August 12th, 1995 - Justin gets the boot!

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August 10th, 1995! Oh, no! Doubleheader!

August 10th, 1995 - Yankees host the Indians
"I am not Red Foley!"

Ah, when I first pulled this one and saw the magic words DOUBLEHEADER I thought it was the infamous doubleheader where I stumbled into game ONE drunk, and ended up sleeping on the sidewalk outside between games. The look of horror on peoples faces when I needed help to get to my seat before the 1st pitch of what would end up being an 7-9 hour day was priceless.

But alas, that doubleheader is to come, in some later year. I did not have time to get drunk for this particular one...I actually was at work (keeping score at my desk as a warmup to the actual Stadium task) until the top of the 3rd came to a close, then I hopped the subway from 23rd to the Stadium until the top of the 6th.

This said, lets get it going. I should say I TRIED to keep score at work during my stint with the mannequin company - I got through the top of the 1st, but was on a client call with a firm called Orange Display for the entire bottom of such. I did make a note that a loud "asshole!" chant made its way over the radio airwaves, which I found as funny then as I do now. With Susan Waldman in the Yankee radio booth i always hope to hear it a lot, as maybe it will drown her out. Lets pick up the action upon my vaunted arrival, in the 6th...

I got inside at 6:13 and it was PACKED, much to my chagrin. The Yankees were in business and Mike Stanley cranked his second of 2 jacks in that 6th inning to push the Yankees ahead 7-5. At 6:28 I heard the first "Jump!" chant towards the upper deck. "Jump! I need a good laugh" someone cracked with glee.

Not much else for game 1 as I was too busy elbowing my way into a seat, a rarity at the time, and catching up on the scorecard. There was a tactful "take off your dress" command scrawled on here, and a mention that Jerry Garcia had died. More on that on tomorrows installment of Scorecard Memories.

Mariano Rivera, in his rookie campaign, started the first game and had a sluggish outing. He ended up going 5.2, giving up 5 runs (4 earned) on 7 hits and 3 walks. This is funny, though, someone actually had the foresight to have a "Mariano jersey" on, and it went over as I said then "very bad." Imagine! But the very bad in this game really came from John Wetteland, who coughed up a 4 run lead in the 9th and took the loss. After Bob Wickman got the Yankees initially in trouble Wetteland came in and finished the job. Considering Stanley went 3-4, hitting 3 homers and driving in 7, we ended up marking "Stanley should scalp Wetteland!" Someone did one better and wrote, "JOHN WETTELAND SHOULD KILL HIMSELF."

Aside from a notation that Manny Ramirez flipped us the bird from out in right, there was not much else to report off of this scorecard. I will wrap it up with your lineups on the day....for Cleveland game 1 saw CF Lofton (batting .323 coming in), SS Vizquel, 2B Baerga (batting .328 coming in), LF Belle, DH Murray, 3B Thome, RF Ramirez, 1B Sorrento, and C Alomar Jr. Chuck Nagy started and got the win and was battered, and Jim Poole swooped in to get the win in relief, with Jose Mesa closing it out for his 31st save on the season. The Yankees countered with 3B Boggs, CF Bernie, LF O'Neill, RF Sierra, 1B Mattingly, DH Strawberry, C Stanley, SS Fernandez, and 2B Kelly.

GAME 2!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Maybe I will find some jokes on here...by the time this game started the Yankees were now down 6 1/2 in the division, so we were sort of on the glum side. I was holding court between games, and making enough of a nuisance of myself that some fan behind me shouted, "sit down, John Kruk!" So yeah, I was tagged with that nickname for a day back in 95, being a fat guy with a scruffy face and all.

My friend from home in Deer Park, Tom, was on hand and he bought a particularly nasty looking hot dog from one of our vendor friends. One of those ones that are shriveled and veiny. It was promptly dubbed "a hot penis on a bun." It looked so bad that someone actually offered up, "hey, I will pay you NOT to eat that." He ended up eating the thing to a cacaphony of groans.

Our good friend Gang Bang Steve was sitting out from keeping score during game 2, due to apparent transgressions while holding the clipboard during the opener. He actually wrote, in explanation, "Steve will not be keeping score this game because of his mushness the game before." Even though Steve did not keep score he did get his hands on there at one point to write "John (whoever that is/was) calls me a fu*king homo" - Steve

At 9:24 in the bottom of the 4th Darryl Strawberry launched his first Yankee home run, a moonshot into the upper deck no less. That was duly noted, and a lot more fun to note than "John Wetteland has just blown a 4 run lead - 7:18."

I have it on record that our very own Justin sang the "doo da, doo da" song, choosing the "takes it in the mouth!" over the "takes it up the ass" version. Good job, Sir!

There was a Doogie Howser lookalike on security...where they got these guys we will never know. By 10:37 we were singing "Horses Ass" at HIM. Apparently during this game "Tom gets really pissed drunk" so even though this was not the day where I totally sleepwalked through an entire doubleheader, I was apparently as hard to deal with as usual. I keep forgetting beer was still being sold, so you could actually track my downward progression on these scorecards as games went on.

At one point there was a touching Mickey Mantle package played on the scoreboard, causing one of us to ruminate, "Keep Mickey Mantle in your hearts, even though he killed someone for that liver." Even though he was the Mick, it did not go unnoticed that he hopped to the front of the liver line.

Being drunk, I was quick to complain about things that sucked, and proclaim them as such on the card. On this one I see "Telemundo sucks" and "pig latin sucks." Another interesting observation that was made was the claim that some guy out there was "as gay as a $3 bill."

From the things we dont usually see department there was an intentional walk IN THE TOP OF THE FIRST INNING. Sterling Hitchcock got himself into trouble again, and with 2 on and 2 out he intentionally walked Manny Ramirez. The strategy actually worked as Jim Thome came up with the bags juiced and whiffed to end the inning.

I mentioned a couple of games ago that I had a propensity to wear batting helmets at this time. Well, the brown strap inside was loose, and we ended up pulling it out. Now, SOMEONE MUST REMEMBER THIS GIMMICK. This may have been the WORST gimmick of all time out there. I would allow whoever wanted to take a shot to whip me in the back with this strap. One time before a game I bent over and someone wacked me about 10 times with this strap. I found it funny and actually based it on what was going on in ECW wrestling at the time. Others didnt see the humor, nor watch ECW wrestling. There was a girl that used to sit out there named Jessica, a lot younger than us, who came up to me one game and said, "you should stop that. It looks terrible, and we dont want you hurt." Her father ended up adding that I was "better than that" during a quiet moment on the bleacher line outside one Saturday morning. Talk about a joke going over badly!

Sometime during this game someone borrowed the scorecard and pointed out something that was scored wrong. Drunk off my ass by this time I sort of snapped at him, "who am I, Red Foley?" Everyone kept the peace, but it stuck in my craw and elsewhere on the card I wrote "I am NOT Red Foley" for all to see. Speaking of Red Foley and the scorekeepers, in the Indian first they called an error on a shot off the bat of Baerga, but I refused to call it an error cause "I thought it was a hit." So on my scorecard it was.

The Yankees lost this one too, putting a real damper on the day. 5-2 Indian victory, with Chad Ogea of all people getting the win. Both Kenny Lofton and Herbert Perry (lol) had 3 hits for Cleveland, with Perry scoring 3 times. 5 different tribesmen drove in a run. Hitchcock took the loss for the Yankees, with help from Dave Eiland, Steve Howe, and Joltin' Joe Ausanio. Outside of Strawberry's homer, there was no juice from the Yankee lumber.

Your game 2 lineups looked like this - CF Lofton, SS Vizquel, 2B Baerga, LF Belle, RF Ramirez, 3B Thome, DH Winfield, 1B Perry, and C Tony Pena. The Yankees countered with 3B Boggs, CF Bernie, LF O'Neill, RF Sierra, 1B Mattingly, DH Strawberry, C Leyritz, SS Fernandez, and 2B Velarde. Mesa closed out another one for Cleveland (save 32) and was set up nicely by Paul Assenmacher.

Keeping tradition, I will knock out a quick profile. Why not Chad Ogea? Pitched from 94-99, and escaped with a win-loss record in the black at 37-35. An unsightly 4.88 ERA though. In 1995 he actually went 8-3, and 10-6 in 1996. In 632 lifetime innings hurled, he gave up 672 hits, walked 214, and only struck out 369. He had 94 starts in 129 games, mostly with Cleveland. He spent one year elsewhere, with Philly in 99 where he went 6-12 with an ERA of 5.62 (following up a 5.61 campaign in 9 and that was the end of the road for him.

Born in 1970, he was a 3rd round draft pick in 1991 and a product of Louisiana State University, which also bought us Albert Belle, Paul Byrd, Randy Keisler, Ben McDonald, Clay Parker, and Ed Yarnall. His page on baseball reference has had 34,350hits as of 10/28/2010. Happy to have seen him!

As for the day of the doubledip, the Yankees had an attendance 48,115 - by far the largest I have recorded in a while. Game 1 was played in 2:58 and game 2 was completed in 3:09. Your umpires on hand were Ken Kaiser, Derryl Cousins, Tim Welke, and Joe Brinkman.

Thanks for sifting through all of this!

HEY OGEA!

August 8th, 1995 - "The biggest fights in the entire world!"

\August 8th, 1995 - Yankees host the Orioles
The Fu*king Ruben Sierra show

You know, its funny. I just mentioned the scorecard before how the freshly acquired Ruben Sierra was already a forgotten man since Darryl Strawberry came to town. Well, he made his presence known on this Tuesday night, driving in 7 runs to help power the Yankees to an 11-4 victory in a game even more wild in the bleachers than it was on the field.

Before the game its noted that I bought 2 six-packs of Schmidt's for $1.99 each...not sure who I shared them with, but seeing Gang Bang Steve's loopy writing all over this scorecard I would assume he was one of the guilty parties. I have a note here that says "first ball - Opie sucks" which leads me to believe that Ron Howard did indeed throw out the first pitch.

Things had changed in the span of days. David Cone was back on the hill for the Yankees, and Queen Bee Tina not only got a hold of a conehead from a gaggle of fans adorned in such, but put it on. A few games earlier she was berating them for that very thing. A banner was confiscated early from the bleachers that read "Warning AL East - nothin' but all-stars on this team!" I can see how that could be considered highly controversial and offensive (shrug).

There was a lot of throwing shit around on this night, which ended up sparking some fisticuff action, especially in the 6th inning when I simply gushed that we saw the "biggest fights in the entire world!" There was a Yankee fan throwing things at an Oriole fan all game, and he was missing as much as connecting, and that was spreading all kinds of acrimony. At one point another Yankee fan came over and begged Tina to tell the guy to stop but for some reason she demurred. Next thing you know someone caught the mood and threw something at our own Fat Daddy Chico, who was lounging around on the rail between innings. While all the was going on some dickhead dropped his pizza on me, getting a surly glower from me in return.

I found time to grumble about that pizza bomb on the scorecard, and also mused, "where was the beer guy back when I had some money?" No wonder I was buying $1.99 six-packs. A bunch of us ended up in a Hall of Fame argument, with the names being bandied about in this instance being Don Mattingly (I was saying no back then too) Keith Hernandez, and MIKE NORRIS. How the Hell did Mike Norris get in there? We also found time to talk "old school Brewers" for whatever reason with names like Moose Haas, Bob McLure, and Mike Caldwell being bandied about and written down on this nights scorecard for posterity.

Some guy came walking up with a t-shirt emblazoned with the "GUESS" logo and not much else. Someone cracked, "let me "Guess"....you're an asshole!" A fan stood up holding a sign giving plaudits to O'Neill, but managed to spell his name wrong, drawing jeers and even a threat or two. "Get off the rail, fatso!" was one of the caustic barbs over the course of the night directed at other fans polluting our cherished Section 39.

The throwing of crap extended outside of the bleacher airspace as late in the game what looked like a wooden Barbie sailed in the direction of Bobby Bonilla out in right, landing and spinning on the grass. After some argument we all settled on the fact that it was not a wooden Barbie after all, but a dildo. Bonilla was a hit all night, from the moment Steve wrote merrily, "Bonilla gets a greeting" even before the first pitch of the game.

In the 6th, even as Brady Anderson was circling the bases on a leadoff home run the bleachers exploded in a series of fights. Not only that, the wave was going on at the same time. One of the fights that sparked in the 6th was our Latina friend Sandy (you know, the one that was "friends" with Roy White and eventually cost us our playoff ticket connection) and a Rod Stewart lookalike. Through it all a Met fan sat peacefully by himself almost forgotten, "wasting his existence away" as we put it on the scorecard.

By this time I had become one of the regular crooners of the boisterous ditty "Friend of Mine" and led it on this evening "at 10:21." Unfortunatly Old School elder George was not on hand to see it, as he left in the top of the 5th to go wrestle boxes down at his UPS handling job. His girlfriend at the time, the ever-popular Angel, stuck around, and actually wrote "Dave (whoever she was referencing) takes it up the ass!" and signed her autograph next to that. Nice!

I was trying out my chops, screaming at Ripken at short to remind him that no matter how much hate we had dripping for Bonilla in right and Anderson in center, that we hated him too. A fan off to our right started waving, of all things, a British flag and was simply drowned by chants of "1776!"

At the time I mentioned this was the anniversary of the first night game at Wrigley Field. Checking back now Kevin Jordan made his major league debut on this evening in 95, and Chris Nabholz made his final appearance. Hello and goodbye! We were also keeping track of other caps we saw around the Stadium, outside of Yankee and Oriole lids. You had the Mutt fans, there were a few Dodger caps, and for whatever reason we saw a Braves cap and a freakin' A's cap as well, for whatever reason.

As for what went down on the field, I mentioned it was the Ruben Sierra show. After starting the night 0-2 Sierrra notched hits the next 3 times up, including a massive 3 run shot in the bottom of the 6th, when the Yankees pounded out 5 runs to take the lead and make the infamous Rick Krivda a loser on the night. Sierra also had a double on the evening, causing me to proclaim him, "the man....the fu*kin' A number 1 man" over the top scroll of the scorecard.

The Yankees mustered 11 hits off of 5 Oriole pitchers (Krivda, Armando Benitez in his first full season, Mark Lee, that relic Jesse Orosco (another ex-Met this week joining Cone, Strawberry, and Bonilla) and Doug Jones, who managed to give up 3 runs on 4 hits in his only inning of work on the night. The Yankee lineup (Buck's lefty lineup) was 3B Boggs, CF Bernie, RF O'Neill, DH Sierra, C Stanley, 1B Mattingly, LF G Williams (noted on here that Peter Gammons said he had the best arm in the American League), SS Fernandez, and 2B Velarde. Strawberry was already taking an evening off.

David Cone worked 7 for the Yankees, giving up 2 runs on 4 hits and 4 walks, fanning 8 and upping the record to 12-6. Steve Howe came in to finish, pitching 2 sloppy innings, causing us to yell with a smirk after another walk, "Hey, no free bases!!" The Orioles lineup that hung the L up was CF Anderson, 2B Barberie, 1B Palmiero, RF Bonilla, SS Ripken, DH Harold Baines, C Hoiles, LF Bass, and 3B Jeff Huson.

For the profile lets go with Mr. Krivda. Four years of service, an awesome 11-16 record to show for it. Left baseball with a 5.57 ERA, serving for Baltimore from 95-97, and splitting his final campaign in 1998 between the two Ohio teams, Cleveland and Cincy. In 258 innings he gave up 297 hits (awful), walked 117 (awful again) and fanned 165. He watched a whopping 39 home runs sail over his head. 1995 was his rookie campaign, and we got to see him spread his magic, as he went 2-7 in 13 starts but kept the ERA to 4.54. Born in 1970, he was originally a 23rd round draft pick by the O's in 1991, and a product of the California University of Pennsylvania - only one of TWO players to graduate from there (the other being the famous Bruce Dal Canton, who pitched in the majors from 1967-1977. 17,171 views on Baseballreference.com as of 10/27/2010. Hooray Rick Krivda!

This one was played over the course of 3:34....it just slogged on. Not sure what player this was directed at, but on the scorecard there is a telling scrawl of , "5 innings ago he was the man, but now he's an asshole cause its 11:00 and we want to go home." The attendance on hand was 33,078, and your umpires were none other than Larry Barnett, Greg Kosc, Dan Morrison, and Al Clark.

Thanks for reading!

ITS RICK KRIVDA!

August 7th, 1995 - "Eat me Bob, Eat me Bob, munch munch munch"

August 7th, 1995 - Yankees host the Orioles
Strawberry's Yankee Stadium pinstriped debut!

Yet another debut - between Sierra, David Cone, and now Strawberry every Yankee game was an event this summer of 1995. Bobby Bonilla also returned to Stadium soil for the first time since his 1986 stint with the Chisox, in the colors of the dreaded Baltimore Orioles, and we heaped him with a healthy slab of abuse. Who, years before, would have imagined that Strawberry, David Cone, and Bobby Bonilla would all be on hand for a Yankees/Orioles tilt?

The Yankees were coming in 5.5 games out, and we were blaming the Blow Jays for that, as first place Boston had just swept them the previous weekend in Toronto. "Thanks for nothing, Toronto - cant even take 1 at home vs. Boston!" was cattily remarked in the margin.

Knowing this was going to be quite the sideshow "Joe the Guard" behooved us with the plea, "I want everybody to be good" as we strolled up the runway. Even before the game we had the joy of ripping Bobby Bo, as he was languishing around the outfield grass at 6:45 PM, grinning widely at our pointed barbs. To the contrary there were a heap of "Daarrryyylllll" chants, in actual support of the new slugger on the team, although a few "Darryl sucks" were muttered along the way. Ruben Sierra was already forgotten amidst all the fanfaronade, cleanup spot in the lineup or no, and a poignant "Ruben who?" adorned this nights scorecard.

Once the game started one of the more clever ditties in bleacher lore was belted out...check out this one...

Bonilla beats his wife
Bonilla beats his meat
Bonilla chomps on Brady
When he wants something to eat

Yes, not only was Bonilla on hand, our favorite femme Brady "The Lady" Anderson was as well. We were able to chant "Brady's YOUR lady!" at Bonilla, who was parked just in front of us in rightfield, hating life. As always with the Orioles in town the legendary Cal Ripken Jr. was greeted warmly, with some of the pleasantries including "break your leg!" and "boooooooooo!"

In a singsong that would not be remembered if not for these scorecards, someone actually sung "Eat me Bob, eat me Bob, munch munch munch!" at Bonilla, much to the amazement of everyone else.

Anyone know who the Hell "Duke" was? He was a guest scorekeeper, along with our old friend Gang Bang Steve. I dont remember any fu*king Duke.

Lots of faux celebrities on hand. We had celebrity dopplegangers including Peter Sellers, John Amos, golfer John Daly, Kurt Cobain, Roc from the Fox sitcom at the time, Rod Stewart, and Captain Stubing from the Love Boat. An Indian fellow was on hand, too, causing Steve to scrawl, "Mujibar in the house." There was even a guy we dubbed "Snoop Doggy Lincoln" cause yes, he looked like a black Abraham Lincoln in hip-hop gear.

Fat Daddy Chico was roaming around bragging that he had "40 years in the bleachers" to which someone added, "or watching on TV." I remarked that Howard the anti-comic was "on the scene" at 8:05, fashionably late, which was always in style. I also felt it necessary to mark the first appearance of Crapman the vendor on the night, which was promptly at 7:54. The freakin' game itself flew, as being that I had a time fetish on this card I marked the 8th inning as starting at 9:38, which was way early considering I believe this was a 7:30-er.

For some reason the Jets were a topic of discussion, and even back then the "J-E-T-S SUCK SUCK SUCK" chant was being bandied about. Someone blithely said, "there's nothing wrong with the Jets" to which someone snapped back, "except they suck."

Some jerkoff was walking around in a coat on this muggy August evening, and "an orange one at that." The only acrimony on the night seemed to be a spat that erupted over someone wrongly insisting that a team could NOT change pitchers in the middle of the count. They kept up with the argument even though dozens of people lined up to call that contrary claim "BS." But it was a nice evening overall, as no ejections of fisticuff accounts are on display.

This was quite the pitchers duel, as Blackjack McDowell stared down Mike Mussina and came out with the 9 inning shutout win. He gave up but 3 hits, walked 3 and fanned 5. The hard luck Mussina went 7 and gave up the 3 runs that lost him the game, before making way for one Mark Lee. There were only 6 hits in the entire game, and there had only been 2 by the time the bottom of the 7th had rolled around.

Pat Kelly drove in 2 of the Yankee runs with a 2-run double in that fateful 7th, with the other 2 hits coming off the bats of Bernie and Fernandez. The winning Yankee linup was 3B Boggs leading off, CF Bernie, LF O'Neill, RF Sierra, 1B Mattingly, DH Strawberry (he went 0-3 with a K his first time up), C Stanley, SS Fernandez, and 2B Kelly. The Orioles countered with LF Anderson, 2b Barberie, 1B Palmiero (wow, he actually DID play the field!), RF Bonilla, SS Ripken, DH Baines, C Hoiles, LF Kevin Bass, and 3B Jeff Manto (lol)

Lets hit up a profile. I usually go with the Mark Lee's of the world, but I think I will continue to change this up and display players we all may have heard of. Today we call on Bret Barberie. He had a tenure that stretched from 1991-96, where he managed to finagle himself into only 479 games for 4 different teams (Expos, Marlins, Orioles, and Cubs) - on this night we happened to catch him in his only year in the American league, where he was busy batting .241 for the Birds.

He left off with a lifetime average of .271, which was not bad for a backup infielder. 16 homers and 133 at-bats, but that was in 1434 at bats. He swiped 16 bags, but was also nailed 13 times. I am finding that my profiled players did not have the most success on the basepaths. He had a cool 164/228 walk to strikeout ratio. Looking at all this, I am surprised he did not stick around longer than he did, as he played 2B, SS, and 3B. Born in 1967, he was originally a 7th round draft pick by the Expos, coming out of the University of Southern California, which also bought us the likes of Aaron and Bret Boone, Tom Seaver, Randy Johnson, Bill Lee, Fred Lynn, Mark McGwire.....it goes on and on. He has 67,932 hits on baseballreference.com, which is amongst the highest on my ever-popular profile features. How can you not cheer the day you got to see this man play!

And yes, in time I DID confirm this man was indeed MR Jillian Barberie. It was pointed out that after she became famous she did indeed "dump his ass." Well, if I was him I would count it a blessing that I would not need to hear her yap all day.

The game zipped along at a 2:24 clip, and was played in front of 31,313 on a Monday night. Your umpires on hand were the infamous Al Clark, Dan Morrison, Greg Kosc, and Larry Barnett.

Thanks for reading!

LADIES AND GENTLEMAN, MR BRET BARBERIE!

August 7th, 1995 -

August 7th, 1995 - Yankees host the Orioles
Strawberry's Yankee Stadium pinstriped debut!

Yet another debut - between Sierra and Cone and now Strawberry every Yankee game was seemingly an event this summer of 1995. That idiot Bobby Bonilla also returned to Stadium soil for the first time since his 1986 stint with the Chisox, in the colors of the dreaded Baltimore Orioles, and we heaped him with a healthy slab of abuse. Who, years before, would have imagined that Strawberry, David Cone, and Bobby Bonilla would all be on hand for a Yankees/Orioles tilt?

The Yankees were coming in 5.5 games out, and we were blaming the Blow Jays for that, as first place Boston just swept them the previous weekend in Toronto. "Thanks for nothing, Toronto - cant even take 1 at home vs. Boston" was cattily remarked in the scorecard margin.

Knowing this was going to be quite the sideshow "Joe the Guard" behooved us with the plea, "I want everybody to be good" as we strolled up the runway. Even before the game we had the joy of ripping Bobby Bo, as he was languishing around the outfield grass at 6:45 PM, grinning widely at our pointed barbs. To the contrary there were a heap of "Daarrryyylllll" chants, in actual support of the new slugger on the team, although a few "Darryl sucks" were muttered along the way. With all the fanfaronade Ruben Sierra was already forgotten, cleanup spot in the lineup or no, and a poignant "Ruben who?" adorned this nights scorecard.

Once the game started one of the more clever ditties in bleacher lore was belted out...check out this one...

Bonilla beats his wife
Bonilla beats his meat
Bonilla chomps on Brady
When he wants something to eat

Yes, not only was Bonilla on hand, our favorite femme Brady "The Lady" Anderson was as well. We were able to chant "Brady's YOUR lady!" at Bonilla, who was parked just in front of us in rightfield, hating life. As always with the Orioles in town the legendary Cal Ripken Jr. was greeted warmly, with some of the pleasantries including "break your leg!" and "Booooooooooooo!"

In a singsong that would not be remembered if not for these scorecards, someone actually sung "Eat me Bob, eat me Bob, munch munch munch!" at Bonilla, much to the amazement of everyone else.

Anyone know who the Hell "Duke" was? He was a guest scorekeeper, along with our old friend Gang Bang Steve. I dont remember any fu*king Duke.

Lots of faux celebrities on hand. We had a heap of celebrity dopplegangers, including Peter Sellers, John Amos, golfer John Daly, Kurt Cobain, Roc from the Fox comedy at that time, Rod Stewart, and Captain Stubing from the Love Boat. An Indian fellow was on hand, too, causing Steve to scrawl, "Mujibar in the house." There was even a guy we dubbed "Snoop Doggy Lincoln" cause yes, he looked like a black Abraham Lincoln in hip-hop gear.

Fat Daddy Chico was roaming around bragging that he had "40 years in the bleachers" to which someone added, "or watching on TV." I remarked that Howard the anti-comic was "on the scene" at 8:05, fashionably late, which was always in style amongst all us glory hounds. I also felt it necessary to mark the first appearance of Crapman the vendor on the night, which was promptly at 7:54. The freakin' game itself flew, as being that I had a time fetish on this card I marked the 8th inning as starting at 9:38, which was way early considering I believe this was a 7:30-er.

For some reason the Jets were a topic of discussion, and even back then the "J-E-T-S SUCK SUCK SUCK" chant was being bandied about. Someone blithely said, "there's nothing wrong with the Jets" to which someone snapped back, "except they suck."

Some jerkoff was walking around in a coat on this muggy August evening, and "an orange one at that." The only acrimony on the night seemed to be a spat that erupted over someone wrongly insisting that a team could NOT change pitchers in the middle of the count. They kept up with the argument even though dozens of people lined up to call that contrarian claim "BS." But it was a nice evening overall, as no ejections or flashing of dukes are noted.

This was quite the pitchers duel, as Blackjack McDowell stared down Mike Mussina and came out with the 9 inning shutout win. He gave up but 3 hits, walked 3 and fanned 5. The hard luck Mussina went 7 and gave up the 3 runs that lost him the game, before making way for one Mark Lee. There were only 6 hits in the entire game, and there had only been 2 by the time the bottom of the 7th had rolled around.

Pat Kelly drove in 2 of the Yankee runs with a 2-run double in that fateful 7th, with the other 2 hits coming off the bats of Bernie and Fernandez. The winning Yankee linup was 3B Boggs leading off, CF Bernie, LF O'Neill, RF Sierra, 1B Mattingly, DH Strawberry (he went 0-3 with a K his first time up), C Stanley, SS Fernandez, and 2B Kelly. The Orioles countered with LF Anderson, 2b Barberie, 1B Palmiero (wow, he actually DID play the field!), RF Bonilla, SS Ripken, DH Baines, C Hoiles, LF Kevin Bass, and 3B Jeff Manto (lol)

Lets hit up a profile. I usually go with the Mark Lee's of the world, but I think I will continue to change this up and display players someone else may have heard of. Today we call on Bret Barberie, who I am pretty sure took the hand of Jillian in marital bliss. Im sure thats not all he took, heh heh. He had a tenure that stretched from 1991-96, where he managed to finagle himself into only 479 games for 4 different teams (Expos, Marlins, Orioles, and Cubs) - on this night we happened to catch him in his only year in the American league, where he was busy batting a sickly .241 for the Birds.

He left off with a lifetime average of .271, which was not bad for a backup infielder. 16 homers and 133 runs plated, but that was in 1434 at bats. He swiped 16 bags, but was also nailed 13 times. I am finding that my profiled players did not have the most success on the basepaths. He had a cool 164/228 walk to strikeout ratio. Looking at all this, I am surprised he did not stick around longer than he did, as he played 2B, SS, and 3B. Born in 1967, he was originally a 7th round draft pick by the Expos, coming out of the University of Southern California, which also bought us the likes of Aaron and Bret Boone, Tom Seaver, Randy Johnson, Bill Lee, Fred Lynn, Mark McGwire.....it goes on and on. He has 67,932 hits on baseballreference.com as of 10/26/2010, which is amongst the highest on my ever-popular profile features. How can you not cheer the day you got to see this man play!

And yes, this man was indeed MR Jillian Barberie. It was pointed out that after she became famous she did indeed "dump his ass." Well, if I was him I would count it a blessing that I would not need to hear her yap all day.

The game zipped along at a 2:24 clip, and was played in front of 31,313 on a Monday night. Your umpires on hand were the infamous Al Clark, Dan Morrison, Greg Kosc, and Larry Barnett.


LADIES AND GENTLEMAN, MR BRET BARBERIE

August 3rd, 1995 - David Cone's 1st Yankee Start!

August 3rd, 1995 - Yankees host the Brewers
"Dump some water on your breasts...doo dah, doo dah!"

Lots of things going on in Yankee-land, from Ruben Sierra coming on board, to David Cone coming over and debuting on this hot Thursday evening in the summer of 95. To this day its funny to look at what we gave up for Mr. Cone - all it took was Marty Janzen, Jason Jarvis, and Mike Gordon. Way to go, Toronto! You showed em!

It was nice to see, as noted, that a bunch of fans that showed up in "coneheads" had the respect to take them off for the National Anthem. I did not mark this, but I seem to remember Queen Bee Tina being in a surly mood regarding the Coneheads. It was a fad that died fast, probably with her help. At one point she screamed at someone in regards to Section 39, "this is OUR house! You're just guests here!" She also hollered, "take those cones to Shea!" over and over. It wasnt just Tina that was taking umbrage, there were quite a few "Coneheads suck!" chants ringing the halls.

Old-school elder George took it one step further, ignoring the coneheads to go after the man himself. "Fu*k David Cone" he told anyone that would listen.

Meantime we were still making nice with our old enemy Ruben Sierra. We even got a wave out of him, which was a step up from the middle finger he shot at us a few times over the preceding years. It was a very warm night, I put down "the Sahara desert" in the "played at" category on the card, and all this caused us to sing "Dump some water on your breasts, do-dah, do-dah" to some tart sporting the old wifebeater.

A few notes on here regarding beer. First up, someone spilled a full beer and as we watched it cascade in waterfall fashion down the steps someone mused, "that fu*king concrete is getting drunk...lucky." Some kid had a bag of balloons, and was instructed to "bring that downstairs and fill them with beer, and bring it back up, thanks." And, to top all, I made reference to "killing a six pack of Kaliber" before the game. Um, what the Hell is Kaliber?

At one point our little friend with the balloons was tossing unblown balloons in underhand fashion to whoever asked for one (amazingly enough, there are no notes on here regarding those balloons floating around later on, which I would imagine was the end result) and George snapped at him, "hey, throw like a man!" Elsewhere in the Stadium there was apparently an imposter cowbell guy (they pop up here and there, to this day) in LEFT FIELD, of all places. Cause we couldnt very well get over there to stop it, we chose to give old cowbell King Ali a hard time instead for "letting it happen."

Various fans were being shot with our prickly barbs. Yet another faux celebrity lookalike, while laughing at one of our jokes had to hear, "what are you laughing at, Bill Maher!" Our female friend in the wifebeater heard "GO DOWN in front!" everytime she stood up to stretch the legs. Another fan, walking up with frizzy hair and a hangdog look on his face was serenaded with "hey, its a muppet!" We also took it to the field, as our friend Matt Mieske, back in right for round 2, was hit with a straight up and to the point, "Mieske, suck me!" To add to that, someone snapped, "Mieske sucks co*k and looks up in your eyes as he does it." Thats absoutely gross.

I have not heard this one since, thank God - a pack of good looking women out there were dubbed "the Bleacher Sweet-chers!" Ugh...

Cowbell Ali was quite the superstar on this August night. "Ali gettin' some in the 8th" I wrote, as the Bleacher Sweet-chers came over to flirt with him. He was dancing a lot around this time, to where we had dubbed him "Dancin' Ali." At one point, while he shimmied between innings someone said "I hate when Ali dances" and someone else said, "don't worry, he can't dance for long at a time."

The fan of the game was somone we dubbed "the 'Goodest' Samaritan." How did he win this accolade? While someone was having a hard time of it carrying his beers up the stairs, to where one was leaning precipitiously and close to falling, this hero ran over and saved the beer, and carried it up alongside the guy to the final destination. While we would certainly have rather seen the beer spill, we gave him a begrudging hand for looking out for what was important in life.

At one point Kevin Seitzer was picked off by Cone while sleeping at second, but I missed it. I had as good an excuse as any - "distracted by bald woman walking by." After the last perfect "no mystery out" scorecard, there was only one on this one, with Mattingly up in the 7th. I dubbed it a "security distraction."

Anyone remember my Beaker and Dr. Bunson Honeydew t-shirt? There is a famous picture of myself, Gang Bang Steve, Big Tone Capone, and old Creature John Hughes (who dissapeared in time, and I made up the story it was for going to the clink for counterfieting money) outside of the Yankee eatery. I had a phony arrow through my head. At one point during the game as the Yankees were working on their eventual stirring comeback, someone cited my shirt and implored, "do it for Beaker and Bunson!"

Not only was I styling the goofy t-shirt, this was around the time I was all about batting helmets and wristbands. I used to wear plastic batting helmets out there, which people enjoyed pounding with thier fist. I was known for two things with those - one, wearing it when it was 99 degrees and sunny and literally frying my head, and falling asleep drunk with it on, and people knowing when my head dropped by the sound of my helmet bouncing along the ground. As mentioned, I topped off this ensemble with my cool Yankee terrycloth wristbands. I loved those damn things.

Hey, anyone remember Bird? He was a gangly, wispy bearded strange sort of fellow that used to come around here and there and aggravate people. I think he was a friend of Tina's and the rest of the OLD SCHOOL crew. So he got respect, but you would still hope he would sit anywhere but next to you. Well, on this scorecard someone hastily wrote at one point, "Bird alert! Hide, hide!"

Ah, noted on the scorecard that this was the day before Gang Bang Steve's SEVENTEENTH birthday. Yes, the famous Gang Bang Steve, a bleacher legend and great friend to this day. Holy Hell...I feel really guilty about it now, as we were pounding the beers like water back then and guess who bought em for those too young to drink? Well, things did turn out ok for all of us, did they not? Steve took a turn as guest scorekeeper on this night, along with two fellows named "Dave" and "Dan." My brothers? The names match. Two fans lost to history? Who freakin' knows.

At one point George took a break from bitching about Cone in a Yankee uniform and started to belt out the fun ditty "Friend of Mine" to Mieske. For one of the few times documented in history, it was INTERRUPTED and halted by a Red Sox fan who started shouting over him and waving his arms around. The gall! There is no word on wether or not Tina had him chased out of there.

There were some luminaries on hand. A couple of people from the cast of MTV's "Remote Control" were out in the bleachers, and "Ed Figeuroa" was on security for the evening. In fact, it was remarked that there was a "huge security contingent" on hand....why, for David Cone? The cast of Remote Control? The real trouble was in the rightfield boxes, where a savage fight took place in the 6th inning. Not to be outdone, a few fans fought outside in the streets after the game. And, in a final note addressing scurrilous violence, I myself went at it with a guy on the D train on the way home, and it almost came to blows before cooler - and more sober - heads prevailed.

As I mentioned, the Yankees ended up coming back to win one of the type of games that would become commonplace in the Bronx. Cone was on in his first Yankee start, going 8 innings and surrendering 3 runs on 5 hits. He also fanned 5, but his pinpoint control was off, as he walked 5 to boot. He got out of there with the win, upping his mark to 11-6. John Wetteland gave up a run in the 9th to make us sweat even more than the heat did, but came out of it with his 20th save on the year.

The Yankees had trailed 3-1 going into the bottom of the 8th, but they notched 4 runs. Ricky Bones started for the Brewers and lost it in the 8th with help from Angel Miranda and one Ron Rightnowar. On the bat side of things, Greg Vaughn plated 2 for the Brewers, and John Jaha accounted for that run off of Wetteland with a leadoff home run in the 9th. The Brew Crew mustered 6 hits off the Yankees, with this lineup: 2B Vina, 3B Seitzer, C Surhoff, LF Nilsson, DH Vaughn, 1B Jaha, CF Hulse, RF Mieske, and SS Valentin.

The Yankees countered with LF Polonia, 3B Boggs, RF O'Neill, DH Sierra in the cleanup slot, 1B Mattingly, CF Bernie, C Stanley, SS Fernandez, and 2B Kelly. O'Neill and Stanley each had 2 hits, and Sierra drove in 3, including a huge double in the pivotal 8th inning.

I usually go for goofy one-hit wonders during the profile, but lets change it up and call upon our good friend Matt Mieske. He hung around the game for a while (93-2000) but never played in more than 127 games or batted more than 374 times in year. He played for the Brewers, Cubs, Mariners, Astros, and Diamondbacks. He retired with a lifetime average of .262, with 56 jacks and 226 RBIs in 1547 at-bats (663 games) In a funny note he stole 7 bases in his time, but was nailed 16 times. He played all 3 outfield positions. He struck out a fair amount (313) and walked 124 times. Salary wise he peaked out in 2000, when the Astros paid him $700,000.

He was a favorite target of the Creatures in the 90s. Born same year as I, in 1968 in Texas, he attended Western Michigan U, a school that also bought us Jim Bouton, Mike Squires, and John Vander Wal. He was a 17th round draft pick (by the Padres) in 1990, and all in all did himself proud. His page on baseballreference has been hit 33,565 times through 10/25/2010. I remember him well, and I miss him!

There were 25,391 on hand to see Cone's Yankee debut and wish Gang Bang an early happy birthday, and the game slogged on for 2:54. Your umpires on the field were John Hirschbeck, Rick Reed, Jim Evans, and Brian O'Nora, those scalliwags.

Hey! Thanks for reading!

MATT MIESKE, EVERYBODY!

August 1st, 1995 - Ruben Sierra's Pinstriped Debut!

August 1st, 1995 - Yankees host the Brewers
NO MYSTERY OUTS!!!

Ah, a new month. Yankees were now enconsed in 2nd place, 4 1/2 behind Boston with an albeit sluggish record of 43-42. This was my 16th game of 1995, and I had seen the Yankees play to a 10-5 clip. An important night in Yankee history, as this evening Ruben Sierra made his Yankee Stadium debut in the pinstripes after coming over in a trade (along with the long lost Jason Beverlin) for Danny Tartabull on July 28th. It was nice to see the much maligned Tartabull gone, and interesting to have an old foe like Sierra on board. We had been carrying along a running feud with him for years out there in the bleachers.

My freshly married female friend Jamie did things backwards and had a "last girls night out" AFTER her wedding, and bought along 4 girls that night on their way somewhere else afterwards. I wrote on the top of the card "There are 5 lovely women here - all whom would sleep with me" - in actuality, not one of them even entertained a thought of such. As Jamie worked at West Point and these girls were transplanted wives of cadets, they were from backwoods states like Mississippi and Kentucky. They signed the scorecard with things like "it was better than what I expected" and "You're ugly and your mother dresses you funny." I am glad they had such a good time.

One of Jamies friends, a drunkard named Mary, had a handmade sign that was confiscated. What was on that sign is lost to history. Not much on here cept a lot of mentions of drunks dotting the crowd and I am not even talking about our section. Not only did a bunch of hopped up drunks try and start the "Gang Bang" song before being shouted down, at one point they started ripping into old cowbell King Ali, with a virulent "Fu*k The Bell!" chant. They figured if they could not have any fun, no one could.

Ali ended up putting down the bell for a while, and started waving around a "Mets Suck" sign. I suppose that was Mary's sign, looking back on it. It seems to be a running gimmick back then of people drowning Nardi Contreras, the Yankees otherwise nondescript pitching coach, with adulation. He could not make an appearance on the field without getting a loud ovation from the bleacher denizens. When pressed, people gave reasons like "he's Spanish" and "he's funny looking" as to why.

The game on the field was loony, with some references to wacky home runs and plays on the field dotting the scorecard. The old "put a tent over this circus!" refrain was hollered towards the field on more than one occassion. The "throw it back!" chants on opposing home runs were by now the norm, but after a Greg Vaughn blast to center leading off the 4th I took the occasion to scrawl, "no one could throw it back...he hit it so Goddamned far." And ring the bell! We saw an inside the park fu*king home run! Whoo hoo! Problem was it was off a Brewer bat, David Hulse's. With a LOT OF HELP from Randy Velarde, who either played matador or dancing partner with the ball as it bounced down the leftfield line. Fantastic! I took time to note that it was indeed the first inside the park home run I had ever seen live.

And I think it may be the only one...a couple of years later the Yankees had one, but I was downstairs in the beer line. That same week I missed a triple play while, you guessed it, standing on the beer line.

Howard the anti-comic was at the height of his "popularity" around this time. Seems that every game a snide remark like, "oh, no, here comes the anti-comic!" dots the scorecard. At one point Howard was walking around asking "who has a phone?" He wanted to place a bet. A few people had one, but no one fessed up to it. He then started looking for change to use the phone downstairs, and, you guessed it - a few people had some, but no one fessed up to it.

While all this was going on a lucky Brewer fan actually had his shirt thrown over the wall. From what I remember, he was taking enough abuse to where he took off the shirt and draped it over his shoulder, hoping to qeull the rising tide of malice. Someone simply swooped it off with a flourish, and chucked it over the fence with a bigger one.

One of our more clever ditties was being sung with fervor, dedicated to Brewer RF Matt Mieske. Sung to the "Mickey Mouse" song, it goes "M I E....S K E....Mieske sucks some di*k!" At times, we changed it up and the chorus finished with a more palatable "...what a piece of shit!"

Honestly nothing else here - hey, it was a Tuesday night, those were always sleepy. Gang Bang Steve was on hand, however, pitching a hand with the scorecard. And between the two of us, for the FIRST TIME IN DOCUMENTED HISTORY there were ZERO MYSTERY OUTS! Holy shit, I did not know this holy grail of the scorecards was actually out there. (editors note - there is one of these, and it is a bit above, right here in the 1995 chronicles) And it was a wacky game too, a 7-5 Yankee win. There is, however, a crossout in the 4th inning that took place at the time, right after Vaughn's home run. A Matt Mieske walk. I dont know if the play was originally missed or what, but it was caught at the time and the card is flawless outside of that. Hooray us!

As for the game, Mariano Rivera notched the W after he came in in the 5th inning for Andy Pettitte. He was rapped around though, giving up 3 earned runs on 3 hits and 2 walks in his two innings of work, but it was enough. PS - lol @ the idea of Mariano coming in in the 5th. After Pettitte's and Rivera's shacky body of work, Wickman and Wetteland wrapped it up for the Yankees, with Wetteland notching his 19th save.

As for the bats, Bernie went 3-5 from the leadoff spot, scoring twice. Tony Fernandez, Russ Davis, and Pat Kelly batting 7-9 all had 2 hits, with Fernandez driving in a deuce. Your Yankee lineup read CF Bernie, LF Velarde, 1B Leyritz, DH Sierra (in his first home Yankee at-bats - he ended up going 0-3 with a sac fly) C Stanley, RF G Williams, SS Fernandez, 3B Davis, and 2B Kelly.

The esteemable Brian Givens started for Milwaukee and went 6 ho-hum innings before Angel Miranda shuffled in and got lit up for the loss. Jeff Bronkey (lol) finished up on the Brewer hill. On the offensive side of things, the Brewers tagged 3 home runs off the Yankee pitching, with the Vaughn bomb, the Hulse inside the parker, and a shot by Jeff Cirillo. They managed 7 hits off Yankee pitching on the night. The Brewer lineup looked like this - SS Listach, 2B Cirillo, 3B Seitzer, LF Nilsson, DH Vaughn, RF Mieske, 1B John Jaha (lol), CF Hulse, and C Matt Matheny, young in his career.

Between those vaunted 3 Brewer pitchers, it was hard to come up with who to profile, but lets go with Mr. Givens (although Mr Bronkey is interesting in that he was born in Kabul, Afghanistan)

Givens plied his trade in the majors for the Brewers for only two seasons (95 and 96) after being a 10th round draft pick in 1984 by the New York Mutts. He got out of the game with a 6-10 record in 23 starts, getting torched for 148 hits in 121 innings, to a tune of a 5.86 lifetime ERA. He walked 61 and fanned 83, not the best of ratios. He was pounded for 14 home runs. This night in 1995 was one of 19 starts he made on the year, and he worked 6 innings, giving up 4 runs but escaping without an L. Born in 1965, he was once traded for Mario Diaz. His page on baseballreference has all of 9.383 hits as of 10/22/2010 and you can sponsor it for $5! I am very proud to be able to say I saw this guy ply his trade.

27,106 came out on the 1st to see the game, and it was played in 3:04 and arbited by Jim Evans, Brian O'Nora, John Hirschbeck, and Rick Reed.

Thanks for reading!

HELLO JEFF BRONKEY!!!

July 23rd, 1995 - "Go to Mickey Mantles, just dont get the liver!"

July 23rd, 1995 - Yankees host the Rangers
"I dont work security anymore, so i can legally beat your ass!"

Dont remember doing a Texas Rangers game through all of these "scorecard memory" posts, but here they are now, the bastards. This will be a quick and easy one - I was drinking heavily on this day and there is not much that can be salvaged.

A Sunday game. I would normally arrive at the Stadium before 10AM and start drinking my own stash either up against the Stadium wall where I would hold court, or across the street at the Yankee Eatery, then owned by Greek Steve. Sometimes I would even crack a beer or 3 on the D train subway ride up from lower Manhattan.

"Go to Mickey Mantle's - just don't get the liver!" was the crack scrolled across the top of the scorecard. The main topic of discussion though was some impending rain, and wether or not we would "beat it." I guess we did...this scorecard is stained with splotched black ink all over, burying some old jokes forever, but I dont see any squishy water marks. Although there was no rain, there is a couple of mentions of lightning, noted as early as the top of the 5th, and as late as the 8th. Must have been a real nice day.

Jerk McDowell was on the mound, coming off of his recent finger job to the crowd. He was hooted and hollered during his 6 innings of sluggish work (4 earned runs) but he got out of there with a win, and did happen to be 8-6 through it all at the end of the day. In honor of his appearance, I sketched a nice cartoon of a hand flipping the bird. Ever the artiste.

Old cowbell King Ali was looking way dapper. I described his getup as a "flamenco outfit." At one point someone hollered, "hey, Ali, take off that polyester shirt and do the bell!" I am noticing that I am mentioning Ali's wardrobe on seemingly all these Sunday scorecards, so these outlandish getups must have been his church duds.

We had a "former" Yankee Stadium security guard in our midst enjoying the game as a fan, and he even signed my scorecard. I have a wealth of these worthless fan signatures accumulated over the years. He had been fired at some point, and took some joy in riling up his old cronies out there. I remember once he and I almost came to blows over something or another, and he went on a long speech about how "I am not working security anymore, so I can legally beat your ass." I think it was Howard the Anti-Comic who retorted, "um, you cant LEGALLY beat anyones ass" and he would know, as he was a drunken lawyer.

It was the one year anniversary of Don Mattingly's 2000th hit, which took place on 7/23/1994, and that was aptly noted. Our rapper friend Melle Mel was in attendance, doing his Stevie Wonder impersonation and regaling us with stories about his crony Bow Wow, whoever the Hell that was.

Slacker Jeff was ambling about, and at one point he kicked over someones beer and that raised a few hackles. He was one of those guys who would shrug something like that off and not offer to buy the guy another one. I know this cause he did it to me more than once.

Was this hat day? It may have been, as there is a notation on here about "hats all over the field." I wonder if these were the Shop Rite ones. Yeah, Yankee cap giveaways with the Shop Rite supermarket logo on the back being bigger than the NY on the front. For years after that infamous cap day I would run into people around the city wearing a nifty Yankee hat, and then they would turn around and the back would be dotted with a really stupid and garish looking Shop Rite logo. Gang Bang Steve became quite adept during cap days as using some sort of sharp instrument to methodically slice off the offending sponsors logo while the game unfolded.

Some old guy walked up with a scraggly beard and unkempt white hair, causing someone to ask "where do you get a hairdo like that?" Someone else answered, "fall asleep for two years and you wake up with it."

One of the all-time funniest PA announcements was made over the course of this game. Around the 4th inning Bob Sheppard came on and recited a lisence plate and then pleaded, "would you please report to the parking lot...your motor is still running."

We were having our own brand of fun in the bleachers, and we even got Ugly Otis Nixon to turn around from his perch in center and give us the ole Blackjack, otherwise known as "the middle finger."

In one of the few shockers that we have seen out there in our time, Luis Polonia reached the rightfield bleachers on a home run poke to lead off the Yankee first. Who would have thought he had it in him? Rooting around on here I see that Gang Bang Steve (or as he was known then, Steve) was a "guest scorekeeper." It was not too long where that tag was dropped, and he simply became one of the permanent keepers of the card.

Your lookalikes on the afternoon were a faux Al Goldstein, who was the man behind Screw Magazine and the popular Midnight Blue public access offering which gave anyone with a tv and an antenna in NYC nude women dancing around, and WWF wrestler Mabel.

The Yankees rolled in this one, with a cool 11-4 victory, with Polonia, Stanley and Mattingly all going deep. Stanley, Paul O'Neill, and Bernie all had 3 of the Yankees' 18 hits. I mean, holy fu*k. Mattingly ended up scoring 3 times. The guys getting rapped on the Rangers mound were the inimitable Roger Pavlik, one Terry Burrows, and that circus clown Roger McDowell.

Your Yankee lineup looked like this - LF Polonia, 3B Boggs, DH James (a fixture by now in the 3 hole), RF O'Neill, 1B Mattingly, CF Bernie, C Stanley, SS Fernandez, and 2B Pat Kelly. James and Kelly were the only Yankee starters to not muster a hit.

As for Tex-ass, they offered up a lineup of CF Nixon, 2B McLemore, 1B Will Clark, DH Juan Gone, RF Mickey Tettleton (lol), C Pudge, LF Rusty Greer, 3B our old friend Mike Pagliarulo, and SS Benji Gil. Gil actually went 3-4 with 3 runs plated for Texas, the only note of mild interest. McDowell was the Yankee starter facing them from the hill, with backup on the afternoon from Bob Wickman and Joltin' Joe Ausanio.

For the profile why not go for Terry Burrows. He had a tough time of it, in his 4 years of active duty. Working for Texas, the Brew Crew and the Padres, he left the game with an ERA of a sickly 6.42 in 68 innings of work (50 games, 3 in starts). He was racked around for a whopping 85 hits in that time, walking more than he K'd at a 38-35 ratio. Nothing good came out of this. In this year of 1995 he was just pushed around, posting a 6.45 ERA in 44 innings of work. He managed to bribe his way into 28 games before being released before the start of the 96 season.

In an interesting sidenote after starting 96 with the Brewers and being released, he was scooped up by the New York Yankees. He finished 96 in their system, but they released him too. Born in my birth year of 1968, he was a 7th round draft pick by the Rangers in the 1990 draft. He was a product of McNeese State University, which bought 7 players to the major leagues including Ray Fontenot, Bobby Howry, and the infamous BJ Waszgis. Mr. Burrows' page on baseballreference.com has had all of 8,823 hits as of 10/21/2010, which I believe is the lowest I have seen for someone with multiple years of service. This said, I am very happy I got to see this man ply his trade.

The game pulled a crowd of 32,765 on a threatening Sunday afternoon, and they saw a game played in 3:19. Your umpires on the field were none other than Jim Evans, Larry McCoy, Rick Reed, and John Hirschbeck.

Hey, thanks for reading!

July 20th, 1995 - Monks in the bleachers!

July 20th, 1995 - Yankees host the KC Royals
Rod Scurry Night! Asian Elvis! Mike the Bartender!

Ah, good old Rod Scurry night. You may remember the eponymous relief pitcher who even logged some Yankee time, who later died in a drug induced rampage, flipping around on someones lawn screaming that he was covered by snakes. Oh, those zany relief pitchers! Well, there was a crew of rowdy fans on hand that night, promising Rod Scurry night would continue every year on July 20th, and I did indeed spot them carrying on thier show in future years, though I imagine its fizzled out. They kept yelling about snakes and held up a sign with Scurry's visage. No one seemed to get it but me. As I type this I figure few will get it outside of me. In memory of Mr Scurry I drew a nice cartoon pic of his face on the scorecard, rife with bushy Olde Tyme bartender-that-sells-sasparilla mustache, and a stick figure running for his life with some stick snakes on his heels. What beats Rod Scurry night?

But Scurry aside, we never forget our own, however, and we took time to note that Fat Daddy Chico's birthday was the next day, and subsequently to "watch your wallets." Hey, this is no joke here - anyone remember some of the crazy crap Chico used to do? He had poloroids of himself cavorting with a naked woman in a hotel and he used to flash them around like a proud old lady showing off her grandkids. Many of us have the unfortunate shot of a naked Chico laying splayed on a dirty hotel bed burned in our minds forever...our fat and jolly friend also had a bellybutton ring on around this time he would show off without prompting and that also made this scorecard.

The Royals were on hand, and in tje throes of welcome one lucky fan actually dropped his Yankee cap over the fence screaming at Kevin Appier during BP. Or, as I wrote, screaming at Kevin APE-ier. No word on if said lid was retreived, but if it was Im sure it wasnt by the bombarded Appier. We also had a good time exchanging witty banter with Yankee pitching coach Nardi Contreras, or as most people knew him, "the Spanish guy." Some effiminate guy sang the National Anthem on this night, and was promptly dubbed "former male vocalist" on the scorecard.

This game was like a matter of days after the infamous Blackjack McDowell middle finger incident...talk out in the bleachers was how McDowell was set to be booed for sure, at least "until he strikes out the side in the first next time out." I remember taping on my closet the backpage of one of the locals that showed McDowell with finger hoisted high, and the heading JACK ASS.

We were having our fun with Crapman the vendor, calling him over and expressing our interest in purchasing "the big blue condom" which they in actuality pass off as a big blue rubberized bat. Some chubby guy wearing what appeared to be a brown robe ensemble ambled up and was asked respectfully, "yo, Mr. Tuck, where's Robin Hood tonight?" It was only moments later another 4 or 5 guys also dressed like monks paraded up the stairs. Turns out they were a real order of monks or something....although someone in the section joked, "they're not monks, those are Jedi Knights." Um, are monks even allowed to go to baseball games?

What was really funny is one of these monks actually ended up dropping a home run ball off the bat of Don Mattingly later in the game. "If that was bread from the sky you would have caught it" someone joked.

Another lookalike who got some heat was a fat Asian Elvis lookalike, whom we asked to sing "Jailhouse Wok" for us. Speaking with Metssuckballs, they recently had an "Asian Elvis" out there 15 years later here in 2010, and they sang to him, the songs "Ruv Me Tender", "Riva Ras Vegas", and "Are you Ronesome Tonight"

It was simply an oddball night. Queen Bee Tina even had to fight for her own seat, yet alone having to worry about saving seats for us, which she did with a furious fervor. Looking at the attendance figure, its a shock she had to fight for seats during this affair.

There were some dumb fans on hand. One of them, speaking of Joe DiMaggio, actually compared him to George Brett. "I think he was as good as Brett." he said. Ya think??? This was the kind of fan we had in mind when someone mentioned that night that the bleachers were full of the "physically challenged, economically challenged, and for the most part mentally challenged."

Howard the anti-comic, everyones least favorite actual lawyer, was on hand, boring us with his boring stories. I remember around this time I was actually asking him for legal advice concerning a car wreck lawsuit I had hanging over my head, but he was not really interested, as he was too busy telling unfunny jokes and boring stories. He is one of the reasons I had my license pulled and no longer drive.

Looking back, on a maudlin note, I mentioned that "Mike the bartender" from Down the Hatch was on hand, complete with a pack of sluts from the bar. And they were all sucking lollipops. I think this is why Tina lost her seat, no one would hold it for her with these tarts on hand. Its sad cause I remember Mike being out there and having a hoot, and I think about how he passed away a few years back, from Cancer. He was a great guy and put up with a lot of my crap during those all-day drinkathons at the Hatch. I remember calling him at the bar early on Saturday mornings and asking if I was "allowed back in yet" and him telling me "just give it another week."

We were having fun out there. I led the hooting and hollering at the grounds crew, leading one of them to shout up at us from behind the fence "please...we're trying to work over here." Inane discussions of the sort we made part of our ritual were taking place, including the observation that Tommy Lee Jones and Gene Hackmen were collectively "in every single movie ever made." But to cap it all off, there was a huge bleacher brawl out there in the 6th inning, which also featured two LONG Yankee home runs.

The Yankees won a wild one, 8-4, behind the power bats. Mattingly went deep in the 4th and a monk dropped it, then Bernie and Stanley went back to back in the 6th, with Bernie's apparently landing in the black according to this scorecard. The struggling Mattingly actually had a flashback and a good night, going 3-5, scoring 3 times and driving in a deuce. The Yankees mustered 11 hits, and after driving Appier out of there really laid a licking on Billy Brewer, who vave up 4 runs on 4 hits and two jacks in absolutely ZERO innings of work.

The Yankee lineup that did the damage was LF Polonia, 3B Boggs, DH James, RF O'Neill, 1B Mattingly, CF Bernie, C Stanley, SS Fernandez, and 2B Kelly. None of these fu*king lineups look anything like the same game to game. On the Yankee hill the beneficiary should have been Scott Kamienieki but he pitched himself out of the game by the 6th and Steve Howe swooped in for the win, while Bob Wickman wrapped up.

For the Royals we saw a lineup of 2B Lockhart, CF Goodwin, 1B Joyner, DH "Ham" Hamelin, 3B Gaetti, RF Jon Nunnally (lol), SS Gagne, LF David Howard, and C Brett Mayne. After Appier and Brewer got rocked Hippo Pichardo and Rusty Meacham wrapped things up for KC on this losing effort. Royal star of the game, and this games profile, was Nunnally, who went 3-3 and drove in 3 of the 4 KC runs.

I used to be a fan of Mr. Nunnally, at least until he ended up wearing a Red Sox and a Met uniform. His career stretched in spurts from 95-2000, where he notched a .246 average with 42 jacks and 125 RBIs in 885 at bats spread over 364 games. Stole 19 bases over the course of things, but was nailed 12 times. He looked like a player in his debut year, this year of 1995, when he hit 14 home runs and drove in 42 in 119 games (303 at bats) - he never did notch that many at bats or have that success in a season. Aside from the Royals, Mets and Red Sox he also spent some time in a Cincy Reds uniform. He actually was traded to the Mets for the world famous Jermaine Allensworth.

A 3rd round draft pick by the Indians in 1992, Nunnally was born in 1971 and surprisingly enough not a college product. He ended up playing in Japan, bless him. Hell, he may never have left. I liked him, but also enjoyed yelling at him over the fence cause, well, he sucked.

There were 17,061 on hand on this Thursday night, to see the game played in 3:15. Your umpires on hand were once again Dan Morrison, Al Clark, Larry Barnett, and Gregory Kosc.

Thanks for reading!

July 17th, 1995 - Tom visits the box seats!

July 17th, 1995 - Yankees vs. The White Sox
"Yankees rule - White Sox drool!"

Well, not so much a BLEACHER memory...this happened to be only one of two games I remember where I sat outside of the bleachers from the timespan of 1992-2000 and beyond. I was on the third base line with my friend Ian and his crew. I am surprised I have ANY memory of this game, it was an 8PM nationally televised game, and apparently we were at Down the Hatch earlier in the day. When it came time to leave to head to the Stadium I was found sleeping in the bathroom. The girl whose leg I had been surreptitiously touching under the table that I was later told actually liked it had given up waiting for my return and left. Quite the long day as noted on here. I must have either been on work suspension again, or fired, as this was a Monday night game and beforehand I was pounding beers at the Hatch and not at work.

I made a few historical notes on here. First off, I was going to go see Type O Negative the next night. Saw them a couple of times, cant peg where this particular show was. Sadly we lost frontman Peter Steele earlier in 2010, as I prep to post this. There is a "this day in baseball" note that I must have stolen off the scoreboard, stating that on this date in 1990 the Twins recorded 2 triple plays in the same game against the Bosucks. Sucks to be them. And, in a final mention, Jason Isringhausen made his major league debut against the Cubs at Wrigley on this same night, pitching 7 strong innings but not garnering a decision. At the same time Jeff Suppan was debuting for Boston, and taking a loss at the hands of the KC Royals at Fenway. A historical day indeed!

The bleachers did make the scorecard, though, as I mentioned that you could certainly hear old Ali's bell "loud and clear." I also mentioned that I spent a lot of the game gazing wistfully at the bleachers, and imagining the capers going on out there from my pricey third base seats.

There was a kid learning the game out there around us...early on he hollered, "Frank Thomas, you stink!" That got some chuckles. Later on that same kid upgraded things to "Frank Thomas, you SUCK!" - that one actually got cheers from the crowd. Someone, and I actually HOPE it was the kid and not a drunken adult, came up with the remark, "Yankees rule - White Sox DROOL!" Thats a keeper, huh?

Another interesting note is a heated exchange between two beer vendors out there in the seats - looks like the old "territory encroachment" issue. I saw that once going on between two pretzel vendors outside the Stadium on the sidewalk, and the two of them actually started shoving and shuffling about in a grip before it was broken up much to our chagrin. We dubbed that incident "Pretzlemania!"

For everyone that is still to this day crowing about Don Mattingly for the Hall of Fame, I felt it necessary to mention on this evening that Mattingly had, to this point, a whopping 20 runs batted in in 212 at bats. He actually finished with 49 in 458....thats sort of sickly, and its sad what his balky back did to career that certainly was tracking towards the Hall.

At one point we were getting on that showboat, and current Chisox skip Ozzie Guillen, and he started in with the Mr. America muscle poses while standing in the infield, getting a guffaw and a nice hand from the crowd for his efforts.

Holy fu*k, this game must have ended early due to rain. The scorecard just stops in the 7th, and checking retrosheet it was indeed a 7 inning affair, with Wilson Alvarez getting the better of rookie Andy Pettitte, as the Sox carried the day 4-1. The anemic Yankee attack mustered only 2 hits, one of them being a Mike Stanley solo homer. The Sox managed 9.

Pettitte was up to his pickin' off ways, nailing Ray Durham who led off the game with a single to left, and then catching a sleeping Ron Karkovice in the 2nd. Karkovice should never have been on base in the first place, as Bernie showed some of that lack of hustle he exhibited here and there, meandering at his own pace on a catchable bloop. Its funny I was already bitching about it in 1995.

The Yankee lineup looked like this - CF Bernie, SS Fernandez, DH Leyritz, C Stanley, RF G Williams, 1B Mattingly, LF Velarde, 3B Davis, and 2B Pat Kelly. LOL @ Velarde in the outfield again, and Fernandez and Leyritz in the 2 and 3 holes. The Sox countered with 2B Durham, CF Johnson, 1B Thomas, RF Devereaux, DH John Kruk (lol), 3B Grebeck, LF Norberto Martin, C Karkovice (known to be the ugliest guy in baseball) and SS Guillen. If you stuck around long enough you got to see the illustrious Dave Martinez come in for Martin.

Hey, we are actually going to do a profile with a player some of you would remember! How about Craig Grebeck, that bastard. Had a career that stretched from 1990-2001, although he never managed over 301 at bats in a single campaign. For his career he snuck into 752 games, batting 1998 times. Managed 19 homers and 187 RBIs, posted to a .261 average. Played second, short, and third, and even took a shot at DH here and there. A pesky sort, fun to boo. Logged time with the Chisox (90-95), Florida (96), the Angels (97), Toronto (98-2000) and Boston (23 games in 2001) - the fu*ker was all over the place. In his career he had a nice ration in walk and K, walking 228 times and fanning 274. His page on baseball-reference actually gets some action, with 37,647 hits through 10/18/2010, so God bless him!

At 5'7 and 148 pounds, he was born in 1964 and signed as an amateur free agent in the year I graduated high school, 1986. He enrolled at California State University, which bought us a whopping 5 major league alum, including the world famous De Wayne Buice! Happy to have seen him, for sure.

The actual game itself was played in 2:16, I have no rain data although I now see a mention of "rain in the 6th" scrawled on the left margin, so that must have been what did us in. Seeing I did not keep much score on here, I may have went back to sleep following that grueling Down the Hatch showing. Only 22,707 were on hand for a nationally televised game, and your umpires on the evening were Dan Morrison, Al Clark, Larry Barnett, and Gregory Kosc.

Thanks for reading! We have a doozy lined up for tomorrow, and it is one that contains the first mention I have of the current bleacher legend known as "Pops."

July 13th, 1995 - "Ha, ha, your ice cream is soft"

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July 12th, 1995! "OJ was set up"

July 12th, 1995 - Yankees host the Royals
"There's an asshole in every corner, and there's one right there"

A Wednesday evening in the Bronx. Yankees came in floundering in 4th place, 7.5 games off the mark, looking up at the 1st place Bosux, the Tigers, and the Orioles. My good friend Ian was out there. Or it may have been my ex-roomate, Ian. There was AN Ian there, all over the scorecard, keeping score and telling jokes but I am not sure which one from my past it was. They are both Met fans, so the note "Ians favorite player ever - Keith Hernandez" is not a valid clue. The comment "Ian would trade Patrick Ewing for the future" however, leads towards the jolly Ian a bunch of Bleacher Creatures came to know in time. Also, the drunken scrawls on here are also more likely to have come from him, and not my staid carrot juice drinking roomie at the time Ian.

How is this for a zany comment - on the subject of O.J. Simpson Queen Bee Tina swore "they set him up. Its all a set up." I wonder what she thinks now, 15 years down the line. Whatever the case, this caused my friend Ian to snap, "she's nothing but an OJ lover"

Tina was on this evening - at one point she pointed at a guy having too much of a good time and observed, "there's an asshole in every corner, and there's one right there."

Danny Tartabull was really hearing it from the hometown faithful. After striking out in the 2nd he slunk back to the dugout with a tremendous serenade of "DDAAAARRRYYYLLLL" ringing in his ears. He heard it all night, so it was a good thing he was DH'ing and not manning rightfield.

Going by the notes on here it appears someone representing ESPN came out there to visit, and cut to us during the game....I have a note that "we were on ESPN" attached to the 6th inning, and another note that the "NFL guy gives us free beer - never seen that before" - I dont know who the NFL guy is, but I do remember Rich Eisen being out there when he was there, although that was a few years later and he certainly did not buy us any beers when he was.

I was doing well on the free beers...by the 4th inning I had been given 3. From exactly who, I dont know. But God bless them. Peering around this scorecard it seems an old gimmick was bought back, the fan autograph. Some guy named Chris, looking at his looping sig, signed and attached "the guy known as Bill" so Walkman John in later years inexplicably being known as "Chris" by Statman is not the first case of mistaken identity out there in the bleachers.

Whichever Ian it was made an observation that "Roy White looks somewhat Chinese." Speaking of Roy White, I remember one game where Sandy, who "knew" Roy White, called him from out in the section and ended up passing me the phone. I said something like, "hello, Mr. White. It was a pleasure to watch you play." and he said, "why, thank you very much." and that was that. Exciting stuff!

There was a bit of a ruckus in the box seats to our left caused by the presence of a Mutt fan. He was spotted and duly disposed of by the chanting from our section - when he started hamming it up and making muscle poses and the like security rushed the scene and that was the end of the evening for our Met fan friend. I have no idea if this was a "sock night" but I did mention on the card that I was indeed "hit by a flying sock" in the 9th inning. I hope it was sock night, the idea of someone taking off their shoe just to peel off a sock to throw at me unnerves me.

I also mentioned I was live on the air on 102.7 WNEW "again" that morning - a few days earlier I had won a contest which had me come in to the studio during the Pat St. John morning show to scratch off $100 of instant scratch-off lottery tickets on the air. I remember getting up there and figuring they were going to stick me in a side studio and cut to me a couple of times during the show, but after talking to Mr. St John (who still mans a mic for 101.1 WCBS to this day) and producer Mr. Marty for a little while before 6AM they decided to have me seated in studio with an open mic, free to talk whenever (but they did give me the shhhh sign during serious parts of Donna Fiducia's news reports, like grisly death)

I ended up winning around $140, which is not all that impressive considering I had 100 tickets to scratch through. I was having a good time in the studio, making fun of people stuck in traffic and just carrying on my own brand of stimulating conversation. Well, earlier on this day, as promised on the air during my first appearance, I came back with "breakfast" for the morning crew, which consisted of egg sandwiches and a case of Heinekin. It was a pain in the ass lugging that case of bottles from my apartment, too, at 5:30 in the morning. I remember Jim Monaghan, the sports guy running the board, cracking one open and enjoying that course of the meal. I became quite the morning show celebrity on that station over the next few years, between these appearances and my regular call-in stint to the Steve Mason morning show, but more on that in due time.

Anyhoo...the only other things of note on here is a nod to Russ Davis' "384 foot home run" in the 2nd inning, a few "what the fuc*k happened there?" remarks attached to mystery outs, a mention that Ian was stepping on seats and getting heat for it, and a ridiculous key and symbol system as to who was keeping score during what inning. Considering it was only myself and Ian that evening doing the scorecard, I dont understand the purpose for a new mention in the margins every time one of us kept a different innning, but no matter.

As for the game, it was another easy Yankee win. This was getting to be quite the habit around then, at least the last 3 games I scored. Yankees sailed to a 9-1 victory, behind solid pitching by Andy Pettitte who gave up 1 run on 6 hits and a walk in 8 innings before Scott Bankhead, who was certainly a busy man out of the bullpen in 95 even though a bunch of us had no idea of it in later years, finished it up.

Bernie Williams, back to leading off, went 3-3 and scored twice, and Jim Leyritz drove in 4 runs from the 2 hole. Davis had the only Yankee home run, and the Yankees mustered 11 hits on the night. KC managed but 6, with no player having more than one. The starter and loser was Chris Haney, who was out by the 3rd, having surrendered 6 runs. He was followed up by ex-Mariner and now at the end of the line Dave Fleming, Dilson Torres (lol!), Mike Magnante, and Hipolito Pichardo.

Your lineups looked like this - for the Royals you had CF Coleman, 1B Joyner, DH Chris James, 3B Gaetti, RF Phil Hiatt, SS Edgar Caceres, 2B Chris Stynes, CF David Howard, and C Pat Borders. Holy fu*k, how did the Royals ever win a game??? The Yankees offered up CF BW, C Leyritz, RF O'Neill, DH Tartabull, LF G Williams, 1B Mattingly, SS Fernandez, 3B Davis, and 2B Pat Kelly.

As for the profile, what the Hell, lets go with young Mr. Torres. He was another "one and done" - 1995 was the body of his major league work. On this night in June he pitched 2 scoreless innings, but he was tattered throughout his short tenure. He wrapped it up with a 6.09 ERA in 24 games (2 starts), getting clocked for 56 hits and walking 17 in only 44 innings of work. He struck out 27, but gave up a sickly 6 home runs. He also hit a batter (I hope the batter charged the mound) and hurled a wild pitch. His record in the major league encyclopedia will always read 1-2, with no saves to his credit. Born in 1970, he was an undrafted free agent out of Venezuela, but he was no Rich Garces. He did, however, make $109,000 in 1995. His Baseball-Reference page had been viewed 8,779 times through 10/15/2010 (8,770 times by people with the last name Torres, 8 times by people with the last name Torrez, and once by me) - I am happy to have seen him, and hope you take a moment to remember him today.

This was one of the quicker games I seemed to attend, played in 2:26, in front of a boisterous crowd of 23,252. Your umpires on hand were no less than Rich Garcia, Dale Ford, Larry Young, Mike Reilly.

Hey, thanks for reading!

June 27th, 1995 - The "Fu*k you too!" ball story!

June 27th, 1995 - Yankees host the Tigers
Grrrrrrr!

A Tuesday night, and I had a couple of drunken friends from my college days on hand. I hung out with a lot of drunk guys in college...who did you think I hung out with, hot women? My friend Rob was a hit with my bleacher buddies, as he was bragging that he used to "party" with Joe Ausanio, a local product and baseballer, and once "had a conversation" with Madonna. Love hanging with the high rollers.

I started things with a big "Oh No!" plastered across the top - the Yankees were kicking off a 13 game homestand. That meant a lot of $$ spent on beer for me up ahead...I grew to hate these kinds of homestands. My body hated them worse.

A topic of discussion with the Tigers in town was our friend Bobby Higginson. He had made some sort of bet outside around the back with George and lost, and now owed George $5. Higginson has long been a favorite of mine, since he threw me up a ball that on which he had written, "Fu*k You, Too!" Nice story around that - I threw the ball back even though it was specially for me, and he leisurely picked it up off the grass and tossed it right back to me. I threw it back again, and he gave up and tossed it out to the yahoos in leftfield. It was only after that I realized I made a BIG mistake....who would not want a "Fu*k you, too" ball?

I bitched about this during a game to Queen Bee Tina, and she proclaimed, "I see him around the back all the time, I will tell him to get you a new ball." Sure enough before the next game she went around back and explained the situation, and he promised to get me a ball. Well, that day, full Stadium, a beautiful weekend game, the organ is playing, the field is empty, and the Yankees are seconds from charging out of the dugout to get things going.

And here comes Bobby Higginson, at a trot, jogging out of the Tiger dugout and heading out to the outfield like he doesnt have a care in the world. Everyone is like, "what the Hell is going on..." - well, he gets out to the fence, calls Tina down, and says, "well, where the fu*k is Tom?" Turns out I was outside, cramming in some cheap beers.....to make an already too long story a bit shorter, he flipped up a new ball that said, "fu*k you, too!" complete with a sketch of an upraised middle finger on it. I sure wish I knew where it got off to after all these years!

We were doing some polls. We had the old "how old is this chick" poll going on, as everyone was gawking at some girl out there and we had a feeling it was against the law to think about what they were thinking about. Age picks ranged from 16.2, to 19.1, to 18.5, to 17.2, to a chip ahead at 17.3. She was actually 16.4, disqualifying a 16.5 guy in favor of a 16.2 winner. This fellow Sam, then known as "Eddie Van Halen" won the day, while someone else groused, "who the Hell voted Price of Right rules are in effect?" I myself ended up 2.2 years off her actual age, but I wont confess in which direction

The picks went outside the scorecard, as money started changing hands over how old this girl really was. "Kate, how was school?" we asked once her age was out. We also had a pool going on what time the game was going to end, with picks ringing in from 10:12 through 11:12 - it ended up being a 3 hour game, an hour shorter than any of us really expected. What would you have thought, with a Scott Bankhead/Brian Bohanan pitching matchup?

In an oddity, I noted that the wave "is going in two different directions." In a comic moment my friend Rob said my friend Dave, who had thinning hair (to be kind about it,) "had no hair." Dave nearly spit out his drink and shot back, "you have known me for 6 years and him (pointing at my already balding self) for 6 months and you write down a line about MY lack of hair?"

Looking over the lineups I see Lou freakin' Whitaker was still playing. Talk about getting old on the job. Whitaker even made an error for our entertainment, God bless him. The celebrites were out selling ice cream and doing security, as "Dennis Rodman" was selling the cold stuff and "Snoop" was on security seat patrol. It was always good to see them out there.

This was my 11th game of the year, and the Yankees were a blah 5-5 with me on hand, and running 6 1/2 off the pace in the AL East. No wonder we spent our time doing polls.

Not much else gong on out there outside of Elder George (who left the Stadium at 8:12...no one knew where he actually went when he constantly did this) yelling at Higginson over his $5.00, Captain Bob singing the Gang Bang song in the 8th, and those O'Neill Hit it Here "dartboard signs" all over the place.

As for the game, the Yankees coasted to a 7-1 win behind a group effort by Scotty Bankhead (who only went 3.2), Bob McDonald (who got the win) and Joltin' Joe Ausanio, who notched his first - and only - major league save. Brian Bohanan started and took the loss for the Tigers, with Joe Boever and Brian "my last name is a cool Scrabble word" Maxcy chipping in a bit.

For the Yanks, O'Neill, probably boosted by those stupid signs, went 3-4 and scored twice, but the hit king for the night was Tony Fernandez, who also went 3-4 and drove in 4, including a 3-run dinger in the 5th. The Yankees managed 10 hits, putting out a lineup of CF BW, 1B Leyritz, RF O'Neill, C Stanley, DH Tartabull, 2B Velarde, SS Fernandez, 3B Davis, and LF Gerald Williams.

That relic and current Arizona skip Kirk Gibson provided the only Tiger run with a home run off of Bankhead, and the Tiger unit only mustered 7 hits, putting out this lineup - CF Chad Curtis, 2B Whitaker, 3B Fryman, 1B Fielder, DH Gibson, RF Higginson, LF Franklin Stubbs, C and good friend and bad announcer John Flaherty, and SS Chris Gomez.

As for the profile, how can it NOT be Brian Maxcy? I love these fly by nighters. This was his only full season in the major leagues, and he managed to coerce himself into 41 of his major league total 43 games during this campaign. And, oh, what an ugly ERA. 6.88, giving up 40 earned runs in 61 innings of work. He also walked 31 (33 on his career) and only struck out 20 (21 on the career) - he also hit 2 batters and threw 6 wild pitches, while watching 6 home runs sail out of the park, during this most storied of careers. In 1996 he was actually involved in a swap with the Cardinals for the famous Tom Urbani. Born in 1971, he came out of the University of Mississippi, which also bought us luminaries such as Tucker Ashford, David Delucci, Bobby Kielty, and Chris Snopek.

I am proud to have seen this man work his magic on the mound.

The game went 2:53, as mentioned, and was called by the blue crew of Tim Welke, Joe Brinkman, Ken Kaiser, and Derryl Cousins. Only 19,765 bothered to show up for this one.

Thanks for reading!