The Lost Columns!

[$heriff Tom]

Well, it was bound to happen, when I was going through a stack of my old Yankee programs and a whole folder I have of original Bondy articles taken out of the paper, I stumbled upon some old "Sheriff Tom Commentary Archives" - these in particular seem circa 2000. I know a few have not seen the light in day for a while, cause one I have been looking for for a few years now and thought was lost to the ravages of time popped up.

A trip to Cooperstown, with the wild crew of Diggity Dan, Uptown Mike, Gang Bang Steve, and Tiena. I'll be putting that up a little later, Im still working round here. This column looks like a keeper.

As an added bonus, I found a couple of other funny gems I will share with you here, before I dump them into my archives. Cheers and beers!

[9]

Excellent! Looking forward to them.

[$heriff Tom]

CREATURE CONTINGENT INVADES THE HALL OF FAME

August 17th, 2000

Considering I have already pissed off everyone I know around here, I figured it was time to take my act on the road. A trip to the Hall of Fame, in Cooperstown, New York - the only town in America where the last one in at night shuts off the streetlight, sounded like the cat to my meow.

Started out with an egg carton's worth of us, which was whittled down to 5 when Carletti cancelled (that old gag) c ause it turns out he was driving one of those SUVs with that particular problem of seeing their tires shred, flipping them up off the road and through orphanage windows.

So when the dust cleared and me, Uptown Mike, and Dan Diggety Dan at the wheel steered in front of Rocky Sullivans after midnight on Saturday morning and picked up a totally zonked pair of Gang Bang Steve and Tiena, that was our trip. With Kid Rock circa 1993 blaring on the CD player and me cradling a Coors Light between my legs (yes, it did spill, as my orange soda and lemonades did later in the trip - sorry again, Dan!) we headed towards the waiting bastions of the Hallowed Hall.

The trip upstate was scenic, and we passed many a landmark. "Hey, that is whre I pulled off the road to get a hummer on the way to Syracuse in 1990!" "Hey, thats where I crashed my car!" Boy, did we laugh and laugh.

Heading up at midnight and arriving around 5AM sounded as good as going to a keggar already drunk, but in hindsight it did not work. First off, we had more water dumping on our head than a Russian submariner. It was a veritable car wash of rain as Diggety Dan weaved his way through winding country roads peppered by deer crossing signs and mailboxes with American Flags waving off of them. Steve and Tiena were drunkenly singing Irish hip-hop and Uptown was pointedly saying "No doubt, kid" over and over. I was simply spilling drinks.

First motel - no vacancy. Second motel - no vacancy. Damn, I wanted so bad to check in under an alias. Heywood Jablomie in particular. Dan next pulled into a veritable mansion ($250 a night, about $240 more than we wanted to spend) and Gang Bang ended up asking if we could crash on the lobby couches. That went over like the wave in the bleachers. The place reeked of pretentiousness. I mean, there was a highbrow walking around serving pigs in a blanket with an umbrella as the clock hit 6. We were hastily ushered on our way, stopping along the scenic route of the 3 mile driveway to take some pictures. Oh, and pee.

We stopped at a roadside to fuel up so everyone could just go and get high again, and we continued our trek to find beds. I mean, the Israelites had an easier time of it finding the Promised Land, wandering through the desert and plagues of locusts and fire and toads from the sky notwithstanding. To show how far in the sticks we were, we passed the local hospital, wich was a whopping one story tall. I believe it came complete with a ward for "Bear Attack Victims" though. EVERY building was one story (except for the ones that already blew down in the wind) which was even more pronounced when we passed the firehouse and saw the aeriel tower truck. I mean, what would they use that long extension ladder for, except to hang Christmas lights off a mountain or suicide leaps.

We finally ended up at a motel around 6:30 AM, and I was promptly given the floor to sleep, as the logic was I have fallen down and passed out on more of them than everyone else combined. After an unfitful 4 hours of sleep, predicated by Gang Bang traipsing into the bathroom and accidentially turning on the red "mood lights" and scaring the crap out of himself, we showered, stole some towels, and groggily steered our way to the nearest bagelry.

I had not visited the hall in over 11 years, and even then it was an ungratifying experience cause I dragged along a girlfriend who could not have cared less. She spent most of the time in the museum shop looking at Ty Cobb and Honus Wagner bibs for the "babies we would have." Yeah, that really came to fruition. I now use those bibs to wipe up the puke left on my floor after my Monday Night Raw parties.

We got a quick taste of NYC as we were herded into a line, where we chuckled and guffawed at the proliferation of Brewer, Cub, Mutt, Angel and Red Sox paraphenalia harbored by fans whose eyes darted away at the mere glimpse of our brigand selves. Of course, the Yankee fans abounded, sneaking sips out of flasks and tokes from cigars, gladhanding each other and us at our total Yankee domination of the sport, and the Yankee domination of the Hall of Fame line to get in.

Once insde we were welcomed by the wax Babe Ruth, which must totally piss off the Bossucks fans. Can you imagine having to walk in on that? And it was not even the "fat" Babe Ruth, it was the Bambino in his svelte, homer and slut-bang days. A quick left took us into the plaque room, where Uptown shot away a load of film. People watched us warily, as we have the intimidating swagger and presence down, but were impressed at our total baseball acumen as we discussed the merits of the players within, and spun yarns of the grand old game.

I took a shot with Mordacai "Three-Finger" Brown, while Uptown posed next to Jackie Robinson. Our legs got tired from the long trek from Yankee plaque to Yankee plaque. The room was a treasure trove. Kids were rubbing bronzed heads and laughing at nicknames like Ducky Wucky, Pudge, and "Old Perfessor." One young imp pointed to his genitals and barked, "Pudge...meet pudge!"

From there we moved upstairs to check out the Annual World Series tribute, where we have seemingly permanent lodgings, and all the Yankee memorabelia within. Jeters spikes. Torres jacket. A Brosius bat. A glove from Cone's last well-pitched game. My Sheriffs badge. A beer cup from the old Section 39.

Around this time we were tooling up some steps and head THE oddest thing....."Bernie Williams!!! Clap, clap-clap-clap-clap. Or some such. To make a long story longer, we the denizens of Section 39, were on TV, in the Hall of Fame. Turns out they were showing an episode of Max Baseball (guess they didnt have any "Baseball Bunch" in the archives) and during a Bernie feature, they panned to us doing our special brand of tribute. I only caught the dome of Bald Ray, but bystanders confirmed the whole happy bunch was there in a drunken, virulent choir.

From there we ambled the halls. We saw baseballs from 1865, when the old man security guards that now stand by our bleacher rails were busy fighting for the honor of the North at Lake Chicamuaga. We saw old-time Cb hats worn by Tinker to Evers to Chance, which sent Gang Bang on a fly to the shop to purchase one for his collection. We saw the uniform James Earl Jones wore in baseball flick "Bingo Long and the Travelling All-Stars and Motor Kings" (a savagely underrated classic) which sent off a spate of unfunny Darth Vader and "This is CNN" jokes.

We saw a cup presented to the winner of the 1903 Governors Cup and wondered if anyone ever peed in it. We saw Honus Wagners cigar cutter, and looked in vain for Garry Templeton's crack pipe. We strolled through the Hank Aaron tribute room, touched by the video, in awe of the memorabelia, and amused by the pictures of those two white dudes in Welcome Back Kotter afros, bell-bottoms, and tan suede jackets chasing Aaron around on his record breaking home run trot around the bases.

Of course, the place is a veritable Yankee shrine. Uptown scooped up all the Yankee Hall of Fame postcards, carrying them with both hands. Babe Ruth is afforded his own room, and we walked around it in hushed tones for once.

We stopped off at the case of balls from every no-hitter and perfecto, and recounted our experiences as Creatures in the house as we gazed at the Abbott, Gooden, Wells, and Cone spheres. We spoke in wonder of Pirate Dock Ellis' no-hitter back in the 70s, where he was tripping on LSD and walked like 11 guys. He said it felt like he was throwing to a railroad tunnel in the rocks that day. We wondered if the same stoner hippies from Aaron's home actually sold him the stuff he was tripping on that day.

We saw one of those cheezy videos while sitting in bleachers that must have been ransacked from the set of the Mickey Mouse Club, with touching imagery of kids running around on a field morphing into figures of Jeter, Griffey Jr, and Randy Johnson. We muttered "Clang" under our breath as we saw Piazza's helmeted head, in tribute of Roger the Rocket. We had to hear John Fogerty's "Centerfield" for the 8000th time, and we saw Abbott and Costello's "Whose on first' for the 10,000th. And its STILL not funny.

We sat in seats from the old Polo Grounds, and heckled Red Sox fans as they walked by, looking in vain for the 1918 trophy display. We told them to check the last urinal on the right. We saw a ball commemorating Mike Morgan's 4th decade in major league ball, and realized he has sucked since the 70s!

We ran through the bookstore like boys on a panty raid, scooping up t-shirts, programs, and dioramas featuring Bernie Williams sweet swing. I searched to no avail for one of those things you shake and snow flies all around, with a little Hall of Fame or Shibes Park inside. I settled for a Hall of Fame bat, along with postcards of 2 villianous enemies I grew to respect over the years, Robin Young and Earl Weaver. I also stole a stapler remover I saw sitting on the counter...

From the Hall we loped off the Doubleday Field, where we watched the sun go down and argued about where to eat. We were looking for a fine steak house, and all anyone in Cooperstown could talk about was a "cool bistro" down the way. Um, Bleacher Creatures do NOT do "bistros." How gauche. Uptown and Diggity Dan hopped the fence and went out to the far-reaching CF environs, where they got to watch an unsuspecting female changing in front of an open window in a house adjacent. Hopefully Uptown got pics of that.

Of course when we found the steakery, we wished we were cooking over a fire in the Catskill Mountains instead. This place made Applebees look like Tavern on the Green, with a corny menu featuring, among other peccadellos, "Seattle Marinara" Sauce, "Oh, Say Can You Ceasar Salad", "Fence Fries", "Veggie Jackson", "Tomahawk Chops", and "Grands Lamb." I ended up ordering a "World Serious" Steakand pounding 3 pints of Old Slugger Ale to quash the embarrasment of ordering "Bash Brother Baked Potatos" with that.

Once again we Creatures were shouted out unwittingly as the whores at the table next to us were talking about Luis Sojo's proficiency at taking everyone elses curtain call, and their talk talked to the roll call and what studs we were. Well, at least they mentioned the roll call. Gang Bang and Uptown, who switched table sides so he could scope the lay of the land, beamed with bleacher pride. I just drank more beer.

We had one more night in the motel, which consited of chugging ales, the guys chatting with old buddy "Johnny Blaze, who used his wit to make them laugh uncontrollably, and us boys moving in on a teenage girls soccer team that was using the parking lot as a dumping ground for their angst.

Uptown Mike climbed a tree, Tiena got drunk off Lynchburg Lemonade, and Steve turned on the mood light again by mistake.

The way home on Sunday was peppered with stops along the way to take pictures of funny signs like "Butts Corners" and "Beaver Road" and stores like "Bear Bottoms." At one point we were tooling down a road looking at silos and hay, and some goofball appeared out of nowhere juggling knives. Talk about a twilight zone moment. We pulled over to watch and clap, hoping to distract him so he would cut himself all to Hell, when he broke out a unicycle, hopped aboard, and continued to juggle. While listening to headphones! I am not making this up. Sometimes truth IS funnier than jokes.

This all culminated further down the road with Diggety Dan cliff diving from the awe-inspiring height of 10 feet. I climbed on up, never planning to jump, but rather to show off my well chiseled and finely honed physique to the hotties around the roadside creek. I climbed back down without jumping to a chorus of boos and hollers, only to play around in the stream until currents did that funny thing they do and steered me off a waterfall. Yes, I fell down a waterfall, a good five foot drop onto a melange of rocks. I also threw up on the side of the road on the way home, spilled another drink, and played my Pietasters CD over and over again. And the whole time Uptown simply said, "No doubt, kid."

Thanks to Dan for driving up and throwing away Steve's collectable bottle of Old Slugger Ale with the trash from his car, good move there. Thanks also to Gang Bang Steve, Tiena and Uptown Mike for being their normal supercillious selves, and making this trip a really grand time, I had a blast.

So, if you get a chance, amble up to the Hall of Fame. A veritable orgy of Yankee bombast (I had to get the word orgy into this) and you never know, you may see yourself on TV while you walk up the stairs.

Here's looking at ya, Rogers Hornsby!

SHERIFF TOM TOM TOM

[9]

I violated the sacred rule once, too: NEVER go to the Hall of Fame with someone who can't appreciate it. GREAT read.