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!
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