As penned a couple of weeks after 9/11, with minimal editing, the product of a muddled mind. This is presented with all due respect, and a sadness that lingers to this day.
The First Night Back - Tuesday, September 25, 2001
Well, I suppose it is time to return to some degree of normalcy. These last few weeks I have sat perched at my computer between rampant attempts at sketchy levity and consistent checks of porno, trying to find something funny to write, and I couldn't. Most would argue I never could.
Our world changed on the 11th, even the little part of it that we called being a Bleacher Creature. Although my zest for caustic commentary has died a bit, my love for so many of you has grown. And when I remember back to that stupid, horrible day decades from now, (when, knowing me, I am probably decades dead), I will remember so many of you, and how this family of ours pulled together. From the postings on the message board, looking frantically for our own, to crying silently together in a sea of beer cans, to going out for drinks with those we used to only drink to avoid, many things have changed amongst ourselves.
People who have not spoken anything but angry words all season took the time to say "I love you." Subsequently, the things I will take away from all of this is not necessarily the horror of seeing people limp down Broadway, screaming and bawling and covered in dust, but rather standing in Union Square in front of a sea of candles with 41 and Gang Bang Steve, paying silent tribute and fighting back tears. Or how, thanks to the benevolance of Lucy and her family, being able to hug the likes of Kwik, Debbie, Phil, "Fat Rak" Scott, Nicole and Jess, Bald Ray, Brooklyn Joe, and Little Mike at the Memorial inside Yankee Stadium a couple of sad Sundays back.
That said, I will try and be funny I guess, and take it back to our return 2 weeks later against Tampa Bay, who, may I add, is a team that really, really sucks.
Usually the top of each nights scorecard is reserved for campy lines such as "Knoblauch was eating salad in the park" or "Tom is so drunk he asked Tina to sleep with him" - but on that night, after much fiddling, we went with a simple "We pray for the lost, and love those who are still here."
Even before making it inside, we saw that our park, the place we drank and peed, copped feels and passed smokes in the rocks, was now a veritbale police precinct, with a police van taking up the same sandbox space that I had used to make sandcastles with neighborhood kids, and duck rocks that we would throw up in the air in a stupid game of chance.
We hankered over to the bodega, where the only drinking going on so far was by Gang Bang Steve, who was waving around a bottle without a bag, loudly pontificating on the months events. Bald Vinny and Uptown Mike were crouched on the sidewalk, gleeflully mixing birthday drinks for the Bald Baron. One year ago on that very day I was running around the section dressed in a gorilla costume at Mike Donahue's behest, making stupid muscle poses and sneaking hugs from any lady I could find. Bald Vinny ended up hopping on the benches that night, doing a rousing "Rick Rude", peeling off his shirt to a rousing choir of hoots and howls from a playful crowd. How times had changed, even in our stupid little section.
Getting in was evolution slow. Security was checking to make cell phones were really phones, sniffing bottled water, and waving the little magician wand that did not seem to work, cause it did not beep at the silly Sheriffs badge now in my pocket, which I know set that same thing off the time I went to court to answer that horrid peeing in public charge.
The night obviously started off with ceremonies, the same things we had seen so, no - getting close to too many times. It was touching, but the crowd was already itching to make the sadness go away, at least for a little while. Big Tone Capone was loud and boisterous, as somehow earlier he managed to kill at least a 6 pack under the smothering phalanx of cops around. During the opening songs, he was busy telling this guy to take off his cap, or that girl to stop chewing gum. Finally, a few of the testy crew told him to shut it, and here we were again, fighting. It was actually nice to see.
We found out there will be an additon to Monument Park - a memorial to "those who perished in the WTC tragedy." I had always held out secret hope the next monument would hold my badge, Ali's plaque, Milton's cowbell, Walkman Johns scorebook, a few beers.....Funny how bleacher fantasies never seem to work out.
I knew things had come full circle and really changed around the time Old Man Jimmy went down by the rail to take a picture of our flag adorned and glory bedecked crew. Our nemesis, Old Man 176 (a cranky guy with the #176 on his hat, which made him look even less imposing than he was - the fact the year before he was #200 I guess signalled a promotion) - the Riddler to our Batman, the Gargamel to our Smurf - came over almost angrily. We started to rise in protest, ready to howl, as he angrily stalked towards this genial old man and his camera by the rail. But alas! Here he arrived, demanding Old Man Jimmy to give HIM the camera, so HE could take the picture so Jimmy could join the crew, join his bleacher family, as he should.
It just seemed so odd to see Old Man 176, who has individually told a few of us to "piss off" and would rather kindly escort Pops down the Wedding Aisle than me to seat LL 25, taking a picture of his nightly adversaries so Old Man Jimmy could be in it with us.
The finale to the pregame was our old friend, the Eagle who swoops down Opening Day to land on the mound in a fervent blaze of glory. Unfortunatly, a sad announcement was made that although the Eagle was in attendance he was not signing autographs till after the game. No, that was not the announcement. Actually, they were "grounding him" on the mound, as a tribute to those who fell at the WTC. He would do no flying. Unfortunately, no one heard the announcement because Capone was talking so loud, so at the end of the Anthem everyone was craning towards the Stadium roof waiting for it to fly in, while the Eagle did a bit of a hop on the mound the whole time. But the ceremonies were now at an end, and as Gang Bang Steve wrote on the scorecard - "no explanation for pre game events. If you weren't here, you missed history." But here I am trying to recount them anyway.
There were further delays as all the uniformed fireman and cops left the field, which caused a few of us who wanted that sense of normalcy to tell Cowbell Man Milton to start clanking his weapon of tin. Milton hemmed and hawed, but finally acquiesed, and started banging his cowbell, and at that very moment the Yankees took the field. That seemed fitting enough to us. Usually when Milton bangs the bell out of nowhere a stupid Tom Tom Tom drum goes off, stealing his thunder, but this time the Yankees took the field to a raucous "Ho!"
Speaking of raucous ho's, anyone know where we can get one?
When it came time to do the vaunted roll call, we hastily added the FDNY, NYPD, and Mayor Rudy to it, and it seemed to go over well, with the mayor giving a hasty wave from the radio booth. Our own Rudy, the security maven that was a dead ringer for the mayor in the radio booth, was greeted with "great job with the city" and "4 more years" every time he ambled up to stop us from using expletives.
But what proved that the "Creatures" were indeed back were the loud harangues of "Box Seats Suck! Box Seats Suck!" immediatly following the roll call. Man, did that feel good. The box seaters, still very emotional from the pregame, were appalled. Hollers of "Mind your business!" and some more racy stuff was hollered up as the nosy upper deckers and mezzaniners stuck their noses in to see what all the hubbub was about in Section 39 and its nearby reaches.
Around this time the joke line of the night made its appearance. Milton, from his perch on the rail, asked aloud if "Does anyone know for sure if Stacker 2 works?" Remembering a man who took the stuff, I said "ask (insert fat bleacher guy here). He took it." Milton took one quick look at our portly friend and said "forget it...it don't work."
More lunacy abounded, as Jonathon pulled a portable TV out of nowhere and started setting up shop. First off, this was a night people could not get a tuna fish sandwich, a purse, or even an ugly woman in due to heightened security, but he gets in a FREAKIN TELEVISION. Go figure...
Anyway, why does he have this TV? To see the tribute we just watched recanted? To see what else is going on in the major leagues, or down at Ground Zero? No. He bought a TV to see.....THE SEASON PREMIERE OF JAG. I mean, Lord.
Gang Bang Steve could not let this go, and immediatly began giving it to him, which prompted Jonathon's Mom to call him "jealous." "Yeah," Gang Bang snapped, "I'm jealous of a guy who brings a TV to a baseball game to watch JAG."
Clemens started getting whomped early on, prompting Steve to call the proceedings on the field "oderous." But the emotion stayed high. There were other moments of levity, a "Osama Bin Laden is a Horse's Ass" song, a few "Taliban Sucks" chants, and a message on the Fan Marquee that actually said "Thanks for the Liver Transplant - You Saved a Life!!!" And yes, it had 3 exclamation points. On top of this, and I have no idea of what the conversation was about at the time, the buzzing birthday boy Bald Vinny actually used the words "Gazelle" and "Perk" in a 10 second span.
Of course, in this time of mourning Take Me Out To The Ballgame (a dumb song to sing at a game anyway, cause why would you ask to be taken out to the ballgame when you are already there - that old gag) was replaced around the league by all sorts of versions of "God Bless America".
On this night it was a duet, with a deep voiced operatic guy joining an angelic woman. Of course, even this could not escape a joke. After the woman sweetly crooned the first bars, the deep male voice kicked in, prompting Little Mike to feign ignorance by asking aloud "How did she get her voice to do that??" Water Girl Debbie, who, God bless her, spent so many nights volunteering at a crisis center, properly confirmed it as a simple "change of octaves."
It would not be the bleachers without a couple of fights amongst the group, but being I was in a gladhanding mood and extra friendly due to the pregame ales, I did not partake in any. Turns out the nights undercard featured "Superfan" Handel and Bad Mouth Larry, followed up by a doozie of a main event between Cowbell Milton and Crazy Pat.
But what it was all about for me (besides the fact that it was so cold I was able to score lots of hugs) was near the end, when a man in a Fire Department uniform leaned over the rail of the mezzanine, his young son in his hand. As he gazed out, a man who I know must have lost a score of people he knew, his little son was removing his hat, and putting it back on all askew. Over and over. Knowing this was a scene that should have been repeated by so many men who were lost made me mist up a bit, all over again. And then the chant began....F D N Y!!!! F D N Y !!!! Everyone left in the seats at that late stage hopped up, pointed to this man, and chanted his name, touched their hearts, waved their flags. And he smiled, and waved back, and his kid, oblivious to it all, continued to play with the hat.
And that, aside from the hugs, is what I will take away from that night.
Thank you for reading, and God Bless you all.
Sheriff Tom
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Friday, September 10, 2010
May 24th, 1994 - "Sit down! I want to see at least one inning of the Goddamned Game!"
May 24th, 1994 - Yankees host the Blow Jays
"Mets are consistent...consistently losing"
Well, for one thing there are certainly some scorecards missing. I jump ahead 5 days here, but I noticed in my meticulous game journals i kept at the time that I was in attendance for another 2 games before this next one....and I even noticed reason for the discrepency in a highlight column I contained in there. LOST THE SCORECARD during or after the Saturday game! Hooray me! Took long enough, considering how many suds I sucked before, at, and after these games. Yankees went 1-1 in those 2 games I was at but not really, putting my overall mark at 54-33 going into this Tuesday game, when I had a new scorecard and clipboard in tow. Jays were already 7 behind the 1st place Yankees in the standings so all was right in the world.
Even so it was hockey that was on many minds, even with the Yankees running at 28-13. It was annoying enough to where someone snarled, "take that hockey shit to the Garden." There was even a raucous "Hextall sucks!" chant to pass the time.
I mentioned on here that I won the "Jackie O pool" - yes, she recently passed and made me I believe $200. Its funny, the morning I found out I had had no idea when I hopped a D train to take me to Down the Hatch for some frivolity and as I was sitting there trying to get my bearings I see someone open the old black-fold paper across from me. Jackie O is dead! I pumped my fist and let out a whoop of sorts, raising some eyebrows. I was so happy - she got me really drunk that day.
Back at the Stadium some stupid girl came up and walked to our resident cowbell-ringing dancer in the aisles, old Ali and cheerily said, "Hi, Ari!" The fans, her included, were loud and quite frankly annoying. Security guard Kathy, the one that looked like the African American lady from Night Court snapped at one point during the "Asshole" chant "keep your assholes in your mouth!" She was piqued at us through most of the game cause early on we were laughing and carrying on too loud at something and she came running up the aisle thinking there was a fight due to the heightened volume of noise alone. They never did like false alarms and promptly took them out on us, which is funny cause they liked the alternative (the fight) less.
At one point all the revelry got to be too much for Queen Bee Tina and she snarled, "Sit down! I want to see at least one inning of the God Damned game!" She had actually bought an American flag to the game to specifically combat "The Canadian Anthem" - its funny that a noted enforcer out there in Tina was provoking anti-Canadian sentiment herself. And I have the proof!
Its also amazing how many more fights and toss-outs there were back then, with much smaller crowds too. I hate to admit this, and I have been admitting this for years, but fu*kin' A did the beer ban ever work. The beer went, and took trouble with it. A whole host of guys were thrown out for "smoking by the wall" before 8PM, and a guy in a NY Ranger jersey was escorted out in the 8th inning for what I penned was "inciting riots."
Elder George took his turn to sing "Friend of Mine" in the 2nd inning to none other than "Jackoff" Joe Carter. George was really on that night, saying "the Mets are consistent.....consistently losing." He was also instrumental in all of us taking a courageous "the wave stops here!" stand that kept us busy most of the night.
What in the name of Holy Hell was up with all the A's fans at these games? It seems every scorecard I am mentioning an A's fan walking around during a non-A's game on here. Just the game before an A's fan was coerced (or should I say bullied) into throwing his own cap. Well, the word did not get through the A's Fan Network and another one was out there, goofy green A's cap on head. "Hey, A stands for Asshole!" was hurled his way. "You dropped an S off that hat" was another old favorite running the rails back then as well. That line has aged very well and still lives today.
The only faux celebrity sighting I am seeing on here outside of the C-level list of Hollywood actors that made up security (Night Court, Bob Marley, Elvis...) was "Howdy Doody" himself, holding up a sign in the box seats. Every time he gotup a rousing chorus of "Its Howdy Doody Time" was belted. Speaking of the box seats, there was a "box seat disturbance" in the top of the 8th which caused one of my 5 "mo's" during the game.
I was pretty on, I must say, this night with the scorecard. Its fairly neat, and at all time readable. You could actually follow the game from it. My notes to the margin regarding the game were not so cumbersome as always, kept succinct in a "flubbed the throw" sort of way. Its funny, I mentioned again how we were already blaming Windmill-ie Randolph for our running snafus back in 1994, so when Pat Kelly was nailed trying to steal in the 3rd inning someone muttered "I bet Willie told him to steal."
Devon White, in center, must have done something to raise our ire. He must have given us the finger, or rubbed his butt with his glove where only we could see, cause in the margin next to his name on the boxscore I scrawled "hit him in the head." He was one of our early nemesis in bleacher creature lore, to the point where we gave Carter a pass for the most part to holler at Devon in center all night instead. We gave him the "savage serenade" as I called it. White went on to make an error, to which I attached a smiley face too on the scorecard.
Check this out, not only did the Yankees win the game, but they were the beneficiary of a complete game by none other than Terry Mulholland! 9 innings, 5 hits, a single run, he walked 1, and struck out 4. This upped his mark to 5-3, which is all the more amazing when you see he went on to finish at 6-7 with a 6.23 ERA for the season.
Mulholland was helped along with a home run from Wade Boggs in the first, an upper deck shot no less. This combatted a Roberto Alomar home run in the Jays half, which accounted for the only Toronto run this night. Jim Leyritz was 1-3 with 2 runs scored and 2 more driven in, adding a home run of his own off of Jay starter, the surly Dave Stewart, who took the loss.
A nice cap to the Yankee victory was a "great catch" Animal made on an O'Neill toss to the bleachers in the 9th. It was always good to see it kept in the family (and for Animal to be awake, or out of jail, to do something of record)
Jay lineup looked like this - White, Alomar, Paul Molitor, Carter, John (nice helmet you got there!) Olerud, Ed Sprague, Darnell Coles in left, Pat Borders, and Dick Schofeld batting 9th. For the good guys we got to see a lineup of Polonia, Boggs, Mattingly, Tartabull, O'Neill, Leyritz, Bernie, Gallego, and Pat Kelly. While Mulholland pitched the complete game for the Yankees, the Jays paraded out Mike Timlin, that moron Greg Caderet, and some tool named Scott Brow to finish up. In another interesting game note, we got to see Buck Showalter charge onto the field to argue the final punchout on a double play by Kelly to end the 6th. Everyone loves an argument, and the crowd duly rejoiced.
Lets profile our friend Mr. Brow in the profile section today, better known as the "guys you saw play at Yankee Stadium that you did not realize you did" category. One of only 18 major league alum to be born in the great state of Montana last time i checked. This was his 2nd of 4 campaigns in the majors, which ended in the Arizona desert as a member of the Diamondbacks. His career consisted of 59 games (4 in starts) and 107 innings pitched (hey, we saw one!) - a gaudy 6.06 ERA. Way to go!
Check out his career ERAs, they look like AM Radio Frequencies.....6.00, 5.90, 5.59, and 7.17. Nice. He actually walked more than he struck out for his career - not easy to do - by walking 68 and striking out 58. In an interesting aside, his career ended in the Yankee organization...he was traded to the Yankees with one Joe Lisio for the inimitable Willie Banks on June 3rd, 1998, and never heard from again. May he rot in Hell!
There were 26,217 on hand, for a game that took 2:24 to play. Your umpires for the game were Joe Brinkman, the late Durwood Merrill who penned a pretty fun book in later years before he left us, Mike Reilly, and Tim Welke.
Cheers!
"Mets are consistent...consistently losing"
Well, for one thing there are certainly some scorecards missing. I jump ahead 5 days here, but I noticed in my meticulous game journals i kept at the time that I was in attendance for another 2 games before this next one....and I even noticed reason for the discrepency in a highlight column I contained in there. LOST THE SCORECARD during or after the Saturday game! Hooray me! Took long enough, considering how many suds I sucked before, at, and after these games. Yankees went 1-1 in those 2 games I was at but not really, putting my overall mark at 54-33 going into this Tuesday game, when I had a new scorecard and clipboard in tow. Jays were already 7 behind the 1st place Yankees in the standings so all was right in the world.
Even so it was hockey that was on many minds, even with the Yankees running at 28-13. It was annoying enough to where someone snarled, "take that hockey shit to the Garden." There was even a raucous "Hextall sucks!" chant to pass the time.
I mentioned on here that I won the "Jackie O pool" - yes, she recently passed and made me I believe $200. Its funny, the morning I found out I had had no idea when I hopped a D train to take me to Down the Hatch for some frivolity and as I was sitting there trying to get my bearings I see someone open the old black-fold paper across from me. Jackie O is dead! I pumped my fist and let out a whoop of sorts, raising some eyebrows. I was so happy - she got me really drunk that day.
Back at the Stadium some stupid girl came up and walked to our resident cowbell-ringing dancer in the aisles, old Ali and cheerily said, "Hi, Ari!" The fans, her included, were loud and quite frankly annoying. Security guard Kathy, the one that looked like the African American lady from Night Court snapped at one point during the "Asshole" chant "keep your assholes in your mouth!" She was piqued at us through most of the game cause early on we were laughing and carrying on too loud at something and she came running up the aisle thinking there was a fight due to the heightened volume of noise alone. They never did like false alarms and promptly took them out on us, which is funny cause they liked the alternative (the fight) less.
At one point all the revelry got to be too much for Queen Bee Tina and she snarled, "Sit down! I want to see at least one inning of the God Damned game!" She had actually bought an American flag to the game to specifically combat "The Canadian Anthem" - its funny that a noted enforcer out there in Tina was provoking anti-Canadian sentiment herself. And I have the proof!
Its also amazing how many more fights and toss-outs there were back then, with much smaller crowds too. I hate to admit this, and I have been admitting this for years, but fu*kin' A did the beer ban ever work. The beer went, and took trouble with it. A whole host of guys were thrown out for "smoking by the wall" before 8PM, and a guy in a NY Ranger jersey was escorted out in the 8th inning for what I penned was "inciting riots."
Elder George took his turn to sing "Friend of Mine" in the 2nd inning to none other than "Jackoff" Joe Carter. George was really on that night, saying "the Mets are consistent.....consistently losing." He was also instrumental in all of us taking a courageous "the wave stops here!" stand that kept us busy most of the night.
What in the name of Holy Hell was up with all the A's fans at these games? It seems every scorecard I am mentioning an A's fan walking around during a non-A's game on here. Just the game before an A's fan was coerced (or should I say bullied) into throwing his own cap. Well, the word did not get through the A's Fan Network and another one was out there, goofy green A's cap on head. "Hey, A stands for Asshole!" was hurled his way. "You dropped an S off that hat" was another old favorite running the rails back then as well. That line has aged very well and still lives today.
The only faux celebrity sighting I am seeing on here outside of the C-level list of Hollywood actors that made up security (Night Court, Bob Marley, Elvis...) was "Howdy Doody" himself, holding up a sign in the box seats. Every time he gotup a rousing chorus of "Its Howdy Doody Time" was belted. Speaking of the box seats, there was a "box seat disturbance" in the top of the 8th which caused one of my 5 "mo's" during the game.
I was pretty on, I must say, this night with the scorecard. Its fairly neat, and at all time readable. You could actually follow the game from it. My notes to the margin regarding the game were not so cumbersome as always, kept succinct in a "flubbed the throw" sort of way. Its funny, I mentioned again how we were already blaming Windmill-ie Randolph for our running snafus back in 1994, so when Pat Kelly was nailed trying to steal in the 3rd inning someone muttered "I bet Willie told him to steal."
Devon White, in center, must have done something to raise our ire. He must have given us the finger, or rubbed his butt with his glove where only we could see, cause in the margin next to his name on the boxscore I scrawled "hit him in the head." He was one of our early nemesis in bleacher creature lore, to the point where we gave Carter a pass for the most part to holler at Devon in center all night instead. We gave him the "savage serenade" as I called it. White went on to make an error, to which I attached a smiley face too on the scorecard.
Check this out, not only did the Yankees win the game, but they were the beneficiary of a complete game by none other than Terry Mulholland! 9 innings, 5 hits, a single run, he walked 1, and struck out 4. This upped his mark to 5-3, which is all the more amazing when you see he went on to finish at 6-7 with a 6.23 ERA for the season.
Mulholland was helped along with a home run from Wade Boggs in the first, an upper deck shot no less. This combatted a Roberto Alomar home run in the Jays half, which accounted for the only Toronto run this night. Jim Leyritz was 1-3 with 2 runs scored and 2 more driven in, adding a home run of his own off of Jay starter, the surly Dave Stewart, who took the loss.
A nice cap to the Yankee victory was a "great catch" Animal made on an O'Neill toss to the bleachers in the 9th. It was always good to see it kept in the family (and for Animal to be awake, or out of jail, to do something of record)
Jay lineup looked like this - White, Alomar, Paul Molitor, Carter, John (nice helmet you got there!) Olerud, Ed Sprague, Darnell Coles in left, Pat Borders, and Dick Schofeld batting 9th. For the good guys we got to see a lineup of Polonia, Boggs, Mattingly, Tartabull, O'Neill, Leyritz, Bernie, Gallego, and Pat Kelly. While Mulholland pitched the complete game for the Yankees, the Jays paraded out Mike Timlin, that moron Greg Caderet, and some tool named Scott Brow to finish up. In another interesting game note, we got to see Buck Showalter charge onto the field to argue the final punchout on a double play by Kelly to end the 6th. Everyone loves an argument, and the crowd duly rejoiced.
Lets profile our friend Mr. Brow in the profile section today, better known as the "guys you saw play at Yankee Stadium that you did not realize you did" category. One of only 18 major league alum to be born in the great state of Montana last time i checked. This was his 2nd of 4 campaigns in the majors, which ended in the Arizona desert as a member of the Diamondbacks. His career consisted of 59 games (4 in starts) and 107 innings pitched (hey, we saw one!) - a gaudy 6.06 ERA. Way to go!
Check out his career ERAs, they look like AM Radio Frequencies.....6.00, 5.90, 5.59, and 7.17. Nice. He actually walked more than he struck out for his career - not easy to do - by walking 68 and striking out 58. In an interesting aside, his career ended in the Yankee organization...he was traded to the Yankees with one Joe Lisio for the inimitable Willie Banks on June 3rd, 1998, and never heard from again. May he rot in Hell!
There were 26,217 on hand, for a game that took 2:24 to play. Your umpires for the game were Joe Brinkman, the late Durwood Merrill who penned a pretty fun book in later years before he left us, Mike Reilly, and Tim Welke.
Cheers!
Thursday, September 9, 2010
May 20th, 1994 - "I fu*king love him...I'd fu*k him any day."
Friday, May 20th - Yankees host the Orioles
Fans on field! Jamie Moyer! A Gilligan lookalike!
Ah, another Friday night! I LOVE Friday nights...even if the scorecards are a tad illegable. And Jim Abbott was on the mound for the Yankees again, it was like he was following me around. I mean, every game I score, it seems! It was a seemingly cold night for late May, as I noted we were "blowing smoke" with the temps hovering around 50. So lets get to it, shall we?
If you have been following this saga, you may recall how I alluded to how Angel (Elder George's girlfriend at the time) was capable of uttering anything at any time...she is the one who remarked, "I did not know Cal Ripken Jr was black" when she saw him from our distant perch with a long-sleeved black sweatshirt on under his jersey top. Well, on this night for whatever reason she admitted to thinking ALL THE WAY BACK THEN IN 1994 that Paul McCartney was dead. And we could not change here mind.
Speakin of Ripken, there he was on the field, as the Orioles were in town...for all I know this could be the night she uttered this "Cal is black?" bon mot. I was too drunk to write everything down, but some things dont need to be noted to be remembered, thus me harping on it 16 years later.
An Oriole fan hobbled up before the game on crutches, and was absolutely booed and shredded. He gave a mock wave, a sheepish smile, and uttered, "thanks...I appreciate the welcome." This ended up being a "major disturbance" as he saw fit to shimmy all the way to the top row although these were general admission seats, and he caught major crap every step of his skittish way up.
I mentioned the Knicks and the Bulls were squaring off for a Game 6. I actually mentioned it twice on here, which is amazing as I could give a crap about the NBA. I remarked in bemused fashion that there were "Bulls fans everywhere" - um, shouldnt they have been off watching the game someplace? I also noted on here that people were betting pricey bleacher beers on the outcome.
Missed quite the WWF wrestling card that night at MSG for this, showing my early affinity for Friday night drinkfests at the Stadium. A few miles south of the Stadium on that night Kwang pinned Sparky Plugg, Jeff Jarrett pinned Doink The Clown, The HeadShrinkers & Afa the Samoan (mgd. by Captain Lou Albano) beat The Quebecers & Johnny Polo, Alundra Blayze pinned the late Luna Vachon, Lex Luger pinned Crush, Ring announcer Howard Finkel beat manager Harvey Whippleman in a special attraction, Razor Ramon fought Diesel to a DCO, the late Bam Bam Bigelow pinned Mabel, and Bret Hart pinned Owen Hart to retain the WWF Title...
Now back to our regularly scheduled programming...
Couple of celebrity sightings here....my favorite was a Gilligan lookalike. He got all kinds of jokes, and the shows theme song of course, but the best line of the night was quite simple, a to-the-point shout of "Down in front, little buddy!" whenever he would stand up. All kinds of other faux celebs were on hand, from "Jimmy Carter" to "Bob Backlund" to "Screech", as well. There was also a "Bob Marley" lookalike on security....in later years we would develop some kickass reggae beats to greet him every day. There was also a frumpy "Oscar Madison" lookalike, giving us a chance to add the Odd Couple song to our playlist for the evening.
Paul O'Neill was a real attention getter on this night. For one thing some girl out there said quite succinctly, after he doubled in the 7th, "I fu*kin' love him...I'd fu*k him any day."
Maybe catching wind of this and showing his appreciation, O'Neill threw a ball up to us in the bleachers, and in the resulting scrum "a pregnant woman was hurt." Oh, I remember this. There was actually a pile-on for the ball, and you hear this voice at the bottom, the old stuck in a well voice, "Ow! Get off! I'm pregnant! Fu*k! Ow!" Her husband started flinging people off the pile with reckless abandon. Whats best in situations like this is everyone blames the happy couple for the whole thing for "coming out there while she is pregnant in the first place."
For some unknown reason an A's fan was on hand, and he was coerced to throw his own hat away before we did it for him, for which he recieved heartfelt applause. The fans were bad that night, all over the Stadium. Around the 5th inning, according to an arrow from the margin, and at 9:04 to be exact, "kids run on field." I acknowledged this came complete with a "good fake" in RF when security cornered in. But the coupe de grace was at 10:13 when some other chucklehead was taking HIS turn on the field, and after it went "for a while" a guard seemed to have him cornered in left, and the kid threw a "karate kid." Yeah, he flicked a kick at the guard, and ended up being tied into a knot on the grass as the crowd roared in glee.
Bernie in center was already letting balls drop in front of him, and he was met with the old, "Claudell Washington would have caught that!" rejoinder.
Ripken, of course, was serenaded with the old "Break your leg, Ripken" chants, as he was honing in on Gehrig's record. Speaking of chants, there was a rousing and random "Beat your wife, Potvin!" chant ringing through the Stadium seats.
Anyone remember Howard the Lawyer? A cleancut gent with glasses, that would sit around making unfunny jokes. He was deemed the original anti-comic. Well, he was on hand. There was an idiot out there "throwing stuff" and Howard explained away his getting away with it by reasoning, "he has no priors."
As usual with these Friday games, the card is a mess if you are trying to follow the on-the-field play. The Orioles section is filled out completely, but after the fact a huge IGNORE is written over the entire thing...so someone mucked it up. Nothing at all appears for the 9th spot hitter, so myself and whoever was pinching in for me was running an 8 man lineup. That said, I am only seeing six "mo's" which is a fair amount for a drinking night.
As for the on-field display, the Yankees cruised to an easy 5-1 victory, as Abbott was sharp, upping his record to 5-2. He threw 7 innings of one-run ball, giving up 6 hits, walking only 1, and fanning 5. Bob Wickman came in to throw two scoreless to finish up. The only Yankee home run was off the bat of Randy Velarde, a 3 run job off of the crafty Jamie Moyer, who still wont leave. Don Mattingly had 3 hits, and the aforementioned O'Neill had a perfect night by going 2-2 with a couple of walks and a girl that wanted to fu*k him.
To give an idea of the era and the foe, the Oriole lineup read Brady "is a lady" Anderson, Mike Devereux, Raffy Palmiero, Ripken, Chris Hoiles, Leo Gomez, Tim Hulett, freaking Lonnie Smith at DH batting 8th, and our RF foe for the evening, Jack Voight. Your Yankee lineup was Polonia, Velarde, Mattingly, Tartabull, Leyritz, O'Neill, BW, Gallego, and Kelly.
For your profile for the night, I choose Mr. Voight. In a 7 year career he managed to sneak into 294 games, and cumulatively had ONE seasons worth of ABs (58X - he should be proud, a career average of .235 but he did muster 20 jacks and 83 career RBIs. Guys this nondescript were not even fun to yell at. On this night he went 1-3 and drove in a run, and listened to our shit for 9 innings.
Moyer took the loss for the O's - he was shelled and gone by the 4th, when Scott Williamson picked up for him with 3 scoreless innings. Alan Mills and Mark Eichorn also toed the rubber for the bums from Baltimore.
We almost had 30,000 for this one, as 28,953 were on hand for this cool Friday night. Your arbiters on the field were Dale Ford, Ken Kaiser, John Shulock, and Tim Tschida, and the game clocked in at 3:07.
Thanks for reading!
Fans on field! Jamie Moyer! A Gilligan lookalike!
Ah, another Friday night! I LOVE Friday nights...even if the scorecards are a tad illegable. And Jim Abbott was on the mound for the Yankees again, it was like he was following me around. I mean, every game I score, it seems! It was a seemingly cold night for late May, as I noted we were "blowing smoke" with the temps hovering around 50. So lets get to it, shall we?
If you have been following this saga, you may recall how I alluded to how Angel (Elder George's girlfriend at the time) was capable of uttering anything at any time...she is the one who remarked, "I did not know Cal Ripken Jr was black" when she saw him from our distant perch with a long-sleeved black sweatshirt on under his jersey top. Well, on this night for whatever reason she admitted to thinking ALL THE WAY BACK THEN IN 1994 that Paul McCartney was dead. And we could not change here mind.
Speakin of Ripken, there he was on the field, as the Orioles were in town...for all I know this could be the night she uttered this "Cal is black?" bon mot. I was too drunk to write everything down, but some things dont need to be noted to be remembered, thus me harping on it 16 years later.
An Oriole fan hobbled up before the game on crutches, and was absolutely booed and shredded. He gave a mock wave, a sheepish smile, and uttered, "thanks...I appreciate the welcome." This ended up being a "major disturbance" as he saw fit to shimmy all the way to the top row although these were general admission seats, and he caught major crap every step of his skittish way up.
I mentioned the Knicks and the Bulls were squaring off for a Game 6. I actually mentioned it twice on here, which is amazing as I could give a crap about the NBA. I remarked in bemused fashion that there were "Bulls fans everywhere" - um, shouldnt they have been off watching the game someplace? I also noted on here that people were betting pricey bleacher beers on the outcome.
Missed quite the WWF wrestling card that night at MSG for this, showing my early affinity for Friday night drinkfests at the Stadium. A few miles south of the Stadium on that night Kwang pinned Sparky Plugg, Jeff Jarrett pinned Doink The Clown, The HeadShrinkers & Afa the Samoan (mgd. by Captain Lou Albano) beat The Quebecers & Johnny Polo, Alundra Blayze pinned the late Luna Vachon, Lex Luger pinned Crush, Ring announcer Howard Finkel beat manager Harvey Whippleman in a special attraction, Razor Ramon fought Diesel to a DCO, the late Bam Bam Bigelow pinned Mabel, and Bret Hart pinned Owen Hart to retain the WWF Title...
Now back to our regularly scheduled programming...
Couple of celebrity sightings here....my favorite was a Gilligan lookalike. He got all kinds of jokes, and the shows theme song of course, but the best line of the night was quite simple, a to-the-point shout of "Down in front, little buddy!" whenever he would stand up. All kinds of other faux celebs were on hand, from "Jimmy Carter" to "Bob Backlund" to "Screech", as well. There was also a "Bob Marley" lookalike on security....in later years we would develop some kickass reggae beats to greet him every day. There was also a frumpy "Oscar Madison" lookalike, giving us a chance to add the Odd Couple song to our playlist for the evening.
Paul O'Neill was a real attention getter on this night. For one thing some girl out there said quite succinctly, after he doubled in the 7th, "I fu*kin' love him...I'd fu*k him any day."
Maybe catching wind of this and showing his appreciation, O'Neill threw a ball up to us in the bleachers, and in the resulting scrum "a pregnant woman was hurt." Oh, I remember this. There was actually a pile-on for the ball, and you hear this voice at the bottom, the old stuck in a well voice, "Ow! Get off! I'm pregnant! Fu*k! Ow!" Her husband started flinging people off the pile with reckless abandon. Whats best in situations like this is everyone blames the happy couple for the whole thing for "coming out there while she is pregnant in the first place."
For some unknown reason an A's fan was on hand, and he was coerced to throw his own hat away before we did it for him, for which he recieved heartfelt applause. The fans were bad that night, all over the Stadium. Around the 5th inning, according to an arrow from the margin, and at 9:04 to be exact, "kids run on field." I acknowledged this came complete with a "good fake" in RF when security cornered in. But the coupe de grace was at 10:13 when some other chucklehead was taking HIS turn on the field, and after it went "for a while" a guard seemed to have him cornered in left, and the kid threw a "karate kid." Yeah, he flicked a kick at the guard, and ended up being tied into a knot on the grass as the crowd roared in glee.
Bernie in center was already letting balls drop in front of him, and he was met with the old, "Claudell Washington would have caught that!" rejoinder.
Ripken, of course, was serenaded with the old "Break your leg, Ripken" chants, as he was honing in on Gehrig's record. Speaking of chants, there was a rousing and random "Beat your wife, Potvin!" chant ringing through the Stadium seats.
Anyone remember Howard the Lawyer? A cleancut gent with glasses, that would sit around making unfunny jokes. He was deemed the original anti-comic. Well, he was on hand. There was an idiot out there "throwing stuff" and Howard explained away his getting away with it by reasoning, "he has no priors."
As usual with these Friday games, the card is a mess if you are trying to follow the on-the-field play. The Orioles section is filled out completely, but after the fact a huge IGNORE is written over the entire thing...so someone mucked it up. Nothing at all appears for the 9th spot hitter, so myself and whoever was pinching in for me was running an 8 man lineup. That said, I am only seeing six "mo's" which is a fair amount for a drinking night.
As for the on-field display, the Yankees cruised to an easy 5-1 victory, as Abbott was sharp, upping his record to 5-2. He threw 7 innings of one-run ball, giving up 6 hits, walking only 1, and fanning 5. Bob Wickman came in to throw two scoreless to finish up. The only Yankee home run was off the bat of Randy Velarde, a 3 run job off of the crafty Jamie Moyer, who still wont leave. Don Mattingly had 3 hits, and the aforementioned O'Neill had a perfect night by going 2-2 with a couple of walks and a girl that wanted to fu*k him.
To give an idea of the era and the foe, the Oriole lineup read Brady "is a lady" Anderson, Mike Devereux, Raffy Palmiero, Ripken, Chris Hoiles, Leo Gomez, Tim Hulett, freaking Lonnie Smith at DH batting 8th, and our RF foe for the evening, Jack Voight. Your Yankee lineup was Polonia, Velarde, Mattingly, Tartabull, Leyritz, O'Neill, BW, Gallego, and Kelly.
For your profile for the night, I choose Mr. Voight. In a 7 year career he managed to sneak into 294 games, and cumulatively had ONE seasons worth of ABs (58X - he should be proud, a career average of .235 but he did muster 20 jacks and 83 career RBIs. Guys this nondescript were not even fun to yell at. On this night he went 1-3 and drove in a run, and listened to our shit for 9 innings.
Moyer took the loss for the O's - he was shelled and gone by the 4th, when Scott Williamson picked up for him with 3 scoreless innings. Alan Mills and Mark Eichorn also toed the rubber for the bums from Baltimore.
We almost had 30,000 for this one, as 28,953 were on hand for this cool Friday night. Your arbiters on the field were Dale Ford, Ken Kaiser, John Shulock, and Tim Tschida, and the game clocked in at 3:07.
Thanks for reading!
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
May 11th, 1994 - "Grab your goat and get on your boat!"
May 11th, 1994 - Yankees host the Indians
"Hes going to get a hummer, we're watching the game...who's the stupid one?"
Ah, a Wednesday night at the Stadium. 1st place Yankees sitting pretty at 21-10, against the 14-15 Indians. I mentioned on here it was "the Yankees best start since 1956." To kick the night off and celebrate this fact, the Yankees took the field sans music while Bob Sheppard was still making announcements over the PA, which is something I dont remember seeing outside of this occasion.
Another really scant crowd...what was funny is this one guy was there with this smoking hot bimbo, and they left around the 6th inning....this caused us to start ragging on the guy for early exit until someone chose to put it in perspective. "He's going to go get a hummer, and we're watching the game. Who's the stupid ones?"
This girl had to go. She was dancing around and showing people her "black bra." Security was none too pleased, and as I remarked at one point "security stops slut." One of the mystery outs on here was explained away this way - "missed it, she was touching herself." Then I am seeing another one explained away with "missed it, she was touching his lasso." Um, lasso? What the fu*k was going on out here??
I mentioned that Jeff (a really disheaveled Willie Loman-ish regular) had a really loud tie on. I also mentioned that Redd Foxx was "still dead" so he must have met his sad demise on the set of "The Royal Family" around this time.
Showing my zest for minuitia, I called in the first Crapman sighting (7:45) and even mentioned that the O'Neill sign guy was back again.
The Dominicans were getting it from us again. A "USA! USA!" chant combatted their fervent waving of the Dominican flag. "Grab your goat and get on your boat!" was another chant levied their way. Someone in our band was sing-songing at Ramirez "Manny Tiene Un Clap!" which he translated as "your tenants are here" which I guess was alerting Manny to his contingent of pesky fans.
Indian boat crash jokes were still abounding. On a lazy fly out to right, as Ramirez settled underneath someone shouted, "look out, there's the pier!" Speaking of outfield follies, after Luis Polonia played a simple fly into a double in the Indian first, someone shouted, "Hey, Polonia, the game's started!"
Hey, Dennis, whoever you are, what the Hell were you doing there on a weeknight? I ask, cause I mentioned on here for posterity, "whats Dennis doing here on a weekday?"
Some guy was wearing what we dubbed a railroad cap, so we were constantly singing railroad songs at him and his striped cap self. I also noted at one point that "the I've been working on the railroad guy has 2 beers."
I cant imagine there could have been anyone in the box seats, but we were indeed serenaded with a "bleachers suck!" chant from that environ. We countered by noticing that "fat people run the box seats" and hurled a few "Free Willy!" chants in retort.
There were a bunch of "frat boys" on hand...that happened now and again much to securities dismay. I led whatever there was of the crowd in "Friend of Mine" at 8:22, but also remarked we had "the worst Gang Bang song ever" later in the game. It was on me...even back then I took a turn at the Gang Bang, which leads me to believe Captain Bob was nowhere to be found. After that review of the Gang Bang, I admitted "everyone is dissapointed in me."
This scorecard was messy, but not so much for drunkenness (actually, I cant find any hints that I was drinking at all on this Wednesday night) but cause there was all kinds of pandemonium going on on the field. The fifth has hits, errors, and mystery outs all over it. The Yankees scored 3 runs, but by the mess you would think they notched 8. Fu*kin' A - there are only TWO mystery outs on the whole card, and they were both because of that stupid slut and her slovenly antics.
Jimmy Key started for the Yankees and walked out of there with the win, upping his mark to 6-1. He pitched 7 innings, giving up 3 runs on 7 hits, 1 walk, and 5 Ks. Bob Wickman finished up with 2 hitless innings, and he struck out the side in the 8th, doing away with Baerga, Belle, and Murray, while notching his first save of 1994. Not too shabby.
That fossil Dennis Martinez started for the Indians, and the Yankees slapped him around a bit. Then we got to boo Steve Farr something fierce when he came in to pitch in the 6th. "You fu*k!" someone yelled. "Fu*king fuc*k!" Some ding-dong named Brian Barnes pitched the final 2 for Cleveland in this, what was his 5th and final season in the show. A nice 14-22 record for the career with only 6 of his 110 games coming in the American League, but he escaped with a lifetime ERA under 4, clocking in at 3.94. Glad we got to see him!
Danny Tartabull homered for the Yankees in the 6-3 win, and Polonia and O'Neill each had 2 hits. Polonia also drove in 2 of the Yankees 6 runs.
Another scant showing by the Yankee faithful, as 17,611 shuffled in. I mean, come on. The game was played in 2:44, and your umpires on hand remained Rich Garcia, Dale Ford, Larry Young, and Brian O'Nora.
Thanks for reading!
My all-time record with me in attendance coming in to this one 52-32!
"Hes going to get a hummer, we're watching the game...who's the stupid one?"
Ah, a Wednesday night at the Stadium. 1st place Yankees sitting pretty at 21-10, against the 14-15 Indians. I mentioned on here it was "the Yankees best start since 1956." To kick the night off and celebrate this fact, the Yankees took the field sans music while Bob Sheppard was still making announcements over the PA, which is something I dont remember seeing outside of this occasion.
Another really scant crowd...what was funny is this one guy was there with this smoking hot bimbo, and they left around the 6th inning....this caused us to start ragging on the guy for early exit until someone chose to put it in perspective. "He's going to go get a hummer, and we're watching the game. Who's the stupid ones?"
This girl had to go. She was dancing around and showing people her "black bra." Security was none too pleased, and as I remarked at one point "security stops slut." One of the mystery outs on here was explained away this way - "missed it, she was touching herself." Then I am seeing another one explained away with "missed it, she was touching his lasso." Um, lasso? What the fu*k was going on out here??
I mentioned that Jeff (a really disheaveled Willie Loman-ish regular) had a really loud tie on. I also mentioned that Redd Foxx was "still dead" so he must have met his sad demise on the set of "The Royal Family" around this time.
Showing my zest for minuitia, I called in the first Crapman sighting (7:45) and even mentioned that the O'Neill sign guy was back again.
The Dominicans were getting it from us again. A "USA! USA!" chant combatted their fervent waving of the Dominican flag. "Grab your goat and get on your boat!" was another chant levied their way. Someone in our band was sing-songing at Ramirez "Manny Tiene Un Clap!" which he translated as "your tenants are here" which I guess was alerting Manny to his contingent of pesky fans.
Indian boat crash jokes were still abounding. On a lazy fly out to right, as Ramirez settled underneath someone shouted, "look out, there's the pier!" Speaking of outfield follies, after Luis Polonia played a simple fly into a double in the Indian first, someone shouted, "Hey, Polonia, the game's started!"
Hey, Dennis, whoever you are, what the Hell were you doing there on a weeknight? I ask, cause I mentioned on here for posterity, "whats Dennis doing here on a weekday?"
Some guy was wearing what we dubbed a railroad cap, so we were constantly singing railroad songs at him and his striped cap self. I also noted at one point that "the I've been working on the railroad guy has 2 beers."
I cant imagine there could have been anyone in the box seats, but we were indeed serenaded with a "bleachers suck!" chant from that environ. We countered by noticing that "fat people run the box seats" and hurled a few "Free Willy!" chants in retort.
There were a bunch of "frat boys" on hand...that happened now and again much to securities dismay. I led whatever there was of the crowd in "Friend of Mine" at 8:22, but also remarked we had "the worst Gang Bang song ever" later in the game. It was on me...even back then I took a turn at the Gang Bang, which leads me to believe Captain Bob was nowhere to be found. After that review of the Gang Bang, I admitted "everyone is dissapointed in me."
This scorecard was messy, but not so much for drunkenness (actually, I cant find any hints that I was drinking at all on this Wednesday night) but cause there was all kinds of pandemonium going on on the field. The fifth has hits, errors, and mystery outs all over it. The Yankees scored 3 runs, but by the mess you would think they notched 8. Fu*kin' A - there are only TWO mystery outs on the whole card, and they were both because of that stupid slut and her slovenly antics.
Jimmy Key started for the Yankees and walked out of there with the win, upping his mark to 6-1. He pitched 7 innings, giving up 3 runs on 7 hits, 1 walk, and 5 Ks. Bob Wickman finished up with 2 hitless innings, and he struck out the side in the 8th, doing away with Baerga, Belle, and Murray, while notching his first save of 1994. Not too shabby.
That fossil Dennis Martinez started for the Indians, and the Yankees slapped him around a bit. Then we got to boo Steve Farr something fierce when he came in to pitch in the 6th. "You fu*k!" someone yelled. "Fu*king fuc*k!" Some ding-dong named Brian Barnes pitched the final 2 for Cleveland in this, what was his 5th and final season in the show. A nice 14-22 record for the career with only 6 of his 110 games coming in the American League, but he escaped with a lifetime ERA under 4, clocking in at 3.94. Glad we got to see him!
Danny Tartabull homered for the Yankees in the 6-3 win, and Polonia and O'Neill each had 2 hits. Polonia also drove in 2 of the Yankees 6 runs.
Another scant showing by the Yankee faithful, as 17,611 shuffled in. I mean, come on. The game was played in 2:44, and your umpires on hand remained Rich Garcia, Dale Ford, Larry Young, and Brian O'Nora.
Thanks for reading!
My all-time record with me in attendance coming in to this one 52-32!
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
May 10th, 1994 - "Best record in baseball"
May 10th, 1994 - Yankees host the Indians
"Shit, I can boil clams in this beer"
A Tuesday night, game 2 of a 3 game set-to with the Tribe. My 9th game of the season, and the Yankees were 6-2 with $heriff Tom in town.
Our good buddy Wayne Kirby was in right, and aside from being serenaded with verse after verse of "Ode to Indian" someone hollered, "Kirby, you suck so much someone named a vacuum after you!" After all these years, though, I still cant get over the sight of Kirby laughing as we sung a ditty about two of his ex-teammates getting killed in a spring training boat crash when we showered him with it during a game a few months later.
We had what I called an "inadvertant box seats suck!" chant. Some fool stood up in the box seats holding up a sign, and was deluged with the chant. He looked over with a sad hangdog look, and showed us his sign...it was the Paul O'Neill bulls-eye sign guy, and he had friends there with us in 39 who also had signs, so we quelled the chant as a favor to him.
The Dominicans were catching their share of shit again, although many had not returned from the night before. "Dominicans, huh? How many wars have YOU won?" was a query put to them. "Immagraciona!" was another fan favorite.
Our good friend Animal, who apparently had a short stint in the hoosegow (an earlier scorecard noted that he was in jail) showed up clean shaven. "Its so security can't recognize me" he shrugged. Time off did not change his drunken ways, however, as "Animal wakes up" is noted in the top of the 7th.
In the faux celebrity siting category, "Kenny Loggins" was there again, and "dressed as Winnie the Pooh" with a nice striped pullover shirt. Someone else was wearing a freaky tie-die shirt, and someone mused, "geez, I am getting a contact high just from looking at that shirt." Another faux celebrity on hand was "Kurt Cobain," who was greeted with a "down in front Kurt Cobain!" and returned it with a sheepish wave.
We were surly with the beer men. The beer was warm, as usual. "Shit, I can boil clams in this beer." was one gripe. "Beer man, if I wanted soup, I would have ordered it." was another.
Hey, I see why we had so many "Raj" mentions on here...Yes, the guy who looked like "Whats Happenin's" Raj was apparently on security, working every game. Hey, hey hey!
With all the rowdy crowds Cleveland and Ramirez bought in, I saw fit to mention "there was a lot of altercating last night." Queen Bee Tina was on a rampage, causing someone around me to put on a perfect Dragnet voice and utter "I'm Tina...I wear a badge." Kind of amusing to see a badge mention a couple of years before the birth of Sheriff Tom and my vaunted collection of such.
I have a star in a corner on here, with the words "80th game" on there. So I believe I at least believed it was my 80th game at Yankee Stadium. That would double by 1996. I marked a few other times on here for further posterity - first "crapman" sighting was at 7:11 as he ambled up hawking his wares, followed up by the first Ali cowbell at 7:13. We did an Indian tomohawk chop while chanting "Indians blow" at 7:44...and basically what amounted to the entire bleachers on a night like that had an awesome "Kiiiirrrbbbbbyyyy" chant at 9:02. I myself started a rousing "Kirby sucks!" chant at 9:17.
I also remarked that, at that early date of May 10th, the Yankees had busted out to not only first place, but the best record in baseball, 20-10 going in. We all know how this movie ended, huh?
Mike Stanley had reached the point of reverence out there by this time. When he came up, some people would rise and genuflect, and chant "may the power of Christ compel you." He went 2-4 on this night, with a dreaded "mo" on the scorecard to boot.
I mentioned that my brother Dan, who lived in Maryland at the time, was at the Oriole/Blue Jay game down in Baltimore at the same time. There were 30,000 more people at Camden Yards joining him than were joining me in the Bronx. Even the majority of the "Ramirez crowd" took this one off, by my notes.
Beerslinger Cousin Brewski was in his showman mood, belting out "Proud Mary" by Creedence Clearwater Revival "at 9:34." That was always a good show. He was not met with the normal jubilant reception, though, as people were still upset with the beer vendors for the warm beer and saw Brewski as part of the problem. But Brewski won them over by handing out free "Cousin Brewski" buttons. When the bleachers are nearly empty, he could win them over pretty quick.
I noted that Crazy Devil Fan Billy was involved in a "Henderson argument" - remember, this was the guy that once called Marty Cordova "the best leftfielder in baseball." I dont know what he was saying about Henderson, but he was having to argue to defend it.
A Yankee must have been nailed on the basepaths, as I have a "another succesful graduate of the Randolph school of baserunning" on here. There are all kinds of random game notes on here like "great throw - bad call" and "E on throw" and "pitchout" and "ground rule" - I mise as well have taped the game on the radio to play back later if I was going to be so anal about things.
But, hooray me! There was only ONE mo in the whole game, Stanley's in the 8th. Fu*kin' a...I made it all the way till the 8th and lost a perfectly scored game with only 4 outs to go. As I sit here typing this, I wonder if I will ever see a perfectly scored game again. The reason for the flub was ok, though, I was looking down and writing in O'Neills second home run, which immediatly preceded the mystery out.
As for the game on the field, the errant abuse we landed on the O'Neill fan did not jinx Paul on the field, as he had what I dubbed a "hero night" - going 3-4 with 2 runs and 2 RBIs, and two home runs. Stanley and Mattingly also had 2 hits, and the Yankees won 5-3 behind decent enough pitching for 6 innings by Scott Kamienieki. The unlikely tandem of Paul Gibson (who got the win) and Xavier Hernandez pitched 3 hitless innings to lock and load this one.
On the Indian side of things, Albert Belle again had his merry way with the Yankee pitching, going 3-4. Thome, playing third base at this stage of his career, was the only white guy in the starting lineup outside of starting pitcher Charles "Nerdy" Nagy. Eric Plunk, that asshole, threw the 8th for the Indians and much to our delight we touched him up for another run. The only other Indian note of interest was that the ever surly Eddie Murray exchanged pleasantries with home plate ump Brian O'Nora after being punched out in the 9th.
As I alluded to, it was a scant gathering at the Stadium. Only 17,378 were on hand, while my brother was part of a 47,194 showing at Camden Yards. Your full set of umpires were Brian O'Nora, Rich Garcia, Dale Ford, and Larry Young.
Thanks for reading!
"Shit, I can boil clams in this beer"
A Tuesday night, game 2 of a 3 game set-to with the Tribe. My 9th game of the season, and the Yankees were 6-2 with $heriff Tom in town.
Our good buddy Wayne Kirby was in right, and aside from being serenaded with verse after verse of "Ode to Indian" someone hollered, "Kirby, you suck so much someone named a vacuum after you!" After all these years, though, I still cant get over the sight of Kirby laughing as we sung a ditty about two of his ex-teammates getting killed in a spring training boat crash when we showered him with it during a game a few months later.
We had what I called an "inadvertant box seats suck!" chant. Some fool stood up in the box seats holding up a sign, and was deluged with the chant. He looked over with a sad hangdog look, and showed us his sign...it was the Paul O'Neill bulls-eye sign guy, and he had friends there with us in 39 who also had signs, so we quelled the chant as a favor to him.
The Dominicans were catching their share of shit again, although many had not returned from the night before. "Dominicans, huh? How many wars have YOU won?" was a query put to them. "Immagraciona!" was another fan favorite.
Our good friend Animal, who apparently had a short stint in the hoosegow (an earlier scorecard noted that he was in jail) showed up clean shaven. "Its so security can't recognize me" he shrugged. Time off did not change his drunken ways, however, as "Animal wakes up" is noted in the top of the 7th.
In the faux celebrity siting category, "Kenny Loggins" was there again, and "dressed as Winnie the Pooh" with a nice striped pullover shirt. Someone else was wearing a freaky tie-die shirt, and someone mused, "geez, I am getting a contact high just from looking at that shirt." Another faux celebrity on hand was "Kurt Cobain," who was greeted with a "down in front Kurt Cobain!" and returned it with a sheepish wave.
We were surly with the beer men. The beer was warm, as usual. "Shit, I can boil clams in this beer." was one gripe. "Beer man, if I wanted soup, I would have ordered it." was another.
Hey, I see why we had so many "Raj" mentions on here...Yes, the guy who looked like "Whats Happenin's" Raj was apparently on security, working every game. Hey, hey hey!
With all the rowdy crowds Cleveland and Ramirez bought in, I saw fit to mention "there was a lot of altercating last night." Queen Bee Tina was on a rampage, causing someone around me to put on a perfect Dragnet voice and utter "I'm Tina...I wear a badge." Kind of amusing to see a badge mention a couple of years before the birth of Sheriff Tom and my vaunted collection of such.
I have a star in a corner on here, with the words "80th game" on there. So I believe I at least believed it was my 80th game at Yankee Stadium. That would double by 1996. I marked a few other times on here for further posterity - first "crapman" sighting was at 7:11 as he ambled up hawking his wares, followed up by the first Ali cowbell at 7:13. We did an Indian tomohawk chop while chanting "Indians blow" at 7:44...and basically what amounted to the entire bleachers on a night like that had an awesome "Kiiiirrrbbbbbyyyy" chant at 9:02. I myself started a rousing "Kirby sucks!" chant at 9:17.
I also remarked that, at that early date of May 10th, the Yankees had busted out to not only first place, but the best record in baseball, 20-10 going in. We all know how this movie ended, huh?
Mike Stanley had reached the point of reverence out there by this time. When he came up, some people would rise and genuflect, and chant "may the power of Christ compel you." He went 2-4 on this night, with a dreaded "mo" on the scorecard to boot.
I mentioned that my brother Dan, who lived in Maryland at the time, was at the Oriole/Blue Jay game down in Baltimore at the same time. There were 30,000 more people at Camden Yards joining him than were joining me in the Bronx. Even the majority of the "Ramirez crowd" took this one off, by my notes.
Beerslinger Cousin Brewski was in his showman mood, belting out "Proud Mary" by Creedence Clearwater Revival "at 9:34." That was always a good show. He was not met with the normal jubilant reception, though, as people were still upset with the beer vendors for the warm beer and saw Brewski as part of the problem. But Brewski won them over by handing out free "Cousin Brewski" buttons. When the bleachers are nearly empty, he could win them over pretty quick.
I noted that Crazy Devil Fan Billy was involved in a "Henderson argument" - remember, this was the guy that once called Marty Cordova "the best leftfielder in baseball." I dont know what he was saying about Henderson, but he was having to argue to defend it.
A Yankee must have been nailed on the basepaths, as I have a "another succesful graduate of the Randolph school of baserunning" on here. There are all kinds of random game notes on here like "great throw - bad call" and "E on throw" and "pitchout" and "ground rule" - I mise as well have taped the game on the radio to play back later if I was going to be so anal about things.
But, hooray me! There was only ONE mo in the whole game, Stanley's in the 8th. Fu*kin' a...I made it all the way till the 8th and lost a perfectly scored game with only 4 outs to go. As I sit here typing this, I wonder if I will ever see a perfectly scored game again. The reason for the flub was ok, though, I was looking down and writing in O'Neills second home run, which immediatly preceded the mystery out.
As for the game on the field, the errant abuse we landed on the O'Neill fan did not jinx Paul on the field, as he had what I dubbed a "hero night" - going 3-4 with 2 runs and 2 RBIs, and two home runs. Stanley and Mattingly also had 2 hits, and the Yankees won 5-3 behind decent enough pitching for 6 innings by Scott Kamienieki. The unlikely tandem of Paul Gibson (who got the win) and Xavier Hernandez pitched 3 hitless innings to lock and load this one.
On the Indian side of things, Albert Belle again had his merry way with the Yankee pitching, going 3-4. Thome, playing third base at this stage of his career, was the only white guy in the starting lineup outside of starting pitcher Charles "Nerdy" Nagy. Eric Plunk, that asshole, threw the 8th for the Indians and much to our delight we touched him up for another run. The only other Indian note of interest was that the ever surly Eddie Murray exchanged pleasantries with home plate ump Brian O'Nora after being punched out in the 9th.
As I alluded to, it was a scant gathering at the Stadium. Only 17,378 were on hand, while my brother was part of a 47,194 showing at Camden Yards. Your full set of umpires were Brian O'Nora, Rich Garcia, Dale Ford, and Larry Young.
Thanks for reading!
Friday, September 3, 2010
May 9th, 1994 - Just Another "Maniac' Monday!
May 9th, 1994 - Yankees host the Indians
"Do the wave and wave your ass out of here!"
Ah, a Monday game. This may have been one of the last Monday games I ever made, due to my swilling a 6-pack while watching Monday Night Raw addiction that kicked off around this time. But, nonetheless, I was here to see former Tiger great Jack Morris wrapping up his career with the Cleveland Indians. That dick.
The Yankees had just finished off a 3 game sweep of the Red Sox at the Stadium, which I missed cause of "a doctors appointment and Mothers Day." Weak!
Speaking of dicks, Manny Ramirez was on hand. And his "contingent" was out in full force, the Dominicans we dubbed "dummy in a cans" who would crash our party whenever Manny was in town, raising all kinds of Cain. This feud between our core crews continued on for another decade. I saw fit to remark on here that my boss Bernard (who ended up firing me twice over time) was at the Devils/Bruins game after saying he was going to come along to this Yankees game with me instead. I also mentioned that I was "sober" and that it was good to show up like that every once in a while to surprise the lookie-loo's who kept one eye on us along with one eye on the field even then. Things off-kilter, like me being sober, confused them.
A wave started to simmer, and Queen Bee Tina hopped up and got into the face of a ringleader with the classic line, "do the wave and wave your ass out of here!" She was busy that evening, also snapping at someone who flicked on the game on his radio, introducing herself with a curt "shut off the radio!" There was a lot of firepower hollering at the radio guy, as stalwarts Cowbell Ali and Big-Nosed George also had their say to him.
We spent the entire 3rd inning having a "how to sneak beer in here" discussion, so the prices must have been getting to us. Think of it, the average Friday and Saturday games probably set me back $30-$40 each on suds alone. I mean, holy fu*k.
The Manny Ramirez faction actually had a sign up there. Who would have known they could write? While I did not mark down what it said, someone cracked "they probably stole it." There are notes like "Ramirez faction sign distraction" and "talkin' shit with Ramirez fans" on here.
It would not surprise me that there would be a lot of interaction between the groups, even if it was acrimonious, as no one else was there but the rowdy bleacher bunch and the Ramirez faction...I wrote "seeing a lot of blue seats" - there have been bigger crowds at 1912 high school reunions than this Monday night affair.
The first Indian fan sighting was at 6:58....the Manny fans did not count, cause they could not name one other Indian. But enough about them. Since the Indians were in town we broke out the old "Old to Indian" song we conjured after the fatal spring-training boat crash, and Big-Nosed George laughed.
We were already starting to overuse "Yabba Dabba Douchebag!" as it is on the scorecard again. I was falling into a bad habit around this time of trying to provide game commentary in free areas of the scorecard, connecting them to the box applying to the hitter with arrows. They get in the way. There are bullet points like "rainbow throw" and "wild pitch, Belle on 3rd" and "Morris barehand" and "2nd on throw" dotting this particular card. To show I was thinking outside the box, I also was keeping play by play on crowd capers, as I see "aborted Friend of Mine song" and "first bell 7:21" and "oh, no, wave" and "bigger wave!" on here as well. I also noted that a 1-2-3 bottom of the 2nd "took 3 seconds."
A fan autographed the scorecard - one "George something or another" but at least he made a comment too..."with Morris pitching it will be 14-0" Well, that would have been nice. Morris was not getting much respect out there coming in, before the game and next to his name I snidely scrawled "the jerk we know and love."
Ah, here is a play on names...I wrote "Manny RAMirez" emphasizing the RAM which I suppose was a reference to butt sex. Again, this was the Beavis and Butthead era. We gave yet another nod to "Windmill Willie" Randolph, by speculating that Don Quijote was stuck on his arm. A joke that takes some thought!
Faux celebrities on hand were "Kenny Rogers" and "Peter Sellers." Welcome! Ah, I am seeing the old "home run in a silo" joke on here in reference to a popup...that joke has not aged well. We also did some singing, although I noted "we sound like castrated men."
Its funny, when Jim Thome came in to pinch hit for the Indians in the 9th (he eventually K'd) and I remarked "ONLY WHITE GUY ON THE TEAM." And thats almost no joke! The starting lineup, aside from Mark Lewis, who no one noticed, was Lofton, Baerga, Belle, Eddie Murray, Candy Maldonado, Ramirez, Alvaro Espinoza, and Tony Pena. Hispanics and African-Americans galore. Oh, and Mark Lewis.
Fu*king Ramirez was at it again. He cracked yet another home run off Yankee pitching, and clouted a double to left in the 7th. Even then someone muttered "this Ramirez deal is like a bad B movie." If we only knew then...
Jim Abbott started for the Yankees, again...its like he started every game I ever went to. He pitched ok, and squeaked out the win, with Xavier Hernandez actually notching his 5th save, with setup help from Bob Wickman. Hernandez K'd 2 in the 9th, and when he got two strikes on Kenny Lofton with 2 outs and one on someone uttered, "strike him out...it will be the happiest day of my life." Lofton did not cooperate - he flew out.
Morris walked 5 in 7 plus innings of work, causing me to write "there are more balls around Morris than in a parade of elephants." Wow, between that and the arcane Don Quijote reference, I have some real "thinking mans jokes" that night. That jackoff Jose Mesa also took a turn on the hill for the Indians that night. On the Cleveland side of things, not only did Ramirez have a fun evening, Albert "Joey" Belle went 3-4 and had a savage poke over the fence off of Abbott as well.
In what seems to be a pattern with people I am mentioning on here around this time, Morris was released later in the year, on August 9th. And that was a wrap for him. He ended up with a 5.60 ERA (after notching a 6.19 ERA for Toronto the year before) in 23 starts. I am happy we got to see the jerk get his 4th loss of the season on this night.
What a putrid crowd. A mere pittance of 16,567 were on hand, and the game clocked in at 2:59. Your umpires on the night were Larry Young, Rich Garcia, Brian O'Nora, and Dale Ford.
Thanks for reading!
"Do the wave and wave your ass out of here!"
Ah, a Monday game. This may have been one of the last Monday games I ever made, due to my swilling a 6-pack while watching Monday Night Raw addiction that kicked off around this time. But, nonetheless, I was here to see former Tiger great Jack Morris wrapping up his career with the Cleveland Indians. That dick.
The Yankees had just finished off a 3 game sweep of the Red Sox at the Stadium, which I missed cause of "a doctors appointment and Mothers Day." Weak!
Speaking of dicks, Manny Ramirez was on hand. And his "contingent" was out in full force, the Dominicans we dubbed "dummy in a cans" who would crash our party whenever Manny was in town, raising all kinds of Cain. This feud between our core crews continued on for another decade. I saw fit to remark on here that my boss Bernard (who ended up firing me twice over time) was at the Devils/Bruins game after saying he was going to come along to this Yankees game with me instead. I also mentioned that I was "sober" and that it was good to show up like that every once in a while to surprise the lookie-loo's who kept one eye on us along with one eye on the field even then. Things off-kilter, like me being sober, confused them.
A wave started to simmer, and Queen Bee Tina hopped up and got into the face of a ringleader with the classic line, "do the wave and wave your ass out of here!" She was busy that evening, also snapping at someone who flicked on the game on his radio, introducing herself with a curt "shut off the radio!" There was a lot of firepower hollering at the radio guy, as stalwarts Cowbell Ali and Big-Nosed George also had their say to him.
We spent the entire 3rd inning having a "how to sneak beer in here" discussion, so the prices must have been getting to us. Think of it, the average Friday and Saturday games probably set me back $30-$40 each on suds alone. I mean, holy fu*k.
The Manny Ramirez faction actually had a sign up there. Who would have known they could write? While I did not mark down what it said, someone cracked "they probably stole it." There are notes like "Ramirez faction sign distraction" and "talkin' shit with Ramirez fans" on here.
It would not surprise me that there would be a lot of interaction between the groups, even if it was acrimonious, as no one else was there but the rowdy bleacher bunch and the Ramirez faction...I wrote "seeing a lot of blue seats" - there have been bigger crowds at 1912 high school reunions than this Monday night affair.
The first Indian fan sighting was at 6:58....the Manny fans did not count, cause they could not name one other Indian. But enough about them. Since the Indians were in town we broke out the old "Old to Indian" song we conjured after the fatal spring-training boat crash, and Big-Nosed George laughed.
We were already starting to overuse "Yabba Dabba Douchebag!" as it is on the scorecard again. I was falling into a bad habit around this time of trying to provide game commentary in free areas of the scorecard, connecting them to the box applying to the hitter with arrows. They get in the way. There are bullet points like "rainbow throw" and "wild pitch, Belle on 3rd" and "Morris barehand" and "2nd on throw" dotting this particular card. To show I was thinking outside the box, I also was keeping play by play on crowd capers, as I see "aborted Friend of Mine song" and "first bell 7:21" and "oh, no, wave" and "bigger wave!" on here as well. I also noted that a 1-2-3 bottom of the 2nd "took 3 seconds."
A fan autographed the scorecard - one "George something or another" but at least he made a comment too..."with Morris pitching it will be 14-0" Well, that would have been nice. Morris was not getting much respect out there coming in, before the game and next to his name I snidely scrawled "the jerk we know and love."
Ah, here is a play on names...I wrote "Manny RAMirez" emphasizing the RAM which I suppose was a reference to butt sex. Again, this was the Beavis and Butthead era. We gave yet another nod to "Windmill Willie" Randolph, by speculating that Don Quijote was stuck on his arm. A joke that takes some thought!
Faux celebrities on hand were "Kenny Rogers" and "Peter Sellers." Welcome! Ah, I am seeing the old "home run in a silo" joke on here in reference to a popup...that joke has not aged well. We also did some singing, although I noted "we sound like castrated men."
Its funny, when Jim Thome came in to pinch hit for the Indians in the 9th (he eventually K'd) and I remarked "ONLY WHITE GUY ON THE TEAM." And thats almost no joke! The starting lineup, aside from Mark Lewis, who no one noticed, was Lofton, Baerga, Belle, Eddie Murray, Candy Maldonado, Ramirez, Alvaro Espinoza, and Tony Pena. Hispanics and African-Americans galore. Oh, and Mark Lewis.
Fu*king Ramirez was at it again. He cracked yet another home run off Yankee pitching, and clouted a double to left in the 7th. Even then someone muttered "this Ramirez deal is like a bad B movie." If we only knew then...
Jim Abbott started for the Yankees, again...its like he started every game I ever went to. He pitched ok, and squeaked out the win, with Xavier Hernandez actually notching his 5th save, with setup help from Bob Wickman. Hernandez K'd 2 in the 9th, and when he got two strikes on Kenny Lofton with 2 outs and one on someone uttered, "strike him out...it will be the happiest day of my life." Lofton did not cooperate - he flew out.
Morris walked 5 in 7 plus innings of work, causing me to write "there are more balls around Morris than in a parade of elephants." Wow, between that and the arcane Don Quijote reference, I have some real "thinking mans jokes" that night. That jackoff Jose Mesa also took a turn on the hill for the Indians that night. On the Cleveland side of things, not only did Ramirez have a fun evening, Albert "Joey" Belle went 3-4 and had a savage poke over the fence off of Abbott as well.
In what seems to be a pattern with people I am mentioning on here around this time, Morris was released later in the year, on August 9th. And that was a wrap for him. He ended up with a 5.60 ERA (after notching a 6.19 ERA for Toronto the year before) in 23 starts. I am happy we got to see the jerk get his 4th loss of the season on this night.
What a putrid crowd. A mere pittance of 16,567 were on hand, and the game clocked in at 2:59. Your umpires on the night were Larry Young, Rich Garcia, Brian O'Nora, and Dale Ford.
Thanks for reading!
Thursday, September 2, 2010
May 6th, 1994! Check me out, Im fighting!
May 6th, 1994 - Yankees host the Red Sox
16 "mystery outs???"
Not much to this one. This was one of those days when I was deep into my cups. Sensing a pattern, folks?
Our hated foes, Boston, were in town, and the first thing I note is a Gavin McLeod lookalike in Orioles garb. What the fu*k was an Orioles fan doing there, especially one that looked like the Captain of the Love Boat? Mind your business! You ever notice those schmucks who do the whole kit and kaboodle? This guy had an Orioles sweatshirt and an Orioles cap on. And we shredded him. Even Crapman the vendor, who had strapped two Yankee flag pennants to his box of wares, had a laugh at his expense.
My drinking could be excused, by both family and clergy, as it was, after all, a Friday night in the Bronx. I even had the temerity to complain about the style and structure of my physical scoresheet on here, saying "I dont have a good fu*king scoresheet." Well....all the years I continued to score out there, another 500 or more games over another decade or so, I used those same ones. They served me well, in retrospect, tally ho!
Under "date" I put, "haven't had one for a while" - got to love self-depracating humor! By the simple fact I was scoring so many games, you know I was telling the truth on that.
Jimmy Key was on the hill for the Yankees, which meant Pops was probably somewhere in the Stadium cause as he attested way too many times, he never missed a Jimmy Key game. I sure hope he wasnt the buffoon that stood up and yelled "You got the key!!" which was saved for posterity on here.
Ah, another celebrity siting - "Kenny Loggins" was walking around Section 39. So we sang Footloose at him. Someone actually snuck beer into the Stadium in a shampoo bottle...I suppose they had a toiletry bag with them....how much could a shampoo bottle even hold, 8 ounces? What a waste. I hope they got soap residue in their mouth.
I see we spent the entire bottom of the 5th having a "rotissierie discussion" How bout that, it was the days before it was simply called "fantasy baseball." These days, with the potbellied crew we came to be, a "rotisserie discussion" would have to involve chicken.
Even then the words "God's a Yankee fan" made the scorecard. Oh, did we love to rub that in Boston fan faces.
Hey, check me out! I got in a fight! I am a regular Lennox Lewis! My friend Dave Kelly who is now a DC powerbroker was on hand, and scrawled the account - and what a tale he transcribed! Here it is....."T gets in a fight" Vivid!
I remember this. Actually, what happened is I jumped into a fight. One of the clues that kept this in my memory bank over the years is the quotes "be careful" and the reply underneath "I am tryin' to watch a fight, ok?"
What happened was this.... A set-to sparked behind us and to the right, and before punches could fly I decided to head on up. Someone went to stop me and hit me with the "be careful" line when I said I was rolling over there, and as I pulled my arm away I slurred, "I am tryin to watch a fight, ok?"
Well, I did more....when the fight started I jumped in, right on the pile. I remember that much, I have no idea why I jumped in. I do know that there was a guy out there we dubbed "jerk in the box" cause he kept popping up and down from his seat, and I think the fight involved him. I also had scrawled "I cant believe those guys are standing up there scot free" sometime during the game, that probably referred to a group I wanted out for some reason.
This set-to went down in the bottom of the 6th. I was allowed to stay - they seemingly would only throw me out when I was innocent of all charges. I was always able to stay when I totally broke the rules. The only other hint as to who was involved in the fight was a nod to "Mets suck guy" - I believe this was who I came to the defense of.
As far as I recall, this was my first fight out there - there are a couple of more to come in time.
There are all kinds of "mo's" on here - mystery outs. There are also scrawls in the margin like "I think he stole second" and "I believe he was struck by a batted ball" with a line connecting it to a box where the only thing written in there is "out."
What a mess. This thing is totally illigeable. I dont know why I bothered, or people let me do it. For Christs sake, I am seeing 16 mo's on here, and a whole missing half inning (top of the 7th, just after the fight. I was probably answering questions proffered by Johnny Law, who hit the scene)
The only other marks of note on here was a "We want Zupcic" chant (he was a favorite target in 93/94, usually in center when Boston was in town, but nowhere to be found that evening) and a notation that The Gay Games were coming to NY (and Yankee Stadium) - there are no jokes regarding that here, but believe me, they are coming on another scorecard on a night that seemed like "rip the Gay Games night."
I also marked down what was really an innocous quote that could have been said regarding anything ("I liked the way you worked that in there" ) but I found funny, as it had sexual overtones. These were the Beavis and Butthead days, remember.
I was back in the "having a fan autograph the scorecard" mood, as some guy named Chris (something) signed, writing "going to Hawaii" underneath. Well, whoopie! I also found it important to note that Ali rang his first cowbell at 6:53 that evening.
The pitching lines are bare - I simply marked the names of the starters, Key and Aaron Sele. So its time to check retrosheet....I cant tell much of anything game related from the scorecard either, this really is a mess - aside from the fact that the Yankees scored 3 in the bottom of the 4th.
And it seems, checking online now, those 3 runs held up, as the Yankees notched a 3-1 victory. Key upped his record to 5-1 with a complete game, giving up the 1 run on 4 hits and ZERO walks. He struck out two. Nice. Sele lasted into the 6th, when he was relieved by good old Paul Quantrill, that fu*khead. Quantrill was in his second campaign in the bigs, in a year where he ended up starting 14 of 49 appearances, going 6-12. He was in a Boston uniform and I hated him, but I found him intriguing cause he shared the name of Civil War guerilla warrior William Quantrill. Tony Fossas (who was getting old even then but would never leave) and Greg Harris also pitched in for the Bosucks.
The only extra base hit of the game was by Tim Naehring (who went on to become a highly regarded farm director in the minor leagues) and the Yankees had only 7 singles of their own in what was a quick moving affair.
I see at least 3 notations of where I was "buying beer" so hooray me as the game only went TWO HOURS AND THIRTEEN MINUTES so I was doing some work. Whens the last time you saw one of those? Your umpires were none other than Ted Hendry, Mark Johnson, Chuck Meriwether, and Drew Coble, and 30,979 were on hand .
Thanks for reading!
16 "mystery outs???"
Not much to this one. This was one of those days when I was deep into my cups. Sensing a pattern, folks?
Our hated foes, Boston, were in town, and the first thing I note is a Gavin McLeod lookalike in Orioles garb. What the fu*k was an Orioles fan doing there, especially one that looked like the Captain of the Love Boat? Mind your business! You ever notice those schmucks who do the whole kit and kaboodle? This guy had an Orioles sweatshirt and an Orioles cap on. And we shredded him. Even Crapman the vendor, who had strapped two Yankee flag pennants to his box of wares, had a laugh at his expense.
My drinking could be excused, by both family and clergy, as it was, after all, a Friday night in the Bronx. I even had the temerity to complain about the style and structure of my physical scoresheet on here, saying "I dont have a good fu*king scoresheet." Well....all the years I continued to score out there, another 500 or more games over another decade or so, I used those same ones. They served me well, in retrospect, tally ho!
Under "date" I put, "haven't had one for a while" - got to love self-depracating humor! By the simple fact I was scoring so many games, you know I was telling the truth on that.
Jimmy Key was on the hill for the Yankees, which meant Pops was probably somewhere in the Stadium cause as he attested way too many times, he never missed a Jimmy Key game. I sure hope he wasnt the buffoon that stood up and yelled "You got the key!!" which was saved for posterity on here.
Ah, another celebrity siting - "Kenny Loggins" was walking around Section 39. So we sang Footloose at him. Someone actually snuck beer into the Stadium in a shampoo bottle...I suppose they had a toiletry bag with them....how much could a shampoo bottle even hold, 8 ounces? What a waste. I hope they got soap residue in their mouth.
I see we spent the entire bottom of the 5th having a "rotissierie discussion" How bout that, it was the days before it was simply called "fantasy baseball." These days, with the potbellied crew we came to be, a "rotisserie discussion" would have to involve chicken.
Even then the words "God's a Yankee fan" made the scorecard. Oh, did we love to rub that in Boston fan faces.
Hey, check me out! I got in a fight! I am a regular Lennox Lewis! My friend Dave Kelly who is now a DC powerbroker was on hand, and scrawled the account - and what a tale he transcribed! Here it is....."T gets in a fight" Vivid!
I remember this. Actually, what happened is I jumped into a fight. One of the clues that kept this in my memory bank over the years is the quotes "be careful" and the reply underneath "I am tryin' to watch a fight, ok?"
What happened was this.... A set-to sparked behind us and to the right, and before punches could fly I decided to head on up. Someone went to stop me and hit me with the "be careful" line when I said I was rolling over there, and as I pulled my arm away I slurred, "I am tryin to watch a fight, ok?"
Well, I did more....when the fight started I jumped in, right on the pile. I remember that much, I have no idea why I jumped in. I do know that there was a guy out there we dubbed "jerk in the box" cause he kept popping up and down from his seat, and I think the fight involved him. I also had scrawled "I cant believe those guys are standing up there scot free" sometime during the game, that probably referred to a group I wanted out for some reason.
This set-to went down in the bottom of the 6th. I was allowed to stay - they seemingly would only throw me out when I was innocent of all charges. I was always able to stay when I totally broke the rules. The only other hint as to who was involved in the fight was a nod to "Mets suck guy" - I believe this was who I came to the defense of.
As far as I recall, this was my first fight out there - there are a couple of more to come in time.
There are all kinds of "mo's" on here - mystery outs. There are also scrawls in the margin like "I think he stole second" and "I believe he was struck by a batted ball" with a line connecting it to a box where the only thing written in there is "out."
What a mess. This thing is totally illigeable. I dont know why I bothered, or people let me do it. For Christs sake, I am seeing 16 mo's on here, and a whole missing half inning (top of the 7th, just after the fight. I was probably answering questions proffered by Johnny Law, who hit the scene)
The only other marks of note on here was a "We want Zupcic" chant (he was a favorite target in 93/94, usually in center when Boston was in town, but nowhere to be found that evening) and a notation that The Gay Games were coming to NY (and Yankee Stadium) - there are no jokes regarding that here, but believe me, they are coming on another scorecard on a night that seemed like "rip the Gay Games night."
I also marked down what was really an innocous quote that could have been said regarding anything ("I liked the way you worked that in there" ) but I found funny, as it had sexual overtones. These were the Beavis and Butthead days, remember.
I was back in the "having a fan autograph the scorecard" mood, as some guy named Chris (something) signed, writing "going to Hawaii" underneath. Well, whoopie! I also found it important to note that Ali rang his first cowbell at 6:53 that evening.
The pitching lines are bare - I simply marked the names of the starters, Key and Aaron Sele. So its time to check retrosheet....I cant tell much of anything game related from the scorecard either, this really is a mess - aside from the fact that the Yankees scored 3 in the bottom of the 4th.
And it seems, checking online now, those 3 runs held up, as the Yankees notched a 3-1 victory. Key upped his record to 5-1 with a complete game, giving up the 1 run on 4 hits and ZERO walks. He struck out two. Nice. Sele lasted into the 6th, when he was relieved by good old Paul Quantrill, that fu*khead. Quantrill was in his second campaign in the bigs, in a year where he ended up starting 14 of 49 appearances, going 6-12. He was in a Boston uniform and I hated him, but I found him intriguing cause he shared the name of Civil War guerilla warrior William Quantrill. Tony Fossas (who was getting old even then but would never leave) and Greg Harris also pitched in for the Bosucks.
The only extra base hit of the game was by Tim Naehring (who went on to become a highly regarded farm director in the minor leagues) and the Yankees had only 7 singles of their own in what was a quick moving affair.
I see at least 3 notations of where I was "buying beer" so hooray me as the game only went TWO HOURS AND THIRTEEN MINUTES so I was doing some work. Whens the last time you saw one of those? Your umpires were none other than Ted Hendry, Mark Johnson, Chuck Meriwether, and Drew Coble, and 30,979 were on hand .
Thanks for reading!
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