PLAYOFFS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
October 3rd, 1995 - Yankees host Seattle
GAME 1 - Wild Card 1995
"check him out, getting high on the handy horn."
Its ironic, I actually flipped on a Yankeeography the other night (I generally avoid them, i like my pancakes with not so much 'syrup') and the subject was Don Mattingly, and they went into depth about the crowd reaction when he took the field on this fateful night. I remembered all of that but it was nice to watch it again. I do remember a lot of things regarding that game...it was only in later playoff games in later playoff runs where I would get sloshed.
In a prophetic note I wrote "Beginning of a Run" in the "Date" section, and oh, was it ever the beginning of a run, for the Yankees and we fans that merrily followed along.
I was very cogent of my surroundings on this night, as although the scorecard is full it is legible (attributed to little to no drinking) and therefore not the funniest card I had seen. There was business at hand! In the intro section on the card I also remarked on the "bunting" we would get to know so well in future years, and that I forgot my friend, the little stuffed bear "Bear Ass", an inexcusable faux pas, as the Yankees were 11-1 with my furry friend on hand.
This was a year where we had our tickets taken care of us beforehand, as during the last game of the season elder George and Queen Bee Tina had gone up to the Yankee offices with $600 or so, cash money, and secured our ducats. This was a wonderful and pretty much exclusive privelage which died in later years, mainly cause some of us could not keep our fu*king mouths shut.
Before the game a "mystery guy" in a Seattle uniform was down and hurt on the warning track. Took a BP fly off the noodle, apparently. We later learned who it was, but it never made the scorecard, and its now lost to time.
They actually carted out what was then an 11 year old to sing the Anthem, which bought snickers and some groans. I mean, really, this was the best they could do? Joe DiMaggio threw out the first pitch, and we all remarked how nice it was to see the Yankee Clipper. I tagged on the names not eligible for this rounds go-around, including - lol - Jeter, Mariano, Melido Perez, Jimmy Key, and the other Joltin' Joe, Mr. Ausanio. I noted one thing from the introductions, the fact that Steve Howe was "booed." Of course, by this point whenever he entered a game someone would invariably mutter, "Howe big a disaster is this?"
We were letting all of our friends and familiars nudge in with us no matter where their ticket was, and the seats were packed, but you guys all know that well. Nothing new. I actually kept my headphones on that night, and listened to the WABC-Radio feed during the game, which bought me a lot of little bon mots and pearls of wisdom that I added to the card. It also screwed up the normal run of jokes I would have heard and later shared.
For one thing, if I marked this correctly, the Yankees were 10-15 on the season if Randy Velarde was not in the starting lineup. Who woulda knew? During much of the game you could hear a lone voice chirping up in favor of Seattle over the radio feed, causing John Sterling to muse, "99.9% of those on hand are rooting for the Yankees...the other .1% is right here next to me." I got to hear the always smarmy Michael Kay, then Sterlings running buddy in the booth, refer to someone as a "dolt", as he broke that one out when a fan ran onto the field during the evenings proceedings.
People were ID'ing me across the board, with one fan telling me I looked like Don Mattingly, and another fan mistaking me for "Cousin Brewski." "Got the night off?" he asked, patting me on the back. In a little hilarity old Cowbell King Ali swiped Fat Daddy Chico's walker and hid it up by us, shrugging and explaining, "Chico can roll his ass out of here."
Your regular quips were flying from 39. After a call that did not go our way someone moaned, "all this money you got, Steinbrenner, and you can't buy the ump?" I mentioned that the Mayor was taking what was soon to be the obligatory trip to the radio booth, which raised a, "thats why the city sucks." Someone even found the time to mention that Gloria Estafan was "accident-prone."
I happened to be sitting behind the tallest guy in the whole place...I am sure many of you have been there. I actually looked around, all the way down the rows in front of me, and could not find anyone even remotely as tall as the guy that was sitting directly in front of me. And of course the fact that fans filed into the seats little by little, all the way to and above the 5th or 6th inning of play, was mentioned ,with a surly scrawl.
There were few Seattle fans out there in the bleachers, but they were there. One of them completely "ran the gauntlet" as he took the stairs all the way up to the top, and heard it from the rowdy mob step by step. Another Seattle fan was greeted with a "Seattle jerkoff" tag, and told to "step on a mine." I later remarked that "Seattle hats flying all over" so there must have been more of them out there than I implied, and by the end of the night they were lid-less.
"Fu*k you, Buhner!" was an epitaph that got through, as I remarked on a remarkable lack of security out there. There were innings at a time where there was stone-cold NONE. Of course, that would change in later years. Vince Coleman was met with a loud, "shoulda stayed with the Mets, you fu*king prick!" Tina gleefully added, "you fu*king National League piece of shit!" Ken Griffey Jr was also "ripped" just so he would not feel left out.
It was a little disheartening to see The infamous "Wave" making its way around the Stadium during a playoff game. And humiliating, no way for a Yankee fan to behave. I am shocked and appalled. To top all of this off, there was a smattering of rain throughout the game, dunking the 57,178 on hand.
I heard a great quip regarding the quick shot off a weedy one-hitter, as someone said, "check him out getting high on the handy horn."
One of our friends who carted beer let us know that once this season finally wrapped up, he would not longer be around. "Don't retire" we pleaded in earnest. "We're already short beer guys." Playoff game or no, Crazy Devil Fan Billy was regaling us with his tales of visiting the Dawg Pound in Cleveland, and how he had a picture at home where fully half of them were giving him the finger. When we said that was nothing special cause we did the same thing to him he added, "the other half were throwing shit at me."
Yankees won this one 9-6, of course, with David Cone pitching 8 before John Wetteland made it interesting in a bad way in his one inning of work, giving up 2 runs on 3 hits and a walk. It got so bad that when Wetteland ran up 2 strikes on someone one of our fellow fans snarled, "one more, dickhead!"
Yankees had home runs from Wade Boggs and Ruben Sierra, with Boggs, Sierra, and Bernie each driving in 2. Chris Bosio started and was rocked by the Yankees, and was followed by Jolly Jeff Nelson, my archnemesis Bobby Ayala, Bill Risley, and Bob Wells, a complete facial clone of Ayala.
The Yankee lineup for this first playoff game in eons was 3B Boggs, CF BW, RF O'Neill, DH Sierra, 1B Mattingly, LF James, C Stanley, SS Fernandez, 2B Velarde. The Mariners countered with LF Coleman, 2B Cora, CF Griffey, DH E Martinez, 1B Tino, RF Buhner, 3B Blowers, C Wilson, and SS, our friend, Luis Sojo.
Game slogged along, played in 3:38, and your umpires on hand were Mike Reilly, Dale Scott, Jim McKean, Larry McCoy, Jim Joyce, and Rich Garcia.
Thanks for reading!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment