"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!
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