"In the event of an emergency....yell AAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!"
This was a funny one. They were giving away caps with Grumpy of the Seven Dwarves on them to children, and apparently the elderly at the gate as well, to promo a Disney movie or something. One of the bleacher memories that always stuck with me was seeing a pack of like 4 oldtimers shuffling up the steps wearing these caps, invoking the funny - but obvious - refrain of, "hey, look, its GRUMPY old men!"
Before the game there was yet another presentation on the field to boo. During the intro Bob Sheppard ruminated how whoever was on there wasting everyones time was a big sponsor of "youth-related activities." "Yeah" one of us mused. "like drinking, smoking pot, underage sex, and fighting in the streets."
This was not the night she said it, but it was the night it made the scorecard....Angel's infamous "I did not know Ripken was black." line. Turned out she confused Cal Ripkens black undergarment for an African American man's arm while he was perched at short. "Thats like being in Jerusalem and saying "Who is this Jesus guy?" someone mocked.
Talk in the bleachers was about the Columbian soccer player who was murdered for the ignomoly of scoring an "own-goal" against his own team. Universal feeling was that yes, he deserved it.
Some spaghetti-neck came ambling up, and when we hollered at him he snapped a few quips back. "Peggy Fleming is more of a man than you!" someone retorted. Another fan that was catching our special brand of grief was an Asian gent who we promptly dubbed "Hideo Homo." And in yet another true classic and what may be my favorite bleacher line of ALL TIME, his fellow-Asian buddy, who was wearing a home white Red Sox jersey was dubbed "Jim RICE" Rice, asian guy...get it?? LOL
The Grumpy old men came up in conversation again. "Psst...dont tell the grumpy old men, they're actually at the Met game."
Howard "the anti-comic" confided in us that he had joined the Hair Club for Men. Of course as soon as he ambled off to tell an unfunny joke somewhere old-school George cracked, "Yeah, he not only blew the President, he blew all the clients."
For no reason at all someone stood up between pitches and announced in a booming and deadpan Bob Sheppard impersonation, "In the event of an emergency......yell AAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!"
Old cowbell man Ali was not around, and someone asked Tina where he could possibly be. "He's probably dead." she shrugged. Meanwhile Fat Daddy Chico himself pointed up at a blimp hovering over the Stadium and joked, "hey, thats me!"
A fan leaned over the loge and I got him good. I used to jump up real quick and hurl a potent one-liner. This guy not only heard it, but gave me an obscene gesture in return. It was a nice exchange. While all this was going on a man was sitting in our midst calmly eating watemelon, for Gods sake.
Someone was on the phone up in front, and one of us said, "he's on the phone with Whorephone. You'll always get a score." Witty, I suppose...
Elder George was at his best. With a wild-card spot destined for 1995 he was on a "Buck must go" rant. When it came time for the subway race he griped, "fu*k that, it's always the C......or the D." As for the wildcard for posterity I marked "3 1/2 out Wild Card" before the game started. Sad to say, I also wrote "4 1/2 out Wild Card" before I left the Stadium, so there is a result spoiler for ya.
In one of the funnier "overheard lines" in bleacher-dom we heard a young scamp actually ask, "Mom, whats a gigilo?" soon after one of our inane conversations up there. Another dummy was holding up one of those blue "O'Neill" dartboard signs, upside down, which caused Gang Bang Steve to laugh and keep repeating, "it says 'Lilien'o"
Security Saddam on bleacher duty was in his raging heydey around this time, and for the 10000th time we were alerted that the "You suck" refrains would not work out there. He actually, honestly, and literally said, and I am NOT making this up, "You are bad, not you suck" in a way to coach us what to say. Can you imagine? "YOU ARE BAD!" clap "YOU ARE BAD!" Puh-leeeeze.
There were a couple of time stamps on here, including an "aborted bleacher wave" in the 5th, and a "homemade cowbell", also in the 5th. Wow, busy inning there. This is actually a very cool scorecard that always stood out in my collection - I did not have an actual scoresheet so I used a sheet of graph paper and drew in the boxes myself. Not too shabby, I must say. From a distance it looks pretty cool, this is Bleacher Creature Museum stuff for sure.
I did miss a few plays here and there, including a Greg Gagne home run in the 4th, attributed to telling "the dead fish story." Check this one out - I had a fishtank in my apartment back then, and one day I get home and one of my two fish is gone. I mean, not even a bone floating around. I figured the other fish devoured him, and went about my business after saying a quick prayer. Just about every weekend I had friends crashing in the place, on blankets and pillows on the hardwood floor. Well, months after the fish dissapeared my friend Eric (some of you may know him from the Baltimore gunpoint robbery story - two guys and four guns) said, "that was funny that night with your fish." and I am like, "what the fu*k are you talking about, you idiot." and he was like, "how I rolled over on him."
Turns out the fish was not eaten, he somehow hopped the tank. Eric crashed in the blankets that night, and rolled over at one point to hear a crunch. He thought it was "pork rinds" but after a while he went to pick it out of there and it was my fish, dead and hardening. Instead of telling me he simply shoved him under the bookcase. It was only months later he let me in on it. I could not get home fast enough to move the bookcase off the wall. When I did, I had a really cool fossil over there...
Anyhoo.....for all the crap Blackjack McDowell was taking from the fans back then he went another full 9 on this night, but he did take the loss. Yankees went down 4-3, to the laughable Royal revolving door of Dave Fleming, Jim Converse, Dilson Torres, Mike Magnante, Gregg Olson, and good old Jeff Montgomery. Yes, it took SIX of them!!
On the bat side of things, the Yankees managed 9 hits, with Wade Boggs slapping 3 of them and Bernie and Ruben Sierra adding 2 each. Sierra homered, as did Randy Velarde. The Yankee lineup looked like this - 1B Boggs (yes, at first on this night), CF Bernie, RF O'Neill, DH Sierra, C Stanley, SS Velarde, LF G Williams, 3B Russ Davis, and 2B Patrick Kelly. Probably the 20th different lineup in as many games.
The Royals also mustered 9 hits off of McDowell, with Keith Lockhart and Michael "Mother" Tucker having multiple hit games. Tucker homered, as did the aforementioned Greg "I am not the AWA wrestler Gagne of all people. The Royal lineup was CF Johnny Damon in his rookie campaign, LF Goodwin, 1B Joyner, 3B Gaetti, 2B Lockhart, SS Gagne, DH Tucker, RF Howard, and C Brett Mayne.
Lets do a profile real quick....David Howard is as good as any. Stuck around from 91-99 and is hardly remembered by anyone. In all those years he never played more than 95 games, batted more than 255 times...except in 1996 when he INEXPLICABLY played in 143 games and batted 420 times. It is a stark contrast when you peruse his ledger.
For the career he batted a sickly .229, with only 11 home runs and 148 RBIS in 1583 at bats. He played EVERYWHERE, all the outfield and infield positions outside of catching. He even pitched in a game in 1994, sneaking in and out while only giving up 1 run in 2 innings of work. So he was versatile but could not hit a lick and was not much the burner, managing a modest 23 stolen bases while being nabbed 19 times. NOT a good ratio. Originally a 32nd round draft pick (so not much could have ever been expected from him) in 1986, he was born in 1967. I am proud I got to see this everyman play the game in front of me!
As for 8/28, six years to the day where I started classes at SUNY New Paltz, only 23,595 were on hand to see a game played in 2:49. Your umpires on hand were Jim McKean, Vic Voltaggio, Jim Joyce, and Dale Scott.
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