May 20th, 1994 - "I fu*king love him...I'd fu*k him any day."

Friday, May 20th - Yankees host the Orioles
Fans on field! Jamie Moyer! A Gilligan lookalike!

Ah, another Friday night! I LOVE Friday nights...even if the scorecards are a tad illegable. And Jim Abbott was on the mound for the Yankees again, it was like he was following me around. I mean, every game I score, it seems! It was a seemingly cold night for late May, as I noted we were "blowing smoke" with the temps hovering around 50. So lets get to it, shall we?

If you have been following this saga, you may recall how I alluded to how Angel (Elder George's girlfriend at the time) was capable of uttering anything at any time...she is the one who remarked, "I did not know Cal Ripken Jr was black" when she saw him from our distant perch with a long-sleeved black sweatshirt on under his jersey top. Well, on this night for whatever reason she admitted to thinking ALL THE WAY BACK THEN IN 1994 that Paul McCartney was dead. And we could not change here mind.

Speakin of Ripken, there he was on the field, as the Orioles were in town...for all I know this could be the night she uttered this "Cal is black?" bon mot. I was too drunk to write everything down, but some things dont need to be noted to be remembered, thus me harping on it 16 years later.

An Oriole fan hobbled up before the game on crutches, and was absolutely booed and shredded. He gave a mock wave, a sheepish smile, and uttered, "thanks...I appreciate the welcome." This ended up being a "major disturbance" as he saw fit to shimmy all the way to the top row although these were general admission seats, and he caught major crap every step of his skittish way up.

I mentioned the Knicks and the Bulls were squaring off for a Game 6. I actually mentioned it twice on here, which is amazing as I could give a crap about the NBA. I remarked in bemused fashion that there were "Bulls fans everywhere" - um, shouldnt they have been off watching the game someplace? I also noted on here that people were betting pricey bleacher beers on the outcome.

Missed quite the WWF wrestling card that night at MSG for this, showing my early affinity for Friday night drinkfests at the Stadium. A few miles south of the Stadium on that night Kwang pinned Sparky Plugg, Jeff Jarrett pinned Doink The Clown, The HeadShrinkers & Afa the Samoan (mgd. by Captain Lou Albano) beat The Quebecers & Johnny Polo, Alundra Blayze pinned the late Luna Vachon, Lex Luger pinned Crush, Ring announcer Howard Finkel beat manager Harvey Whippleman in a special attraction, Razor Ramon fought Diesel to a DCO, the late Bam Bam Bigelow pinned Mabel, and Bret Hart pinned Owen Hart to retain the WWF Title...

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming...

Couple of celebrity sightings here....my favorite was a Gilligan lookalike. He got all kinds of jokes, and the shows theme song of course, but the best line of the night was quite simple, a to-the-point shout of "Down in front, little buddy!" whenever he would stand up. All kinds of other faux celebs were on hand, from "Jimmy Carter" to "Bob Backlund" to "Screech", as well. There was also a "Bob Marley" lookalike on security....in later years we would develop some kickass reggae beats to greet him every day. There was also a frumpy "Oscar Madison" lookalike, giving us a chance to add the Odd Couple song to our playlist for the evening.

Paul O'Neill was a real attention getter on this night. For one thing some girl out there said quite succinctly, after he doubled in the 7th, "I fu*kin' love him...I'd fu*k him any day."

Maybe catching wind of this and showing his appreciation, O'Neill threw a ball up to us in the bleachers, and in the resulting scrum "a pregnant woman was hurt." Oh, I remember this. There was actually a pile-on for the ball, and you hear this voice at the bottom, the old stuck in a well voice, "Ow! Get off! I'm pregnant! Fu*k! Ow!" Her husband started flinging people off the pile with reckless abandon. Whats best in situations like this is everyone blames the happy couple for the whole thing for "coming out there while she is pregnant in the first place."

For some unknown reason an A's fan was on hand, and he was coerced to throw his own hat away before we did it for him, for which he recieved heartfelt applause. The fans were bad that night, all over the Stadium. Around the 5th inning, according to an arrow from the margin, and at 9:04 to be exact, "kids run on field." I acknowledged this came complete with a "good fake" in RF when security cornered in. But the coupe de grace was at 10:13 when some other chucklehead was taking HIS turn on the field, and after it went "for a while" a guard seemed to have him cornered in left, and the kid threw a "karate kid." Yeah, he flicked a kick at the guard, and ended up being tied into a knot on the grass as the crowd roared in glee.

Bernie in center was already letting balls drop in front of him, and he was met with the old, "Claudell Washington would have caught that!" rejoinder.

Ripken, of course, was serenaded with the old "Break your leg, Ripken" chants, as he was honing in on Gehrig's record. Speaking of chants, there was a rousing and random "Beat your wife, Potvin!" chant ringing through the Stadium seats.

Anyone remember Howard the Lawyer? A cleancut gent with glasses, that would sit around making unfunny jokes. He was deemed the original anti-comic. Well, he was on hand. There was an idiot out there "throwing stuff" and Howard explained away his getting away with it by reasoning, "he has no priors."

As usual with these Friday games, the card is a mess if you are trying to follow the on-the-field play. The Orioles section is filled out completely, but after the fact a huge IGNORE is written over the entire thing...so someone mucked it up. Nothing at all appears for the 9th spot hitter, so myself and whoever was pinching in for me was running an 8 man lineup. That said, I am only seeing six "mo's" which is a fair amount for a drinking night.

As for the on-field display, the Yankees cruised to an easy 5-1 victory, as Abbott was sharp, upping his record to 5-2. He threw 7 innings of one-run ball, giving up 6 hits, walking only 1, and fanning 5. Bob Wickman came in to throw two scoreless to finish up. The only Yankee home run was off the bat of Randy Velarde, a 3 run job off of the crafty Jamie Moyer, who still wont leave. Don Mattingly had 3 hits, and the aforementioned O'Neill had a perfect night by going 2-2 with a couple of walks and a girl that wanted to fu*k him.

To give an idea of the era and the foe, the Oriole lineup read Brady "is a lady" Anderson, Mike Devereux, Raffy Palmiero, Ripken, Chris Hoiles, Leo Gomez, Tim Hulett, freaking Lonnie Smith at DH batting 8th, and our RF foe for the evening, Jack Voight. Your Yankee lineup was Polonia, Velarde, Mattingly, Tartabull, Leyritz, O'Neill, BW, Gallego, and Kelly.

For your profile for the night, I choose Mr. Voight. In a 7 year career he managed to sneak into 294 games, and cumulatively had ONE seasons worth of ABs (58X - he should be proud, a career average of .235 but he did muster 20 jacks and 83 career RBIs. Guys this nondescript were not even fun to yell at. On this night he went 1-3 and drove in a run, and listened to our shit for 9 innings.

Moyer took the loss for the O's - he was shelled and gone by the 4th, when Scott Williamson picked up for him with 3 scoreless innings. Alan Mills and Mark Eichorn also toed the rubber for the bums from Baltimore.

We almost had 30,000 for this one, as 28,953 were on hand for this cool Friday night. Your arbiters on the field were Dale Ford, Ken Kaiser, John Shulock, and Tim Tschida, and the game clocked in at 3:07.

Thanks for reading!