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!