May 10th, 1994 - "Best record in baseball"

May 10th, 1994 - Yankees host the Indians
"Shit, I can boil clams in this beer"

A Tuesday night, game 2 of a 3 game set-to with the Tribe. My 9th game of the season, and the Yankees were 6-2 with $heriff Tom in town.

Our good buddy Wayne Kirby was in right, and aside from being serenaded with verse after verse of "Ode to Indian" someone hollered, "Kirby, you suck so much someone named a vacuum after you!" After all these years, though, I still cant get over the sight of Kirby laughing as we sung a ditty about two of his ex-teammates getting killed in a spring training boat crash when we showered him with it during a game a few months later.

We had what I called an "inadvertant box seats suck!" chant. Some fool stood up in the box seats holding up a sign, and was deluged with the chant. He looked over with a sad hangdog look, and showed us his sign...it was the Paul O'Neill bulls-eye sign guy, and he had friends there with us in 39 who also had signs, so we quelled the chant as a favor to him.

The Dominicans were catching their share of shit again, although many had not returned from the night before. "Dominicans, huh? How many wars have YOU won?" was a query put to them. "Immagraciona!" was another fan favorite.

Our good friend Animal, who apparently had a short stint in the hoosegow (an earlier scorecard noted that he was in jail) showed up clean shaven. "Its so security can't recognize me" he shrugged. Time off did not change his drunken ways, however, as "Animal wakes up" is noted in the top of the 7th.

In the faux celebrity siting category, "Kenny Loggins" was there again, and "dressed as Winnie the Pooh" with a nice striped pullover shirt. Someone else was wearing a freaky tie-die shirt, and someone mused, "geez, I am getting a contact high just from looking at that shirt." Another faux celebrity on hand was "Kurt Cobain," who was greeted with a "down in front Kurt Cobain!" and returned it with a sheepish wave.

We were surly with the beer men. The beer was warm, as usual. "Shit, I can boil clams in this beer." was one gripe. "Beer man, if I wanted soup, I would have ordered it." was another.

Hey, I see why we had so many "Raj" mentions on here...Yes, the guy who looked like "Whats Happenin's" Raj was apparently on security, working every game. Hey, hey hey!

With all the rowdy crowds Cleveland and Ramirez bought in, I saw fit to mention "there was a lot of altercating last night." Queen Bee Tina was on a rampage, causing someone around me to put on a perfect Dragnet voice and utter "I'm Tina...I wear a badge." Kind of amusing to see a badge mention a couple of years before the birth of Sheriff Tom and my vaunted collection of such.

I have a star in a corner on here, with the words "80th game" on there. So I believe I at least believed it was my 80th game at Yankee Stadium. That would double by 1996. I marked a few other times on here for further posterity - first "crapman" sighting was at 7:11 as he ambled up hawking his wares, followed up by the first Ali cowbell at 7:13. We did an Indian tomohawk chop while chanting "Indians blow" at 7:44...and basically what amounted to the entire bleachers on a night like that had an awesome "Kiiiirrrbbbbbyyyy" chant at 9:02. I myself started a rousing "Kirby sucks!" chant at 9:17.

I also remarked that, at that early date of May 10th, the Yankees had busted out to not only first place, but the best record in baseball, 20-10 going in. We all know how this movie ended, huh?

Mike Stanley had reached the point of reverence out there by this time. When he came up, some people would rise and genuflect, and chant "may the power of Christ compel you." He went 2-4 on this night, with a dreaded "mo" on the scorecard to boot.

I mentioned that my brother Dan, who lived in Maryland at the time, was at the Oriole/Blue Jay game down in Baltimore at the same time. There were 30,000 more people at Camden Yards joining him than were joining me in the Bronx. Even the majority of the "Ramirez crowd" took this one off, by my notes.

Beerslinger Cousin Brewski was in his showman mood, belting out "Proud Mary" by Creedence Clearwater Revival "at 9:34." That was always a good show. He was not met with the normal jubilant reception, though, as people were still upset with the beer vendors for the warm beer and saw Brewski as part of the problem. But Brewski won them over by handing out free "Cousin Brewski" buttons. When the bleachers are nearly empty, he could win them over pretty quick.

I noted that Crazy Devil Fan Billy was involved in a "Henderson argument" - remember, this was the guy that once called Marty Cordova "the best leftfielder in baseball." I dont know what he was saying about Henderson, but he was having to argue to defend it.

A Yankee must have been nailed on the basepaths, as I have a "another succesful graduate of the Randolph school of baserunning" on here. There are all kinds of random game notes on here like "great throw - bad call" and "E on throw" and "pitchout" and "ground rule" - I mise as well have taped the game on the radio to play back later if I was going to be so anal about things.

But, hooray me! There was only ONE mo in the whole game, Stanley's in the 8th. Fu*kin' a...I made it all the way till the 8th and lost a perfectly scored game with only 4 outs to go. As I sit here typing this, I wonder if I will ever see a perfectly scored game again. The reason for the flub was ok, though, I was looking down and writing in O'Neills second home run, which immediatly preceded the mystery out.

As for the game on the field, the errant abuse we landed on the O'Neill fan did not jinx Paul on the field, as he had what I dubbed a "hero night" - going 3-4 with 2 runs and 2 RBIs, and two home runs. Stanley and Mattingly also had 2 hits, and the Yankees won 5-3 behind decent enough pitching for 6 innings by Scott Kamienieki. The unlikely tandem of Paul Gibson (who got the win) and Xavier Hernandez pitched 3 hitless innings to lock and load this one.

On the Indian side of things, Albert Belle again had his merry way with the Yankee pitching, going 3-4. Thome, playing third base at this stage of his career, was the only white guy in the starting lineup outside of starting pitcher Charles "Nerdy" Nagy. Eric Plunk, that asshole, threw the 8th for the Indians and much to our delight we touched him up for another run. The only other Indian note of interest was that the ever surly Eddie Murray exchanged pleasantries with home plate ump Brian O'Nora after being punched out in the 9th.

As I alluded to, it was a scant gathering at the Stadium. Only 17,378 were on hand, while my brother was part of a 47,194 showing at Camden Yards. Your full set of umpires were Brian O'Nora, Rich Garcia, Dale Ford, and Larry Young.

Thanks for reading!