June 8th, 1995 - "This is a ballgame, not a mental hospital!"

June 8th, 1995 - Yankees host the A's
"BW sucks!"

My brother Dan's birthday. I noted he was spending it at The Ground Round. A wild guy, that Dan. There were no less than THREE presentations on the field before the game, and looking at the tepid attendance figures just about every fan at the game got some sort of accolade around home plate, it seems. "This is a ballgame, not a mental hospital!" Elder George scoffed when some hospital patients were led onto the hollowed grounds, waving merrily.

A woman parked herself on the rail right before the first pitch and actually stayed there the entire first inning, despite being showered with heckles and catcalls, berations and slams. A security guard basically stood 10 feet to her left with a bozo grin on his face. She ended up leaving on her own between innings, flicking the finger at us as she sauntered off. Sometime in the bottom of the 2nd she was back on the rail, but security actually stirred this time and sent her packing.

I made mention to the fact that I touched Cowbell King Ali's sacred cowbell, "for the first time, I think." We all remember our first time...heh heh. In other bell news, Queen Bee Tina dropped the thing at 8:04 and that was duly noted.

We were reminiscing about banter exchanged over the fence during batting practices gone by, and someone recounted "the Turner Ward story." Ward was out there one afternoon doing the fungo and one of us chirped, "hey, Ward, you suck!" He turned around, found the offending party and replied, "Yeah, I sucked your girlfriends tits!"

I made note that I was complimented "for having the loudest voice in the Stadium." This was a common refrain back then. I honestly think if it came down to it I could outshout any of you mo-fos out there, and I will put that to the test if you want to wade those waters. If you feel froggy, hop in!

It was another slow game (like turtles having sex, I remarked) and it was pretty barren out there to boot on this Thursday night. I actually counted everyone in section 39 and the surrounding area in the top of the 9th and reached 70 and there was no more to count.

The A's hammered the Yankee pitching early and often, with "Blackjack" McDowell and Rob McDonald the main beneficiaries (although we got a glimpse of the infamous Josias Manzanillo later on too) - Ruben Sierra parked a couple out there in the bleachers among us, and one of them ended up in the hands of old Evie, down in front in Section 37, by Fat Daddy Chico. She did not throw it back, and Tina was pissed about it. "A free ticket every night and you dont throw it back....and thats a fan?" she snapped.

Regarding news from the continuing Mickey Mantle front, I noted it was announced he needed a new liver, and would inevetably hop to the front of the line. Which he did.

Remember Barry, the bleacher creature who looked like Jack McDowell? We actually called him Blackjack. At one point during this game Tina pointed to the mound and looked at Blackjack and said, "there you is!"

Danny Tartabull was hearing it from us from our perch behind him in right. "Hey, go back to picking garbage!" someone shouted. Can you imagine people ripping our own Yankee rightfielder these days? He was also serenaded with a "Darryyyyllll, Darrrryyyylll" chant. At one point a thoroughly exasperated fan yelled "get the son of a bitch out of there!" and more than one "Bring back Mel Hall!" refrain was being bandied about.

And while the Yankee pitchers were getting tattered and another ball was smacked into the corner Tina scowled, "son of a bitch, they're flying all over the place!"

Tartabull's buddy Polonia out there in left was faring no better, "pulling a baserunning rock" for the second night in a row, getting stuck between third and home following a Mattingly double in the first. He should have scored, didnt, and therefore "pulled a rock."

But no one suffered the ignomoly of Bernie Williams on that day, as an exuberant fan at one point stood up and screeched, "Hey Barney!" Meanwhile Mattingly was kicking it around at first, making 2 errors in one inning much to our chagrin. Not to be outdone Jeter made his first major league error, and Mike Stanley kicked in a passed ball for good measure.

It was an ugly night. In a true sign of the madness, Stan Javier actually scored FROM FIRST on a single to centerfield! And, hold on to something - someone actually scrawled "BW SUX" on the scorecard under that note. Yes, they actually, at one point, thought Bernie Williams sucked!

Only 3 mystery outs, it seems I was on the wagon for a series of games around this time. Those mystery outs were for Helfand leading off the 6th (reason given was for ironically enough "showing off the scorecard"), Helfand again in the 9th, and Tartabull leading off the Yankee 4th.

Yeah, the Yankees lost this one, 8-3 with McDowell slipping to 1-4 despite fanning 11 in 7 innings of work, and the win going to the legendary Mike Harkey. The A's had a field day at the bat, with Sierra going 3-4 with the two home runs, and Yankee killer Geronimo Berroa went 2-5 with another 3rbis. Henderson and Javier at the top of the linuep chipped in a pair of hits apiece. The A's lineup on this June evening was LF Henderson, CF Javier, DH Berroa, RF Sierra (the "village idiot") 1B Aldrete, 3B Brosious, 2B Gates, SS Bordick, and C Eric Helfand batting in the 9 hole.

Mike Stanley went 4-4 for the Yankees with only a run and a RBI to go along, and Wade Boggs chipped in 2 of the Yankees other 5 hits. The Yankee lineup was LF Polonia, 3B Boggs, DH O'Neill, C Stanley, 1B Mattingly, RF Tartabull (0-4 with 2 Ks) 2B Fernandez, CF BW, and SS Jeter. This Yankee lineup was done in by Harkey, the ageless Rick Honeycutt, Jim Corsi, and Carlos Reyes.

For a profile lets go with Eric Helfand...how can we not? His 3rd of 3 campaigns, which resulted a mere 105 at-bats. He had 86 of them in 38 games in 1995, and we saw 1 of those games and 4 of those at bats on this day! And I missed 2 of them and marked them as MOs! For his CAREER he batted a whopping .171, with zippo home runs and 9 RBIs. A real speed demon, he notched no stolen bases, and was never caught. A second round draft pick in 1990, he was born in 1969 in Erie, PA, its interesting to note he was drafted by the Marlins from the A's in the expansion draft in 92, and immediatly sent back to Oakland for Walt Weiss. I thank the Lord for letting me see this man display his talents!

As for the 8th, I mentioned the weak crowd, a continued trend. 15,792 came out to see the game, which was played in 3:14. Your umpires once again were Brian O'Nora, Gary Cederstrom, Jim McKean, and Dale Scott.

Thank you for reading!