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!!
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Monday, October 11, 2010
June 10th, 1995 - Booin' the marching band!
June 10th, 1995 - Yankees host the Mariners
Sheriff Tom vs Bobby Ayala - the feud lives!
A Saturday afternoon. Some of you may remember this sweet girl Jamie that was inexplicably friends with me around then. She got married on this day to a Soldier she met while working at West Point, a good old Southern boy, and I lauded it on this scorecard. We lost contact so many years ago...wonder if they made it. I enjoyed many a cigar and cold beer on their porch out there around West Point. I also once wandered drunkenly out of their house one time and ended up walking into the wrong house after a spell, sitting down to watch tv until I noticed a friendly dog that I realized they did not own. But thats another story.
This was also the infamous day where my brother David and I, along with thousands of others, booed our local high school marching band, the Deer Park Falcons, who were trying valiantly to entertain the crowd before the game. My brother was particularly harsh, harsh enough to where our cousin Kristin, who was in the band, broke down in tears visibly on the field. I remember back then Filip Bondy from the NY Daily Snooze sniffing around and asking my brother why he would boo a member of the family like that and he simply said, "I had to. And I would do it again, every time."
Another funny thing that happened on this day was Randy Johnson getting dropped off by a cab right in front of the general admission bleacher line, which was snaking down the sidewalk as it always did the morning of a Saturday game. One of our more observant few saw Johnson in the back of the cab settling the fare before he got out, and was able to muster the troops for his inevitable exit. Johnson clambered out of the cab kind of sort of in front of where Steve's old Greek Eatery was, and started his saunter around the Stadium. He had to know what he was in for. Everything from "nice back you got there!" and "Hey, whats up Big Bird" and "You're a dickhead!" rang his ears. The guy then promptly went out and K'd 12 Yankees in 7 innings. I remember thinking back then, watch - this guy will end up on the Yankees soon enough. Well, we know how this story ends.
Wow, was this an eventful weekend. I mentioned that a guy was killed at the Rock Ridge Saloon the night before, with me in attendance about 40 feet away. What happened was this - I was upstairs in the area with the dance floor talking - or I should say slurring - to some girl when all of a sudden she literally threw me to the ground. I remember being pissed as I hardly knew this girl and had not even said anything offensive yet, until I noticed people running around and heard one last pop. Turns out someone tossed from the bar earlier in the night returned, this time with a gun in hand. He sought out the bouncer who tossed him, found him upstairs in the mens bathroom, and shot him in the head. For those of you who dont remember the infamous Rock Ridge, it later became the infamous Culture Club on Houston and Varick, and I bet it is haunted by this restless soul.
What a deal we had back then at Rock Ridge. On Friday nights it was $5 all you could drink draft, from 5PM through 10PM - a dollar an hour. And just before 10 Dean the barkeep would let up load up 10 or so cups each to keep on drinking until we left, were pulled out, or thrown out. This shooting was the beginning of the end for this place. Stupid people and their guns, I hate them!
Queen Bee Tina was grumpy at the Mariner fan contingent on hand, snarling "I dont think there are this many Seattle fans in Seattle." She spent the better part of the day chasing them out of the section.
I was too drunk too keep score on this Saturday so you are not getting much there. Nothing is legible beyond what I discussed, pretty much. I did mention that one of the "guest scorekeepers" was someone who dropped a stinkbomb down in the concourse area which I found funny. If that happened these days, they would evacuate the Stadium.
A very early Blue Lou appearance on the card...I mentioned on here how he complimented my "Overkill shirt" - for years he used to call me "Overkill" - and this was the start of that, apparently.
I do see a crack about Fat Daddy Chico's weight on here, comparing him to a blimp (like that joke has not been on here before) and a mention that a guy that was openly booing Tartabull was called "a Met fan" by another fellow, almost causing the two of them to come to blows. Despite the prodding of many for them to flash dukes, cooler heads prevailed.
Hey, speaking of Johnson anyone else remember this "tall" tale? He had a running fued of sorts going on with Jimmy Leyritz, after a beanball and some heated words during a previous affair. We all came to the Stadium on this day wondering if we would see any fireworks, maybe even a grandoise bench-clearing brawl. Well, first thing I heard was scuttlebutt on how a bunch of folks had heard on the radio that "to clear the air" Leyritz had actually picked Johnson up at the airport to give him a private ride into the city. The story has never been confirmed or denied to my knowledge, but I remember it was all over the place that day and we were pretty chagrined about it. Looking back on it so many years later, I smell malarky on this story.
Whatever the case may be, Johnson had the last laugh on Leyritz on this afternoon, whiffing him a couple of times. On top of Johnsons 12 strikeouts my arch-enemy Bobby Ayala (who used to openly curse at and HECKLE me from the field during BP) struck out another pair to toss up 14 strikouts on the day by the Yankee swingers. Jeff Nelson got the win in the 3-2 affair, and that idiot Ayala notched the save. For the good guys, Sterling Hitchcock actually pitched 7 very strong innings for naught, giving up only 1 run on 4 hits. Wickman and Howe each gave up single runs to swing the game to the Mariners, and John Wetteland mopped up.
A very uneventful game - no home runs, only 13 hits between the 2 teams, no standout days at the plate. Here are your lineups - Seattle offered up RF Amaral, CF Alex Diaz, DH Edgar Martinez, LF Newfield, 3B Blowers, 1B Pirkl, 2B Fermin, C Wilson, and SS A-Rod in his sophomore year, and probably 50th or so game in the majors. The Yankees countered with CF BW, 3B Velarde, C Leyritz, DH Stanley, RF Tartabull, LF G Williams, 1B Silvestri (no, that is not a missprint), 2B Fernandez, and SS Jeter.
Ah, the profile. Why not go with Bobby Ayala? What a sourpuss. This guy did not like us at all, and he fu*king hated me. We had a running feud. Before the games he would wander out in right, looking for me. "Wheres that fuc*in' dickhead?" he would ask. When he would find me he would say such wonderful things like "go to the dentist, you dickhead" or "fu*k you" or "your mother sucked my dick." It was alright, I was going right back at him, and I was honored that whenever Seattle was in town and he would spot me out there he would wave me down to exchange pleasantries. In one memorable moment in his career he missed some time as it was reported that he punched his fist through a hotel room window while he was drunk. When I casually mentioned this incident to him he said "nah, thats not what happened. What really happened was I had my finger in your mothers twat, and she liked it so much she kicked out her leg and kicked it through the window."
A charming fellow, and i miss him.
He had some good seasons on the hill, but flamed out fast. His career stretched from 92-99, with tenures for the Reds, M's, and a final season split between the Expos and the Cubs. He left the game with an ERA of 4.78, but he mixed some nice years in there. In 97 he went 10-5 out of the pen, only to follow that up in 98 with a 1-10 mark. He had a lifetime mark of 37-44 in 406 games (14 starts), walking 245 and fanning 541 in 576 innings. He had 59 lifetime saves to his ledger. Born in 69, he was an undrafted free agent by the Reds and known for being a John Franco lookalike, somewhat. I shouuld sponsor his page on Baseballreference.com. Despite the words we exchanged, I am glad I saw this dick pitch!
As far as the 10th goes, only 25,279 came out on a Saturday afternoon to see the game, which was played in 3:03, and arbitrated by Jim Evans, John Hirschbeck, Rick Reed, and Larry McCoy.
Thanks for reading!
Sheriff Tom vs Bobby Ayala - the feud lives!
A Saturday afternoon. Some of you may remember this sweet girl Jamie that was inexplicably friends with me around then. She got married on this day to a Soldier she met while working at West Point, a good old Southern boy, and I lauded it on this scorecard. We lost contact so many years ago...wonder if they made it. I enjoyed many a cigar and cold beer on their porch out there around West Point. I also once wandered drunkenly out of their house one time and ended up walking into the wrong house after a spell, sitting down to watch tv until I noticed a friendly dog that I realized they did not own. But thats another story.
This was also the infamous day where my brother David and I, along with thousands of others, booed our local high school marching band, the Deer Park Falcons, who were trying valiantly to entertain the crowd before the game. My brother was particularly harsh, harsh enough to where our cousin Kristin, who was in the band, broke down in tears visibly on the field. I remember back then Filip Bondy from the NY Daily Snooze sniffing around and asking my brother why he would boo a member of the family like that and he simply said, "I had to. And I would do it again, every time."
Another funny thing that happened on this day was Randy Johnson getting dropped off by a cab right in front of the general admission bleacher line, which was snaking down the sidewalk as it always did the morning of a Saturday game. One of our more observant few saw Johnson in the back of the cab settling the fare before he got out, and was able to muster the troops for his inevitable exit. Johnson clambered out of the cab kind of sort of in front of where Steve's old Greek Eatery was, and started his saunter around the Stadium. He had to know what he was in for. Everything from "nice back you got there!" and "Hey, whats up Big Bird" and "You're a dickhead!" rang his ears. The guy then promptly went out and K'd 12 Yankees in 7 innings. I remember thinking back then, watch - this guy will end up on the Yankees soon enough. Well, we know how this story ends.
Wow, was this an eventful weekend. I mentioned that a guy was killed at the Rock Ridge Saloon the night before, with me in attendance about 40 feet away. What happened was this - I was upstairs in the area with the dance floor talking - or I should say slurring - to some girl when all of a sudden she literally threw me to the ground. I remember being pissed as I hardly knew this girl and had not even said anything offensive yet, until I noticed people running around and heard one last pop. Turns out someone tossed from the bar earlier in the night returned, this time with a gun in hand. He sought out the bouncer who tossed him, found him upstairs in the mens bathroom, and shot him in the head. For those of you who dont remember the infamous Rock Ridge, it later became the infamous Culture Club on Houston and Varick, and I bet it is haunted by this restless soul.
What a deal we had back then at Rock Ridge. On Friday nights it was $5 all you could drink draft, from 5PM through 10PM - a dollar an hour. And just before 10 Dean the barkeep would let up load up 10 or so cups each to keep on drinking until we left, were pulled out, or thrown out. This shooting was the beginning of the end for this place. Stupid people and their guns, I hate them!
Queen Bee Tina was grumpy at the Mariner fan contingent on hand, snarling "I dont think there are this many Seattle fans in Seattle." She spent the better part of the day chasing them out of the section.
I was too drunk too keep score on this Saturday so you are not getting much there. Nothing is legible beyond what I discussed, pretty much. I did mention that one of the "guest scorekeepers" was someone who dropped a stinkbomb down in the concourse area which I found funny. If that happened these days, they would evacuate the Stadium.
A very early Blue Lou appearance on the card...I mentioned on here how he complimented my "Overkill shirt" - for years he used to call me "Overkill" - and this was the start of that, apparently.
I do see a crack about Fat Daddy Chico's weight on here, comparing him to a blimp (like that joke has not been on here before) and a mention that a guy that was openly booing Tartabull was called "a Met fan" by another fellow, almost causing the two of them to come to blows. Despite the prodding of many for them to flash dukes, cooler heads prevailed.
Hey, speaking of Johnson anyone else remember this "tall" tale? He had a running fued of sorts going on with Jimmy Leyritz, after a beanball and some heated words during a previous affair. We all came to the Stadium on this day wondering if we would see any fireworks, maybe even a grandoise bench-clearing brawl. Well, first thing I heard was scuttlebutt on how a bunch of folks had heard on the radio that "to clear the air" Leyritz had actually picked Johnson up at the airport to give him a private ride into the city. The story has never been confirmed or denied to my knowledge, but I remember it was all over the place that day and we were pretty chagrined about it. Looking back on it so many years later, I smell malarky on this story.
Whatever the case may be, Johnson had the last laugh on Leyritz on this afternoon, whiffing him a couple of times. On top of Johnsons 12 strikeouts my arch-enemy Bobby Ayala (who used to openly curse at and HECKLE me from the field during BP) struck out another pair to toss up 14 strikouts on the day by the Yankee swingers. Jeff Nelson got the win in the 3-2 affair, and that idiot Ayala notched the save. For the good guys, Sterling Hitchcock actually pitched 7 very strong innings for naught, giving up only 1 run on 4 hits. Wickman and Howe each gave up single runs to swing the game to the Mariners, and John Wetteland mopped up.
A very uneventful game - no home runs, only 13 hits between the 2 teams, no standout days at the plate. Here are your lineups - Seattle offered up RF Amaral, CF Alex Diaz, DH Edgar Martinez, LF Newfield, 3B Blowers, 1B Pirkl, 2B Fermin, C Wilson, and SS A-Rod in his sophomore year, and probably 50th or so game in the majors. The Yankees countered with CF BW, 3B Velarde, C Leyritz, DH Stanley, RF Tartabull, LF G Williams, 1B Silvestri (no, that is not a missprint), 2B Fernandez, and SS Jeter.
Ah, the profile. Why not go with Bobby Ayala? What a sourpuss. This guy did not like us at all, and he fu*king hated me. We had a running feud. Before the games he would wander out in right, looking for me. "Wheres that fuc*in' dickhead?" he would ask. When he would find me he would say such wonderful things like "go to the dentist, you dickhead" or "fu*k you" or "your mother sucked my dick." It was alright, I was going right back at him, and I was honored that whenever Seattle was in town and he would spot me out there he would wave me down to exchange pleasantries. In one memorable moment in his career he missed some time as it was reported that he punched his fist through a hotel room window while he was drunk. When I casually mentioned this incident to him he said "nah, thats not what happened. What really happened was I had my finger in your mothers twat, and she liked it so much she kicked out her leg and kicked it through the window."
A charming fellow, and i miss him.
He had some good seasons on the hill, but flamed out fast. His career stretched from 92-99, with tenures for the Reds, M's, and a final season split between the Expos and the Cubs. He left the game with an ERA of 4.78, but he mixed some nice years in there. In 97 he went 10-5 out of the pen, only to follow that up in 98 with a 1-10 mark. He had a lifetime mark of 37-44 in 406 games (14 starts), walking 245 and fanning 541 in 576 innings. He had 59 lifetime saves to his ledger. Born in 69, he was an undrafted free agent by the Reds and known for being a John Franco lookalike, somewhat. I shouuld sponsor his page on Baseballreference.com. Despite the words we exchanged, I am glad I saw this dick pitch!
As far as the 10th goes, only 25,279 came out on a Saturday afternoon to see the game, which was played in 3:03, and arbitrated by Jim Evans, John Hirschbeck, Rick Reed, and Larry McCoy.
Thanks for reading!
Friday, October 8, 2010
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!
"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!
Thursday, October 7, 2010
June 7th, 1995 - "Hey, Ruben, you look like a turd!"
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Wednesday, October 6, 2010
June 5th, 1995 - No Fu*king mystery outs!
June 5th, 1995 - Yankees host the A's-holes
My first chance to see Jeter in person
Moving right along, into June of 1995 we stumble in drunken fashion. Another Monday night game, which amuses me, cause you could not pay me to go to a Monday night game in later years. I remarked that I was just back from the "WHFS-tival" at RFK Stadium in DC, where I saw a varied bill including the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Bush, Courtney Love, Tony Bennett doing his "hip" stuff, Sonic Youth and some others I dont remember. The Ramones headlined the thing. My brother Dan was living down in Baltimore at the time. One of the highlights of the trip was being recognized by a couple in a bar as "a crazy guy" that they recognized from Yankee games back at home. Another highlight was getting kicked out of that same bar later on.
The Yankees had slipped in recent days, heading in with a 14-19 mark which soon became 14-20...but the big topic of the day was the acquisition of Josias Manzanillo, plucked off waivers from the crosstown Mutts earlier that afternoon. It really turned our season around! Oh yeah, and I got to see Derek Jeter man the shortstop hole for the Yankees for my first time in person that day, after his callup on May 29th.
I mentioned how many "Athletic Supporters" were roaming around. It never ceased to amaze us how many A's fans there actually were with the jack to show up at Yankee Stadium. Before the game Stan Javier, who did not play much to our chagrin, blew us a kiss and was showered with Italian salutes in return. I was already starting with the gimmicks, wearing a nametag I had procured at a trade show I worked for the mannequin company I was employed with at the time, letting everyone know "Hello! My name is Thomas!" The cast of "Sunset Blvd" sang the National Anthem, or as I said "butchered the National Anthem" and then it was finally time for some baseball.
"No fu*king cursing!" someone hollered. The crowd was rowdy, young and carefree. "Security is going to card us tonight" someone cracked. There was even an appearance by a couple of NY's Finest later in the game, when they helped throw out someone we had named both "Red Cheeks" and "Blushy." This character was drunk and kept standing up, and falling down, off the seats, a move I later trademarked and called my own.
"What happened to that guy that used to come out here that looked like Roberto Duran?" someone asked. "He don't come here no mas! no mas!" someone answered. Nice! A funny!
There was one of those ballboys on the field that would warm up the outfielders between innings, that did a little skippy dance before he threw. Someone pointed it out, and we were watching this the rest of the game, laughing our asses off. He would do a little skippy thing, and land like a ballerina. Funny stuff.
Earlier in the week there had a been a subway collision - I believe on the span of the Williamsburgh Bridge, and I think someone died. If not, they should have. Anyway, after I invariably lost my dollar on the cartoonish "Great City Subway Race" on the scoreboard I scrawled "My D Train would have won if the J train did not run into it."
The Yankees were getting clubbed once again, so we turned our attention to capers and shenanigans. There were a fair amount of children out there with bats they procured from Crapman the vendor, and by the 9th inning we finally coaxed them to hop onto the seats and partake in Three-Muskateerish battles with them. At one point the Yankees recieved the benefit of a charity call from an arbiter on field, and it was stated that "even the umpires are starting to feel sorry for us."
There were a couple of fights. A really good one across the way down the leftfield line, perilously close to the field, and then one over to the left in the box with Freddy Sez hanging around in the area. "Freddy started it!" we chanted, and he clanged his pan in response and gave us a shy wave.
As for bookkeeping, as I mentioned, I KEPT A CLEAN FU*KING GAME! Not one mystery out! I did not even know a card like this existed...it is surely the first one I have seen out of the first couple of hundred in my arsenal. Holy Hell, I kept score the whole game, no mystery or guest scorekeepers, and I missed nothing! Fu*k yeah! I rock!
"Jerking" Hitchcock started and got tatooed for the home club, racked for 7 runs on 7 hits and 3 walks in 3 shoddy innings of work. He was booed lustily. Everyones favorite, Scott Bankhead, sauntered in and managed to strike out the side in the 4th (amongst a walk and a run-scoring single) but also managed to give up an "epic moonshot" to Mark McGwire to lead off the 7th. "Jolted" Joe Ausanio mopped up in his usual desulatory fashion, prompting a prediction that "Ausanio has pitched himself off the team." Well...he didnt yet, but soon enough.
The As lineup boffed 13 hits, with Berroa, Sierra, McGwire and Mike Bored-dick having a pair. The club had 4 doubles, a triple, and the rainbringer by McGwire. For posterities sake, here is the lineup - LF Henderson, DH Berroa, RF Sierra (who was met with the old "village idiot" chant), 1B McGwire, C Steinbach, 2B Gates, CF Scott Brosius (yes, you read that right...Brosius in centerfield!), 3B Paquette, and SS Bored-Dick. If you stuck around long enough you got to see the legendary Andy Tomberlin come in for defensive purposes in center late in the game. The winning pitcher was that pretty boy Ron Darling, with help from Dave Leiper, Jim Corsi, and Jim Acre.
Off those 4 buffoons the Yankees managed 10 hits and only 5 runs, which were dwarfed by the A's 11 runs. Luis Polonia of all people and Paul O'Neill both homered in the 7th off of Leiper, but otherwise it was another nondescript night in the Bronx. The Yankees threw this lineup out there - LF Polonia, 3B Boggs, RF O'Neill, C Leyritz (batting cleanup...ugh), 1B Mattingly, DH Tartabull, CF BW, CF Randy Velarde, and in front of me for the first time, Derek Jeter in the 9 hole! Jeter went 0-4 with 3 groundouts and a liner to third.
But enough about that - on to todays profile, and who better than Andy Tomberlin? Born in 1966 in North Carolina, he enjoyed a six year career encompassed of part time duty for the Pirates, Red Sox, A's, Mutts, and the Tigers. In all that time he got into 192 games and eked out a mere 305 at-bats. And what at-bats! Lifetime average of .233, with 11 dingers and a respectable 38 RBIs. He only stole 6 bags, but was only caught once, so give him that. Another guy who struck out a third of the time, getting rung up 103 times in 305 official at-bats. And how bout this - he actually took the mound in a game for Boston, giving up a hit and a walk in two scoreless innings! Feel the burn!
As for the 5th, the game was played in front of a sickly crowd of 14,197, and took 3:16. Gary Cederstrom, Jim McKean, Dale Scott, and good old Jim Joyce were lucky enough to call this one.
As always, thanks for reading! Cheers!
My first chance to see Jeter in person
Moving right along, into June of 1995 we stumble in drunken fashion. Another Monday night game, which amuses me, cause you could not pay me to go to a Monday night game in later years. I remarked that I was just back from the "WHFS-tival" at RFK Stadium in DC, where I saw a varied bill including the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Bush, Courtney Love, Tony Bennett doing his "hip" stuff, Sonic Youth and some others I dont remember. The Ramones headlined the thing. My brother Dan was living down in Baltimore at the time. One of the highlights of the trip was being recognized by a couple in a bar as "a crazy guy" that they recognized from Yankee games back at home. Another highlight was getting kicked out of that same bar later on.
The Yankees had slipped in recent days, heading in with a 14-19 mark which soon became 14-20...but the big topic of the day was the acquisition of Josias Manzanillo, plucked off waivers from the crosstown Mutts earlier that afternoon. It really turned our season around! Oh yeah, and I got to see Derek Jeter man the shortstop hole for the Yankees for my first time in person that day, after his callup on May 29th.
I mentioned how many "Athletic Supporters" were roaming around. It never ceased to amaze us how many A's fans there actually were with the jack to show up at Yankee Stadium. Before the game Stan Javier, who did not play much to our chagrin, blew us a kiss and was showered with Italian salutes in return. I was already starting with the gimmicks, wearing a nametag I had procured at a trade show I worked for the mannequin company I was employed with at the time, letting everyone know "Hello! My name is Thomas!" The cast of "Sunset Blvd" sang the National Anthem, or as I said "butchered the National Anthem" and then it was finally time for some baseball.
"No fu*king cursing!" someone hollered. The crowd was rowdy, young and carefree. "Security is going to card us tonight" someone cracked. There was even an appearance by a couple of NY's Finest later in the game, when they helped throw out someone we had named both "Red Cheeks" and "Blushy." This character was drunk and kept standing up, and falling down, off the seats, a move I later trademarked and called my own.
"What happened to that guy that used to come out here that looked like Roberto Duran?" someone asked. "He don't come here no mas! no mas!" someone answered. Nice! A funny!
There was one of those ballboys on the field that would warm up the outfielders between innings, that did a little skippy dance before he threw. Someone pointed it out, and we were watching this the rest of the game, laughing our asses off. He would do a little skippy thing, and land like a ballerina. Funny stuff.
Earlier in the week there had a been a subway collision - I believe on the span of the Williamsburgh Bridge, and I think someone died. If not, they should have. Anyway, after I invariably lost my dollar on the cartoonish "Great City Subway Race" on the scoreboard I scrawled "My D Train would have won if the J train did not run into it."
The Yankees were getting clubbed once again, so we turned our attention to capers and shenanigans. There were a fair amount of children out there with bats they procured from Crapman the vendor, and by the 9th inning we finally coaxed them to hop onto the seats and partake in Three-Muskateerish battles with them. At one point the Yankees recieved the benefit of a charity call from an arbiter on field, and it was stated that "even the umpires are starting to feel sorry for us."
There were a couple of fights. A really good one across the way down the leftfield line, perilously close to the field, and then one over to the left in the box with Freddy Sez hanging around in the area. "Freddy started it!" we chanted, and he clanged his pan in response and gave us a shy wave.
As for bookkeeping, as I mentioned, I KEPT A CLEAN FU*KING GAME! Not one mystery out! I did not even know a card like this existed...it is surely the first one I have seen out of the first couple of hundred in my arsenal. Holy Hell, I kept score the whole game, no mystery or guest scorekeepers, and I missed nothing! Fu*k yeah! I rock!
"Jerking" Hitchcock started and got tatooed for the home club, racked for 7 runs on 7 hits and 3 walks in 3 shoddy innings of work. He was booed lustily. Everyones favorite, Scott Bankhead, sauntered in and managed to strike out the side in the 4th (amongst a walk and a run-scoring single) but also managed to give up an "epic moonshot" to Mark McGwire to lead off the 7th. "Jolted" Joe Ausanio mopped up in his usual desulatory fashion, prompting a prediction that "Ausanio has pitched himself off the team." Well...he didnt yet, but soon enough.
The As lineup boffed 13 hits, with Berroa, Sierra, McGwire and Mike Bored-dick having a pair. The club had 4 doubles, a triple, and the rainbringer by McGwire. For posterities sake, here is the lineup - LF Henderson, DH Berroa, RF Sierra (who was met with the old "village idiot" chant), 1B McGwire, C Steinbach, 2B Gates, CF Scott Brosius (yes, you read that right...Brosius in centerfield!), 3B Paquette, and SS Bored-Dick. If you stuck around long enough you got to see the legendary Andy Tomberlin come in for defensive purposes in center late in the game. The winning pitcher was that pretty boy Ron Darling, with help from Dave Leiper, Jim Corsi, and Jim Acre.
Off those 4 buffoons the Yankees managed 10 hits and only 5 runs, which were dwarfed by the A's 11 runs. Luis Polonia of all people and Paul O'Neill both homered in the 7th off of Leiper, but otherwise it was another nondescript night in the Bronx. The Yankees threw this lineup out there - LF Polonia, 3B Boggs, RF O'Neill, C Leyritz (batting cleanup...ugh), 1B Mattingly, DH Tartabull, CF BW, CF Randy Velarde, and in front of me for the first time, Derek Jeter in the 9 hole! Jeter went 0-4 with 3 groundouts and a liner to third.
But enough about that - on to todays profile, and who better than Andy Tomberlin? Born in 1966 in North Carolina, he enjoyed a six year career encompassed of part time duty for the Pirates, Red Sox, A's, Mutts, and the Tigers. In all that time he got into 192 games and eked out a mere 305 at-bats. And what at-bats! Lifetime average of .233, with 11 dingers and a respectable 38 RBIs. He only stole 6 bags, but was only caught once, so give him that. Another guy who struck out a third of the time, getting rung up 103 times in 305 official at-bats. And how bout this - he actually took the mound in a game for Boston, giving up a hit and a walk in two scoreless innings! Feel the burn!
As for the 5th, the game was played in front of a sickly crowd of 14,197, and took 3:16. Gary Cederstrom, Jim McKean, Dale Scott, and good old Jim Joyce were lucky enough to call this one.
As always, thanks for reading! Cheers!
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
May 20th, 1995 - Yankees host the Whore-ioles!
May 20th, 1995 - Yankees vs Baltimore
"Security sucks! They like men!"
A Saturday afternoon at the Stadium. Old Cowbell King Ali showed up in a suit for whatever reason and from whatever gathering, and was putting on quite the bell-ringin' and dance steppin' sort of show. "Hey, Ali, I heard you left your heart in San Francisco!" someone cackled. To the contrary of Ali's dapper self, some slummy guy with a hangdog look sat right in our midst all by his lonesome, causing someone to crack, "he looks like he came from the track and lost all his money."
While all this was going on our good friend George was taking some heat for showing up the game before essentially to exchange pleasantries and gladhand, only to leave during THE SECOND INNING. "Hey, I had things to do" he shrugged on the way.
The esteemable Sherman Obando was in right for Baltimore, and catching heat from our festive selfs in the 80 degree weather. "Hey, Sherman, I heard your boyfriend O-bando's over for you!" I noted the beers were now $5.50, which harkened a call over the fence towards Sherm, "Obando, get me a beer, make yourself useful!" Showing even Creatures have a sense for history there was even a "General Sherman" Obando reference.
Someone must have crashed a car around this time, as the old mantra "all in all its another Porshe in the wall" is scrawled. I thought for a moment it may have been Flyer Pelle Lindbergh, but he was already 10 years dead by this time. And showing our current event bent there were also Dutchess of York Sarah Ferguson toe-licking jokes on here, and a blunt "Sarah Ferguson sucks" note to sum it up. In another discussion, someone snapped "Fuck Scottie Pippen, I hope he dies." We were all over the board on this one, as offensive as ever.
The denizens of the bleachers were their normal canny selves. Even an oldtimer Brooklyn Dodger fan was hassled. The normal "Security Sucks!" chant had an addendum of "They like men!" In the oddball fan category, there was a guy out there wearing an Elvis Costello concert hat. And in the lookalike category there was quite the jolly "Greg Brady"
This one saw TEN mystery outs, and a mystery ERROR! Yes, this means the keeper of the scorecard MISSED all those plays. There was a string of FOUR mystery outs in a row for the Yankees stretching from the 5th into the 6th, and after a strikout from Tartabull, there was another one. Geez...who the Hell knows what was going on.
The Yankees sailed to a comfy 7-2 win behind a 5 run third and a decent 6 innings from Melido Perez. We got to see the legendary Rob McDonald come in for him and hurl an innings plus before Bob Wickman wrapped it up. Pat Kelly went 2-3 and scored twice, as did Bernie. Leyritz, Stanley and Tartabull each drove in a deuce. The Yankees strolled out BW, LF Velarde, 1B Leyritz, C Stanley, DH Tartabull, RF Gerald Williams, SS Fernandez, 3B Russ Davis, and 2B Kelly.
The Orioles punched out an anemic 4 hits, which was duly noted by reference after the first with a "no hitter intact through one" just in case on the card. The Oriole lineup featured Brady "is a Lady" Anderson leading off at CF, LF Kevin Bass, 1B Palmiero, SS Ripken, DH Baines, our old friend Matt Nokes at C, the aforementioned Obando as RF, Jeff Manto at 3B, and Bret Barberie at 2B. After portly starter Sidney Fernandez left after surrendering 5 in 2.1 we saw Keith Oquist and Brad Pennington cap it off. My God, how did the Orioles win a game back then?
Ah, for our profile lets roll with Mr. Obando. Originally signed by the Yankees out of Panama in 1987 he was a strapping 6'4 and 215, he managed 13 pokes and 49 RBIs in 355 MLB at-bats. His tenure stretched here and there from 93-97. He moved on to Montreal after the 95 season in a one for one swap for the inimitable Tony Tarasco. Obando was blessed with NO speed, swiping 3 bags in his time, and he whiffed an awful lot, almost 1 of 3 times at the dish, with a cool 100. Born in 1970, finishing with a .239 average, and having 6,325 hits on baseball-reference.com, how can he not be missed!?
As for the 20th, the Yankees upped the mark to 11-9 (3-2 with me on hand) in front of 25,237, in a game played in 2:55 and called by umpires Tim Welke, Joe Brinkman, Ken Kaiser, and Derryl Cousins.
"Security sucks! They like men!"
A Saturday afternoon at the Stadium. Old Cowbell King Ali showed up in a suit for whatever reason and from whatever gathering, and was putting on quite the bell-ringin' and dance steppin' sort of show. "Hey, Ali, I heard you left your heart in San Francisco!" someone cackled. To the contrary of Ali's dapper self, some slummy guy with a hangdog look sat right in our midst all by his lonesome, causing someone to crack, "he looks like he came from the track and lost all his money."
While all this was going on our good friend George was taking some heat for showing up the game before essentially to exchange pleasantries and gladhand, only to leave during THE SECOND INNING. "Hey, I had things to do" he shrugged on the way.
The esteemable Sherman Obando was in right for Baltimore, and catching heat from our festive selfs in the 80 degree weather. "Hey, Sherman, I heard your boyfriend O-bando's over for you!" I noted the beers were now $5.50, which harkened a call over the fence towards Sherm, "Obando, get me a beer, make yourself useful!" Showing even Creatures have a sense for history there was even a "General Sherman" Obando reference.
Someone must have crashed a car around this time, as the old mantra "all in all its another Porshe in the wall" is scrawled. I thought for a moment it may have been Flyer Pelle Lindbergh, but he was already 10 years dead by this time. And showing our current event bent there were also Dutchess of York Sarah Ferguson toe-licking jokes on here, and a blunt "Sarah Ferguson sucks" note to sum it up. In another discussion, someone snapped "Fuck Scottie Pippen, I hope he dies." We were all over the board on this one, as offensive as ever.
The denizens of the bleachers were their normal canny selves. Even an oldtimer Brooklyn Dodger fan was hassled. The normal "Security Sucks!" chant had an addendum of "They like men!" In the oddball fan category, there was a guy out there wearing an Elvis Costello concert hat. And in the lookalike category there was quite the jolly "Greg Brady"
This one saw TEN mystery outs, and a mystery ERROR! Yes, this means the keeper of the scorecard MISSED all those plays. There was a string of FOUR mystery outs in a row for the Yankees stretching from the 5th into the 6th, and after a strikout from Tartabull, there was another one. Geez...who the Hell knows what was going on.
The Yankees sailed to a comfy 7-2 win behind a 5 run third and a decent 6 innings from Melido Perez. We got to see the legendary Rob McDonald come in for him and hurl an innings plus before Bob Wickman wrapped it up. Pat Kelly went 2-3 and scored twice, as did Bernie. Leyritz, Stanley and Tartabull each drove in a deuce. The Yankees strolled out BW, LF Velarde, 1B Leyritz, C Stanley, DH Tartabull, RF Gerald Williams, SS Fernandez, 3B Russ Davis, and 2B Kelly.
The Orioles punched out an anemic 4 hits, which was duly noted by reference after the first with a "no hitter intact through one" just in case on the card. The Oriole lineup featured Brady "is a Lady" Anderson leading off at CF, LF Kevin Bass, 1B Palmiero, SS Ripken, DH Baines, our old friend Matt Nokes at C, the aforementioned Obando as RF, Jeff Manto at 3B, and Bret Barberie at 2B. After portly starter Sidney Fernandez left after surrendering 5 in 2.1 we saw Keith Oquist and Brad Pennington cap it off. My God, how did the Orioles win a game back then?
Ah, for our profile lets roll with Mr. Obando. Originally signed by the Yankees out of Panama in 1987 he was a strapping 6'4 and 215, he managed 13 pokes and 49 RBIs in 355 MLB at-bats. His tenure stretched here and there from 93-97. He moved on to Montreal after the 95 season in a one for one swap for the inimitable Tony Tarasco. Obando was blessed with NO speed, swiping 3 bags in his time, and he whiffed an awful lot, almost 1 of 3 times at the dish, with a cool 100. Born in 1970, finishing with a .239 average, and having 6,325 hits on baseball-reference.com, how can he not be missed!?
As for the 20th, the Yankees upped the mark to 11-9 (3-2 with me on hand) in front of 25,237, in a game played in 2:55 and called by umpires Tim Welke, Joe Brinkman, Ken Kaiser, and Derryl Cousins.
Friday, October 1, 2010
May 16th, 1995! The All-Minority Game!
May 16th, 1995 - Yankees host the Indians
"If I'm not here, I'm somewhere else"
Take me out to the Ocean, reprise! My 4th game of the year, I missed a couple of scorecards as I had other things on my mind...I was on a "suspension vacation" from my job...told to go home and call back in a week to see if I still had a job. I waited it out, called back, still had a job, went back, and was fired for good soon after.
I actually have the semblance of a scorecard from a week earlier that I wont touch, 5/7/95 against the Brew Crew, cause I was so drunk it is veritably unreadable. I cant even tell you who won the game by looking at it although I made a go of scoring the whole thing my own self. And I actually did not have a printed scorecard for it, I wrote in the lines myself, on lined paper....considering how drunk I just admitted to being, you can imagine what this looked like...
But on to baseball! I dubbed this "The All Minority Game" cause by the end of things the Indians fielded a field full of all hispanic and black men, including pitcher Jose Mesa.
We still were mired in the midst of awful Yankee crowds, coming off the strike. While I described the crowd as "all ten of us" we were actually just a bit under 20,000. I mentioned a couple of us were drinking our own beers, smuggled in and hidden inside of ice cream bags. Its funny - we joke about how the Dominicans scampered in like roaches when Manny Ramirez was in town, well - no joke, on this night Crapman the heroic vendor was selling little Dominican flags out of his crapcart.
Queen Bee Tina was in a crabby mood again, hollering at someone who compared Don Mattingly to Michael Jordan. In her eyes, he superceded all that. She also fought a Howard Stern lookalike who had a few negative things to say about Dave Winfield, who was now DHing for the tribe. Tina did do something funny, though, shuffling about in what she called an imitation of "Baerga's fag walk"
Old Ali the cowbell King was also taking heat, as once again he was lethargic with the bell and actually did not clink and clank until the 6th after being harrassed all game. People would really get mad if there was no cowbell. I remember him simply being annoyed at the crowds many nights, and he despised being told when to ring the bell. Sadly, looking at the date here it was almost exactly a year later that he passed away.
Your regular inane discussions were rippling through Section 39. We had a discussion about major league players who were "killed" We chatted about our exuberant support of WWF superstar Bob Backlund's run for President of the United States, at least in principle. And while discussing who would play who in the bleacher movie, Marlon Brando got the nod for the Fat Daddy Chico role. And even back then central casting had Lucille Ball or Rosie Perez playing the crabby Tina.
There was a kid out there waving around a Domingo Jean poster which he must have pulled from Yankee magazine. Since bad pitchers were in the air, we even found time to kick up a "Start Ausanio" chant.
The Yankees were down early, when Mike Stanley blasted one to right to make it 3-1. "A nice solo homer to cheer things up" George muttered. A couple of innings later Pat Kelly sailed one into the sky and with it aloft George cracked "that ain't going nowhere" only to see it fly over the centerfield wall. There were no less than 6 home runs hit in this game, which saw the Yankees fall 10-6, dropping my 1995 mark to 2-2.
Funny how some things dont change. Manny Ramirez dropped a fly ball and got tacked with an error...with him right in front of us manning rightfield, we had a good time with him regarding that flub.
Jimmy Key, now in the Jim Abbott role as always being on the hill with me on hand now, started for the Yankees and was walloped again. If all I had to go by were some of these scorecards, I would have thought that Key sucked. Smacked on this Tuesday night for 11 hits in 5.1, and 7 runs. Yankee killers all Albert Belle, Ramirez, and Paul Sorrento went yard for Cleveland, with that danger to himself and others Belle scoring 4 times and driving in 2. All 9 Indian starters got a hit on the night, with your starting lineup featuring our good friend Kirby in CF, SS Vizquel, 2B Baerga, LF Belle, 1B HOF Eddie Murray, RF Ramirez, DH Winfield, 3B Espinoza, and C Tony "Penis" Pena. Yes, one pregame as Pena ambled around the outfield he was hooted with a "Tony Penis" chant, and he stopped, grabbed the family jewels, and said something to the effect of, "Ive got your penis right here!"
For the Yankees Mike Stanley, Bernie Williams and Pat Kelly went deep, with Stanley and Mattingly having 2 hit nights. The Yankees mustered 8 hits off starter Chuck Nagy, who was out after 5, that Texas cokehead Dennis Cook, Eric Plunk (who we said takes longer to warm up than an Eskimo) and Mesa. The Yankee lineup on this May evening was LF Polonia, SS Fernandez, 3B Boggs, C Stanley, 1B Mattingly, DH Tartabull, RF Dion James, CF BW, and 2B Kelly.
After Key got whomped, he was relieved by Scott Bankhead....yes, THE Scott Bankhead, and John Wetteland, who gave up 2 9th inning runs in the rare mopup role.
For the profile I got to go with Bankhead, even though he was a Yankee at the time and I usually take it around the league instead. Thing is, till I noticed his name on this card dredging around years later I had completely forgotten about his stint with the Yankees, and still don't remember it even though it happened and lasted a little bit.
He managed to throw in 20 games for the Yankees in 95, and that was a wrap for him and his major league career. He was released on my birthday of that year, July 25th,which made it even a happier one, after posting a 1-1 record with a 6.00 ERA. For the career itself he rang up a lifetime mark of 57-48 with a respectable 4.18 ERA in 267 games (110 in starts) from 1986-1995. I best remembered him from his stint with Seattle (87-91) but he also hurled for KC in his rookie campaign, the Cincy Reds (in 92, his best season, and only season in the NL) and the dreaded Red Sox preceding his Yankee stint. He struck out 614 and walked but 289 in 901 innings of work. Born in 1963 in Raleigh, NC, he was a product of the University of North Carolina, which also bought us the likes of Clyde King, Paul Shuey, and BJ Surhoff. How can you not have been proud to have seen this man ply his trade!
As for the 16th day of May, 1995, the Yankees fell in 3:00 in front of a scant showing of 18,246, and your umpires on hand were none other than Dan Morrison, Al Clark, Ted Barrett, and Gregory Kosc.
Thanks for reading!
"If I'm not here, I'm somewhere else"
Take me out to the Ocean, reprise! My 4th game of the year, I missed a couple of scorecards as I had other things on my mind...I was on a "suspension vacation" from my job...told to go home and call back in a week to see if I still had a job. I waited it out, called back, still had a job, went back, and was fired for good soon after.
I actually have the semblance of a scorecard from a week earlier that I wont touch, 5/7/95 against the Brew Crew, cause I was so drunk it is veritably unreadable. I cant even tell you who won the game by looking at it although I made a go of scoring the whole thing my own self. And I actually did not have a printed scorecard for it, I wrote in the lines myself, on lined paper....considering how drunk I just admitted to being, you can imagine what this looked like...
But on to baseball! I dubbed this "The All Minority Game" cause by the end of things the Indians fielded a field full of all hispanic and black men, including pitcher Jose Mesa.
We still were mired in the midst of awful Yankee crowds, coming off the strike. While I described the crowd as "all ten of us" we were actually just a bit under 20,000. I mentioned a couple of us were drinking our own beers, smuggled in and hidden inside of ice cream bags. Its funny - we joke about how the Dominicans scampered in like roaches when Manny Ramirez was in town, well - no joke, on this night Crapman the heroic vendor was selling little Dominican flags out of his crapcart.
Queen Bee Tina was in a crabby mood again, hollering at someone who compared Don Mattingly to Michael Jordan. In her eyes, he superceded all that. She also fought a Howard Stern lookalike who had a few negative things to say about Dave Winfield, who was now DHing for the tribe. Tina did do something funny, though, shuffling about in what she called an imitation of "Baerga's fag walk"
Old Ali the cowbell King was also taking heat, as once again he was lethargic with the bell and actually did not clink and clank until the 6th after being harrassed all game. People would really get mad if there was no cowbell. I remember him simply being annoyed at the crowds many nights, and he despised being told when to ring the bell. Sadly, looking at the date here it was almost exactly a year later that he passed away.
Your regular inane discussions were rippling through Section 39. We had a discussion about major league players who were "killed" We chatted about our exuberant support of WWF superstar Bob Backlund's run for President of the United States, at least in principle. And while discussing who would play who in the bleacher movie, Marlon Brando got the nod for the Fat Daddy Chico role. And even back then central casting had Lucille Ball or Rosie Perez playing the crabby Tina.
There was a kid out there waving around a Domingo Jean poster which he must have pulled from Yankee magazine. Since bad pitchers were in the air, we even found time to kick up a "Start Ausanio" chant.
The Yankees were down early, when Mike Stanley blasted one to right to make it 3-1. "A nice solo homer to cheer things up" George muttered. A couple of innings later Pat Kelly sailed one into the sky and with it aloft George cracked "that ain't going nowhere" only to see it fly over the centerfield wall. There were no less than 6 home runs hit in this game, which saw the Yankees fall 10-6, dropping my 1995 mark to 2-2.
Funny how some things dont change. Manny Ramirez dropped a fly ball and got tacked with an error...with him right in front of us manning rightfield, we had a good time with him regarding that flub.
Jimmy Key, now in the Jim Abbott role as always being on the hill with me on hand now, started for the Yankees and was walloped again. If all I had to go by were some of these scorecards, I would have thought that Key sucked. Smacked on this Tuesday night for 11 hits in 5.1, and 7 runs. Yankee killers all Albert Belle, Ramirez, and Paul Sorrento went yard for Cleveland, with that danger to himself and others Belle scoring 4 times and driving in 2. All 9 Indian starters got a hit on the night, with your starting lineup featuring our good friend Kirby in CF, SS Vizquel, 2B Baerga, LF Belle, 1B HOF Eddie Murray, RF Ramirez, DH Winfield, 3B Espinoza, and C Tony "Penis" Pena. Yes, one pregame as Pena ambled around the outfield he was hooted with a "Tony Penis" chant, and he stopped, grabbed the family jewels, and said something to the effect of, "Ive got your penis right here!"
For the Yankees Mike Stanley, Bernie Williams and Pat Kelly went deep, with Stanley and Mattingly having 2 hit nights. The Yankees mustered 8 hits off starter Chuck Nagy, who was out after 5, that Texas cokehead Dennis Cook, Eric Plunk (who we said takes longer to warm up than an Eskimo) and Mesa. The Yankee lineup on this May evening was LF Polonia, SS Fernandez, 3B Boggs, C Stanley, 1B Mattingly, DH Tartabull, RF Dion James, CF BW, and 2B Kelly.
After Key got whomped, he was relieved by Scott Bankhead....yes, THE Scott Bankhead, and John Wetteland, who gave up 2 9th inning runs in the rare mopup role.
For the profile I got to go with Bankhead, even though he was a Yankee at the time and I usually take it around the league instead. Thing is, till I noticed his name on this card dredging around years later I had completely forgotten about his stint with the Yankees, and still don't remember it even though it happened and lasted a little bit.
He managed to throw in 20 games for the Yankees in 95, and that was a wrap for him and his major league career. He was released on my birthday of that year, July 25th,which made it even a happier one, after posting a 1-1 record with a 6.00 ERA. For the career itself he rang up a lifetime mark of 57-48 with a respectable 4.18 ERA in 267 games (110 in starts) from 1986-1995. I best remembered him from his stint with Seattle (87-91) but he also hurled for KC in his rookie campaign, the Cincy Reds (in 92, his best season, and only season in the NL) and the dreaded Red Sox preceding his Yankee stint. He struck out 614 and walked but 289 in 901 innings of work. Born in 1963 in Raleigh, NC, he was a product of the University of North Carolina, which also bought us the likes of Clyde King, Paul Shuey, and BJ Surhoff. How can you not have been proud to have seen this man ply his trade!
As for the 16th day of May, 1995, the Yankees fell in 3:00 in front of a scant showing of 18,246, and your umpires on hand were none other than Dan Morrison, Al Clark, Ted Barrett, and Gregory Kosc.
Thanks for reading!
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