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