June 4th, 1994 - "F U K C"

Saturday, June 4th - Yankees host the Royals
"Are you saying hello to the girl, or the beer?"

Ah, a nice Saturday afternoon in the Bronx. While I was at the game I noted that 2 cousins and one of their husbands were "lost in NYC." Well, if they came with me to the game in the first place, that would not have happened now, would it.

Lots of these cards blend together...I understand it is some slow going for some of these games where the comments are either not there, or just not funny. But this is the harsh reality of the bleachers. We could not be "on" every night. The life of a bleacher improv group is not an easy one. So stick with me through the bumps in the road and you will find some gems coming up. I am on a mission to recap every single game I have scored, for better or worse, and even I cant breathe life into some of these things.

I saw fit to mention a plane interrupted the National Anthem, and next to the "passed balls" category on my scorecard I wrote "none by Mcrae...he never passes up balls!" I know, groan.

So this was not one of my better days. On top of having family lost in Metropolis, and leaving them hanging on a payphone in the Stadium runways to get upstairs in time for the Anthem and first pitch, I had to pay back beers to both "Chris and Dan" for whatever reason. In those days we were always kicking over one anothers beers. It was one of the worst hazards of drinking $6 beers up there, and this may have been buybacks for kicked beers.

I remember one time I purchased a warm brew up there, and as soon as I went to pull it back from the vendor I dropped it. Everyone laughed but me. I promptly ordered another one, and actually was able to put this on the ground under my seat where no one could kick it over. Well...no one but me, apparently, as I kicked it over. That was two, in a span of ten seconds. I actually had to buy a third, and it was all on me. The vendor could do nothing but shrug and sell me another one. What amounted to an $18 cup of warm beer, before the tips that insured they come back.

Anyhoo....speaking of vendors and vending on this night we had "Spike Lee" was pushing soda. "Hey, Spike, do the right thing and get the beer guy up here!!" was a common refrain. "Knicks suck!" was another. When Terry Shumpert homered in the Royal 3rd as "Spike Lee" was handing out syrupy sodas we promptly blamed him for it. And, how is this for irony, Shumpert (who had no business hitting two home runs in a season, yet alone a game) clanked another one off the foul pole in the 8th as, you guessed it, "Spike Lee" was out there once again in our midst shouting "last call soda!"

"Vend elsewhere" became our mantra for the day in terms of that idiot.

Its funny, this guy Dennis was mentioning how the Showalter-era Yankees had a penchant for getting into dust-ups....well, this game almost featured a first inning brawl as Polonia was dusted by Mark "my last name is an eye chart" Gubicza and made a motion towards the mound. This followed Brian McRae being plunked by Terry Mulholland in the top of the frame. The teams slinked onto the field a few feet but nothing else developed, even though we were all trying to incite it from the rightfield bleachers. "Fight! Fight!" we yelled merrily.

This was one of those Saturday night games...God bless them. At least I think so by my notation of "Animal arrives 7:14" - thing is Retrosheet shows this a day game. Maybe it was a 4PM game and Animal showed up for the 9th inning. I dont know what the Hell is going on here.

And even then Saturday late afternoon/night games could get ugly, for example I noted that a few people were yelling at what appeared to be a mentally handicapped individual. Even Fat Daddy Chico was getting some heat from his fixed home run and attendance pools. These were the days of the attendance pools where you would pick 23,938, the attendance would be 23,959, and you would lose cause "someone" would have had 23,947. Yet people would still play and pad Chico's pockets game after game, and then holler "get the fu*k out of here and take your pool with you, ya fu*k!" at Chico the next game, as someone apparently did on this night.

There was actually a fife and drum band out on the field before the game, and I never recall seeing this before but a few of them found their way into the bleachers for the game. I proudly noted on here that I shared a few ales and a few tales with them. They could really drink, and that made us happy.

Some skirt came up peddling beer, causing Animal to jump up and shout a merry "Hello!" along with an exaggerated wave of greeting. "Are you saying hello to the girl, or the beer?" someone asked.

Between the 4th and 5th inning something that sounded like porno music blared out of the Stadium speakers, and two guys started dry humping. It did not go over well. I understand their attempt at humor, but it would have helped if there were any girls out there at all and they did not have to rely on one another. Actually, considering soon enough I spent a decade doing an exaggerated humping motion on top of the benches later on just cause a staccato drum started playing, who am I to talk.

Some oldtimer with a big nose was out there, bringing on both Jimmy Durante and generic "old man" jokes. One of us put on a fuax old man voice and mimicked the guy with the old, "since when are the monuments off the playing field?" line.

A little African American kid was hopping up the stairs, and someone stopped him to point out that "the Con-Ed seats are that way."

I am catching 4 "mo's" on here and I have reasons for missing the plays attributed to 3 of them. "Reading the NY Post" for Greg Gagne in the top 3rd, "telling jokes" for Gary Gaetti in the 9th, "Ali's bell" with Bernie up in the Yankee 2nd, and sadly no reason cited for Polonia leading off the Yankee 8th.

Remember how I mentioned Mulholland ended up having a crap year for the Yankees? Well, regardless of that fact he pitched his second complete game in a row with me in attendance, although he got hooked with the loss in this one. The Royals eked out a 4-3 win, even though the Yankees made it a cliffhanger with 2 in the 9th off of Royal closer Jeff Montgomery.

Shumpert was public enemy #1 on this night, with his 2 home runs and 3 RBIs. The other Royal tally came off the bat of that relic Dave Henderson, who homered in the 4th to put the Royals up 2-1. On the Yankee side of things Jim Leyritz jacked the 2 run homer in the 9th off of Montgomery to plate O'Neill and make it interesting, but Bernie whiffed to end the game immediatly following. O'Neill ended up with 3 hits on the evening, but only a "run" to show for it in the other columns.

The Royals tossed up a lineup of LF Coleman, 1B Joyner, CF McRae, RF Henderson, C McFarlane, 3B Gaetti, DH Hubie Brooks of all people, SS Gagne, and 2B Shumpert. The Yankees countered with LF Polonia, 3B Boggs, 1B Mattingly, DH Tartabull, RF O'Neill, C Leyritz, CF BW, SS Velarde, and 2B Patrick Kelly. While Mulholland went the full 9 for NY the Royals countered with Gubicza, Hipolito Pichardo, that dope Billy Brewer, and Montgomery.

As for the every unpopular "profile" feature, lets go with Mr. Shumpert. He managed 8 homers in 64 games in 94, and we saw 2 of them here. Mr. Shumpert enjoyed a 14 year career, never batting more than 364 times in a season. His lifetime batting average of .252, with 49 home runs and 223 RBIs makes him the most accomplished hitter I have profiled so far. After 5 years with KC he plied his trade with the Red Sux (21 games in 1995), the Cubs (27 games in 1996) the Padres (13 games in 1997), then 5 seasons of work with the Rockies before finishing up for now with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in a heralded return to the American League in 2003. During his storied body of work he saw time in the outfield, 2B, SS, 3B, and first. Cheers, Mr. Shumpert!!

As for the particulars of June 4th, 1994, 30,693 were out at the vaunted ballyard in the Bronx to see a game that went off in a lightning fast 2:09 (no wonder there is nothing on here of note...who had time?) - the umpires who rushed us through this one were Jim McKean, Jim Joyce, Matthew Winans, and Ed Hickox.

Hey, I said "ckox" heh heh.

Thanks for reading!