June 20th, 1994 - "Women know nothing about baseball"

Monday, June 20th, Yankees host the Twinkies
"May the power of Thurman compel you"

A Monday night! Check me out, making Monday games. From 1996-2004, when we did not play as much anyway, I probably made 1 or 2 total, mainly thanks to my Monday night pro wrestling addiction. But here I was on a "bad night for a balllgame" as I deemed the locale "a sauna" in the scorecard "played at" column. Perfect night for a 3 hour game, huh?

We were warned going in by "Security Saddam" (yes, a dead ringer for the Iraqi Dictator), "No more bleacher wave!" Of course the bleacher wave was our own version of the pesky wave, which included upraised middle fingers. Not taken seriously, I'm sure, but I marked down in the 8th there was "an aborted bleacher wave" and Ali the cowbell King of all people was warned by security to stop partaking. As old and genial as he could be, Ali was known to wave the middle finger around out there.

We had the pleasure of seeing future Hall of Famer Kirby Puckett in front of us in right (so Shane Mack could play center) and we heaped him with all kinds of abuse worthy of his station in the game. Elder George cracked, "he might hit a homer if you hit him with a pitch in the stomach." Someone else pondered aloud, "who else has a body like that??" and another old-timer, Big Willie answered "Fat Daddy Chico!"

From then on people started hollering, "Chico, get off the field!" - our Chico would respond with a wave and a grin...between bites, that is. "Round Round Big and Round...He's Big and Round!" we sang to the tune of the Beach Boys "I Get Around" and of course all the fat guy one-liners were being parlayed towards the field. "Hey, Kirby, did you order a pizza?" someone screamed from the rail. "Get some peanuts, Dumbo is hungry!" another chimed in.

Someone was hanging K's off the loge (stupid thing when Jim Abbott was on the mound in the first place, he was no Randy Johnson) and as we discussed what a waste of time that was someone pretended to be "the K crew" and cracked, "I put the K's up...people like me!"

I mentioned our good buddy Dennis was missing this as he was attending live Monday Night Raw wrestling action. Among other things he saw on that night, In "The King's Court," Jerry Lawler insisted Duke the Dumpster stay outside the ring because he stinks. After receiving a barrage of insults, Duke did indeed leave the ringside area. The devious Lawler slunk out of the ring and caught him from behind and bashed him with a garbage can...I missed this to be at a Yankee game??

Ah, a rare scoreboard error. This was the night where the scoreboard read "Bob WICKAMN" when Wickman came in to pitch late in the game. "Who typed that, Abbott?" we asked. For the rest of the year when we would see Wickman roaming the grass during BP we'd salute him with a, "how you doin, Wickamn"

"McCarty has no Knob-lauch!" was hollered out with glee. Good one. When Mike Stanley was batting with 2 on in the 4th he was spurred on with a "May the power of Thurman compel you!" but he whiffed.

I had mentioned in an earlier scorecard memory that we had started to hear ruminations of the "1994 Gay Games" coming to New York, and among other venues - Yankee Stadium. It was a reality now. "Shit, there are going to be two guys having sex in your seat" someone grumbled. "This gives a whole new reason to the term 'pole vault.' was another. How about this one - "as an insult at the Gay Games people chant "You DON'T suck!" Sigh.

George, showing ambition, said "I am going to write Gay Games suck on every seat....all 54,000 of them."

At one point Alex Cole, who came in for Mack late in the game, made the mistake of tossing us up a ball, and, as I wrote for posterity, "back it goes."

Abbott was absolutely shelled, and was booed zestily for his efforts. That got us to talking about the subject of booing the Yankees. George calmly reasoned, "I won't boo Perez, Key, or Pope Don Pall. Everyone else sucks." As Polonia misplayed an out into a hit from his perch in left, someone spat "where is Dave Collins when you need him?" But while this was going on an old man had the "audacity to say" that, on this pitching staff, "Hernandez and Mulholland are the best." Sure, at this stage they were throwing lights out, but we all know how that film ended...even Queen Bee Tina went on a "pitching diatribe" on this muggy Monday night, shredding our staff.

"Women know nothing about baseball" Animal spouted at some point, sparking another round of debate.

Four "mo's" on here, including Polonia leading off the game for the Yankees (we were busy insulting Puckett) - the others, for Walkman John's perusal and correction were Mack leading off the second (goofing off), Mack again in the 6th (I must have really hated Shane Mack to keep missing his at-bats), and Tartabull leading off the Yankee 6th. Looks like most of my "mos" were leading off innings, so after all the hoopla between innings (which included good lounge and lobby music on this night) I had trouble putting my game face back on.

The affair on the field turned into a bitch-slap fest, and the Yankees ended up sneaking out with a 7-5 win, upping my season mark to 12-7 and more importantly upping the Yankees mark to 40-27. No wonder people were still in love with our pitching.

For the Yankees it started with the top third of the order. Polonia went 2-5, scoring twice and driving in a run. Boggs was on all 4 times, walking and going 3-3 with a triple, a run, and an RBI. Mattingly had 2 hits and and drove in a deuce. Darryl Boston, pinch-hitting for Gallego in the 9th, hit a 3-run shot that essentially won the Yankees the game, with Wickman getting a vulture W. The Yankee starting lineup was Polonia, Boggs, Mattingly, Stanley, O'Neill, Tartabull (moved down in the order), BW, Velarde at short, and Gallego at second. Abbott (12 hits in 5.1 innings), Pope Don Pall, and Bob WICKMAN saw mound time for the Yankees, with the latter two hurling 3.2 hitless innings to lock and load things.

The Twins managed 12 hits of their own, but came up short on the run tally. Bobby Munoz went 3-3, and our old friend Dave Winfield went 2-4 with a couple of runs scored. He jacked a homer, as did Puckett (and no, it was not off his stomach). We aplty dubbed Puckett's blast "a big, fat home run." The stupid Twins had a 5-2 lead into the 7th when Roger Erickson imploded (with help from Mark Guthrie and Carl Willis). Well, that was their problem, not ours. The Twins blessed us with a lineup of 2B Knoblauch, SS Jeff Reboluet, RF Puckett, CF Mack, DH Winfield, LF Munoz, 3B Scott Leius, 1B McCarty, and C Matt Walbeck.

If you were lucky enough to be there on that night, you got to see none other than Chip Hale pinch-hit for Reboluet in the 9th. He bounced back to the mound, but we pointed out that it was "almost a home run." Mr. Hale saw time from 1989-1997 (sans 92 and 93) and managed to sneak into 333 games in that time. He did manage a respectable .277 lifetime average but with minimal power - 7 home runs and 78 RBIs in 575 at bats. Check it out, a seasons worth of at-bats in seven campaigns. He did not even steal bases, with only 2 in his career. He was once traded for Craig Shipley. He did manage to play first, second, third, and all the outfield positions, but for fu*ks sake, I dont know what he was doing out there either, but I am happy to have seen him!

There were only 20,566 on hand to see the ultra-hot Yankee machine, and the game slogged on for 2:56. Your arbiters for this affair were Al Clark, Dan Morrison, Larry Barnett, and Gregory Kosc.

Thanks for reading!