th home run, off of starter Jamie Moyer, who still hasnt taken the hint and has not yet left the party. In some tragic irony Lee Smith, who cameoed for the Yankees the year before, nailed down the save for the bad guys after Moyer pitched 8 innings, giving up 5 runs. Moyer upped to 5-7, Abbott dropped to 9-8.

The final Yankee lineup for 1995 as far as I was concerned (there were still a couple of games left on the ledger) was CF BW, 3B Boggs, RF O'Neill, C Stanley, 1B Mattingly, DH Leyritz, LF GW, SS Gallego, and 2B Kelly. This card featured THIRTEEN mystery outs - too many to name them all - what a fu*king mess this is - this includes 3 straight mystery outs in the bottom of the Yankees second. What the Hell were we doing??

As mentioned, there were a whopping 50,070 on hand, to see a game that went a slogging 3:31. Your umpires on hand were Larry McCoy, Jim Evans, Derryl Cousins, and Rick Reed.

What the Hell, lets roll one last profile for 1994. Lets go with Leo Gomez, who came into baseball with such promise, but I believe ended up making most of his mark overseas when he fizzled out. A tenure that lasted from 1990-1996, he played in 611 games and could not nudge his lifetime average above .243. He did go yard 79 times, plating 259 runs. He finished his career with 4 stolen bases and 10 caught stealings, a pungent and apalling stat. In 1916 at-bats, he stuck out 399 times, and walked 255. Born in 1966, this Puerto Ricano was signed by the O's as an amateur free agent in 1995. Without researching, I believe he went on to Japan after one year with the Cubs and ended up hitting many a home run over there. I am happy to have seen him!

Hey, thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed 1994. I think you know what is set to come in 1995...the regulars start appearing, some of them have still not left, and the "humor" steps up a notch. I also believe the material is even more "salty" as we tended to work blue. As for 1994, it was fun, unofficially I scored 28 games, finishing with a 16-12 record.

Cheers and beers!