June 24th, 1995 - "Huff, you look good in Green!"

June 24th, 1995 - Yankees host Toronto
Theres a penis on the scorecard!

A Saturday afternoon. You know what that means....I was too drunk to really come up with much on the scorecard. I do notice that lots of times with the more beer I drank the more angry and surly I became and the more caustic the comments were on the scorecard. Good thing I did not keep that pattern in my real life over the years!

There was an early nod to John Olerud's habit of wearing a batting helmet on the field that I'm thinking may have came from my then young friend Gang Bang Steve. For years he would always make a reference to the helmet whenever Olerud was in town. You know, "nice helmet, dick" and "love the helmet, asshole" - on this card someone scrawled, "Olerud should put a hat on when he plays first!" and it may very well have been Gang Bang, pitching a hand with me drunk as I was.

For some reason elder George's girl Angel was out there and lit a candle. Yes, a candle, during a baseball game. Remember, there were enough empty seats out there where a candle could stretch out as well as a fan could. I have no idea what her motivation was, and I dont remember doing it but I would imagine that did not last long and we either knocked it over on purpose or blew it out, especially as she was not particularly sad that day, so no one was being mourned.

Shawn Green was getting crucified by us. "Green, who did you have to blow today to play, you asshole!" someone shrieked. "Green sucks!" was a constant over and over refrain. "Hey, is that sperm on your chin?" was a direct query sailing over the rightfield fence from Section 39. There were multiple outbreaks of "Shawn Green is a Horse's Ass" - my favorite line of the day, however, was addressed to Mike Huff over to greens right, out in centerfield, by yours truly. "Hey, Huff!" I yelled, then pointing over towards Shawn. "I hear you look good in Green!"

There were other catty scrawls on here, most likely fueled by an alcoholic rampage, like "Methodists suck" and "Danny Heep is shit." I also see a reference to a "Jump, you homo!" command to someone in the upper reaches. "Down in front, you faggot!" is also on here, so homophobia was once again running rampant. Looking at this mess of a scorecard, the scrawl of "What the Hell is going on??" seems to make the most sense.

Someone drew a very anatomically correct penis on the scorecard, complete with pubic hair and bulbous balls. I myself was busy writing "mo's" - or mystery outs all over the place...at one point I asked a girl close by who was probably very annoyed at our antics what it was I missed on the field, and she downright refused to tell me.

Someone wrote "Whiten, you suck!" on here, which is funny only cause Whiten did not play for Toronto in 1995.

This was a really easy win for the good guys, which meant the beer was going down really good. 10-2, a Yankee shellack. Melido Perez was the beneficiary, with help from Josias Manzanillo, Rob McDonald, (who was all over these 1995 scorecards), and the Scotty Bankhead. The Jay that took the lumps was that doof Jose Guzman, who was tacked with 8 runs (6 of them earned) in 6 very funny innings. Tim Crabtree and that loser Woody Williams mopped up for Toronto.

The Toronto hurlers managed to strike out only 2 Yankees all day, that being Mike Stanley on two occassions, but the Yankee pitchers outdid them in K futility, striking out only ONE Blue Jay batter, that being Ed Sprague.

The top 3 in the Yankee order (Polonia, Boggs, and Dion James of all people) all had 2 hits, with Boggs driving in 3 and James a deuce. The only Yankee starter not to get a hit was the 9-hole hitter, Randy Velarde. The Yankee lineup looked like this - LF Polonia, 3B Boggs, DH James, RF O'Neill, 1B Mattingly, SS Fernandez, C Stanley dropped to 7th, CF BW, and 2B Velarde. This lineup changed tenfold every game, looking back, with guys dropping from leadoff to 8th in the order, and everyone having a turn at cleanup.

The Jays had the only homer in the game, coming off the bat of Joe Carter, while mustering only 5 hits, 2 off the bat of Robby Alomar, who managed to keep his spit to himself. The Jays threw out a lineup of CF Huff, DH Molitor, 2B Alomar, RF Carter, 1B Olerud, 3B Sprague, RF Green in his first full season and already being roasted by us, SS Alex Gonzalez, and C Sandy Martinez.

For todays profile I have decided to go with Mr. Martinez, yet another nondescript catcher. They were all over the place. Hung around for 8 years, but only got into 218 games with a mere pittance of 564 at bats with Toronto, the Cubs, the Marlins, the Expos (one game), the Indians (one game), and Boston (3 games).

In those scant at-bats he notched a sickly .230 average with a laughable 6 home runs and 51 runs batted in. He also struck out a wretched 147 times, while walking on 37 occassions. In 95, his rookie campaign, he actually played 62 of those 218 games and escaped with a .241 average in 191 at-bats, homering twice and plating almost half of his RBIs for the career, with 25. It was all downhill from there, but we saw him in his prime! The man was an amateur free agent signed in 1990, born in the Dominican Republic in 1970. God bless this man!

This game took an even 3 hours to play, and was done so in front of a crowd of 28,950, which sucked for a Saturday. Well, from a Yankee standpoint...we didnt mind it, we liked the room. Your umpires on hand were none other than Dale Ford, Don Denkinger, John Shulock, and Tim Tschida.

Thanks for reading!!