Scorecard Memories - 1993!

[$heriff Tom]

Scorecard Memories - 1993
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June 1st, 1993 (Take Me Out To The Ocean...)

Poring through old scorecards here. I will be doing this from time to time. I will post funny quotes from the past, and obscure factoids from these scorecards. Maybe this will conjure up some memories, maybe this will piss you off. I may even scan some of these, where you may see some of your own writing, or some crazy drunken scrawls.

First fact from this night - The "Take Me Out To The Ocean" song was actually penned on June 1st, 1993, obviously during a Yankee/Indian affair. It was actually titled "Ode To Indian"

This was the season following the spring training boat crash that killed Steve Olin and Tim Crews, of course, and in which Bobby Ojeda survived. Here are the original lyrics (which never really changed) as they appeared on that night 11 years ago.

Take Me Out To The Ocean
Take me out on the boat
Buy me a 6 pack and a bottle of booze
We'll hit the pier just like Olin and Crews

Drink drink drink till you're drunk
If you dont die its Ojeda! (suck my Peter!)
Cause its 1, 2 dead Indians
On the ole speedboat!

Song notes are scrawled on the back, and the lyrics are printed in their entirety on the front. While I obviously shared a heap of credit, the actual names of the lyricists is nowhere to be found.....where you there on 6/1/93?

Funny notes off the scorecard include a couple of us were stopped outside the gate and told to "leave our sodas outside" - we apparently sang Row Row Row Your Boat to the Indians which caused Indian rightfielder Wayne Kirby to inexplicably laugh, and someone cracked that "Indian Pitchers win the Die Young Award"

Yet another Indian boat crash joke was "Indians and drinking....who'd have ever thought?" And, as if the song we penned was not historical enough, this apparently was the night oldtime bleacher legend George was told to stop his act of banging on the seats at the top of the bleachers with his miniature bats....anyone who was out there back then would remember that as a regular (and very annoying) feature out in Section 39.

On to the game notes themself....Jose Mesa started for the Indians, against Mike Witt for the Yankees, making one of his rare starts (and he only lasted a full one-third of an inning here, as the Indians put up a 5 spot) - the Indians won 15-6, with Albert Belle cranking 2 bombs. The Yankees made 3 errors (Boggs, Spike Owen, and Randy Velarde, who was playing centerfield, and someone commented was playing out there like he was on rollerblades)

Kenny Lofton led off for the Indians, Dion James for the Yankees. After Lofton led off the 4th with a bunt hit I wrote "a bunt? hit like a man!" in the margin.

Jim Leyritz was batting cleanup for the Yankees, and hit a home run. Among the parade of relievers that came in for the Yankees was Neal Heaton, who I forgot was ever on the team and current bullpen coach Rich Monteleone.

Hope you enjoyed your first of many Scorecard Flashbacks!

June 16th, 1993

On June 16th, 1993, the Comedy Police were needed on hand. I dont know if this was all my doing, but next to the names in the lineup I added nicknames in front of some of the last names in the lineup. These are beyond awful.

For the "Dread Sox" as they were ID'd in the linescore, there was Andre "Richard" Dawson, John "Don't Be My" Valentin, and "Chita" Rivera playing second. For the Yankees we had Kevin "No" Maas, Paul "Nine Inch" O'Neill, Dave "Tweety and" Silverstri, and Pat "Peanut Butter and" Kelly.

The late Ivan Calderon was in right, and I wrote that even the blind find him ugly. Someone broke out the "you even suck on Nintendo!" line, so that is over a decade old. We were also chanting "Where's your green card?" at someone. We also nailed Calderon with a simple "your mother is your wife" line.

Someone also wrote "best sex I never had" on the scorecard, whatever that is alluding to.

The beer guy was hawking cold beer, so we were asking him if he had any warm beer instead. In the bottom of the 8th, with Kelly at the plate and the Yankees down 7-1 Calderon was showered with the "Friend of Mine" ditty.

There is a note on here that Suzyn Waldman sung the anthem the night before.....is this possible? Does anyone have any idea if this could be true? I have no idea why this would be on the scorecard unless there is an inside joke I have no recollection over.

As for the game itself, Melido Perez started for the Yankees and was shelled. The Sox had a 4-1 lead after 2. Bernie Williams led off for the Yankees and made an error in centerfield. Seems there was a disputed home run, the umpire called a Bernie shot foul and Buck Showalter came out to argue...I claim on the card he was out there 15 minutes, and was ejected from said proceedings.

The villian of the game was good old Mike Greenwell, who cranked a 3 run shot in the first inning to set the night off on the right foot. The winning pitcher was John Dopson, who was 30-47 for his career.
Was this the evolution of the "everybody sucks!" chant? July 18,1993. On one side of the scorecard is this little melange...

Mets Suck!
Ruben Sucks! (Sierra was in RF for Rangers)
Box Seats Suck!
Boston Sucks!
Your Mother Sucks!
Security Sucks!
The Blimp Sucks!

There is no "Everybody Sucks!" at that point. Must have been something new, for it to be written on the scorecard, methinks. Interesting to see the RF ahead of the Box Seats in the pecking order.

Yes, there was the Met Life blimp hanging around, according to the notes. I am guessing it was a Saturday game as the heading is "televised ass-kicking in the Bronx" as the Yankees notched a TEN SPOT in the 7th against the A's (described in the boxscore as the ASS) - I am thinking there was a sock giveaway as well, as "Its raining socks!" is written in big, loopy letters near the top.

Not many notes on here. Someone broke out the old "does your shirt come with a volume control" line. Apparently "Friend of Mine" was sang to Ruben Sierra with one out in the Yankee 8th, and for those of you that have wondered, "Syphillis" was indeed sung all the way back in 1993! Joe sang this with the A's batting in the 7th.

There was a nod to Beavis and Butthead as someone wrote "uh, the A's got their ass kicked or something" on the scorecard. And the line of the game, howled to the field, seemed to be "you're so dumb you think ringworms is a lawn game!" Fuck, I remember that one.

Who was the beneficiary of the beatdown? For the most part Goose Gossage, who was torched for 7 hits and 6 runs (unofficially, remember who was keeping score and how much we drank) in one and two-thirds innings. He was replaced by Dennis "Upper-Deck" ersley.

Yankees starting pitcher? Bob Wickman. Home runs from Tartabull, Mattingly, and Mike Stanley. Wade Boggs led off the Yankees, and Tartabull was in the cleanup spot. The one and only Paul Gibson closed out the game for our beloved Yankees.

Some of the luminaries in the A's lineup included Jerry Browne, Mike Aldrete, and DH Troy Neel, who ended a 3 year career with 37 home runs in 230 games, and a .280 batting average. Always wondered where he dissapeared to.

Time of the game was a "slower than evolution" (as described) 3:38, and there were 29,645 on hand. Your umpiring crew was Larry Young, Chuck Meriwether, Rich Garcia, and Dale Ford.

As always, thanks for reading.

Lets go to July 23rd, 1993. 2 days before my 25th birthday. Geez.

Mark Hutton's debut! The lanky Australian who went on to a lifetime 9-7 record in 84 games (18 starts) in his 5 year career. A nifty 4.75 ERA too!

Australia was described on the scorecard as a place where "they eat a lot of Kiwi and stuff." I noted that a little kid was walking around with a tag on his hat...considering I saw about 10 people doing that just last night at Game 2, I think he was a trendsetter for what is now a fad.

Apparently I was VERY drunk during this game. After all, it WAS a Friday game. A note in the margin that says "incomplete inning for TJ....drunk beyond belief!" is one hint. The way my writing was getting more difficult to decipher inning to inning is another. The totally impossible to read sentences on there make it obvious.

I seem to have wrote the lineups in a steady hand, so we know this was part of the golden era, when beer was on hand inside the bleachers. Someone else's hand wrote "If you can read this you are lying" which may have been either directed at me, or anyone trying to read my gibberish in the middle innings.

The most telling part of my inebriated nature is this note - TJ PUKES HIS GUTS OUT IMMEDIATLY AFTER GAME! - this I remember and there may be a few of you who do as well. I remember holding it in, and the second the game ended I spewed right on the floor in front of me. I ended up doing this again a couple of years later when I was experimenting with chewing tobacco out there.

The game went fast. Officially, checking retrosheet.org, it ended in 2 hours and 22 minutes. "Outta Here Before 10!" is on the card, which means I must have pounded my beers pretty fast. These were the days of the 7:30 start. I forget where we were drinking before games back then....could have been inside the Stadium cause we did some serious heckling back then before games when beer was sold inside. I did write "3 Fosters" on the top margin....possibly sucked down in the early days of our Yancey Park excursions, or even outside the Stadium against the wall. Jesus, I hope that is not all it took to get me this drunk.

"This game is going faster than a car thief in Newark" was a line in which variations of have appeared throughout the next decade that was broken out here. The top of the 6th was noted as being at 8:48....during a game that started at 7:30.

Ah, another note regarding "self inflicted cigar ashes in TJs beer!" - this was the cigar era when there would be 40 people peppered around Section 39 and 20 of them would be smoking cigars from that store that is still on the corner. I remember clearly Teena walking up there one night, looking at all of us with cigars clenched between her teeth, and snarling to the guy that started that trend, "Cigars??? What the Hell did you start here, Dave!"

Ah, heres another funny note about my drinking which is scrawled with an arrow to the 7th inning....."TJ SET HIS BAG ON FIRE!" - I believe that was due to dropping cigar ash on cheap vinyl Yankee bag.

With Tim Salmon in right, the infamous "Salmon's Mom smells like fish" line made an appearance. We also used "Salmon does Curtis and pees on Snow" referring to Tim, Chad, and J.T, of course.

A bunch of fans autographed this scorecard. Remember, this was a gimmick I seem to have been running around this time. Under one auto (a Victor something) is the description "I got hurt at Yankee Stadium!" I have no idea what happened there. And under a choppily written what looks like "Kenny" is the description "a real cool 5 year old!" And this is the game where Dennis R., who has been mentioned on here already, signed his autograph.

And the most special one of all - Ali Ramirez signed the scorecard. And underneath he simply wrote "cowbell" as if anyone would forget...

Some game notes. Hutton won his debut with a splendid pitching performance...8 innings of 3 hit ball. 2 runs, 4 walks, and 5 K's. I got this off retrosheet and not my sheet, as the person replacing me did not compile the pitching stats and there are times where the factoids are impossible to read clearly. Amazingly enough there does not appear to be ONE mystery out the whole game. The losing pitcher in this 5-2 Yankee win was one Mark Langston.

Luis Polonia led off for the Angels, and the infamous Torey Lovullo manned second. Mike Stanley hit the games only home run, and Steve "How Farr Will He Hit It" got the save for the Yankees with a shockingly uneventful 9th. Someone actually did write "3 up and 3 down for Farr? I cant fucking believe it!"

There were 25,989 on hand (someone probably predicted 25,982 in Chicos attendance pool and somehow lost) and your umpires were the late Durwood Merrill, John Hirschbeck, Tim Welke, and Ed Hickox.

Thanks for reading!

MY FIRST EVER DOCUMENTED BLEACHER REGULAR SEASON GAME!

Love me or hate me, I have made sort of a name for myself in that block of seats. A heap of stories, capers, and antics. I (and many before and after me) will never be forgotten. And it all had to start sometime...

In 1992 I hit a few games out there. As I touched on, around then I was intimidated by old school creature George and was nervous to even speak to him. Can you imagine? I never found any scorecards from the 1992 season, so I guess I was too busy trying to fit in to keep score.

I kept score during the Mayors Trophy Game in 1993, on April 4th. But my first regular season game - the first of nearly 600 games I have documented came 2 weeks later.....it was

APRIL 15th, 1993

And, oh Christ, what an ending. Steve Howe and Steve Farr blew a FOUR RUN LEAD IN THE 9th and the Yankees fell 5-4. Holy fuck. This was the night the infamous "HOWE FARR can they hit it?" axiom was born forevermore.

First, the notes on the card. Not much happening here. I guess I was still finding my footing. I actually saw fit to write down that we were told to "stay off the seats" when we stood on them to do some such thing. And I even found it worthy to write down the time of the first pitch, quite the silly stat. Incidentally, it came at 7:36.

I noted that the weather was cool and foggy. When the Hell have you ever seen it foggy out there? I wrote that Brian McRae was "Daddy's Little Girl" . I noted that there was a "big fat guy in the box seats." Not much effort on my part there.....not even one fat joke. Can you imagine any of us jokesters simply writing "big fat guy in the box seats" on a scorecard today?

I used to note EXACTLY where certain rhymes and ditties were sung...on this particular night "Horses Ass" was belted out with Felix Jose the unhappy beneficiary with Wade Boggs coming up in the bottom of the 7th and the Yankees up 3-0 at the time.

I "gave a star on the play" to what I termed as an "unbelievable leave his feet catch" by McRae on a liner by Pat Kelly in the 8th inning. This ended up being a HUGE play as it came with 2 outs and 2 men on, and would have plated some runs which the Yankees ended up truly needing.

THE GAME ITSELF

Jimmy Key manned the hill for the Yankees, and pitched an insane 8 innings of shutout ball. 3 hits, a walk, and 4 Ks. The Yankees had a fat 4-0 lead going into the 9th when Steve Howe ambled in to start the 9th.

Howe promtly gave up a single to Wally Joyner, a double to Hubie Brooks of all people, and another double to Felix Jose which plated both runners and it was now 4-2. Here comes Farr...

BANG! GONE! 2 run home run to tie the game by catcher Mike McFarlane. Holy shit, I will never forget the rage this instilled. Just like that it was tied, in mere minutes.

After a popup to the catcher Farr gave up 2 more singles, then got the second out on a fly ball from Greg Gagne. And then McRae, the bastard who made that catch to save those 2 runs in the bottom of the 8th notched an infield single that somehow scored the run to put the Royals ahead.

And I BROKE MY BAT. I had one of those stick souvinier bats, and I broke it at this point, as noted on the card. John Habyan of all people had to come in to notch the last out, the Yankees failed to score in the bottom of the 9th off of Royal closer Jeff Montgomery, and the game was history.

As Farr left the field to a barrage of boos, someone snarled "Joey Gasoline....Fireman of the Year!" and that made the card.

What pain. I am sure you all remember games that are somewhat similar. The fact that this was the FIRST regular season game I decided to score out there is sort of funny, when you think of it.

There were a whopping 14,091 fans in attendance..as I go through these I think I may find that this will be one of the lowest attendance figures I was ever a part of. Your umpires were Tim McClelland, Joe Brinkman, Derryl Cousins, and Rick Reed.

Thanks for reading.


Ah, my infamous birthday game, 1993. July 25th...I turned a whopping 25 years old that day, and what better place to ring it in than the vaunted Yankee Stadium, for an afternoon tilt against the Angels.

After sloshing through an alcohol induced haze 2 days before, as described above, I see no record I attended the game the next day. After all these years I would have attributed that to sleeping it off, but Old School Dennis told me that the very next day we got obliterated at Down The Hatch. So my history there is pretty much concurrent with my bleacher history.

This was THE COMEBACK GAME. Yankees were down 8-0 in the second inning, only to come back and win. But I get ahead of myself...

The scorecard is mainly full of a tribute to me. Not only did I headline it with "HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME" I seemingly coaxed anyone who was out there to sign it for me. If you were there way back then, you may have sighted this card. Looks like there is a "Bill Butler" and a "Mike Cornell" on here, as well as 3 autographs under the denomination "Upstate Yankee fans!" Captain Bob also took time to scrawl a birthday wish.

One dominating and interesting autograph, scrawled after the game and right in the middle over everything, was that of Michael Kay. I can just imagine how thrilled he must have been to autograph my scorecard outside after the game, considering how drunk I must have been. Hell, I dont even know how anyone could have possibly coaxed me around to the back in the first place, especially when there was more beer to be drank.

I see I spilled yet another beer, my 3rd of the week. And this was "before the game." There was a "Shove those Hot Dogs up your ass...we want more beer" ditty or chant that sparked, and someone went as far as to yell "Punch the soda guy!"

Any of you yolks remember singing the Munsters song when Mike Gallego used to come to the plate for us? With dozens of people all on cue, it was a beautiful thing. It was in full effect that day - Hell, that may have been the day it started, as I dont recall it appearing on a scorecard before, or since.

The Angels blasted Melido Perez and Rich Monteleone for 8 runs in the 2nd (although Monteleone ended up righting the boat and hurled 4 more scoreless innings on the day)

In another funny note, my cousin Jim came to the game that day and sauntered in during the bottom of the 2nd, all grins and giggles. He happened to take a offhand look at the scoreboard and nearly choked. "Is that 8-0" he queried.

The scorecard became a veritable mess as early as this crazy 2nd inning. Its peppered with mystery outs and items in the wrong place. Of course I was blamed as someone wrote, quite succinctly, "Tom fucked up the scorecard!"

Someone that looked like Spike Lee was out there, and someone yelled "hey, do the right thing and sit down, asshole!" Sometime in the 5th a "renegade bird" swooped down and scared the crap out of everybody.

As it was my birthday, I made the Gang Bang song for the first time. Captain Bob threw me in there, that big galoot. An early "Wave Stops Here!" made its appearance in the bleachers, and on the scorecard.

As for the game, after falling behind 8-0 in the top of the second, the Yankees came back with 1 in the 2nd, 2 in the 3rd, and 1 in the 4th, and it was now split in half. Luminary Hilly Hathaway was on the hill for the Angels, in his second (and last) season in the majors. He got out of there after the 5th, still holding the 8-4 lead. On came Gene Nelson, and by the time he left it was 8-7. And, come the bottom of the 9th, that is where we were at.

The 9th, on my scorecard, is unfortunately illegible. Someone was trying to write with a pen that had seen better days. Not only that, they were probably drunk cause it just can not be read. I do see an arrow to the margin noting "2 wild pitches" so it looks like Steve Frey, now manning the hill for the Angels, was having problems of his own.

I honestly dont remember the exact play that won the game, but I do remember talking about it for years later. I thought it was Pat Kelly all along...he did come in as a pinch-runner and later went 1-1 with an RBI, so lets say he got the hit. Mike Stanley had the only Yankee home run, back in the 2nd inning.

There was a nice crowd out there on a day that was "too fucking hot!" - 50,429. After some of the paltry crowd totals I have thrown up on here from that season, it must have been quite the pain in the ass for us, so used to having a seat for our bag, and a row for our feet when we were still thin enough to lift them. Your arbiters for this Sunday afternoon affair were Tim Welke, Ed Hickox, the late and lamented Durwood Merrill, and John Hirschbeck.

Thanks for reading!

Its with heavy heart I even look to the past today. Going to have to make one Hell of a beer run later today - this game is a full fridger for sure.

[$heriff Tom]

But back into the past it is - July 30th, 1993, to be exact.

Our foes on that day were the Brewers. Remember way back when we used to sit out there and recall seeing every opposing team cap make an appearance out there, but never a Brewers cap? I remember the day we first saw a Brewer cap out there, so many years later. We could not even boo or heckle the guy, we were too busy slapping 5's for finally seeing a hat from the Brew Crew.

A Yank win - 8-5, behind the efforts of one Scott Kamienieki, who had the lame nickname of "Kamelot" on the scorecard. Steve Howe actually put down the pipe and pitched a scoreless 2 1/3 to close it out. But I get ahead of myself.

Anyone remember Jeff? Ended up working with the Stadium or some photographers in some capacity. Back then he was just a shifty looking guy. He wished me a Happy Birthday on the card, a mere 5 days late. Someone named "H.B Thomas" also autographed the card, and identified themselves as "Bleacher Buddha Belly" - holy fuck, can that name fit about two dozen of us now.

We started the game 1 game out, behind the Blue Jays. In those days, this was a big accomplishment, worthy of noting on the card. As was noting "even Gallego is batting .299" At the same time the Brewers were "the worst team in the AL" with a 41-60 record. That days starter, the venerable Cal Eldred (now coming to a playoff game near you) had 11 of those wins (and at the end of the day 11 of those losses)

Ali Ramirez was all over the cowbell that day, with 3 seperate cadences in the 7th inning alone, apparently (and the Yankees did not score 1 run) I developed a coding system to mark on the card where exactly we did the "Horses Ass" and the " -insert RF here - takes it up the ass, doo da, doo da" songs, as we did them multiple times a game at this point. I coded "Horses Ass" by making a little dot in the box for the batter up at the time, and used a cross for the "takes it up the ass song" - sorry, Lord!

At some point in the game someone yelled "sit down bitch!" and Teena corrected that with "thats not a bitch, its a dude."

There was a guy with one of those old-school Guldens Mustard Yankee visors on. Someone else deserved much credit for walking up the steps with no less than 4 beers in hand. I have seen that many times since (actually, with soda replacing the beers since 97) but considering how much money beer was, that is a risky thing to do, sort of like walking a trapeze of sorts.

Someone named Joseph broke their seat...not sure if it was on purpose during a Yankee win, or if he was fat. Something else annoying I was doing back then was marking arrival times. I guess I thought some of these people were famous enough to warrent it (appearance marks were made for Captain Bob, Cousin Brewski, and Dave "Animal) - fact that I was marking this also showed they were arriving late...maybe that is where I learned this in my later years. Damn, I hope someone is marking my arrival times on scorecards somewhere.

Speaking of old school flavor, Billy the Devil fan called a home run, which was noted. Mike Stanley, a 3 run shot. Enough people call home runs, or get them wrong, where this sort of thing would never be added to the card today. I missed the same home run as I was "lighting my cigar" at the time. And, get this, I missed someone in the bleachers throwing back a Brewer home run by Darryl Hamilton as at the time I was "burning a hole in Joseph's scorecard" with that same cigar.

Remember a couple of days ago I mentioned the guy that burned his hair for fun? Well, he was thrown out of this game doing just that in the 8th inning. He got the old heave-ho. Apparently he went to the well one too many times, as he got away with it in the 6th.

Ali came up with a real zinger that I have used to this day. He said "if Chico went to the zoo and saw the elephants, who would throw peanuts at who?"

There is a frantic "uh, oh, wave!" warning on here. The wave was running rampant all the way through the top of the 7th, and that is probably why Ali was going bezerk with his bell, trying to stop the damn thing. At some point in the game (2nd inning, I bet) the scoreboard actually read "2 0 2 2 2 2 2 "

For the record there is only ONE "MO" - mystery out - on the scorecard. Considering the way they appeared 5-15 times in later years, that is something. I seem to have kept score the entire game myself, so my days of whoring the thing out were not the norm yet.

As for the game itself, after Eldred had a shaky outing we got to see that slot Mike Fetters, and the old even then Jesse Orosco finish up. The Brewer lineup featured such luminaries as John fucking Jaha, and Tom Brunansky out of his Twin duds.

For the Yankees we saw home runs from Danny Tartabull and the aforementioned Mike Stanley and Dion James. We saw a stolen base from Bernie Williams, while going 2-2, with 2 walks as well.

The attendance on this Friday night was a scant 23,385 (and I mentioned there was a LONG row of nothing but blue seats to our right) and your arbiters were Rich Garcia, Dale Ford, Larry Young, and Chuck Meriwether.

Thanks for reading!

Well, its continuing to talk about last nights true debaucle and get myself all riled, or another one of these. Lets look to the past.

July 31st, 1993. The Brewers still in town. Yanks went in tied for first base, as I mentioned before, back then that was a big deal. I have a pic from around this time of Captain Bob outside the bleachers holding up a NY Post back page with Jim Abbott in full motion, and the heading "Hey Abbott! We're In First!" And Captain Bob has his mouth agape as if he is joyfully screaming.....I swear, you dont usually see faces that excited when the World Series is won. And all it was is first place early in the season...

Jimmy Key started for the Yankees, so Pops was probably at the game. We also played a team nicknamed "the Brew Crew" so Pops was probably in attendance. This was a wild one, with the Yankees winning it in the bottom of the 9th, culminating in a bunch of us falling down on top of one another while we hopped around on the seats.

I was there with the crew I used to hit the OBI on Long Island with back in the day, my friends Joe, John, and Kerry (a dead ringer for Jesus Christ) True to form, apparently they were late, and I cheekily noted this on the heading of the card. Joe took a look at a group of ugly girls sitting in 37 and called the whole area "Jur-ass-lick Park"

A curious fan, child in arm, leaned over the loge seats, prompting a "throw us the kid!" chant. I was VERY drunk this whole game. This is when a scorecard scan would really bring the mood, as my writing is all over the place, I was having problems putting words together. Therefore, there are very few funny jokes cause when I was in that sort of condition, it was hard enough to write in the plays.

At one point I pointed to some tough guy Italiano and asked aloud "hey, is that Guido Jones?" and Joe said, "No, thats Fag Bag Meyer." I ate a bug, which was always a stunt of mine. I would imagine it was a small bug on my shirt, that I pluck off when its called to my attention, and pop in my mouth.

Somehow over the course of things I found out that Rizzuto said NINE "Holy Cows" earlier in the week for my birthday game when the Yankees, trailing 8-0, came back to beat the Angels 9-8 in the ninth. I have no idea how that information was attributed.

One lucky fan autographed the scorecard, with the tagline "I gave U chips!" So I guess I was allowing people to whore themselves out on the scorecard in return for giving me free potato chips.

"Drop dead like Drysdale!" was used. Don had died earlier in the month, on July 3rd, and now his legacy in 39 was as insult fodder.

An "argument about beer" started in the 5th, and was still going on in the 7th. "Beer argument still going on" I wrote in unsteady hand 2 innings after I wrote "Arguing with beer." Knowing the guys I was with, it was probably an argument over who owed the next round. My friend Joe was all excited to hear the infamous "Gang Bang" but alas, he was in line for beer when Captain Bob broke it out that day.

With as much as I was drinking DURING the games that day, I am amazed at the total lack of mystery outs, especially as I seem to have handled the whole game myself. There were only 3 in this entire game, all while the Yankees were up. I guess as the years went on and there were more characters out there to distract me, the mystery outs flowed like water. Believe me, I will be recounting nights with as many as FIFTEEN mystery outs on them.

As for the game, we hit the 9th tied at 4. All four of our runs were notched off of one Rafael Novoa, who I had forgotten ever existed. This was his second, and final, major league season. He was relieved by one Matt Maysey, a Canadian who also had a sterling 2 year career, and was in his final campaign. I mistakenly wrote him in as "Lacy (?)" on the card, so my knowledge of prospects was no means as good as it is today. And then our old friend Graeme Lloyd sauntered in, completing the Australian battery with Dave Nilsson, behind the dish for Milwaukee.

In the 9th Mike Gallego won the game, plating Spike Owen with a single off of Doug Henry, in front of 30,140 on a Saturday....night? Day? We used to play a lot of Saturday night games back then. "9th inning dramatica" was the way the ending was described. Not only did a whole bunch of us tumble off the seats, Ali apparently was ringing the tin the whole inning, trying to end the game and send us off.

Mike Stanley drove in 3 runs. He was ALL OVER these early scorecards. Holy shit, was he hitting. Jim Leyritz actually started in right, with Paul O'Neill coming in as a pinch-hitter/replacement later in the game. After Key pitched a solid 7 innings, giving up 2 runs, Bobby Munoz came in and imploded, allowing the Brewers to tie things up at 4 in the 8th, then Paul Assenmacher came in and gave up a hit before Bob Wickman came in to stop the bleeding. Wickman ended up with the win, bringing his record up to 10-3.

Your umpires were still Dale Ford, Larry Young, Chuck Meriwether, and Rich Garcia.

Thanks for reading!

AUGUST 2nd, 1993 - Toronto at Yankees

Moving onward, we are now at August 2nd, 1993. The "Blow Jays" as we called them were in town. I used to have a pin with a Blue Jay cartoon head on it, with the words "Toronto Blow Jays" around it. Problem was, when I would wear it, people could not read the writing from afar and thought for whatever reason I was wearing a Blue Jay pin. So, Yankee hat or shirt or not, I got too much heat and left the pin tacked up at work.

I have to pull some pics out - its me, George, my friend Jamie from upstate, some other crazy guy that was out there whose name I could not recall.....one of them (George, methinks) printed out these long computer paper things that read "Blow Jays" on them, and we wore them draped over our clothes....we looked absolutely ridiculous. The neon green shirt I was wearing underneath just added to the melange.

To the scorecard! Well, this was a sad anniversary, of course. The Captain, Thurman Munson, passed away on that date 14 years before. I will never forget the day he died, and it has already been 14 years then. What a legacy he left. The Stadium did a nice video tribute to him that evening, which was duly noted. When I just went to retrosheet I noticed Munson was nicknamed "Tugboat, Squatty Body, and The Wall. I had to check, after ViolentA started using "Willow" to identify Windmill-ie Randolph.

The fans certainly showed respect to Thurman, but not the Canadian National Anthem. This was the year deafening boos were ringing across country lines in regards to the Anthems. The Canadian Anthem was booed lustily, which resulted in measures and comments you will see in the next couple of scorecard installments.

Thats not where it ended with Canada. "Kids In The Hall Suck" was bandied about as well.

There seemed to be a lot of animosity in the air. Maybe hovering around first place was getting to us. BOX SEATS SUCK (DICK!) someone wrote. At 7:10 I noted that I "lit my first cigar" so I was a multiple burner back then. An "1st asshole alert" was posted at 7:11PM. 11 minutes later someone wrote "We got a party!" with a 7:22 attached. Devon White, in center, got a "Devo sucks, and he knows it!"

Not all sat well with the crowd. It was a total sausage factory out there, as someone wrote "saw more guys asses than Yankee runs" with a frowny face on the card. The infamous "Crapman" song, which is a favorite to this day, was sang lustily in the top of the 5th.

Even with this there were moments of joy outside of the game action. "Eddie Layton playin' some bitchin' tunes" someone wrote. The sentiment seems to have turned, though, cause right under that someone wrote "shut the fucking music off!"

Seeing how many comments from others were on here (and a total lack of funny ones) I have to believe that I must have been deep into my cups. I did manage to write on the card that the D train won the Great Subway Race....was I so starved for material?

No less than FIVE people got the boot from the boxes together in a mass ejection at some point. That was duly noted. There was yet another broken souveiner bat, there seemed to be one every day at this point, as someone named "John" broke his "already" in the bottom of the first.

Kept a running tally on how many times we heard certain chants and ditties...."Horses Ass" was belted out 8 times over the course of the night, and ".....Takes It Up The Ass" tied things up late in the game, with 8 renditions of its own. Your lucky beneficiary of said song was one Joe Carter, who had plenty to say about the Yankee fans booing the Canadian anthem in the next couple of days. Carter also got a heartfelt "Fuck you, Carter.....fuck you!"

I see "a non-midget would have had that one" written on here, and seeing Pat Kelly made the only error of the the game, yeah, it was probably directed at him.

Jim Abbott was on the mound for the Yankees, facing the fiery Todd Stottlemyre. A pitching duel, with an unhappy ending. The Jays took a 2-0 lead in the top of the 6th on a two-run homer from our friend Devon White, and upped it to an insurmountable 4-0 with 2 more in the top of the 9th before Abbott got the hook and Paul Assenmacher, making his second Yankee appearance after coming over from the Cubs, stopped the bleeding. Our other nemesis on the night, Joe Carter, had the two run dinger in the 9th, so the two guys we yelled at all night won out in the end.

Stottlemyre hurled 7 scoreless innings before Danny Cox (written, of course, Cocks in the pitching line) came in to shut the door and notch a save. Did you know Cox was born in Northhampton, England? Nor did I.

Other luminaries in the Toronto lineup included Ed Sprague (who shares my birthday) John Olerud, Tony Fernandez, and Pat Borders, who is still inexplicably catching today. Roberto Alomar started at second, but came out of the gfame in the first inning after striking out....as he was back in the lineup the next day I am figuring he must have been ejected for arguing the call (sure hope he did not spit at anyone) although there is no real explanation on the card.

The Yankees wasted 9 hits in getting shut out, with Boggs, Dion James, and Bernie all going 2-4. The Yankees started the first with back to back singles by Boggs and James but got nothing for thier efforts. Mike Stanley threw out Borders stealing.....no, I dont know why Borders was running either.

A VERY nice crowd for a Monday (43,304) and your umpires on the field were Joe Brinkman, Derryl Cousins, Rick Reed, and Drew Coble.

Thanks for reading!

[$heriff Tom]

August 4th, 1993 - Yankees host Toronto
"THE ANIMAL HOUSE THAT RUTH BUILT"

Well, I had mentioned that things were starting to get out of hand during this Yankee/Jays series, with the Yankees so close to first place, and the anti-Canadian sentiment running high so many years before the South Park movie.

This night, August 4th, 1993, also goes down in history for another baseball milestone...in Texas, Chicago's Robin Ventura was plunked by Nolan Ryan and charged the mound. As we all know by now, Ryan put him in a headlock and started churning punches to the head. But lets get back to New York....

A couple of days before the NY Post had a backpage headline "The Animal House That Ruth Built" with a pic of some crazy fans on the back. This was spurred by the booing of the anthem, some fans taking a skip and a jaunt on the field, and a number of fisticuffs in the seats. I taped that back page on to my closet and it remained there for a couple of years before I redecorated.

At the time of this game, the Yankees had moved from a tie for first, to a full 3 games behind the rampaging Jays. Things were tense, indeed.

Despite public pleas to stop, the Canadian Anthem was booed lustily again. This had all spurred Toronto's Joe Carter to proclaim it made him "embarrassed to be an American." Of couse the Stadium, and the bleachers in particular, were eager to make him pay for such sentiment.

My priorities were different back then. I even marked on the scorecard that my friend Chris paid me back some money he owed me. How I had money to lend, beats me....

If people remember the scorecards I used, they had a little space for you to fill in "Date" and "Played At" - I used to scrawl in little chuckles. Like, under date you would not be surprised to see something like "wish I had one!" or "5000 other drunks" and under "played at" you would see "1st Place Place" or "a slow pace."

On this day the date was "another night I would not see a Yankee no-hitter" (oh, that would change in a couple of years) and the game was played at "an Un-American place." Well, now when I mention these increasingly unfunny quips in those spaces in the future, you will know what they are about.

The scorecards I used were from a baseball board game, and they had something called a "reduction" which you could use in addition to the player cards. There was the word "reduction" over the pitchers names on my scorecards, and of couse being the wit I was back then I wrote the word "Breast" in front of it.

Many of you old-schoolers would remember a fellow named Dave, better known as Animal. He was the loud and brash one out there those days, helped along by a healthy dose of alcohol. Back then in 1993 he already had the "drink for a while and come in late" thing down, that took me almost 8 years to master.

Well, being he came in late and we were doing anything to entertain ourselves, we started a poll on "what time will Dave come walking in." For a 7:30 start I wagered 8:04, Dennis picked 8:12, an Ian went with 8:25, and John said an hour late, at 8:30. I scored the win as he came sauntering up the ramp, yelling at Joe Carter, at 7:55.

Back then Ali would ring the bell well before the game started, just to prep the crowd and get everyone singing and dancing in the aisles. First pitch this night was not until 7:37, but Ali's first bell-ring was at 7:05. As I was already inside, beer was still being sold in the Stadium

I kept the Horses Ass and "....Takes It Up The Ass" tallies again....that would not last much longer. Horses Ass was belted out only 4 times, and "Takes It" was sung 3. Looks like people were too busy fighting out there to sing.

For some reason beachballs were flying. And, undoubtedly, getting popped. Rickey Henderson was out in centerfield, and he saw fit to give us the finger. Of course we gave it right back, and more.

In one of my favorite lines to date, we went with the Canadian theme and shouted "Carter MOUNTIES Alomar!!" Heh, heh, thats a good one.

There must have been someone that looked like Elvis back then that sat in the bleachers. Cause this is not the first scorecard as I am going through these were I see the line "Elvis has left the bleachers" on them.

Looking over the scorecard someone ruminated that "Pat Kelly is among the Yankee stolen base leaders....he has one." Just under that quip is a notation that some guy was facing the bleachers and posing like "Mr. America" for absolutely no reason.

I am seeing fights noted here and there. I ended up dubbing this "Fight Night" - the first scrum broke out in the top of the 3rd, at exactly 8:22. So, at that point, Animal had been in the house for 27 minutes.

Remember I mentioned my Toronto Blow Jays pin that people would confuse for a, well, BLUE JAY pin? Well, it happened again. I mentioned that the pin got me in trouble with Paul Molitor at the plate in the 4th. I did not mark this, but I must have taken it off at this point, and it was soon retired.

"First projectile thrown" also came in the 4th. I did not mark where it came from, but the entire Stadium was in a frivolous mood. I marked down at some point that Dennis was my "3rd pinch-scorer" and that means I made 3 beer runs......hurray me!

There were stupid conversations even then. I made up a story that Wang Chungs "Everyone have fun tonight" song was voted "most innovative song ever" on WLIR radio. This spurned an argument that went on through the entire 7th inning. People were so gullible back then.

In another amusing note, none other than weak-stick Yankee Jim Mason (he of the .203 lifetime batting average) actually made a Yankee Quiz on the scorboard.

NOT ONE mystery out on the whole scorecard. Holy fuck, did things deteriorate from there.

Things looked good for a while on the field, with the Yankees building a 6-0 lead after 7, behind the inexplicable solid pitching of Scott Kamienieki. Mike Gallego of all people had a home run for the Yankees, and Paul O'Neill was 2-4 with 3 RBIs.

Things got a little worrisome in the 8th, as the Jays ended up plating 2. "Lock the bullpen gate!!!!" went up the cry. After Rich Monteleone and Paul Assenmacher put a stop to things, Steve Farr came out to cringe and shudder in the 9th and locked it down. 6-2 final or no, this was another "sweat out a 6 run lead" type of game.

In a nice capper to Blue Jay woe, Henderson was nailed trying to steal in the 7th, which filled the crowd with glee.

Another big, and raucous crowd in the Bronx with 48,250 paying their way in. Your umpires on this Wednesday night were Rick Reed, Tim McClelland, Joe Brinkman, and Derryl Cousins.

Thanks for reading!

August 5th, 1993 - Yankees host Toronto
KIDDY DAY - "A COLORFUL MELANGE"

Time to put a wrap on this frenetic Yankee/Blue Jay series from the summer of 1993. If you missed any of my installments this weekend, by all means scroll back in the thread for them.

With a win the night before, the Yankees pulled within 2 of the frontrunning Jays. It was still an ugly scene out there, with the Canadian Anthem becoming public enemy #1, and fisticuffs flaring out in the bleachers, the likes of which as I had not seen to that point, and really never saw again.

This came up earlier in the thread...this was a day game. Getaway day...a number of us to this day are not sure why we were there and not at work...the heading is "Kiddy Day" with a nod to the colors of the various groups, "a colorful melange." The kids had no idea what their camp counselers got them into. As early as 12:18 a "Boston sucks!" chant echoed through the bleachers.

Next to date on the card I scrawled, "what date?" and next to played at I used our new bleacher mantra, "the Animal House that Ruth built" and by Ruth I dont mean George's ex "Angel" I mean the Babe.

We booed the anthem again, even though all the media and the baseball universe were begging us not to. I chided us on the scorecard, admitting "we're bad...boo anthem again. We got no class."

On the way in an "Officer Bernstein" kicked me out of the line. I have no idea of the transgression, but if I must guess I got caught cutting, and he sent me to the back. That happened here and there. The cops outside and the security inside were taking things seriously, as one guard inside yelled at a patch of kids to "sit down" and one of them broke into tears. Duly noted on the scorecard.

I nailed a Chico autograph on the card, taking up fully 20% of it, too. "Big Fat Daddy Chico 8/5/93 is there for all the glory. I can pawn this thing on Ebay now. Inexplicably I wrote "(chico)" next to this as an identifier, even though the signature is perfectly legible.

Amazingly enough, there was no Teena at the game. I found that noteworthy enough to mark this. Dave "Animal" was a no-show as well. Geez, I hope one day over my bleacher stint someone once remarked on a scorecard that I no-showed a game. On the other side of the spectrum I remarked that "Devil fan Billy" made his arrival in the top of the 6th inning.

"Your whistle blows, how about you!" we screamed at someone with a whistle...a cop? A counseler? Some of this stuff is just vague. According to my top 40 song countdown scawl, we did not sing "Horses Ass" one time. A big zero....I wonder if we were banned from such on this day, as the fighting flared. We did belt out "Joe Carter Is A Horse's Ass" 5 times, though. And Ali played his cadence on the bell FOURTEEN times! Thats a lot of "hoooooos!"

Beer was being thrown. I see that noted a couple of times actually. There was a major altercation in the bleachers in the bottom of the 6th, when a guy in a Rutgers sweatshirt "fucked 2 guys up." Rutgers guy ended up losing his ring during the fight, no note here that it was eventually found.

And that was not the only fight that day. In the top of the 2nd there was a "hat disturbance" which was a nice way of saying someone got their hat ripped off and thrown around. Punches eventually flew. There also appears to have been a fight due to a "beer drop" early in the game. An entire group left in the 2nd inning, reasons unclear. A Jay fan also got the boot at some point, serenaded with the "hey, hey, hey, goodbye" as he was escorted off the premises.

At some point somone yelled "you drunken fool" in my ear and when I looked up they said "not you, you're ok."

I was drunk, though. You can tell by my writing and the number of curse words on the card. The language was more ribald when drinks were imbibed.

I noted the Ventura/Ryan battle from the night before, in a place of honor on the scorecard. The Mutts were a point of entertainment over the course of the day, watching the out of town scoreboard....they had a 9-1 lead at one point, which over the course of the afternoon morphed into 9-9 .....checking retrosheet now, 11 years later, I sadly see the Mutts ended up winning the damn game 12-9, in 13.

Some of the kids out there endeared themselves to us forever, starting a "Mets suck!" chant. A girl had the gall to wear a Mets shirt, and she was hammered relentlessly. This may have been where security had told these rowdy kids to sit down. Not much else seems to be on here, besides the fact that a few of us spent an entire inning talking in "Bob Sheppard" voices.

On the field the Yankees won another key game, 5-4. Pops must have been in attendance, cause Jimmy Key was on the hill, and he went the full 9, giving up the 4 runs on 6 hits and just 1 walk. He struck out 6. Juan Guzman was the starter for the Jays, and Al Leiter (in relief) picked up the loss with a shaky 7th, breaking a 4-4 deadlock. Pitching a scoreless 8th for the Blue Jays was none other than Woody Williams, who was torched last night in Game 1 of the World Series, the dick. This was his rookie campaign...though none are noted, I am sure we had a few laughs at the name "Woody."


Dion James went 3-4 and scored twice, and Don Mattingly (3 RBIs on the day) and Paul O'Neill homered for the Yankees. As O'Neill's home run was in flight, a beer guy was yelling "last call beer!" so there was some perfect symmetry there.

A whopping 52,493 were on hand (with a few dozen of them ejected from the bleachers over the course of the day) and your umpires were once again Tim McClelland, Joe Brinkman, Derryl Cousins, and Rick Reed.

The win bought the Yankees to one game behind the Jays in the fight for the division crown.

Thanks for reading!


AUGUST 20th, 1993 - Yankees host the Royals
F U K C!

Somehow it looks like I am missing TEN GAMES IN A ROW FROM THE STADIUM. I have NO idea what would have happened here. Along that course, I missed a series against our forever foes, the Red Sox. Maybe I took time off from scoring games, maybe some scorecards are missing from my filing system.....who knows....but something seems awry.

That said, I was in house on the 20th against the "Bore-ls" as named on the scorecard. A stretch at making fun of the Royal name, yes, but you do what you can.

The "F U K C!" chant was in full form. Under date I scrawled "who needs one?" and the game was played at "storm central" so I figure rain was in the forecast. None other than Domingo Jean was starting for the Yankees, against our good buddy Tom Gordon, ID'd on the card as "Flash" but after these last couple of weeks, maybe it should have been "Flush."

Before the game Wade Boggs received a "defensive player of the month" award. No one cared, it got a "??" on the scorecard. There was the normal run of quips, like "Hey, Winnie the Pooh wants his shirt back" and "You realize your bow tie is causing all this anxiety?" to some schmoe in, yes, a bow tie.

Brian McRae was in centerfield. Sometime earlier in the season he was hit with a pitch and instead of rushing the mound he dropped his bat and charged the opposing manager in the dugout. I THINK it was LaRussa, but I may be wrong. But, needless to say, he was absolutely pulverized when he got there. We took this occassion to chant "charge the bleachers!" at him. His buddy Felix Jose out in right was hearing a resounding "Way To K Jose!" chant all night, as he led off the game with the big whiff. He also clocked a home run later, but what the Hell.

I am not quite sure, but it looks like Indian OR college women were getting railed on for some reason...or is there a school named Delhi? Maybe Adelphi....or I could have been thinking New Delhi and Indians.... cause written on here is what looks like "Delhi take it up the ass or they dont do it at all." Another quote I am not sure on, but sounds funny is "you cant curse them, but you can marry 4 of their women." I was not good at explaining jokes those days, but they sure look like they could be funny.

Ah, noting here "storm central" was right on the money, as there was rain. At least, I am seeing a note in the 3rd that the "rain stopped." As to any delays or the like, nothing. Dont ask me.

I was called a "pen expert" cause I already was very finnicky about my pens. Anyone out there who has tried to lend me a pen knows exactly what I am talking about without me going into great detail here.

Ah, the game autographs. Here is a good one...."I love women, but I would make love to Don Mattingly" - signed "The Animal." Damn, how can you not miss this guy. Another guy named Joe Rucci (?) signed, framing it with 8/20/93.

The rest of the quips involved some storied ex-members of the Yankee bullpen, which back in the day was scarier than a Halloween hayride. "Thanks for 3 great years, Cadaret!" someone hollered. "Every Yankee fans dream...Cadaret and Habyan on the same night!" made the top of the scorecard. Habyan was also booed heavily on the way in, that much is noted. I called it a "good boo." Its funny, Billy Brewer finished things off for the Royals, and I simply called him "the unknown soldier" not realizing this rookie was due to have a pretty pedestrian career for himself.

Some girl stole my cigar. Lit it, didnt get to smoke it, she took it and that was that. Smoked it herself, apparently. And poor Syphillis Joe almost got into a fight, everyone turned on the guy he was exchanging pleasantries with and got him tossed out of there. I dont have any reasons for this exchange, but Joe was known to mix it up here and there with the verbal banter.

Your musical entertainment, courtesy of the Bleacher Creatures, was "Barnicle Bill The Sailor." Syphillis Joe surely had a hand in that.

"Left field assholes!" was chanted, and broken up by Ali and his ill-timed cowbell. Ali was a major bucket of water on any fiery flareups up there....if he did not like what was going on chantwise, he would start clanking the bell and that was that. I guess the Blue Jays were still in first place, cause a "Blue Jays suck!" chant made the scorecard.

I see instead of writing the standard "mo's" for mystery outs, I used Phil Rizzuto's famous "ww" for "wasnt watching." There was only one, with Matt Nokes closing out the 8th for the Yankees. Shit, are there some crazy "mo" and "ww" amounts coming up in the future...

Out on the field Domingo had a nice evening for himself, hurling 7 innings of 2 run ball as the Yankees costed to a 7-2 win. Gordon was tattered, giving up 3 runs on 4 hits and 4 walks in 5 innings of work before our buddies Cadaret and Habyan marched out to the mound. Danny Tartabull smacked a home run for the Yankees while going 2-3 with 2 runs and 2 RBIs, and Mattingly and Mike Gallego each pitched in 2 RBIs of their own. Paul Assenmacher actually hurled 2 innings of hitless ball to end the Royals evening with grim tidings.

I see Mike McFarlane batted cleanup for the Royals...thats kind of funny. So was his passed ball he was charged with. George Brett was still hanging around, racking up a 1-4 evening with 2 Ks. Tony Gwynn's brother Chris was in left for the Royals, and took some heat for basically not being his brother.

A crowd of 29,758 came out on this Friday night....I am surprised this scorecard was so legible (and devoid of really funny stuff, too) considering it was a Friday, and even then those games had quite the rep. Your umpires for this affair were the late Durwood Merrill, John Hirschbeck, Tim Welke, and Drew Coble.

Thanks for reading!

[$heriff Tom]

Moving onward...

AUGUST 21st, 1993 - Yankees host Royals
"Blow your Dad, kid!"


Not much happening here, aside from the fact the inimitable Mike Magnante got the start for the Royals. Again, I identified them as the BORE-les on the scorecard, which is even less funny the next times you see it. Under date I wrote "later...I swear!" and it was played at...how gay is this - "double fist heaven" - obviously an ode to our drinking.

This was a Saturday game, and since it was in the days before I recruited all kinds of help in scoring these things and logging jokes, the fact that the card was practically devoid of anything amusing can be attributed to the hard drinking I would do at a Saturday game. The Yankees headed into the days affair 1 1/2 games out of first.

"Blow your Dad, kid!" was the heading of the scorecard, which was not nice. Elsewhere on the card it was noted that a "Dad" was "being harrassed" - I wonder if this was one in the same family.

Someone called Mike Stanley a "ding dong" for God knows what reason. I pointed out in the right margin that there was an "asshole in the upper deck."

Walkman John - can you find out if Bernie Williams had a nice hitting streak going on around then? Cause I wrote a vague "BW - 19 games" on the scorecard, and Bernie doubled in the 6th. Leafing back a couple of pages, he tacked hits in those games too, but remember from above I missed like 10 home games in a row.

Speaking of missing games, one "John Nabs" autographed the card with "I'm going to skool tonight...I'll be back for the Sox series." It was also noted that this character had a "smiley face tatoo." I am sure he was a hit at school. A gent who signed "Joe Pagano" signed "My birthday was rough....today I'll drink Coke!"

We noted that Felix Jose, who is all over these scorecards, has "beehive hair."

You guys remember my Knight hand puppet? I called him "Neon Knight" after an Accept song. I know, Neon was a dumb name even before Deion tacked it before his. I used him to say things I couldnt, to curse and scream obsceneties, and I would get away with it. I am sure I will do a whole post one day on Neon Knight and his antics, but for now I used this insult to someone who must have been dressed stupidly...."I'm dressed better, and I'm a fuckin' puppet!"

I noted sports bags suck. I must have been in a bad mood. I also noted we "tried to" sing "Take Me Out To The Ocean" in the 7th....by saying "tried" and not "did" it means it was not successful (perhaps the fact we were playing the Royals and not the Indians was one problem)

There is what I bet is a great "Missing Joke" here...I wrote "I had a Jordan breakfast today" and underneath it is a totally illegible sentence written in drunken hand...all you can make out is "his Dad" and "milk" - whatever it was it was funny once...

Even though I was drunk I managed to write a bunch of game observations, with little arrows attached to plays leading into the margin with remarks like "catchable" and "he was really out" and "stupid."

Thats pretty much it. The Yankees pulled a squeaker, 3-2, with Steve Farr notching the save (even after entering to more "lock the bullpen gate!" howls) - Scott Kamienieki actually pitched a good game (I think I was at all 3 of them) going 8 innings, giving up 2 runs on 5 hits and a walk. Mike Stanley homered in the 2nd and was hit by Magnante in the 4th...why he did not charge the mound is beyond me. Mike Gallego went 3-4 for the good guys.

Magnante took the loss, and among the other luminaries that pawed the rubber for the Royals were former and future starter Mark Gubicza (who was used out of the bullpen all year for the only season in his career) and Stan Belinda.

The game went 2:45, and your arbiters were once again Tim Welke, Drew Coble, the late Durwood Merrill, and John Hirschbeck. 41,543 saw fit to come to the Stadium to watch the proceedings.

Thats a wrap - thanks for reading!

AUGUST 22nd, 1993 - Yankees host Royals
"Cheap Watch Day!"


LOL. We were just talking about this. That cheap digital watch giveway. The watches that were magically working when they handed them to us at the gate, but were broken by the time the 2nd inning rolled around. What a piece of shit. Mine was actually broken BEFORE THE FIRST INNING STARTED, as duly noted on the scorecard.

Old school rap legend and bleacher creature Melle Mel, who I actually called Stevie Wonder back then for his dead-on impersonation of such, made the point that the plastic bag the watch came in "would make a great propholactic" Hey, anyone else remember him singing "I just called....to say.....I love you!" with his sunglasses, head lolling back and forth, and goofy grin?

Showing what passed as an "anniversary" for me in those carefree days, I got my drink on early that Lords Day, celebrating 5 years to the day since I had headed away to SUNY New Paltz. Over the years it was funny to run into people from school out there, where we would laugh about my controversial stints as hotshot newspaper columnist and President of Scudder Hall.

"Down in front, Captain Lou Albano!" someone screamed as the festivities got under way. "Jump, Truman Capote!" someone else howled. "Jump, Rick Cerone, Jump!" yelled a third.

Melido Perez was stretching before the game and was serenaded by a caustic voice howling "don't party with Pascual, alright?"

Families were once again taking a hit, carrying over the theme of the previous night. With Brian McRae, a popular bleacher foe in center again, someone shouted "you suck, and your father does too!" The ever-popular "Daddys Boy!" sing-song chant filled the air as well.

Remember I mentioned that button with the Met log enconsed in a cartoon pile of shit that they sold at Steve's fast-foodery across the street? Well, we tossed one to bispectacled Yankee reliever Paul Gibson before the game, during BP. He chuckled and pocketed it and gave us a wink and a grin.

While we hooted on the Royals a Blue Jay fan leaned over the loge with a grin, and he was met with a poignant "Toronto sucks too, you asshole up there!" Someone else added, "stop posing for a box of Animal Crackers, you asshole!"

Captain Bob autographed my scorecard AGAIN. I think I was taking this autograph gig a bit far now, when I was repeating names. Someone else who called themselves "Jumpin' Jose" signed the card, noting himself as "a fan of the game in the bleachers!"

Someone had an UMPIRES MUST DIE sign. Very straight and to the point.

The game was a joke. Yankees were SHUT OUT. By Chris Haney, of all people. Haney walked 5 but only gave up 4 hits, and the Yankees slumbered to a 7-0 loss, in a Stadium I had optomistically described as "sun central" hours earlier.

One funny game note was a wild throwing error by Randy Velarde out in left field. I actually called it "the WORST throw in history!" Someone else noted "he was having a catch with Sterling in the booth."

Bernie extended his hitting streak to 20 games on this day, to ultimatly stop and halt at 21. For some reason Danny Tartabull was called "shoehead" on the scorecard. I have no idea....as for Melido he was savagely booed off the mound when he left in the 6th, after getting pounded for 7 runs on 9 hits and a monster home run from Mike Macfarlane.

Both hitting legend and legendary weakstick Jose Lind went 3-4 for the Royals on this mundane afternoon. But fuck....Chris Haney??? Of the 38-52 lifetime record?

There were 43,606 people on hand and 42,099 broken watches by the 7th inning stretch. Your umpires were once again Tim Welke, Drew Coble, the late and lamented Durwood Merrill, and John Hirschbeck, and the game was played at a 2 hour and 34 minute clip.

Thanks for reading!

Moving onward...

August 31st, 1993 - Yankees host White Sox
"Who the fuck comes to the bleachers in a tie?"

Well, the Yankees caught a beating on this night. But we were out there on this Tuesday night....the "Tuesday Night Titans" as I described us. "Is the guy who burns his hair off here?" someone asked. Maybe not, but "Dennis was here" is scrawled in big letters to the left of the Chisox lineup. We have speculated in the past, but I can verify that Dennis helped with this scorecard by the "correcting Dennis' mistakes" markings on here, and the constant x-outs, and scribbles over plays in the wrong box.

Bo Jackson was in the house. Oh, did we ever have fun with him. Him and his bogus hip. "Hip Hip...you're gay!" flooded the Stadium seats back in those days. "Bo recycles....with a plastic hip!" was a proper refrain that August night. The group also partook in a rousing "Na Na Na Na...Na Na Na Na....hey, left hip.....goodbye!" Jackson, highly appreciative of our kind sentiments, simply blew us a kiss.

Since the Bo Jackson odes went over so well, a number of Creatures partook in a few choruses of the "Hokey Pokey", its said here.

"If you try and you don't succeed, you're a Met fan" someone mused. There was a Mutt fan being harrassed, and in between insults some of the bleacher denizens were trying to get him to "see the light" by throwing his OWN hat on the field. When that was not successful, we threw that hat around amongst ourselves for him, with ugly "burn that hat" chants booming around.

The age-old query of "who the fuck comes to the bleachers in a tie" was bandied about on this night. And there is a line involving security guard Saddam that mentions "Palestine" in there. Sad to say, it is written in drunk hand and practically illegible. The word "steroids" is also written on here, and not really directed to anyone...it is sort of written in the middle of nowhere. I guess it could have been aimed at Bo...

It appears my brother Dave was on hand with a lady friend, who endeared herself to everyone by saying "I gotta suck on that for a while" albeit while simply talking about some hard candy that was being passed around. Not sure of her relationship with my brother, but she identified herself as "Dave Browns only friend" when she signed the scorecard. Another girl on hand who accompanied her, one "Laurie" was so entertained by the capers and antics she signed "Thanks for the memories....I really enjoyed myself." As I have no recollection of her, she apparently did not enjoy herself enough to ever come back.

While all this zaniness was abound, the Yankees were stinking it up on the field. After one play that we all missed, when wondering what to right someone said "they got a run somehow...everyone went BOOO! real loud at the end, so it must have been close!"

All kinds of "addendums" were connected to plays with arrows to the margin, like "It hit the fucking base!" and "two guys on one base!" and "out tag...what was the point?" I even called a 9th inning 6-4 Gallego to Jim Leyritz grounder the "play of the year." No further details on that, though... After a double by White Sox Tim Raines, someone took my pen and wrote "we should give him a strikeout - that would be peachy."

One interesting note of interest is that the soda guy apparently dropped his tray on this night. Unfortunately the number of sodas lost was not earmarked.

I am seeing a few "ww's" here (wasnt watching) and whole half innings that simply don't look complete...

The Yankees gave up 5 homers on this night, 2 by Raines, and one each by Frank Thomas, Joey Cora, and Ellis Burks. Sterling Hitchcock started (he had not yet made 10 major league starts at this point) and was cuffed around a bit, but the main offender on the Yankee hill were current bullpen coach Richard Monteleone (1.1 innings, and 5 earned runs on 6 hits and a walk). Steve Howe ambled in to pitch the 9th, and promptly gave up the Burks homer. So, since Monteleone was taken deep by Raines and Cora in the 9th as well, that means THREE White Sox bombs in the final frame.

Wilson Alvarez went for the White Sox, and after Jose DeLeon came in to throw to one batter, Scott Radinsky finished up for the Sox. Radinsky is better known these days for fronting Cali punk band Pulley, who sound like Bad Religion/Green Day clones to me. I just nabbed one of thier CDs off Ebay for $2, but have not given it enough spins yet to come up with anything further than that.

Other noteworthy names on hand for the Chisox were former Yankee Dan Pasqua (who came in as a defensive replacement at first late in the game) and Ivan Calderon, who is now dead.

On the Yankee front Mike Stanley had a homer, and Gallego went 2-4 and plated 2 runs.

37,511 were on hand, and your umpires on this putrid evening were Larry Barnett, Greg Kosc, Dan Morrison, and Al Clark.

Thanks for reading, yo!

Oopsie! Went out of order....lets rewind a couple of weeks, and I'll take you back to REGGIE JACKSON DAY!

August 14th, 1993 - Reggie Day!

For all these years, seems a scorecard snuggled into the wrong slip-sleeve in my scorecard journals. There is no date at the top, just a simple "Reggie Day" - but still, inexcusable. So I just did some juggling, and I must rewind back in time. Thank you once again to retrosheet.org for helping me figure out an exacta on the date.

Oh boy was I drunk again. The scoresheet is splattered with seas of blue, smudgy ink...more on that in a minute. I know a bunch of people were looking forward to this scorecard, but I may be of little help to them, as I was a bit intoxicated. This scorecard is actually more full of fan autographs than anything else.

The Orioles - long known as the Blow-rioles on these cards, all the way to this day, were our foes on the field. Jesus, there are no less than 5 fan autographs on here...do you see your name? There is a John Nettles (?) and a Biill Butler (?) and a Jeff "Stig" something or another, and a Garry something.....I am pretty sure these are some of the yokes who spelled out R E G G I E on their chests, needing me to pinch-pose, but more on that later...

It was Joe Pagano's 20th birthday. He's 31 now...wonder what became of the yoke, he seems to have signed these scorecards an awful lot. On the card, in the slot next to "date" I put "none" - so what else was new.

Anyone remember "hot dog girl?" They actually grabbed some girl out of a club and made her sell hot dogs at Yankee Stadium back then. "Hot Dog Girl has nice buns!" someone hollered. Someone signed "Hot Dog Girl" on the scorecard, but I cant imagine she would demean herself and do that the way everyone was carrying on over her. "Take it off, hot dog!" was a popular refrain that day. Someone even wrote in the left margin "I love hot dog girl" with a cartoon heart and everything.

There was a fan on hand that looked like Rollie Fingers, and he got a couple of "sit down, Rolaids fireman of the year!"

Someone pointed out that Fat Daddy Chico was the "Abdullah Butcher of the bleachers." I am shocked that comparison did not come up before then, and I have not heard it since. It was noted that Ali had a new hat, so you can tell there was not much going on out there in the wit department.

Not many Reggie notes on here, which is a bit of a shame. The most poignant is a Naked Gun reference, in "I...must...kill....the Queen" Its funny that over the years this game constantly comes up in bleacher musings, but not much of it is recorded for public consumption.

But, if you were there, I am sure you would remember me starring as the "I" in REGGIE. I doffed my shirt, painted a big I on it (people could have taken shade under the curly-Q's at the ends of the I) and pranced around for all to see. There IS a picture of said incident, and I will get someone who can download and tack it up for me while keeping their eyes diverted and their lunch down to get it up here soon enough.

What happened was this....this group of drunkards came to the game, shirtless and spelling out REGGIE on their chests. They were thin, in some cases muscular, and tan. For some reason "I" took a powder. It is not recorded if he was booted, cold, embarrassed, or what....I guess that is one of the bleachers many unsolved mysteries.

So they started asking around for someone to fill the prized "I" slot. Of course I hopped up, I was ever the ham, even with my shirt on. In the course of painting an "I" on my buddha belly, I made a mess with the ink. It is all over the scorecard for eternity, and I got it all over my jeans (and continued to wear them for the rest of the season, blue ink and all)

And there I was. From a distance it looked like a haystack in the middle of a series of fenceposts. The only pic, sad to say, is a closeup of me having too much fun....I believe I had a beer in one hand and a cigar in the other....if not, I know I was drinking and smoking all game. We all were.

"Hit the beach Tom!" was a common bellow.

As for the game....when the first game note was "we're getting one of those fucked up lineups today" that is an ominous note. But the Yankees ended up notching a 4-2 win, with Paul Assenmacher getting the W and Steve Farr actually notching a save. We thought so little of Farr those days that I actually wrote an "afterthought" on the card...(I did this from time to time. I would pick up the scorecard later, either on the train home, in a bar, or from my apartment, and make a note) - well, this one was written at 1:57AM (what I was doing up at that time thinking of Steve Farr is a sad thought) and I wrote "this game is FARR from over."

Seems like we were barring it up, someone said the line, and being drunk I thought it was much funnier than it actually was, and NEEDED to write it down for posterity. 11 years later, aren't you happy I did?

I have to give us credit...even with the lack of jokes on here, there are NO MYSTERY OUTS. NO WWs! And the card was passed around for sure. Actually, the game log is the neatest thing on the scorecard.

Arthur Rhodes started for Baltimore, and only pitched into the 5th, when he was relieved by a man only identified as "Mystery Man?" - these years later I can see on retrosheet we had the honor and the privelage of seeing Mark Williamson take the hill. Whoever wrote "mystery man" should be ashamed of themself, as this was Williamson's 6th year in the league.

Another interesting reliever came sauntering in for Baltimore that day, one John O'Donaghue. Now THAT sounds like a bleacher creature name. Anyway, we had met Mr. O'Donaghue sometime that weekend, over the outfield fence during BP. We were dropping the banter back and forth with one Ben McDonald (who is one of my favorite baseball players of all time, by the way - I have an autographed 8 X 10 framed on my baseball wall around the computer) and we see this no-name neophyte shagging some flies.

"Hey, Ben!" we say. "Who the fuck is that?" He tells us he is this new kid named O'Donaghue, and he rolls his eyes a bit as if to say "see him now, cause you'll never see him again." We ask Mr. McDonald to go grab the kid and bring him over so we can roast him on the proverbial spit. So he does, he goes on over, puts his arm around the kid, and brings him into the lions den. So we were able to give Mr. O'Donaghue a bit of baseball experience I would hazard to say he still has in his treasure trove of baseball memories.

He did go one and done in 1993 - his only year in the majors. In 11 games (one start) he threw 19 innings, giving up 10 earned runs on 22 hits and 10 walks. He did strike out 16. Of course that day he pitched a scoreless inning and a third against the Yankees. I am happy to check out this card again, I remembered bandying with this guy, but I did not realize I had actually seen him pitch!

Speaking of nondescript, Domingo Jean started for the Yankees, and only went 5 innings himself. The only home run of the game was from Mike Devereux, in Jean's final inning. After the O's took a 2-0 lead in that frame, the Yankees stormed back for 2 of their own, then notched 2 the very next inning and locked it down, to send us home with a 4-2 win to celebrate.

The oddball Yankee lineup that was cited early in the day had Gallego leading off, followed by Randy Velarde. Then Mattingly, Tartabull, Stanley, BW, Leyritz, Spike Owen, and Patrick Kelly. Paul O'Neill did not start, he actually came in for Leyritz, who was in right. The Oriole lineup contained standouts such as Mark McLemore, who is still annoying the fuck out of Yankee fans, and luminaries such as Chris Hoiles and Jeff Tackett, who was behind the dish. Jack Voight actually pinch-hit for Tackett, and walked. Leading off for Baltimore was "Brady's a Lady" Anderson, that dick, and we got to see Harold Baines and Cal Ripken Jr on that day, along with Baseball Tonight's Harold Reynolds, playing second during his only season with the O's.

There were a whopping and whooping 52,598 on hand, and your umpires for the day were John Shulock, Tim Tschida, Jim Joyce, and Donald Denkinger.

Thanks for reading! Tell a friend!

[$heriff Tom]

Moving onward, but first I see I missed a joke on the previous scorecard - right there at the top, we yelled at Bo Jackson "at least we can still play football" after he bandied back to us after we ripped a few jokes at him regarding his hip.

That said, lets go to....

September 3rd, 1993 - Yankees host Indians
Manny's 2 home run game!

A Friday night at the Stadium, with rain about. This game has been mentioned, and here it is. The combination of rain and lots of beer made the scorecard a bit messy, shall we say. Bob Ojeda was on the mound for the Indians, so the "Take Me Out To The Ocean" ode was being belted for sure. In the linescore, someone actually wrote "Boats" in the visitors column, and "good guys" for the Yankees. Well, we are not all Ernest Hemingways.

The very top of the scorecard, which is usually reserved for a REALLY FUNNY joke, or an important note regarding the days affairs, has something lost to the annals of time....it says "I'm Kirby the....." and then indecipherable scrawling. Wayne Kirby, the guy who laughed when we sang "Row Row Row Your Boat" to make fun of the fatal Indian crash, was the beneficiary of that lost gem.

A "Spanish family" was on hand, and after they looked piqued at some of our rowdy verbiage, we actually cursed in Spanish for them. Two gay looking guys were called "Omar and Ishkabibble" whatever that means.

Our buddy Saddam on security was busy that night. Warnings were afoot. "Cops is filmed live before a studio audience" was noted....little did we know in a few years we WOULD have real cops stationed all around our gaggle and group. Someone did a funny speech, mimicing Saddam....it went like this...

"In my country, if you sing "Horses Ass" you are taken out and shot, no questions asked."

I noted a lot of the trouble was caused by a "bleacher virgin" who did not deserve to raise a hue and cry. So the term "bleacher virgin" was alive and well in 1993, and it did not simply refer to all the girls that said no to us. The bottom of the 2nd was noted as "VERY rowdy inning....disgraceful" on this record.

The first pitch was not tossed until 7:39, which was at least 3 or 4 minutes late. "Well, its worth it for Hispanic Night" we wrote, and yes, the hispanics were being honored on that night for "not yet stealing my car."

Again, there are autographs all over the scorecard. To think about how dumb this was, imagine if during our heydey I would have Grover, Gang Bang Steve, or Capone autographing the scorecard 10 times a year...it makes no sense! Some of the scribes on this night were our good buddy Dennis, who had already signed this year a handful of times, bleacher stalwart George (you know, Angel's ex) and Melle Mel.

Melido Perez started for the Yankees...apparently I stuck up for him, spurring someone to write "Thomas thinks Melido is not that bad....how many beers has he had?" I dont know what is more a head-scratcher, the fact I was sticking up for Melido, or the fact that someone was calling me Thomas out there.

Lots of snide comments directed at the Yankees' play during this game, including "we can't run" and "what the fuck." I missed a few plays, with excuses like "too busy saying go down" and "handing out cigars" and "too busy telling jokes." As to that, too bad no good ones made this card.

Someone DID write "we already heard that one..." with a frowny face attached...how catty. Can you imagine if we commented on every joke, line and remark we heard out there in 39?

Manny Ramirez was still a no-name merely irritating us at that point, and he was doing so from a distance, DH'ing on that night. He did get to say hello with a monster crank in the 6th inning, then he poked one out to left in the 8th, which literally bought down rain. While the next batter was settling in, it started to pour. We even called it "BIG rain" They apparently played through this as the last two innings have that "wet pen" look about them. As for Ramirez' first home run of the evening, it was noted that "we HEARD that one."

Ramirez was not the only "mystery man" that night. Paul Sorrento was killing us. He had been in the league since 1989, but whoever wrote the lineups and the bulk of the comments on here (not me, I was too drunk, a Friday and all) wrote "Us, the scoreboard, and the Yankees dont know who this guy is, and he is 2 for 3 with a double and a home run."

Someone wrote "the umpire is a cockhead" and signed their autograph. I have no idea if they meant to say COKEHEAD, or if cockhead was their intention. I think I like cockhead better. It seems back then there was a lot more anger towards the umpires, there are anti-umpire rants, even signs in the crowd, all over these scorecards.

Celebrity lookalike sightings included WWF wrestler Razor Ramon, and Mr. Clean. Unlike many of the previous offerings that were pretty cleanly scored, there were SEVEN "mystery outs" (still called WW's - wasnt watching's) - thats more like it!

Out on the soggy field, the Yankees dropped one by a 7-2 score. Ramirez was 3-4, with 2 jacks, 3 runs scored, and 3RBIs. That idiot Carlos Baerga had 3 hits and plated 2, and Kenny Lofton led off for the tribe and scored twice. Other luminaries that appeared in the Indian colors on that day were ex-Yank Alvaro Espinoza, a young Jim Thome, Albert "Joey" Belle, and Felix Fermin. Jerry Dipoto notched the save, of all people.

Melido was hit hard, giving up 6 runs on 9 hits in 5 innings of work. That nerd Paul Gibson actually threw 3 decent innings in relief, before Steve Howe put down the pipe to pitch an uneventful top 9.

Mike Stanley had ANOTHER home run.

29,041 were on hand...I would KILL for that kind of crowd on a Friday night, and they got to see Ed Hickox, Ted Hendry, Jim Evans, and Terry Craft ump the game, which went on for 3 hours and 12 minutes.

Thanks for reading!

Ah, what the Hell....I am sitting here anyway, lets do a Scorecard Memory!

September 17th, 1993 - Yankees host Bosucks!
Fans On The Field Night!

Not much on this scorecard, except a slew of comments relating to fans running on the field. I dont know what was in the beer that night, but there were FOUR documented incidents of fans running onto the field.

Another Friday night! Even then I was a big fan of the Friday nights. "To Thomas...I hope you get to 40 games!" my friend Jamie wrote across the top. Well, this was my 31st and peeking ahead, spoiling the end of the story for 1993, I ended up making 38.

Again, and I know this is getting repetitive, but the card is written in drunken scrawl, along with smudges which I hope are beer spills.

"This is a dirty fucking night" someone wrote.

"Another guy on field!" is in the right margin. "Fan safe at 2nd!" is underneath the Red Sox lineup. I dont recall if this was the guy who hopped the bleacher walls and motored into second and nailed a head-first slide, but nonetheless -being safe at second is impressive regardless. "4th fan on field!" is a little lower, and to the left of the last fan on field account.

You need to go all the way to the bottom of the card to read about the "3rd fan on the field - just before the seventh inning stretch!" I even drew a running stick figure in the left margin, with "fans on the field" as a tagline.

And finally, we got ourselves into the mix with "We should all run out after game is over to prove we have a sense of humor"

The scorecard, as mentioned, was a mess. Someone was pitching in to help, to no avail. "We are behind a batter, but who cares?" In another spot you read, "What did I miss? Don't know, but I heard a lot of "aaaahhhh!" I also see an "F'd up...need an explanation."

We still must have been in the hunt, cause I am reading "season is on the line, and Gibson is on the mound?" And after Bob Wickman's name on the pitching log, we simply wrote "why?"

Someone wrote on the card "write that down" - what they were talking about is lost to posterity. There was an "Elvis Sighting" in the top of the 5th, which I would have to assume was simply that head security guy.

8 "wasnt watchings!" on the scorecard. Thats more like it? We missed lots of plays!

I wrote down at one point, in big letters, "THROWN OUT IN BIG PURGE." Was I thrown out? There is no arrow pointing anywhere on the card, or no names mentioned...was it me? Not sure...someone finished the card regardless. I WAS thrown out now and again back in those days, this night seems as good as any. But I can not confirm said information.

The game itself was a wild one - Yankees ended up pulling it out 5-4, with Boston parading 5 pitchers to the mound (including that fuckhead Paul Quantrill) and the Yankees 4. Gibson ended up getting the win, despite all the smirks in his direction, with 2 solid innings of relief. And nailing the save? One LEE FUCKING SMITH! Hoo-ah! Smith in town for an 8 game Yankee stint. A young man named Scott Taylor finished up for the Sox - another name lost to history outside of my Scorecard Memories column.

Mike Stanley did NOT hit a home run! But he got a double. Sterling Hitchcock had a balk and a wild pitch.

As for other luminaries we saw on this night....the immortal Bob Zupcic was in center for the Sox, and Carlos Quintana was the butt of our jokes in right. If you were there, you got to see Ernest Riles pinch hit. Scott Cooper, one of most hyped prospects I can ever remember, manned third. And the man we called an "Oriole Legend" - one Bob Melvin, was behind the plate for the hated Boston squad. Who would have thought (or remembered) that he would have 14 at bats for the Yankees the very next year?

Scott Fletcher led off the Sox. One thing I remembered about him was he was an "aw, shucks" kind of guy. He used to strike out and say "darn it!" and it was a joke around baseball. We used to call him a square. I remember we used to pass some time during BP trying to get him to curse at us.

There were a stacked 48,051 on hand, and your arbiters were the esteemed Tim Welke, Drew Coble, the late Durwood Merrill, and John Hirschbeck. The game dragged along, 3 hours and 42 minutes.

Thanks for reading!

[$heriff Tom]

And with the election hangover dulling, if not over, time to tackle my scorecards again!

September 19th, 1993 - Yankees Host Boston
"The game is NOT over."

A game not only saved for posterity in my scorebook journal, but hanging on my wall, over my couch. A wonderful panaromic shot, entitled "Second Inning" by one Rob Arra, who seemingly has hundreds to sell, but I was not able to find this one online this evening to tack as an addendum.

The shot is taken from along the first base line...I remember when I got it in the mid-90s when I worked for a poster and framing company. It was not dated, but due dilligance, checking the scorecard against the scoreboard in the background told me this was the game. I have since confirmed this information in an ad for the pic.

Anyway, the card is a mess. Not only was it a rainy day, for some reason I kept score with a RED MARKER. There seem to be zero games before, and none since, where I did something so outlandish. The rain made the red ink run all over, there are smudges everywhere - its a real mess. But it is striking, and easy to find when I want to leaf through and show it and point at my framed picture up there. I have considered framing this scorecard and hanging it next to the panaroma, but have not gone through with it yet.

Sox scored 2 in the first inning, pretty much bringing on the rain. These games started at 3 on these Saturdays - the good old game of the week - and I ermarked "rain delay" from 3:18 through 4:22. The picture above my couch has 4:30 on the clock, top of the second, with Boston's Bob Zupcic at the plate, Jimmy Key on the mound. Zupcic ended up tripling in the at-bat.

Someone wrote the attendance at the top, 55,672 (about as big a crowd as you can get - sure the Yankees were thrilled at the extra concessions during the early rain delay), and that crowd was earmarked as "45,672 Yankee fans, 10,000 assholes." Red Sox fans were all over, including a "gang of morons" in the bleachers with us.

"Big Ass Umbrella Confusion" was written. These were the days when umbrellas were allowed in...or could this have been an umbrella day that actually saw rain?

More jokes that make no sense, or are not funny, on here. "Its Godzilla!" is one. Must have been a jap out there, cause I also see "Yokozuna sucks!" on here. "Hey, didnt we blow you up 50 years ago?" was the obligatory offensive comment of the game.

A newbie asked "how come there are no fights in the bleachers" and we answered "we used them up during the Blue Jay series." But later on, with an arrow pointing to the 8th, there is record of "a scuffle out here."

In the very first inning, with Tim Naehring (who actually runs some teams farm system, I forgot which) on first, Mo Vaughn tried to walk with 3 balls on him. We hooted and laughed as he was called back. He pretty much shut us up with a 2 run bomb right afterwords. "Tries to walk with 3 balls...would have been preferred" was hastily jotted down.


"Where's Mel Hall when you need him" someone wrote during the game, while the Yankees trailed. The card was passed around like a sorority sister, I wrote that everyone took a turn. I even marked down when I kept score....I kept the bottom 3rd, all of the 4th, top of the 8th, and the 9th. Someone named Chris kept the first 2 1/2 innings.

"The dykes dont douche" someone scrawled. I remarked that someone "threw money" and even drew a $ with two squiggly lines off of it, like flying money.

"This pennant race interferes with the Gang Bang" someone groused. When it looked like the Yankees were going to lose, "lets go home and break some shit" was jotted. Ali sat there, not playing the bell, and someone hollered "um, Ali, this is what you call a rally."

When it did rain, it really rained. A heavy downpour. I pulled the card from the sleeve and feel a decades worth of murk in it.

The Sox had a 3-0 lead heading into the 7th inning, behind rook Nate Minchey, who had only 5 starts all year and 15 in quite the nondescript career. Minchey came out after giving up a leadoff poke to Paul O'Neill in the 7th and a Matt Nokes single, making way for Ken Ryan.

Ryan and good old Tony Fossas handed it over to Gregory Harris for the 9th, the Yankees down 3-1. Four hits and 3 runs later, the Yankees win the game!

As described earlier, we all thought the last out was made, but a fan found it a good time to run onto the field. The umpire claimed time was called even though the ball was hit, and caught, for what we thought was the final out. While we threw our garbage around and snarled epitaphs, the Godlike voice of Bob Sheppard rang through the misty evening....."the game is NOT over...."

Here was Whalerfans description, earlier in this thread....

The Yankees could never get that fuck Scott Fletcher out. And if I remember correctly, the Yanks won a game once vs. the Sox when a fan ran out on the field while Mike Stanley was making the final out. The ump called time, Stanley got a hit and Donnie Baseball got the GW single. It might've been 93 or 94. Not sure, though

And we ended up winning. One of THE FIRST magic moments I was out there for. I remember on the subway ride out of there turning to whoever and saying "that is something I will never forget." 11 years later here I am typing about it, soon to be on my couch underneath that picture, beer in hand, and thousands of Yankee memories sharing its space.

Your arbiters for this wild affair were Drew Coble, the late Durwood Merrill, John Hirschbeck, and Tim Welke. The gametime was 3:29, and you can tack on that rain delay too.

Thanks for reading!

September 22nd, 1993! Yankees host the Twins
Low crowd, bad weather

Getting close to wrapping 1993. Moving on to late September, the Twinkies are in town.

Nothing much to see here. I actually noted a new girl started at my job on the scorecard, and mentioned there was a long discussion about my friend Chris' beer. It was noted that we spent the entire 7th inning "telling stupid jokes." So what else was new? Not much was going on out there in the bleachers.

Someone was handing out "DON" signs before the game, with the old bullseye for the O. I did not get one, and was pissed enough about it to note that on the scorecard.

By now we were 4 out from Toronto, with a week left in the season. "A sad way to end the season" was noted. "An empty place" was scrawled. "Thomas, I cant fucking believe it" was on there.

I did nab Cousin Brewski's autograph on here. Moments after mentioning Mike Gallego sucked he hit a triple. And here is what may be the most controversial statement of all of 1993....

"To Hell with Donnie....I want McGwire."

That was Animal that said that. Ohhhh boy. I did not remember him saying that, but there it is, written on here for all to see.

5 more fans ran on the field that night...I dont know what the Hell was going on in late 1993, but this was getting ridiculous by this point. After I had mentioned "3 people on field" I popped an X and added "2 more!"

There was a home run thrown back, I did not realize that went back that far....a Pedro Munoz blast in the top of the 2nd which gave the Twins a 4-0 lead off of Scott Kamienieki. That lug Kent Hrbek had led off that same inning with a plunk of his own, and we were simply tired of it. I missed the Hrbek home run, someone had noted "Thomas was taking a piss" - good to know.

Celebrity sighting of the night was "Malcolm X" standing for the National Anthem. Its funny that to this day there is still Danny Tartabull grumbling...I wrote during the game "how bout a solo home run for Tartabull....that would be typical."

There were only 2 "ww's" on here, one because I was distracted while "watching 2 kids joke fighting" and the other cause I was "getting a shoe wedgie" whatever the Hell that is.

Yankees lost this sleepy one 5-2....they were shut down by Kevin Tapani of all people. The win upped Tap's record to 10-15, it was noted before the game that he "sucks this year." Did nothing for the Yankees. After Carl Willis threw a scoreless 8th, we got to see that dick Rick Aguilera close it off for Minny.

We got to see one of Lee Smiths handful of appearances in a Yankee uniform, as he threw a scoreless top of the 9th and struck out Munoz.

Other luminaries on hand were former Yankee Dave Winfield, who went 3-4 as the Twin DH, and Scott Stahoviak playing third. Chuck Knoblauch led off for the Twins, that pesky fuck.

On the Yankee side of things, Gallego led off the 8th with a home run, but there was not much else going on outside of Randy Velarde getting 2 of the 6 Yankee hits.

I called the crowd ridiculously small, but the announced attendance on this bleak Wednesday night was 25,128. Your umpires were Mike Reilly, Rocky Roe, Dale Scott, and Dave Phillips, and even though the game was far from a wild affair it went just under 3 hours.

Thanks for reading! Things will be picking up with the next few scorecards, peering ahead, I can assure you.

October 1st, 1993 - Yankees host the Tigers

Well, quite the different sort of October than we have grown to expect around the Stadium. The Yankees were finishing up the string here against the Tigers, who were actually pretty good back then. 83-76 coming in on this "cold" Friday night.

It was one of those nights where one of those 102 year old ex-major leaguers was paraded out to throw the first ball. Did not catch the name, but I imagine he is 9 years in the grave by now.

Inexplicably there were TWO seperate blimps floating around the Stadium that night. I have no idea what else was going on around town...the marathon that weekend, maybe? Anyway, at one point someone yelled up to one of the blimps above our head "Chico can fly now? Hey, Chico, stop fucking around and get down here...we want to do a pool!" Someone else was pitching a TV idea...."Chico ATE the Man"

A couple was making out and subject to the "Get a room" chants, so at least love was in the air. It was a silly night. Because it was cold and the season was ending and we were feeling moribund, old-school George decided to take off his shirt. Crap-man was serenaded with his theme song as usual, and angry howls of "down in front!" when someone actually bought something from him.....wow, I dont remember that EVER happening.

An Indian guy walking up the stairs had "hurry up Babbagonoush!" hollered at him. A Jap doing the same thing was called "Kamosayoto" And the concession crew had to listen to "Volume Services Sucks!" chants throughout the game. Poor Volume Services, they were even subject to a "Volume Services drops the soap!" nod during the Gang Bang.

On 4 different occassions on this scorecard I noted that "biscuits" were being passed around, or handed out if you will. I have no idea who bought biscuits to the game, but that is a Hell of an idea. Sugar cookies are shunned by some, but who does not like biscuits??

Ah, I remember this...we must have been really bored (or drunk, Friday night game and all) - we took turns sucking ketchup and mustard out of those little packets. I also remember getting as much mustard on my jeans as I did in my mouth, but I was eating mustard and drinking lemonade....I guess someone was daring me to get sick.

We were also trying to pop the ketchup and mustard packs...my friend Jamie wrote down "white men cant pop!" - Hell, this was before the days when Crazy Dave made popping things out there such an art. If we were popping mustard and ketchup packets, well.....you can imagine there was not much a crowd to worry about spraying them.

I suppose the schedule for 2004 had come out, cause it was duly noted in flowing letters that "Can-sucko in town Opening Day!" Peering ahead to next year, we DID play the Rangers on Opening Day, but they hid Canseco at DH.....I hated when that happened.

TEENA LEWIS SIGNED THE SCORECARD! WHOO HOO. First documentation of a Teena appearance on the scorecard, so I pretty much had most of the family back then sign the thing. Even then she was the boss...more so than now. If she did not want you sitting around there, fact is you were NOT sitting out there. Much more on her to come in the next few installments. For some reason on this night she signed over here name, "good luck, and have fun" so God knows what I told her I had planned.

Some guy Chris, tempting fate by doing something bad that remains a mystery, said flat out "I dont care if I am thrown out....it happens all the time!"

There are SEVEN mystery outs, or ww's, on the card. From reasons as varied as "talking to Dennis" or "chugging 2 ketchups."

The Yankees came away with a wild win on this night, 9-6, thanks to 4 runs in the bottom of the 8th inning. Frank Tanana of all people toed the rubber for the Yankees, and pitched into the 7th and pitched ok. The trouble started when Bobby Munoz came in for him, and promptly gave up 3 hits, a walk, and 2 runs in an innings worth of "work."

Mike Moore started for the Tigers, who also gave us the privelage of seeing Tom Bolton, Joe Boever (who I once saw get into a fight with Atlanta's Ozzie Virgil), Rob MacDonald (who actually saw some action with the Yankees in 1995) and Mike Gardiner. Boever was spanked for the loss with a shoddy performance in the 8th.

Danny Tartabull homered for the Yankees (and it wasnt a solo shot!) and Danny Bautista jacked one for Detroit off of Tanana. The Diamondbacks have a prospect who will be on the major league seen soon...one DENNY Bautista, who is sure to call attention to the efforts of Danny by association, and who deserves it more....

One other oddball game note was that Boggs fouled off no less than 10 pitches in a 4th inning at bat....I saw enough to keep count there, but somehow MISSED THE OUT....he ended up, after all that, hitting into a "MO" - mystery out.

Some of the luminaries in the Detroit lineup where one of our favorite all-time bleacher targets in "Bony" Tony Phillips leading off and standing in front of us in right, Danny Gladden in center, and the fat and not yet bankrupt Cecil Feilder standing immobile at first. We also had the privelage of seeing Eric Davis in the Tiger lineup, manning the DH slot.

There were only 22,552 on hand (lots of mustard-smashing room) and your umpires for the night were Vic Voltaggio, fat Ken Kaiser, Mark Johnson, and Jim McKean.

Thanks for reading! Only 2 more offerings and we move on to 1994!



October 2nd and 3rd, 1993 - Yankees host Tigers
The curtain closes on 1993

This puts a wrap on 1993. By this point, we were mentally strained as the Yankees had fallen out of the race in the previous week, the Stadium was barren, empty and cold, and psychologically we were all set to resume our lives outside the Stadium. For me, it was mundane. I was new to the city, having moved there a year before, and still heading home to Long Island every weekend to be with my friends there.

I found another family in the bleachers, and I enjoyed the camraderie. There were no offseason happy hours back then, and outside of the two or three people we ended up running with, for the most part we did not even exchange numbers. When we left the Stadium that cold October 3rd afternoon, we knew we would not see one another again for 6 months. And it sucked.

The scorecards are devoid of anything. So I am just going to combine them and tie a bow on 1993. Leafing ahead, things pick up in 1994, the jokes are more biting and there are are a whole host of new characters to help spice things up.

October 2nd, 1993 was a chilly Saturday, and the Yankees were hushed by the Tigers 4-1 behind the efforts of Bill Krueger of all people. The day started off with some smirks as Chuck Mangione played the Anthem on his trumpet. I know he was sincere and all, but it was still Chuck Mangione and the Anthem did not sound right.

In clear letters I see "Velarde - Player of September" on here...I do not have the interest in checking to see if this was a Yankee thing, and if it was in any way legit. Judging by the snide Velarde remarks I have seen on these, I dont think it was. Walkman John?

Ah, I see even in 1993 a Chinese man could still be met with the old "I'll take the number 4 with spare ribs" joke. A few of the regulars were in bad spirits, as I mentioned Ali "clocked the soda guy" (I am sure it was not as serious as that sounds) and "Brewski leaves with buttons - top 7th" - as in he decided not to give out his free "COUSIN BREWSKI" pins to people asking for them, outside of some cherrypicked few. That never went over well.

Tony Phillips out in right gave us the finger, that was always good for a laugh. Current Tiger skip Alan Trammell had a Hall of a day, going 3-4, with a home run, and Dan Gladden went 4-5.

I had "a reporter" autograph the scorecard, so even then they were lurking. I also wrote a quote from him - "just a matter of time." I wish I knew what he was talking about....till assigned seating? An alcohol ban? The Yankees in the playoffs? What? Fuck, I hate when I write things thinking they would make sense 11 years later.

Wade Boggs went 3-4, and I noted he was at .300 with just one more game to go. He finished the year at .302, sitting out the final afternoon (where Bernie Williams actually led off in his place) Jim Abbott started for the Yankees and pitched ok, but was tagged for a loss ending his nondescript 11-14 season. Current bullpen coach (simply for now, from what I am reading) Rich Monteleone mopped it up. For a meaningless end of year affair, I am not seeing many unknowns in the lineups, even though the long-remembered Mike Humphries played left for the Yankees and went 0-3.

33,249 actually showed up for this game (or so they claim....that would drop the next day) and your umpires were still Ken Kaiser, Mark Johnson, Jim McKean, and Vic Voltaggio.

LAST DAY - OCTOBER 3rd, 1993

Well, this was a wrap. I remarked it was quite cold - I have a handful of pics from that day (Damn me for not being able to host pics) and we were bundled. I mentioned on my ride in my train got stuck, and I ended up drinking the 6 pack I was carting up with me on the subway. I already had the 6 and was bringing it along cause the old "cant buy beer till noon" edict. Thank God. I was not even late for the game, cause back then I would show by 9:30 for a 1:00PM start to get my drink on.

"Sit down cunt!" was not only snarled, but written on the card for posterity...I am pretty sure that word does not appear on too many of these. We dont work so blue for the most part.

There were a few Tiger fans near the front of the empty bleachers for whatever reason - Christ knows what they were doing there, and we were letting them have it. We finally hollered to our buddy Tony Phillips in right "Tony, go back to Detroit and take the front row with you!"

Someone was out there "looking like a movie usher with that jacket." We sang the "lets go out to the lobby" song for him a few dozen times. A beach ball actually found its way out there, and security actually chased it down. They usually dont get so directly involved in that sort of thing.

We spent the top of the second arguing about Don Mattingly...I dont know who was on what side, but he was a source of argument even then...I wonder if it was the old Puckett/Mattingly argument with different voices doing the arguing.

One funny note was a boxseat scuffle that ended with a few people tumbling down a couple of rows. That was always funny. Captain Bob signed my scorecard yet again (geez, I hope I grew weary of this gimmick by 94) with a nice "just have a good offseason" message. That was big for me back then, I was in awe of some of these people.

Yankees ended up pinching one with a run in the 9th for a walk-off win. Mike Stanley was a fitting hero, capping off a fine season, stroking the game winning hit and plating pinch-runner Spike Owen, who came in after Jim Leyritz was plunked with one out. Danny Tartabull was intentionally walked, and Stanley notched his single off of Tom Bolton. The beneficiary of this was Bobby Munoz, who actually pitched a scoreless 2 innings for the win.

The announced crowd was 28,942, but there was nothing close to that inside the Stadium. In my pics you see us posing in a veritable sea of blue seats. And your umpires were STILL Mark Johnson, Jim McKean, Vic Voltaggio, Ken Kaiser.

So that was that. I was basically just getting my feet wet out there, still a newbie, and still keeping in my place out there. I think I still thought George ran the place to some extent, and Teena was the muscle. I had nothing but reverence for them, Captain Bob, Animal, Ali, Chico, and the rest of the clowns. My pack back then consisted of this guy Chris, who simply dropped off the Earth, Dennis, and a few others lost to memory.

Hope you enjoyed 1993....business is about to pick up!