August 8th, 1996 -
Thursday Afternoon Walkman John joins the Section 39 crew!Ah, yes, going on just about 13 years now. I had remembered this day differently than our friend John - fact was he was out there in 39, along with dozens of camp kids. Me? I remembered it as him being there WITH a camp. Honestly, fact that I remembered anything was an accomplishment. I still take credit for calling John over to sit with the big guns.
The main thing was the glut of kiddie corps out there that day. Being a Thursday afternoon, we were clustered with camps. The heading of the card crows, “We’ve been invaded by Santas Elves!” In the “Date” section, instead of WALKMAN JOHNS FIRST GAME we wrote “Day Camp Day Game”, and in the “Played At” tag we added the obvious “Romper Room.”
These kids were all over the place, in garish colors. Loud shirts, colorful hats. “There is enough electricity coming off those hats to light up the entire city of New York” someone scrawled. At one point someone muttered, “even the little kids are saying there are too many little kids here.”
Bald Ray played bouncer, standing up as each new crew of kids turned the corner, pointing to the far reaches and repeating loudly, “Day camps over there….this is the rowdy section!” At one point, someone – totally fed up, threw up their arms and groused, “What, is every camp in the United States of America out here??”
This was the sort of crowd that almost saw me leave the David Wells perfecto early. That would have been one for the books. Of course, I bet I did not have the same hangover on this Thursday afternoon that I had the Sunday of the Wells game. Well, he ended up pitching a perfect game with the same kind of hangover, apparently, so my staying for all of it was not such a feat in retrospect.
Some of the kids were ahead of the curve on bleacher behavior. One 8 year old brazenly hollered, “I want beer!” and a whole clump of them lustily joined in on the “Box Seats Suck!” chants, which they later changed to a repeated refrain of “Box Seat Faggots!”. Even with all this, a more devious sort promised, “I will say the sorts of things that will ruin their lives forever.”
Being a day game and with us inexplicably out of work for the day apparently (I wonder why….maybe I was fired at the time) we were looking for the beer guy. “Hey, drunk kid” rang out a shout to a dancing fool of a lad. “Where’s the beer guy?” The beer guy finally made his way up, scowling at all the kids who would not pad his pockets, and was mimicked with an imitator calling out, “Here’s your beer….that will be one arm, and one leg, plus tax, please.” Whats funny is, for all his efforts, someone else shouted, “the beer guy blows!!!!”
As always, alcohol was the talk of the town. A promo idea, bringing a bottle of Jack in on Mickey Mantle Day and get in free, was suggested. Speaking of promos, someone mentioned Coors Field’s “Oxygen Tank Night.”
Other random acts of lunacy abounded. Someone was walking around in a shirt that flat-out said, “FU*K YOU AND GOOD BYE” - and no, the C was not starred out. Every scorecard has random lines which, although you can not tell why they were said, they still look funny in retrospect. This one had, “I like a hard, steady spray” and in another spot, “ah, damn…now I got to touch my own squirter.” Somehow, I guess those two are related.
Oh, and folks, this one has a phone #! These appear time to time. Its either an “Ed” or an “Anthony” or both of them shared a pad, cause there is one phone #, and 2 names. The number, if you want to call it, is 745-3888. I don’t think 917 #s were all the rage back then, and with no area code I am guessing it was a 212? So, by all means, start calling around, and find out if Ed or Anthony pulled through.
As to the game itself, the Yankees won it, 8-4. Their lineup looked like this - Jeter, Boggs, Paulie, big Chubs Fielder cleaning up, Tino, Bernie, Strawberry, Joltin’ Joe Girardi-io, and Andy Fox. Gerald Williams actually elbowed his way into the game, pinch hitting for Straw in the 7th.
On the hill, David Weathers started at looked shoddy. In 3 plus, he gave up 5 hits and walked 3, but his reliever Bob Wickman cleaned up the mess and ended up with the win. We also saw Jeff Nelson, Dale Polley (holy crap, I had totally forgotten his existence till now) and Mariano Rivera, notching his 3rd save of the year. His line did not make the scorecard, whoever finished up the 9th must have been too excited about the win to bother going back to wrap it up. Its not my handwriting that inning….may it be the aforementioned Walkman John? We know for fact he did pick up the card that day. As to notes, Strawberry had his second and third thwacks of the year, both to deep right, driving in four on the day. Six different Yankees scored runs on the day, and we got to see a Sacrifice Fly from Fielder!
Yankee foe was the Palehose. Their lineup played like this - dancing Tony Phillips, 2B Norberto Martin, 1B Frank Thomas, DH Harold Baines, 3B Robin Ventura (look out, Nolan Ryan’s comin!), RF Dave Martines, CF Darren Lewis, C Ron Karkovice (routinely runner-up to Willie McGee and Otis Nixon as ugliest man in baseball) and loudmouth Ozzie Guillen manning short. Phillips whiffed 3 times, but sadly was in left, not right, that day, so we were not able to really pile on him as we always enjoyed. Lewis inexplicably had a good day, going 2-3, with 3 RBIS and 2 runs scored. Hit his 4th homer on the day, off the aforementioned Polley.
Silly Luis Andujar started for Chicago, and did not last long. No pitching lines made the scorecard for Chicago – they were simply ignored aside from the name, although the Yankee side is complete aside from Mo. But you can tell with a peek at the card that its an ugly one. In 3 innings he gave up 6 hits and walked 4. He was relieved by an interesting cat, one Mike Bertotti, who was born in Jersey and became good friends of a college buddy of mine. I remember this was a big deal at the time, although Bertotti never made much of himself. He actually got to retire with a supremely ugly ERA of 7.36, and he is our profile for the game.
Bertotti debuted in 1995, starting 4 games for Chicago, and hardly getting out alive. In 14 innings (an average of 3 innings per start) he gave up 23 hits, 11 walks, SIX home runs, and 20 earned runs for a 12.56 ERA. In 1996 he actually escaped with a 2-0 record, only starting 2 of his 15 games. His ERA over 5 was ugly, but his career best! He still gave up 28 hits and 20 walks in 28 innings. He was done for in 97, not even logging 4 innings. After 9 hits and a couple of more walks, he was done for. According the Baseball Reference, he made $378,500 in his career. So yes, he was paid that much, for THAT. Drafted in 1991, in the 31st round, so at least he was no real “ bonus baby.”
So there you go, the return of Scorecard Memories. I hope you enjoyed it, more to come. Cheers.
BOXSCORE FOR GAME
www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYA/NYA199608080.shtmlMIKE BERTOTTI
