Scorecard Memories - 1994!

[$heriff Tom]

Hi there folks! Welcome to 1994!

April 8th, 1994 - Yankees host the Tigers


I picked up right where I left off, I saw the Yankees close 93 against the Tigers, and missed the first two games of 1993 against the Rangers to see Detroit back in town against the undefeated, 2-0 Yankees.

"Kurt Cobain is dead" has a prominent spot right at the top...was this the week? It was noted that the caricature on the cover of the 1994 Yearbook looked like the "outside of Shea Stadium."

I was just happy to be back. So happy that at 9:20PM I got to sing "Friend of Mine." We ordered Detroit RF Danny Bautista to "bark like a dog" - I dont think he did that.

In such a good mood, so pleased to see my old friends once again I actually told George at one point, "George, its good to see you" and he replied, "what, you're leaving?"

I am noticing a difference from the 1993 cards...the insults are a bit more biting here. "You fat fuck" is on here. Ironic, when you consider the physiques the section would be peppered with a decade later.

Our favorite "celebrity security" was on hand. In that year alone we had security personnel that closely resembled Saddam Hussein, Queen Latifah, and BB King. And then, when trouble would start, here came Elvis with his walkie-talkie.

Ali kicked the festivities off with his first bell of the night at 7:01....I missed it (and back then that was a big deal) cause I was in the bathroom. However, whoever wrote this info mispelled the name of maybe the most famous bleacher creature of them all, noting him as "Ollie." What was this, Laurel and Hardy?

My first yell was a "hey, Luis!" at Yankee centerfielder Luis Polonia at 7:46. Talk about pre-roll call....the first Met fan was sighted at 7:10, and the first Met fan was shredded at, well, 7:10. It took just about another hour, 8:09 to be exact, for a Red Sox fan to be spotted and subjected to abuse. Continuing my time on the clock fetish, I noted that Cousin Brewski made his first appearance out there at 9:41PM.

Someone was griping about us, and was met with "eat your fucking Carvel ice cream and go back to Jersey." The first "fight false alarm" rang at 8:40 (shit, I was heavy into marking times at this point....I hope I grew out of this soon) and in the bottom of the 6th someone in the box seats "threw a beer at us" and "he's out!!!"

This was the night where I first made my "If I could, I would make love to beer" statement. Or at least when it was first recorded. I ended up missing part of the 4th and a healthy chunk of the 5th "buying beers." And, thanks partially to all these beers, a bunch of us belted out a few verses from the Monty Python Lumberjack song.

I am seeing yet another false fight on here....man, the beer ban really worked. We dont see fights and fight false alarms like this anymore...

Holy shit are there are lot of mo's here. Lots of missed outs. 2 in the top of the 3rd (while I was passing out cookies? What the fuck...) another couple in the 5th when I was buying beer (what happened to all of my pinch-scorers?) and another one in the 7th during one of the false fights. These all came with the Tigers up, so at least I was watching the Yankees bat.

I lost my voice, and bitched about it on the scorecard as I could no longer yell at Danny Bautista, who was in right. The Tigers had since moved our old foe Tony Phillips to left. That did not encumber us - we would still chant at him in deragatory fashion, and see him dancing for us (he was quite the shimmy-er) across the field.

There was a major "beer controversy" in the 5th when the beer man walked right by us and ended up selling all his beers behind us. That is what caused me to head out into the lobby line to miss a chunk of action.

After all the "false fights" a major bleacher brawl finally erupted just before 9PM. Not only did i mark down the exact time (8:52) but I noted it sparked with a 2-1 count on the hitter.

What, were they selling RC Cola out there in 94? I have "RC Cola?" written on here with a frowny face. We may have simply been discussing RC Cola out there for no reason..we always ended up in dumb conversations like that.

Ah, shit, I am noticing now in the "played at" area on the scorecard this was one of those 7PM games...looks like this is where they chopped them up a half hour, cutting into our pregame drinking time. The bastards!

What the fuck was going on circa 1993 and 1994? There was yet ANOTHER fan on the field! This individual had a romp just as Cecil Fielder popped up to first, ending the 8th. I mean, get some control!

There is one autograph from a fan on here, someone claiming to be Robby Thompson's brother in law. How that came up, who knows...

As for the game, Jim Abbott pitched a shutout, God bless his merry soul! He threw a neat 7 innings, before Bob Wickman came in to engage in funny business. He gave up a single and a walk, and that was it for him. Steve Howe of all people came in and threw 2 to lock up the save.

Starting for the Tigers was one John Doherty, from the Bronx, New York! Fuck him! Luis Polonia led off for the Yankees, and walked 3 times. Paul O'Neill was 2-3 and plated 2 runs, and Wade Boggs was 1-3 with a walk, scoring twice and driving in a run. Mike Gallego, at short, threw one away on the very first batter of the game, getting a "thanks for the throw Gallego" on the card for his efforts. Despite this, the win upped the Yankee mark to 3-0, heading into the first weekend of the season.

As for the Tigers, Juan Samuel, playing second and batting second, was feeling racist and went K K K in his first three at bats before Lou Whitaker creaked out to the field to bat for him in the 8th. Those in attendance were also lucky to see Mickey Tettleton, DHing for the Tigers, and the esteemable Milt Cuyler manning centerfield.

There were only 20,222 there ON A FRIDAY NIGHT! Holy crap!Your umpires for this fabled contest were Al Clark, Dan Morrison, Larry Barnett, and Greg Kosc.

Thanks for reading, and welcome to 1994!


April 19th, 1994
Yankees host the Seattle Mariners

Moving forever onward...

I have no idea where I was during the first weekend series against the Tigers, maybe camping or something. Nonetheless, my second game in 1994 was not until a Tuesday against Seattle. I have to think this is a day game, as a grumbly scrawled "we got more day games than the Cubs" is a hint. Actually....no, this was NOT my second game in 94, as I am seeing now I wrote "3" under game number, so there is a scorecard missing. D'oh!

First thing I noted on the scorecard was that there was "still a mystery blue jacket" in my bag. Someones jacket had ended up in my bag, and I dont think we ever figured that one out. It became a running gag.

Brother Dave was there with his friends Jay and Bill. Dave said he would make "20 games" and "this was one." By the end of the year I believe he notched "three." His friend Jay was busy that night, even "reasoning with a Seattle fan," which is a nice way of noting he was telling him in a friendly fashion it was in his best interests to keep the lips zipped or he would be pummelled.

"Freddie has one eye!" is on here, with exclamation point. Geez, even then Freddie was trying to spread joy, clanking his tin, and getting shit about his eye.

"Yabba Dabba Douchebag!" was one invective that was hurled. The brunt of this jeer was being ejected at the time. "What, do you comb your hair with a sponge?" made its inaugeral appearance as a bleacher barb, to a fat bald man.

In the current events of the day - I noted that "Space Ghost rules!" Speaking of TV at the time, you also see "Paul Olden sucks!" on here.

Looks like Dave "the Animal" was in jail. In two seperate spots on here you can read "Dave in jail." There are no further details to report on this breaking story. Well, breaking 10 years ago, anyway...whats funny is both times it was noted that he was in jail were written by me, so I must have been drunk again, or really trying to hammer the point home to put it on here more than once.

Eric Anthony was playing left for the Mariners, and we correctly ID'd him as a "former Houston Ass-blow." A woman gave us a grimace and a disgusted sigh, so we told her "get over it...chivalry is dead."

Even then there were still morons walking around with tags hanging off the caps. "Yo, G-Money, take the tag off" made the card.

The weather was a problem. Not much in the way of a breeze ("The flags are limp" was an observation) but rain was spritzing around. It rained early on as I blamed one of the mo's on it ("wiping off my seat") but it picked a funny time to REALLY hit, in the bottom of the 9th with the Yankees down 7-0 and Don Mattingly leading off. The tarp actually came out.....that must have went over well, huh...I likened the fleeing masses to roaches on the wall (and as a fairly new resident of NYC, I surely knew what that looked like)

Check this, it was a whopping NINE minute rain delay. Shit, I would have thought it would take them that long to run it on and off the field alone. It ended at 9:27 PM, so there goes my theory about being a day game. We should have expected the bottom nine monsoon, as I see mentions of thunder and a sketch of an ominous cloud scrawled with an arrow connecting it to the top of the ninth.

Of all people we were shut down by Greg Hibbard. Coming in I marked next to his name that his "ERA looked like an AM radio frequency." So he promptly pitched into the ninth, when the Mariners turned to Jeff Nelson (who made 71 appearances in that, his second year in the league) and finally, one Tim Davis, in his debut season. Not even a household name in his own household, to be sure.

Jay Buhner was at it again, with two home runs, aptly dubbed "moonshot" in the 3rd and "a longer moonshot" in the 5th. In the 7th he flied out to center and made a show of it, fooling just about everyone who were convinced off the bat that it was a home run...off the bat.

What a goofy lineup for Seattle. Brian Turang was leading off, and playing DH. Not many DH's leading off, period. And fucking Brian Turang...lol! The Mariner lineup also included stalwarts Greg Pirkl at first and the affable Felix Fermin at short. And our good buddy Mike Blowers was at third. Not only did Buhner jack two, Rich Amaral plopped one of his own.

Jim Abbott started for the Yankees (Jesus Christ, every time I was there Abbott was pitching...but I missed the no-hitter. Go figure) - he left after 5 putrid innings, and Pope Don Pall came in to throw a gemstone 4 shutout innings, giving up but 2 hits.

Not much going on on the Yankee end of things. Ended up with the one run, on 6 hits. Mike Gallego was still locked in as the Yankee leadoff hitter. Bernie Williams was hitting 7th, with O'Neill right in front of him.

So with all this one-sided bitchsmacking, Teena lost her patience and when someone had the temerity to yap back at her, she promptly marched to the rail and had security come back and sternly warn them to shut up.

In the main oddity of the nights, there were ZERO double plays in the entire game. None, zippo, zilch.

There were only 21,148 on hand (geez, these small crowds are funny) on this gloomy evening, and your umpires were Ted Hendry, Mark Johnson, Chuck Meriwether, and Drew Coble.

Thanks for reading!

Lets recap April 22nd...I was there on April 9th against the Tigers as well, but, um....at the same time not there. REALLY DRUNK. Nothing salvagable about that card, outside of an admission that I "fell asleep on the train" written later that night, that Ali rang the bell at 2:31, and that we chanted "Davis is Danny's boyfriend!" (speaking of Eric Davis and Danny Bautista). The Yankees won 5-2, the scoring is basically unitelligable, and lets say we move on, shall we!

April 22nd, 1994 - Yankees host the A's
"Your Daddy's going to jail!"

Ah, the good old A's are in town. You know, where we get to yell at fans in A's caps (hey, you dropped an S off that hat!") - lots of joking and gagging on this Friday night, which was noted as the "79th Anniversary of pinstripes."

"You know its a bad night if YOU'RE here" someone had to hear. Things were so wild and hectic out there and security was running up so much that the observation was made that we should "put an escalator out here for security to get here."

Not only were we suggesting the architectural addendum of an escalator, we concluded "they should just put a beer tap right out here!"

THE best, and a memory that has lived forever outside of just these scorecards was some troublemaking guy that was there with his wee one. By the end of the night, everyone had had enough of him, and he was corralled and taken out, as his kid sat there bawling. No one came to help...no one had a kind word, Hell, no one even told the little spanker simply to follow Dad out. No, we chanted, "your Daddy's going to jail! Your daddy's going to jail!"

We were musing that there was an announcement reminding us to act like 'professional fans.' "Hell, if we are professional fans, then pay us!" was the retort.

"Jump old man!" some poor soul who probably saw Miller Huggins making pitching changes had to hear from us as he peered down from the loge.

Here is another funny line I remember - someone basically stated that "Don Mattingly is Jesus Christ" and was met with "then I wish Christ would wake up some April."

As Eddie Layton went into one of his LONG EXTENDED SOLOS someone put on the best ad-man voice and bellowed "Eddie Layton - available for weddings and bar mitzvahs!"

I was at it again, marking down what I thought were milestone times. At 7:20 "Ali's bell dropped." At 7:24 we saw our "first ejection." And at 7:41 Ali did his first boisterous bell clang. The first A's fan did a good job of staying discreet...we did not spot him until 8:15.

Lots of "celebrities" on hand. I am seeing Seinfeld, Kamala the Ugandan Headhunter, NY Giant Bart Oates, and Ginger from Gilligan's Island. Speaking of nostalgic TV, we had a nice chorus chant of "We want the Florie Dories!" We also greeted Tony Orlando Security guy with a rousing version of "Knock 3 times!" We also saw someone who looked "a lot like Patrick Ewing in that Wiz commercial."

There was also a traffic cop out there, apparently a pretty one at that, and she was serenaded with the old "show us your cones" chant.

In the 5th Terry Steinbach jacked a home run into our neighborhood in right, and a fan (not Crazy Dave for once) made a nifty catch. "Nice catch, you asshole!" was his reward. No word on here wether or not he threw it back (or should I say we FORCED him to throw it back)

Geronimo Berroa was out there in left, but that did not stop a whole host of "GEEERRONNNNIMOO!" hollers. "You even sucked in the movie!" made the card.

Not only did I have a "mystery out" on here, I had a "mystery situation." LOL. "A mystery situation." All it looks like on the card is a bunch of crossed out things in the player boxes, so I can shed no light.

Both teams were swatting the ball around, and back then that meant Pope Don Pall was due to saunter out of the Yankee bullpen. "Come on, your holiness!" was yapped as the door opened to usher in his appearance.

In early running for "dumbest heckle of 1994" is the one hollered at a guy who shuffled up in a tie. "Hey, you really tied one on there!"

Here is what appears to be some useless trivia....BB King sang a version of "The Wanderer." When or why, or if this is even true, I dont know.

This was one of those games. The Yankees pulled one out, 8-6 in just over 3 hours. That limpwrist Ron Darling started for the A's, and was belted around pretty good much to our joy. The A's paraded out a host of journeymen relievers in Carlos Reyes, Ed Nunez, and finally Billy Taylor.

And starting for the Yankees....oh, I had forgotten about this one! BOBBY OJEDA! Holy fuck, I forgot all about his stint with the Yankees. Well, in my defense it was only 2 games....

He was spanked on this night. 2 and a third, 7 hits and 3 walks to boot. Holy crap was he spanked in his Yankee career, all 3 innings of it. In a take off of "Ode to Indian" we sang "If you don't win, you're Ojeda!" during the 7th inning stretch, and whenever else it suited our fancy.

Bobby Ojeda vs. Ron Darling in Yankee Stadium..who'd have thunk it?

Who was in front of us in right for the A's? None other than Ruben Sierra. Steinbach was the star of the show for the A's, that fuck, going 3-4 with that damn home run. Mike Bordick also had 3 hits, and Rickey Henderson led off for the A's and had a couple of hits of his own.

For the Yankees Paul O'Neill went 2-3 with 2 runs, 2 RBIs, and a home run off the pretty boy. Mike Stanley also had a couple of hits (as always) and Bernie Williams had a home run.

The A's lost despite getting 14 hits off of Yankee pitching, the Yankees simply made their 9 count.

There was a pathetic, embarrassing crowd of 18,754 out there on a cold night (I called the place "The North Pole" in the 'played at' area on the card) and your umpires were none other than Gary Cederstrom, Jim Evans, Derryl Cousins, and Rick Reed.

Thanks for reading!

Well, its the weekend, how bout a drunken scorecard?

April 23rd, 1994 - Yankees host the A's
Ball four! Ball four! Ball four! Ball four! Ball four...

Its funny that I was SOOO drunk but I do remember one mass chuckle from this one, the extreme wildness of one Todd Van Poppel, who started for the A's-holes. Before I get into the lunacy of the day, and my drunken musings, check out this bottom of the first...

Luis Polonia led off with a walk.
Wade Boggs followed up with a walk.
Don Mattingly took ball four to load the bases.
Danny Tartabull walked, and a Polonia scored.
Paul O'Neill with the GRAND SLAM!
Matt Nokes then poked a single.
Bernie hit a nasty liner, which was caught and Nokes was doubled up.
Mike Gallego walked.
Pat Kelly walked.
And then Tod Van Poppel was pulled, leaving him with an astouding line of 2/3, 2 hits, SIX walks, and no K's.

As much as I would love to tell my grandkids that I was there one day, it would be fudging it a bit, as I missed those first 3 walks waiting outside for my friend Chris, whose ticket I had in hand. I did not forget this fact either (you can imagine how well this must have sat with me) as I later wrote, "Chris is a bastard - I waiting" and "Thanks to Chris, missed 3 walks - (1st) )

Ok, lets get on with it. I was very drunk, being a Saturday afternoon and all. Jamie noted as such on the card, with the old "Thomas drunk" heading, as if people would not have been able to figure that out for themselves looking at this mess. I HAVE to get around to scanning cards like this one, watching me trying to write the lineups is something in itself.

There is an entire half inning, the bottom of the 4th, that has a HUGE question mark through it. I didnt do too much better in the top of the 4th, which features 3 mystery outs, AKA "mo's." I was STILL out of it going into the 5th, as there is a huge question mark there too. In the bottom of the 5th I actually recorded a groundout and a hit by pitch, but there are a couple of mo's in there too. Well, you get the idea...

Where were the pinch-scorers? Probably having fun at my expense. There are ELEVEN mystery outs on this card alone, and that does not include the missing, question marked tagged innings.

Lets see what else we got on here....RC Cola was still taking it up the ass, with a big "RC Sucks!" I also noted that "we have no class, and fuck you too!" I was astute enough to scrawl while Van Poppel was walking everyone that the A's outfielders were "in lawn chairs." The snail-paced crawl of that half inning of time also prompted a "Jesus Christ...we'll never leave!"

This one hurts to read today...we serenaded a Boston fan with a "Bucky Dent" chant, and did so at 3:28, so my marking time fetish lived on. Ah, I am seeing "RC Sucks!" on here again! Thats twice. You would think someone as drunk as me would be able to forget about whatever soda they were peddling for a day, no?

In a funny note from Yankee history, Don Mattingly took Dave Righetti deep in the 6th, that was good for a laugh. I really have to give myself some credit for forging on and keeping score all the way until the last out, missed plays and malarky all over the card notwithstanding. Seriously, there are what are probably supposed to be jokes but what are in reality marks like this "kkkeiagbeieoo$*#&(" all over this thing. Half of it is seriously unitelligable.

One thing I do see is "Santa ain't real." How that came up, I have no idea. While Rickey Henderson was trying to eke out a walk of his own, I saw fit to yell, "Hit him in the head! Make him earn it!" In that same 7th inning Terry Mullholland got behind 3-1 to limpwrist hitting catcher Scott Hemond, and I griped "for fucks sake, its 8-1!"

In many other ways it was a normal day out there - Gang Bang was sung by Captain Bob (and yes, i noted the time too - 3:07) and Ali was ringing his bell (first time - 1:21) - to show you how drunk I was, I was sentimental about Ali's bell-ringing, noting "2 days in a row - Alis famous cowbell!" Um....someone should have filled me in that any day I was out there, I saw "Ali's famous bell."

I see on here that not only did Teena yell at a kid, but got him thrown out. Reasons and alibis are lost to history.

"Down in front, Fernando Valenzuela!" seems to be our only faux celebrity sighting of the afternoon. I also noted that "Nixon died" on here, so at least we were keeping up on the current events of the day. There was even a moment of silence held for the ex President. Speaking of current events, I mentioned my favorite band of the day (Post Mortem) on the scorecard. 90s doom/death metal rocked!

Willie Randolph was already at his coaching box antics even then, getting someone gunned down at third. It did not go unappreciated, as a snide "thanks Willie" is on here for eternity. And, for the 1000th out of the 8000 times the story was told out there, someone saw fit to remind us all that "Willie was once a Con-Ed kid, sitting out in the bleachers."

The game itself should have remained a Yankee spankjob as after the A's notched one in the first, New York stormed back with 5. Well...with 5 walks I dont think stormed is the right word, unless Van Poppel was blaming the wind for all those walks. Hey, why the fuck did they leave him in that long anyway?

Anyway, starter Terry Mulholland (no, that is not a typo) and Bob Wickman did their best to make it a close one, and going into bottom 8 it was 8-6 Yankees. None other than Xavier fucking Hernandez actually closed out the thing for the good guys, notching his 3rd save of 1994. Van Poppel, who ended up walking 62 in 84 innings in that, his first full season in the bigs, took the loss.

For the Yankees, O'Neill drove in 5 including that grand poke, and the first 5 batters in the Yankee lineup scored all 8 runs. The A's were swinging for the fences themselves, with Geronimo Berroa and our old buddies Ruben Sierra and Scott Brosious (who John Sterling once called "Atrocious Brosious on the air) touching them all. Sierra went 2-4, with 2 runs and 2 RBIs in the 5 hole that day behind Mark McGwire, who went 0-5.

You would have thought this game lasted 8 hours, what with all the walks and batters circling the basepaths, but it ended in 2:51, in front of 29,254. We had the privelage of seeing umpires Jim Evans, Derryl Cousins, Rick Reed, and Gary Cederstrom work the game.

I wonder how I got home on those days. I was nasty drunk. And when I first looked at this scorecard I thought i would be lucky enough to get 2 paragraphs out of it. Now you are unlucky enough that I got like 21...talk about getting blood out of a stone.

Thanks for reading!

[$heriff Tom]

April 24th, 1994
Yankees host the A's-holes

Well, back at it again with the A's. A fine Sunday afternoon I dubbed "the day after." As I remarked on the scorecard, "I crawled up the steps yesterday" so you know what I meant by that term. I dubbed my condition the day before as a "pink elephant stampede."

Looks like I reverted to drinking water, too, so I must have been feeling it. I have a few notes of myself "spilling water" so I probably had the shakes too. I was in a griping mood, mentioning "I am seeing every cap out here, but Yankee caps."

Lets see what we got on here. I noted that it was hot. I mentioned the Daily News story about the bleachers that has been touched upon in this section already. Already "media whore" cracks were being made, and a "to spank or not to spank" comment about people masturbating to it was made. There was also an early John Bobbit joke on here, you know - the one where his new name is "Les Johnson."

I have to laugh that even in 1994 we were ragging on Willie Randolph's tendency to get runners tossed out at the plate. I mentioned a "Willie Randolph windmill pin" day coming up. I was listening to the FAN a few weeks back and some Yankee fan who claimed to be a Randolph fan admitted to Mike and the Mad Dog he never heard the term "Windmill Willie" and Francesa basically called him a fake fan if he never heard that and rushed him off the phone.

These were the days where not only cigars were being burned out there, all kinds of reefer madness was sprouting. The cigar smoke sort of shielded the other stuff. The old "dont hide it, divide it" mantra made this card.

Celebrity sighting of the game was Mel, from Alice's Diner. "Hey, Mel, find your seat, and kiss my grits!" was a bon mot hurled his way. Raj from Whats Happenin' was also there, and he was met with "Hey hey hey!" after "Hey hey hey!" Seeing him started a heated discussion over who would "win in a fight, Raj or JJ from Good Times." Speaking of fights, we then turned to a discussion of how much we would love to see fisticuffs between Ali and Chico.

Remember the "Crapman vendor" that looked like UHF television icon Uncle Floyd? Well, he was out there that day too. Not only did WE know he looked like Uncle Floyd, he did too, and that always made it funnier.

Remember this problem? People with general admission seats, trying to find their seat. Handing off the ticket, asking one of us where their seat was. They usually managed to hand it off to Teena, who was never in the mood to see new faces anyway, so that always went over well.

Ali broke out a new trick, playing a riff on the bell "behind his back." The bell was having a hell of a day, it seems, as it was also dropped twice by people who felt the need to fondle it. George dropped it at 1:51, and a mere 7 minutes later "Paul Bunyon" dropped it too.

I made fun of my ragged drunken notes the night before, with "last nights quotes" connected by arrow to a series of strange curves and lines that looks like a childs drawing of ocean waves.

Some dork was being a bit "tender" with his hot dog, shall we say, and one of us cracked that "check it out, the weiner is actually getting bigger." I mean, this guy was tonguing the thing.

One of our early batting practice foes, Geronimo Berroa, was in the A's lineup, but someone thought his name was "Wamboa." I wonder if that was an early Angel appearance on the scorecard. (You know, Angel of "I never knew Cal Ripken Jr was black" fame)

A man peered over the loge, baby in hand, pointing at the animals in the zoo, if you will. "Throw the baby, save yourself!" was the hue and cry.

Lets see what was going on on the field....Jim Abbott was pitching for the Yankees. While I missed his no-hitter, I did get to see him pitch no-hit ball into the 7th on this day, before that idiot Berroa broke it up with a clean single to right. Abbott ended up pitching 8 strong innings of 3 hit, 1 run ball, as the Yankees cruised to a 6-1 win. Only 10 hits in the game total (6 by the Yankees) as Bob Welch took the loss for the A's.

We also got to see one John Briscoe hurl one of his 139 career innings on this day, and Dennis "Upper-Deckersley" came in to finish up for Oakland. This mo-fo Briscoe was a wild one - he walked 129 and threw 22 career wild pitches in those 139 lifetime innings, and pitched to the tune of a 5.67 career ERA. His 1993 ERA in 24 innings was 8.03, so of course on this day he pitched a scoreless inning.

Wrapping it up for the Yankees - Jeff fucking Reardon! Holy shit, what was going on with our pitching around then. Reardon, Ojeda, Mulholland, Howe, Pope Don Pall....

Reardon made it out of the 9th alive, but man was he spanked in his short Yankee tenure. In 9 innings of work he was torched for 9 runs on 17 hits, and 3 home runs. We had the pleasure of seein him released on May 4th, and his career was toast.

Don Mattingly went deep for the good guys, and the only A's run came on a poke from old friend Mike Aldrete, in the 9th off who else but Jeff Reardon. Pat Kelly and Luis Polonia each had 2 of the Yankees 6 hits, and we got to see Polonia and Oaklands Scott Brosious both caught stealing. Whoo-a!

There were 30,877 on hand, a bit of a sluggish Sunday gathering. Your umpires were once again Derryl Cousins, Rick Reed, Gary Cederstrom, and Jim Evans, and the game was played in 2 hours and 35 minutes.

Thanks for reading!

Another month, another scorecard...

May 6th, 1994 - Yankees host the Red Sox
Tom gets in a fight!

Not much to this one. This was one of those days when I was deep into my cups. Sensing a pattern, folks?

Our hated foes, Boston, were in town, and the first thing I note is a Gavin McLeod lookalike in Orioles garb. What the fuck was an Oriole fan doing there? Mind your business! You ever notice those schmucks who do the whole kit and kabootle? This guy had an Oriole sweatshirt and an Oriole cap. And we shredded him. Even Crapman, who had strapped two Yankee pennants to his box of wares, had a laugh at his expense.

My drinking could be excused, by both family and clergy, as it was a Friday night in the Bronx, after all. I even had the temerity to complain about my physical scoresheet on here, saying "I dont have a good fucking scoresheet." Well....11 years later I am still using the same ones. They served me well, tally ho!

Under "date" I put, "haven't had one for a while" - got to love self-depracating humor! By the simple fact I was scoring so many games, you know I am telling the truth on that.

Jimmy Key was on the hill for the Yankees, which meant Pops was probably somewhere in the Stadium cause as he attested, he never missed a Jimmy Key game. I sure hope he wasnt the buffoon that said "You got the key!" which was saved for posterity on here.

Ah, another celebrity siting - Kenny Loggins was walking around Section 39. So we sang at him. Someone actually snuck beer into the Stadium in a shampoo bottle...I suppose they had a toiletry bag with them....how much could a shampoo bottle even hold, 8 ounces? What a waste. I hope they got soap residue in the mouth.

I see we spent the entire bottom of the 5th having a "rotissierie discussion" How bout that, it was the days before it was called "fantasy baseball." These days, with this potbellied crew, a "rotisserie discussion" would have to involve chicken.

Even then the words "God's a Yankee fan" made the scorecard. Oh, did we love to rub in Boston fan faces.

Hey, check me out! I got in a fight! I am a regular Lennox Lewis! My friend Dave Kelly who is now a DC powerbroker was on hand, and scrawled the account - and what a tale he transcribed! Here it is....."T gets in a fight"

I remember this. Actually, what happened is I jumped into a fight. One of the clues that kept this in my memory bank over the years is the quotes "be careful" and the reply underneath "I am tryin' to watch a fight, ok?"

What happened was this.... A set-to sparked behind us and to the right, and before punches could fly I decided to head on up. Someone went to stop me and hit me with the "be careful" line when I said I was rolling over there, and as I pulled my arm away I slurred, "I am tryin to watch a fight, ok?"

Well, I did more....when the fight started I jumped in, right on the pile. I remember that much, I have no idea why I jumped in. I do know that there was a guy out there we dubbed "jerk in the box" cause he kept hopping up and down, and I think it involved him. I also had scrawled "I cant believe those guys are standing up there scot free" sometime during the game, that probably referred to a group I wanted out for some reason.

This set-to went down in the bottom of the 6th. I was allowed to stay - they would only throw me out when I was innocent of all charges. I was always able to stay when I totally broke the rules. The only other hint as to who was involved in the fight was a nod to "mets suck guy" - I believe this was who I came to the defense of.

As far as I recall, this was my first fight out there - there are a couple of more to come.

There are all kinds of "mo's" on here - mystery outs. There are also scrawls in the margin like "I think he stole second" and "I believe he was struck by a batted ball" with a line connecting it to a box where the only thing written in there is "out."

What a mess. This thing is totally illigeable. I dont know why I bothered, or people let me do it. For Christs sake, I am seeing 16 mo's on here, and a whole missing half inning (top of the 7th, just after the fight. I was probably answering questions by the fuzz)

The only other marks of note on here was a "We want Zupcic" chant (he was a favorite target in 93/94, usually in center when Boston was in town, but nowhere to be found that evening) and a notation that The Gay Games were coming to NY (and Yankee Stadium) - there are no jokes regarding that here, but believe me, they are coming on another scorecard on a night that seemed like "rip the Gay Games night."

I also marked down what was really an innocous quote that could have been said regarding anything ("I liked the way you worked that in there" ) but I found funny, as it had sexual overtones. These were the Beavis and Butthead days, remember.

I was back in the "having a fan autograph the scorecard" mood, as some guy named Chris (something) signed, writing "going to Hawaii" underneath. Well, whoopie! I also found it important to note that Ali rang his first bell at 6:53 that evening.

The pitching lines are bare - I simply marked the names of the starters, Key and Aaron Sele. So its time to check retrosheet....I cant tell much of anything game related from the scorecard either, this really is a mess - aside from the fact that the Yankees scored 3 in the bottom of the 4th.

And it seems, checking online now, those 3 runs held up, as the Yankees notched a 3-1 victory. Key upped his record to 5-1 with a complete game, giving up the 1 run on 4 hits and ZERO walks. He struck out two. Nice. Sele lasted into the 6th, when he was relieved by good old Paul Quantrill, that fuckhead. Quantrill was in his second campaign in the bigs, in a year where he ended up starting 14 of 49 appearances, going 6-12. He was in a Boston uniform and I hated him, but I found him intriguing cause he shared the name of Civil War guerilla William Quantrill. Tony Fossas (who was getting old then) and Greg Harris also pitched in for the Bosucks.

The only extra base hit of the game was by Tim Naehring (now a farm director in the minor leagues) and the Yankees had only 7 singles of their own in what was a quick moving affair.

I see at least 3 notations of where I was "buying beer" so hooray me as the game only went TWO HOURS AND THIRTEEN MINUTES so I was doing some work. Whens the last time you saw one of those? Your umpires were none other than Ted Hendry, Mark Johnson, Chuck Meriwether, and Drew Coble, and 30,979 were on hand .

Thanks for reading!

Moving forever onward....

May 9th, 1994 - Yankees host the Indians
"Just another MANIAC Monday"

Ah, a Monday game. This may have been one of the last Monday games I made, due to my swilling a 6-pack and watching Monday Night Raw addiction. But, nonetheless, I was here to see former Tiger great Jack Morris wrapping up his career with the Cleveland Indians. The dick.

The Yankees had just finished off a 3 game sweep of the Red Sox at the Stadium, which I missed cause of "a dentists appointment (yeah, I know, it didnt work) and Mothers Day." Weak!

Speaking of dicks, Manny Ramirez was on hand. And his "contingent" was out in full force, those "dummy in a cans." This fued between our core crews has been going on for over a decade. I saw fit to remark on here that my boss Bernard (who ended up firing me twice) was at the Devils/Bruins game after saying he was going to come along to this battle. I also mentioned that I was "sober" and that it was good to show up like that every once in a while to surprise the lookie-loo's who kept one eye on us, and one eye on the field even then.

A wave started to simmer, and Teena hopped up and got into the face of a ringleader with the classic line, "do the wave and wave your ass out of here!" She was busy that evening, also snapping at someone who flicked on the game on his radio, introducing herself with a curt "shut off the radio!" There was a lot of firepower hollering at the radio guy, as stalwarts Ali and George also had their say to him.

We spent the entire 3rd inning having a "how to sneak beer in" discussion, so the prices must have been getting to us. Think of it, the average Friday and Saturday games probably set me back $30-$40 each. I mean, holy fuck.

The Ramirez faction actually had a sign up there. Who would have known they could write? While I did not mark down what it said, someone cracked "they probably stole it." I dont really think this was the game I mentioned with all the friction with those yokes earlier on this thread (I mentioned it today actually) but I do have notes like "Ramirez faction sign distraction" and "talkin' shit with Ramirez fans" on here. So who knows.

It would not surprise me that there would be a lot of interaction between the groups, as no one else was there...I wrote "seeing a lot of blue seats" - there have been bigger crowds at 1912 high school reunions.

The first Indian fan sighting was at 6:58....the Ramirez fans did not count, cause they could not name one other Indian. But enough about them. Since the Indians were in town we broke out the old "Old to Indian" and George laughed.

We were already starting to overuse "Yabba Dabba Douchebag!" as it is on the scorecard again. I was falling into a bad habit around this time of trying to provide game commentary in free areas of the scorecard, connecting them to the box applying to the hitter with arrows. They get in the way. There are bullet points like "rainbow throw" and "wild pitch, Belle on 3rd" and "Morris barehand" and "2nd on throw" dotting this particular card. To show I was thinking outside the box, I also was keeping play by play on crowd capers, as I see "aborted Friend of Mine" and "first bell 7:21" and "oh, no, wave" and "bigger wave!" on here as well. I also noted that a 1-2-3 bottom of the 2nd "took 3 seconds."

A fan autographed the scorecard - one "George something or another" but at least he made a comment too..."with Morris pitching it will be 14-0" Well, that would have been nice. Morris was not getting much respect out there coming in, before the game and next to his name I snidely scrawled "the jerk we know and love."

Ah, here is a play on names...I wrote "Manny RAMirez" emphasizing the RAM which I suppose was a reference to butt sex. Again, this was the Beavis and Butthead era. We gave yet another nod to "Windmill Willie" Randolph, by speculating that Don Quijote was stuck on his arm. A joke that takes some thought!

Faux celebrities on hand were Kenny Rogers and Peter Sellers. Welcome! Ah, I am seeing the old "home run in a silo" joke on here in reference to a popup...that joke has not aged well. We also did some singing, although I noted "we sound like castrated men."

Its funny, when Jim Thome came in to pinch hit for the Indians in the 9th (he actually K'd) and I remarked "ONLY WHITE GUY ON THE TEAM." And thats almost no joke! The starting lineup, aside from Mark Lewis, who no one noticed, was Lofton, Baerga, Belle, Eddie Murray, Candy Maldonado, Ramirez, Alvaro Espinoza, and Tony Pena. Hispanics and blacks galore. Oh, and Mark Lewis.

Fucking Ramirez was at it again. He cracked yet another home run off Yankee pitching, and boinked a double to left in the 7th. Even then someone muttered "this Ramirez deal is like a bad B movie." If we only knew then...

Jim Abbott started for the Yankees, again...its like he started every game I ever went to. He pitched ok, and squeaked out the win, with Xavier Hernandez actually notching his 5th save, with setup help from Bob Wickman. Hernandez K'd 2 in the 9th, and when he got two strikes on Kenny Lofton with 2 outs and one on someone uttered, "strike him out...it will be the happiest day of my life." Lofton, same as now, did not cooperate - he flew out.

Morris walked 5 in 7 plus innings of work, causing me to write "there are more balls around Morris than in a parade of elephants." Wow, between that and the arcane Don Quijote reference, I have some real "thinking mans jokes" that night. That dick Jose Mesa also took a turn on the hill for the Indians that night. On the Cleveland side of things, not only did Ramirez have a fun evening, Albert "Joey" Belle went 3-4 and had a savage poke off of Abbott as well.

In what seems to be a pattern with people I am mentioning on here around this time, Morris was released later in the year, on August 9th. And that was a wrap for him. He ended up with a 5.60 ERA (after notching a 6.19 ERA for Toronto the year before) in 23 starts. I am happy we got to see the jerk get his 4th loss of the season on this night.

What a putrid crowd. A mere pittance of 16,567 were on hand, and the game clocked in at 2:59. Your umpires on the night were Larry Young, Rich Garcia, Brian O'Nora, and Dale Ford.

Thanks for reading!

[$heriff Tom]

May 10th, 1994 - Yankees host the Indians
"Best record in baseball!"

A Tuesday night, game 2 of a 3 game set-to with the Tribe. My 9th game of the season, and the Yankees were 6-2 with Tom in town.

Our good buddy Wayne Kirby was in right, and aside from being serenaded with verse after verse of "Ode to Indian" someone hollered, "Kirby, you suck so much someone named a vacuum after you!" After all these years, though, I still cant get the sight of Kirby laughing as we sung a ditty about two of his ex-teammates getting killed in a boat crash during a game the year before.

We had what I called an "inadvertant box seats suck!" chant. Some fool stood up in the box seats holding up a sign, and was deluged with the chant. He looked over with a sad hangdog look, and showed us his sign...it was the Paul O'Neill bulls-eye sign guy, and he had friends in 39 who also had signs, so we quelled the chant.

The Dominicans were catching their share of shit again, although many had not returned from the night before. "Dominicans, huh? How many wars have YOU won?" was a query put to them. "Immagraciona!" was another fan favorite.

Our good friend Animal, who apparently had a short stint in the hoosegow (an earlier scorecard said he was in jail) showed up clean shaven. "Its so security can't recognize me" he shrugged. Time off did not change his drunken ways, however, as "Animal wakes up" is noted in the top of the 7th.

In the faux celebrity siting category, Kenny Loggins was there again, "dressed as Winnie the Pooh" with a nice striped pullover shirt. Someone else was wearing a freaky tie-die shirt, and someone mused, "geez, I am getting a contact high just from that shirt." Another faux celebrity on hand was Kurt Cobain, who was greeted with a "down in front Kurt Cobain!" and returned it with a sheepish wave.

We were surly with the beer men. The beer was warm, as usual. "Shit, I can boil clams in this beer." was one gripe. "Beer man, if I wanted soup, I would have ordered it." was another.

Hey, I see why we had so many "Raj" mentions on here...Raj was apparently on security, working every game. Hey, hey hey!

With all the rowdy crowds Cleveland and Ramirez bought in, I saw fit to mention "there was a lot of altercating last night." Teena was on a rampage, causing someone around me to put on a perfect Dragnet voice and utter "I'm Teena...I wear a badge." Kind of amusing to see a badge mention a couple of years before the birth of Sheriff Tom.

I have a star in a corner on here, with the words "80th game" on there. So I believe I at least believed it was my 80th game at Yankee Stadium. That would double by 1996. I marked a few other times on here for further posterity - first crapman sighting was at 7:11, followed up by the first Ali bell at 7:13. We did an Indian tomohawk chop while chanting "Indians blow" at 7:44...and basically what amounted to the entire bleachers on a night like that had an awesome "Kiiiirrrbbbbbyyyy" chant at 9:02. I myself started a rousing "Kirby sucks!" chant at 9:17.

I also remarked that, at that early date of May 10th, the Yankees had busted out to not only first place, but the best record in baseball, 20-10 going in. We all know how this movie ended, huh?

Mike Stanley had reached the point of reverence out there by this time. When he came up, some people would rise and genuflect, and chant "may the power of Christ compel you." He went 2-4 on this night, with a dreaded "mo" to boot.

I mentioned that my brother Dan, who lived in Maryland, was at the Oriole/Blue Jay game in Baltimore at the same time. However, there were only 30,000 more people at Camden Yards joining him than were joining me in the Bronx. Even the majority of the "Ramirez crowd" took this one off, by my notes.

Cousin Brewski was in his showman mood, belting out "Proud Mary" by Creedence Clearwater Revival "at 9:34." That was always a good show. He was not met with the normal jubilant reception, though, as people were still upset with the beer vendors for the warm beer and did not see beyond Brewski's beer vendor guise. But Brewski won them over by handing out free "Cousin Brewski" buttons. When the bleachers are nearly empty, you could do that sort of thing.

I noted that Crazy Devil Fan Billy was involved in a "Henderson argument" - remember, this was the guy that once called Marty Cordova "the best leftfielder in baseball." I dont know what he was saying about Henderson, but he was having to argue to defend it.

A Yankee must have been nailed on the basepaths, as I have a "another succesful graduate of the Randolph school of baserunning" on here. There are all kinds of random game notes on here like "great throw - bad call" and "E on throw" and "pitchout" and "ground rule" - I mise as well have taped the game on the radio to play back later if I was going to be so anal about things.

But, hooray me! There was only ONE mo in the whole game, Stanley's in the 8th. Fuckin' a...I made it all the way till the 8th and lost a perfectly scored game with only 4 outs to go. As I sit here typing this, I wonder if I will ever see a perfectly scored game again. The reason for the flub was ok, though, I was looking down and writing in O'Neills second home run, which immediatly preceded it.

As for the game on the field, the errant abuse we landed on the O'Neill fan did not jinx Paul on the field, as he had what I dubbed a "hero night" - going 3-4 with 2 runs and 2 RBIs, and two home runs. Stanley and Mattingly also had 2 hits, and the Yankees won 5-3 behind decent enough pitching for 6 innings by Scott Kamienieki. The unlikely tandem of Paul Gibson (who got the win) and Xavier Hernandez pitched 3 hitless innings to lock and load this one.

On the Indian side of things, Albert Belle again had his merry way with the Yankee pitching, going 3-4. Thome, playing third base at this stage of his career, was the only white guy in the starting lineup outside of starting pitcher Charles "Nerd" Nagy. Eric Plunk, that asshole, threw the 8th for the Indians and much to our delight we touched him up for another run. The only other Indian note of interest was that the ever surly Eddie Murray exchanged pleasantries with home plate ump Brian O'Nora after being punched out in the 9th.

As I alluded to, it was a scant gathering at the Stadium. Only 17,378 were on hand, while my brother was part of a 47,194 showing at Camden Yards. Your full set of umpires were Brian O'Nora, Rich Garcia, Dale Ford, and Larry Young.

Thanks for reading!

May 11th, 1994 - Yankees host the Indians
Pops WAS there!

Ah, a Wednesday night at the Stadium. First place Yankees sitting pretty at 21-10, against the 14-15 Indians. I mentioned on here it was "the Yankees best start since 1956." To kick the night off and celebrate this fact, the Yankees took the field sans music while Bob Sheppard was still making announcements, which is something I dont remember seeing outside of this occasion.

Another really scant crowd...what was funny is this one guy was there with this smoking bimbo, and they left around the 6th....which cause us to start ragging on the guy until someone chose to put it in perspective. "He's going to go get a hummer, and we're watching the game. Who's the stupid ones?"

This girl had to go. She was dancing around and showing people her "black bra." Security was none too pleased, and as I remarked at one point "security stops slut." One of the mystery outs on here was explained away this way - "missed it, she was touching herself." Then I am seeing another one explained away with "missed it, she was touching his lasso." Um, lasso? What the fuck...

I mentioned that Jeff (a really disheaveled Willie Loman-ish regular) had a really loud tie on. I also mentioned that Redd Foxx was "still dead" so he must have took the dirt tumble on the set of "The Royal Family" around that time.

Showing my zest for minuitia, I called in the first Crapman sighting (7:45) and even mentioned that the O'Neill sign guy was back again.

The Dominicans were getting it from us again. A "USA! USA!" chant combatted their fervent waving of the Dominican flag. "Grab your goat and get on your boat!" was another chant levied their way. Someone was sing-songing at Ramirez "Manny Tiene Un Clap!" which he translated as "your tenants are here" which I guess was alerting Manny to his contingent of smelly fans.

Indian boat crash jokes were still abounding. On a lazy fly out to right, as Ramirez settled underneath someone shouted, "look out, there's the pier!" Speaking of outfield follies, after Luis Polonia played a fly into a double in the Indian first, someone shouted, "Hey, Polonia, the game's started!"

Hey, Dennis, what the Hell were you doing there on a weeknight? I ask, cause I mentioned on here for posterity, "whats Dennis doing here on a weekday?"

Some guy was wearing what we dubbed a railroad cap, so we were constantly singing railroad songs at him and his striped cap self. I also noted that "the I've been working on the railroad guy has 2 beers."

I cant imagine there could have been anyone in the box seats, but we were indeed serenaded with a "bleachers suck!" chant from that environ. We countered by noticing that "fat people run the box seats" and hurled a few "Free Willy!" chants in retort.

There were a bunch of "frat boys" on hand...that happened now and again. I led whatever there was of the crowd in "Friend of Mine" at 8:22, but also remarked we had "the worst Gang Bang ever" later in the game. It was on me...even back then I took a turn at the Gang Bang, which leads me to believe Captain Bob was nowhere to be found. After that review of the Gang Bang, I admitted "everyone is dissapointed in me."

This scorecard was messy, but not so much for drunkenness (actually, I cant find any hints that I was drinking at all on this Wednesday night) but cause there was all kinds of pandemonium going on on the field. The fifth has hits, errors, and mystery outs all over it. The Yankees scored 3 runs, but by the mess you would think they notched 8. Fuckin' A - there are only TWO mystery outs on the whole card, and they were both because of that stupid slut.

Jimmy Key started for the Yankees and walked out of there with the win, upping his mark to 6-1. He pitched 7 innings, giving up 3 runs on 7 hits, 1 walk, and 5 Ks. Bob Wickman finished up with 2 hitless innings, and he struck out the side in the 8th, doing away with Baerga, Belle, and Murray, notching his first save of 1994. Not too shabby.

That fossil Dennis Martinez started for the Indians, and the Yankees slapped him around a bit. Then we got to boo Steve Farr something fierce when he came in to pitch in the 6th. "You fuck!" someone yelled. "Fucking fuck!" Some retard named Brian Barnes pitched the final 2 for Cleveland in what was his 5th and final season in the show. A nice 14-22 record for the career with only 6 of his 110 games coming in the American League, but he escaped with a lifetime ERA under 4, clocking in at 3.94. Glad we got to see him!

Danny Tartabull homered for the Yankees in the 6-3 win, and Polonia and O'Neill each had 2 hits. Polonia also drove in 2 of the Yankees 6 runs.

Another scant showing by the Yankee faithful, as 17,611 shuffled in. I mean, come on. The game was played in 2:44, and your umpires on hand remained Rich Garcia, Dale Ford, Larry Young, and Brian O'Nora.

Thanks for reading!
Your weekend update!
My all-time record coming in 52-32

Friday, May 20th - Yankees host the Orioles
I fuckin' love him...I'd fuck him any day."

Ah, another Friday night! I LOVE Friday nights...even if the scorecards are a tad illegable. And Jim Abbott was on the mound for the Yankees again, it was like he was following me around. It was a seemingly cold night for late May, as I noted we were "blowing smoke" with the temps around 50. So lets get to it, shall we?

If you have been following this saga, you may recall how I alluded to how Angel (George's scatterbrained girlfriend at the time) was capable of uttering anything at any time...she is the one who remarked, "I did not know Cal Ripken Jr was black" when she saw him from our distant perch with a long-sleeved black sweatshirt on under his uni. Well, on this night for whatever reason she admitted to thinking THEN that Paul McCartney was dead. And we could not change here mind.

Ripken was on the field, as the Orioles were in town...for all I know this could be the night she uttered this "Cal is black" bon mot. I was too drunk to write everything down, but some things dont need to be noted to be remembered.

An Oriole fan hobbled up before the game on crutches, and was absolutely booed and shredded. He gave a mock wave, a sheepish smile, and uttered, "thanks...I appreciate the welcome." This ended up being a "major disturbance" as he saw fit to shimmy all the way to the top, and he caught major grief every step of his lumbering way.

I mentioned the Knicks and the Bulls were squaring off for a Game 6. I actually mentioned it twice on here, which is amazing as I could give a shit. I remarked in bemused fashion that there were "Bulls fans everywhere" - um, shouldnt they have been off watching the game someplace? I also noted on here that people were betting pricey bleacher beers on the outcome.

Missed quite the WWF wrestling card at MSG for this, showing my early affinity for Friday night drinkfests at the Stadium. A few miles south of the Stadium on that night Kwang pinned Sparky Plugg, Jeff Jarrett pinned Doink The Clown, HeadShrinkers & Afa (mgd. by Lou Albano) beat The Quebecers & Johnny Polo, Alundra Blayze pinned Luna Vachon, Lex Luger pinned Crush, Howard Finkel beat Harvey Whippleman, Razor Ramon fought Diesel to a DCO, Bam Bam Bigelow pinned Mabel, and Bret Hart pinned Owen Hart to retain the WWF Title...

Now back to our show...

Couple of celebrity sightings here....my favorite was Gilligan. He got all kinds of jokes, and the song of course, but the best line of the night was quite simple, a to-the-point shout of "Down in front, little buddy!" All kinds of other faux celebs were on hand, from Jimmy Carter to Bob Backlund to Screech, too. There was also a Bob Marley lookalike on security....in later years we would develop some kickass reggae beats to greet him every day. There was also a frumpy Oscar Madison lookalike, giving us a chance to add the Odd Couple song to our playlist for the evening.

Paul O'Neill was a real attention getter on this night. For one thing some girl out there said quite succinctly, after he doubled in the 7th, "I fuckin' love him...I'd fuck him any day."

Maybe catching wind of this and showing his appreciation, O'Neill threw a ball up to us in the bleachers, and in the resulting scrum "a pregnant woman was hurt." Oh, I remember this. There was actually a pile-on for the ball, and you hear this voice at the bottom, the old stuck in a well voice, "Ow! Get off! I'm pregnant! Fuck! Ow!" Her husband started flinging people off the pile. Whats best in situations like this is everyone blames the happy couple for the whole thing for "coming out there while she is pregnant in the first place."

For some unknown reason an A's fan was on hand, and he was coerced to throw his own hat, for which he recieved heartfelt applause. The fans were bad that night, all over the Stadium. Around the 5th, according to an arrow from the margin, and at 9:04 to be exact, "kids run on field." I acknowledged this came complete with a "good fake" in RF when security cornered in. But the coupe de grace was at 10:13 when some other chucklehead was taking HIS turn on the field, and after it went "for a while" a guard seemed to have him cornered in left, and the kid threw a "karate kid." Yeah, he flicked a kick at the guard, and ended up being tied into a heap on the grass as the crowd rejoiced.

Bernie in center was already letting balls drop in front of him, and he was met with the old, "Claudell Washington would have caught that!" rejoinder. There are a couple of fan autographs on here, but only one with some reasoning...underneath a name I can not read (although the last name may start with a "G" is the tagline "Dennis' friends first game." His name may have been John, as that monicker is written next to a note that reads "Dennis' friend is a bleacher virgin." Hope we treated him well, D!

Ripken, of course, was serenaded with the old "Break your leg, Ripken" chants, as he moved in on Gehrig's record. Speaking of chants, there was a rousing "Beat your wife, Potvin!" chant ringing through the Stadium seats.

Remember Howard the Lawyer? The original anti-comic? Well, he was on hand. There was an idiot out there "throwing stuff" and Howard explained away him getting away with it by saying "he has no priors."

As usual with these Friday games, the card is a mess if you are trying to follow the field play. The Orioles section is filled out complete, but after the fact a huge IGNORE is written over the entire thing...so someone fucked it up. Nothing at all appears for the 9th spot hitter, so mysel and whoever was pinching in for me was running an 8 man lineup. That said, I am only seeing six "mo's" which is a fair amount for a drinking night.

As for the on-field display, the Yankees cruised to an easy 5-1 victory, as Abbott was sharp, upping his record to 5-2. He threw 7 innings of one-run ball, giving up 6 hits, walking only 1, and fanning 5. Bob Wickman came in to throw two scoreless to finish up. The only Yankee home run was off the bat of Randy Velarde, a 3 run job off of the crafty Jamie Moyer. Don Mattingly had 3 hits, and the aforementioned O'Neill had a perfect night by going 2-2 with a couple of walks and a girl that wanted to fuck him.

To give an idea of the era and the foe, the Oriole lineup read Brady Anderson, Mike Devereux, Raffy Palmiero, Ripken, Chris Hoiles, Leo Gomez, Tim Hulett, fucking Lonnie Smith at DH batting 8th, and our RF foe for the evening, Jack Voight. Your Yankee lineup was Polonia, Velarde, Mattingly, Tartabull, Leyritz, O'Neill, BW, Gallego, and Kelly.

For your profile for the night, I choose Mr. Voight. In a 7 year career he managed to sneak into 294 games, and cumulatively had ONE seasons worth of ABs (58X - he should be proud, a career average of .235 but he did muster 20 jacks and 83 career RBIs. Guys this nondescript were not even fun to yell at. On this night he went 1-3 and drove in a run, and listened to our shit for 9 innings.

Moyer took the loss for the O's - he was shelled and gone by the 4th, when Scott Williamson picked up for him with 3 scoreless innings. Alan Mills and Mark Eichorn also toed the rubber for the bums from Baltimore.

We almost had 30,000 for this one, as 28,953 were on hand for this cool Friday night. Your arbiters on the field were Dale Ford, Ken Kaiser, John Shulock, and Tim Tschida, and the game clocked in at 3:07.

Thanks for reading!
A catch the 1993 archives in full in the Insane Asylum Section!

Ah, what the Hell....if the baby gets you up this early on a Sunday morning, do a scorecard memory!

[$heriff Tom]

May 24th, 1994 - Yankees host the Blow Jays

Well, for one thing there are certainly some scorecards missing. I jump ahead 5 days here, but I noticed in my meticulous game journals that I was in attendance for another 2 games before this next one....and I even noticed why the discrepency in a highlight column I contained in there. LOST THE SCORECARD during or after the Saturday game! Hooray me! Took long enough, considering how many suds I sucked. Yankees went 1-1 in those 2 games I was at but not really, putting my overall mark at 54-33 going into this Tuesday game, when I had a new scorecard and clipboard in tow. Jays were already 7 behind the 1st place Yankees in the standings so all was right in the world.

Even so it was hockey that was on many minds, even with the Yankees running at 28-13. It was annoying enough to where someone snarled, "take that hockey shit to the Garden." There was even a raucous "Hextall sucks!" chant to pass the time. I think we all know what was going on in the Garden around this time of this particular year.

I mentioned on here that I won the "Jackie O pool" - yes, she recently passed and made me I believe $200. Its funny, the morning I found out I had had no idea when I hopped a D train to take me to Down the Hatch for some frivolity and as I was sitting there trying to get my bearings I see someone open the old black-fold paper across from me. Jackie O is dead! I pumped my fist and let out a whoop of sorts, I was so happy - she got me really drunk that day.

Back at the Stadium some stupid girl came up and walked to our resident cowbell-ringing dancer in the aisles Ali and cheerily said, "Hi, Ari!" The fans were loud and frankly annoying. Security guard Kathy, the one that looked like the black lady from Night Court snapped at one point during the "Asshole" chant "keep your assholes in your mouth!" She was piqued at us through most of the game cause early on we were laughing and carrying on too loud at something and she came running up the aisle thinking there was a fight. They never did like false alarms and took them out on us, which is funny cause they liked the alternative (the fight) less.

At one point all the revelry got to be too much for Teena "the Queen" and she snarled, "Sit down! I want to see at least one inning of the God Damned game!" She had actually bought an American flag to the game to specifically combat "The Canadian Anthem" - its funny that a noted enforcer out there in Teena was provoking anti-Canadian sentiment herself. And I have the proof!

Its also amazing how many more fights and toss-outs there were back then, with much smaller crowds too. I hate to admit this, and I have been admitting this for years, but fuckin' A did the beer ban ever work. A whole host of guys were thrown out for "smoking by the wall" before 8PM, and a guy in a NY Ranger jersey was escorted out in the 8th inning for "inciting riots."

George took his turn to sing "Friend of Mine" in the 2nd inning to none other than Joltin' Joe Carter. George was really on that night, saying "the Mets are consistent.....consistently losing." He was also instrumental in all of us taking a courageous "wave stops here!" stand.

What in the name of Holy Hell was up with all the A's fans at these games? It seems every scorecard I am mentioning an A's fan walking around during a non-A's game on here. Just the game before an A's fan was coerced (or should I say bullied) into throwing his own cap. Well, the word did not get through the A's Fan Network and another one was out there, gay green A's cap on head. "Hey, A stands for Asshole!" was hurled his way. "You dropped an S off that hat" was another old favorite running the rails back then as well.

The only faux celebrity sighting I am seeing on here outside of the C-level list of Hollywood actors that made up security (Night Court, Bob Marley, Elvis...) was Howdy Doody himself, holding up a sign in the box seats. Speaking of the box seats, there was a "box seat disturbance" in the top of the 8th which caused one of my 5 "mo's" during the game.

I was pretty on on this night with the scorecard. Its fairly neat, and at all time readable. You could actually follow the game from it. My notes to the margin regarding the game were not so cumbersome as always, kept succinct in a "flubbed the throw" sort of way. Its funny, I mentioned how we were already blaming Windmill-ie Randolph for our running snafus back in 1994, so when Pat Kelly was nailed trying to steal in the 3rd inning someone muttered "I bet Willie told him to steal."

Devon White, in center, must have done something to raise our ire. He must have given us the finger, or rubbed his butt with his glove where only we could see, cause in the margin next to his name on the boxscore I scrawled "hit him in the head." He was one of our early nemesis in bleacher creature lore, to the point where we gave Carter a pass for the most part to holler at Devon in center all night. We gave him the "savage serenade" as I called it. White went on to make an error, to which I attached a : )

Check this out, not only did the Yankees win the game, but they were the beneficiary of a complete game by none other than Terry Mulholland! 9 innings, 5 hits, a single run, he walked 1, and struck out 4. This upped his mark to 5-3, which is all the more amazing when you see he went on to finish at 6-7 with a 6.23 ERA for the season.

Mulholland was helped along with a home run from Wade Boggs in the first, an upper deck shot no less. This combatted a Roberto Alomar home run in the Jays half, which accounted for the only Toronto run this night. Jim Leyritz was 1-3 with 2 runs and 2 driven in, adding a home run of his own off of Jay starter, the surly Dave Stewart, who took the loss.

A nice cap to the Yankee victory was a "great catch" Animal made on an O'Neill toss to the bleachers in the 9th. It was always good to see it kept in the family (and for Animal to be awake)

Jay lineup looked like this - White, Alomar, Paul Molitor, Carter, John (nice helmet you got there!) Olerud, Ed Sprague, Darnell Coles in left, Pat Borders, and Dick Schofeld batting 9th. For the good guys we got to see a lineup of Polonia, Boggs, Mattingly, Tartabull, O'Neill, Leyritz, BW, Gallego, and Pat Kelly. While Mulholland pitched the complete game for the Yankees, the Jays paraded out Mike Timlin, that moron Greg Caderet, and some tool named Scott Brow to finish up. In another interesting game note, we got to see Buck Showalter charge onto the field to argue the final punchout on a double play by Kelly to end the 6th. Everyone loves an argument.

Lets profile our friend Mr. Brow in the profile section today, better known as the "guys you saw play at Yankee Stadium that you did not realize you did" category. One of only 18 major league alum to be born in the great state of Montana. This was his 2nd of 4 campaigns in the majors, which ended in the Arizona desert as a member of the Diamondbacks. His career consisted of 59 games (4 in starts) and 107 innings pitched (hey, we saw one!) - a gaudy 6.06 ERA. Way to go!

Check out his career ERAs, they look like AM Radio Frequencies.....6.00, 5.90, 5.59, and 7.17. Nice. He actually walked more than he struck out for his career - not easy to do - by walking 68 and striking out 58. In an interesting aside, his career ended in the Yankee organization...he was traded to the Yankees with one Joe Lisio for the inimitable Willie Banks on June 3rd, 1998, and never heard from again. May he rot in Hell!

There were 26,217 on hand, for a game that took 2:24 to play. Your umpires for the game were Joe Brinkman, the late Durwood Merrill, Mike Reilly, and Tim Welke.

Thanks for reading! Remember to check out the 1993 COMPLETE archives in the Insane Asylum section, and check out Saturday mornings entry a page or so back if you have not done so.

Cheers!

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming...

May 25th, 1994 - Yankees host the Blue Jays
Rain rain go away...

Not much going on on this one, as it was a rainy night and I had to hide the pen. From what I did write, I could see that I was somewhat drunk. Yankees were 11-3 on the season at this point, and I was looking at a 55-33 all-time record coming in, so I was truly a lucky fan. Never did see much losing at the Stadium.

This game featured a benches clearing scrum at the very end, but I forget why...anyone? Anyone? I remember that happening once before when Jim Leyritz, playing first, got crossed up with Scott Fletcher of the Brewers and they threw elbows on the game-concluding play at first. Both teams ended up coming together on the field as "We're Not Going To Take It" blared as it always did after a Yankee win.

But this one is lost to memory...I dont think there were any beanball incidents, with Jim Abbott and Pat Hentgen on the mound, and no one was hit. But there it is, right at the end of the 9th, connected from the margin with an arrow in big excited loops and no less than six exclamation points....."Fight! Benches empty!!!!!!"

As we move on in time (if you stick with me, that is) it will be good to have help on hand to fill in the blanks like Dennis has been doing for some of these old-school cards. Cause this is still pre-most of the people I know and love now and I have drank lots of these memories away.

Its funny, part of the scorecard is folded over itself in the sleeve, and I went to pull it out and it is cracking and crumbling like an ancient museum relic. It was soaked that night, and has not aged well. I could smell the rain - and the beer on it too!

I noted that George, who at that time was not paying to get in (and soon I was not either), could not get a free ticket for one reason for another and he was griping about it. For those of us who paid every game, we could have gave a shit about his travails. I also mentioned Ali came in late, regretfully missing the National Anthem cause while he was lollygagging in the lobby he "thought it was the Canadian one."

Devil Fan Billy was at the center of the storm on this evening. Teena, never in the mood, snarled "how can you wear a Yankee shirt one day, and a Devil shirt the next....you're an embarrassment." Justin, you should demand answers on that one.

Billy wasn't through....he actually got into a fight with someone named Eric, and yes, it was a physical fight...I dont really remember much of this outside of the scorecard mention, but I am sure it was funny, and it started cause "Billy got hit on the leg." Apparently I did not jump into this one.

In other Creature capers on the evening, Chico actually took his shirt off at 7:13 and was strolling around topless. And this was before the rain came.

In Teena's defense of her lambasement of Billy, she was "representing NY" as on that night I scrawled the Rangers beat the Devils to force a Game 7. Outside of that, it was a bad night for Teena. "Her appendicitis" was acting up (at least that was the diagnosis then) and she was in pain all night. And letting us know about it. Little did she know that Syphillis Joe was laughing about it up a few rows, and actually said "I cheer her illness."

Someone came over and mentioned they were a doctor but no one believed him so he went away. By the 7th inning Teena was doubled over and taking away the fun of a 5-1 Yankee lead. At 10:59 (the game featured a 90 minute rain delay) Teena got up and said she was going to the hospital. Concern raged. At 11:12.....Teena came back...and stayed the rest of the game. On the way out Joe once again mentioned her medical woes and said, "I'm just glad I was here to witness it." Wow...things were not so hunky-dory between the old-schools back in 1994, were they?

There is literally nothing else on here outside of a few invectives yelled at people who popped some umbrellas during the rain delay, like "put that tent down, asshole!" There were 5 documented "mo's" (that seemed to be my average) and a missing inning (most of the bottom of the 7th, which I attribute to the rain, most likely, as the markings around then are faded and rainish. If that is a word)

Even with the long rain delay Jim Abbott pitched a complete game for the Yankees, upping his mark to 6-2, giving up 2 runs on 6 hits and 2 walks. He was backed up by 3 Yankee home runs, two rung up against Hentgen off the bat of Wade Boggs and another by Danny Tartabull, off your friend and mine, Greg Caderet.

Its a joke, the Yankees managed to score just 5 runs on SIXTEEN hits. The first 5 guys in the order were a collective 14-22.....for Christs sake, Hentgen himself gave up 12 hits in 6 innings, but only 4 runs. Odd.

The Jays mustered 6 hits, 2 each coming off the bats of Joltin' Joe Carter and our arch-nemesis Devon White. The Jays proffered a lineup of White, Alomar, Molitor, Carter, Olerud, Ed Sprague, Mike Huff (lol), Randy Knorr, and Schofield. The Yankees countered with Polonia, Boggs, Mattingly, Tartabull, O'Neill, Leyritz, BW, Gallego, and Patrick Kelly.

Time for the educational portion of my offering - the guys you probably forgot (or never cared) that you got to see ply their trade in front of us. Todays profile is Toronto catcher Randy Knorr.

Mr Knorr saw action in 11 different major league campaigns (1991 - 2001) but only played in 253 games. He batted 676 times, which is a season and a couple of weeks worth for your average regular. He finished up with a career batting average of .226 and a whopping .278 on-base percentage. Its funny, he did have a modicum of power, slugging 26 home runs in those 600 plus at-bats, while driving in 88. But he also struck out a whopping 161 times. He was a catcher by trade, but managed to play 12 innings at first during his major league career. His last major league game was on 9/9/2001 in a Montreal Expo uniform - we all know what happened 2 days later. All said, glad to have seen him play!

For this Yankee victory there were 23,250 announced (but I am sure they either no-showed or left early) and the game, sans delays, ran on for 2:37. Your umpires on hand were the late Durwood Merrill, Mike Reilly, Tim Welke, and Joe Brinkman.

Thanks for reading! Check the Insane Asylum for the 1993 archives in their entirety, and we'll see you tomorrow!

Same year, a new month!

June 1st, 1994 - Yankees host the White Sox

A Wednesday night in June, and we had quite the pitching duel coming in. Wilson Alvarez, who was 8-0 for the Palehose, facing off against Jimmy Key and his 7-1 record. Of course, neither ended up being around to see the end of the game. At the end under "Win" I put "not Alvarez" and under "Loss" I put "not Key."

Even with Key on the mound our George was out there choosing to stroke off Scott Kamienieki, insisting if he was given the ball every 5 days "he would win 20, easy." Um...

I wrote a "memory" on the top, so even then we were looking back in wonder. Even though he had nothing to do with this game, Jim Eisenreich was a topic of discussion. We were ruminating how he moved from RF to LF in the middle of a game at the Stadium for absolutely no other reason outside of growing weary of our insults. Those were the days when we could chase outfielders around, and keep Jose Canseco at DH.

Poor Animal was actually escorted out during the National Anthem. No reason cited on here, but I do remember security ignoring the solemnity of the moment to usher him on out of there. We were able to keep his memory alive later in the game by chanting "Animals girlfriend!" at some drunk woman who kept standing up and waving her arms like a bird, sloshing beer over the sides of her cup, while talking gibberish like any good woman would. "What is she doing, bringing in planes?" someone asked as she made her gestures.

ESPN was on hand, I guess this was new for us as this appears to be quite the topic of conversation on the card. The yokels with the ESPN signs were catching a blitz of heat. George, making up for his off-base Kamienieki comment wryly remarked to one putz holding up a sign, "now someone will know you when you go to a restaurant...they'll be like 'you're the asshole I saw on TV.'"

Someone else sarcastically chided in, "ESPN will be like, look at this guy, he has friends." In some poetic justice an ESPN sign that someone had actually jimmied to the wire fence behind the bleachers fell while we happened to be shouting at the people standing aside it, and that got one of the louder ovations of the night. Because of ESPN the gametime was pushed back a half hour, and even though that gave us an extra 30 minutes of drinking cheap beer outside, we griped. What can I say, we didn't like change.

A Blue Jay fan must have got lost and wandered into our midst, as one of us caught sight of him in his Toronto cap and snapped, "get out of here, you pecker." He had quite the set of balls on him, considering I remarked on here that Toronto had just been swept by the Jokeland A's and now had last place to themselves. A Wall Street type who smirked through it all was snapped out of it with a "hey, no ties allowed!"

It was one of those rare nights when the Mutts were also in town, playing Colorado out at Shea. There was an intimate gathering of a crowd at Yankee Stadium once again despite the fact the Yankees were lighting it up, and that was attributed to the fact that "everyone is at the big Rockie-Met series." In actuality, the Yankees did manage to outdraw the Mutts, 26,131 to 17, 099. So the Mets were drawing 1993 Yankee crowds! On this same night, the Knicks and Pacers were squaring off in a Game 5....wonder if they outdrew the Mutts.

Ah, this hurts my heart. There is a neat "1940 Forever" mantra scrawled on here.

I actually remarked that security caught someone in our section with their own cache of alcohol, and "swiped it." The bastards. They apparently did a better job with that then they did with an "old man" who ran onto the field....its recorded here that it took 10 security guards to rope him in, and get him out of there. Again, I must ask...what the fuck was going on with people running on the field? Its all over these scorecards, its amazing that they managed to get the games in through all of these idiots running back and forth across the field.

We gave a nod and a tip of the cap to "All-Star" Paul O'Neill, who was the 2nd runner-up in the All-Star balloting write-in category, says here so it must be true. O'Neill also won some sort of "Stroke of Brilliance Award" and had to come out and collect it before the game...was that given out by a roll-on deodorant sponsor or something? Its funny, as O'Neill collected his chintzy award someone grumbled, "and Gallego gets screwed again."

We were having our fun, breaking out the old bleacher wave (I cant believe that goes back to at least 1994) and chuckling while Teena (remarkably recovered from her appendicitis when Toronto was in town) berated someone out there we had dubbed Pee-Wee. One of the greatest segues in bleacher history flowed out there as "The Chicken Dance" began blaring out of the Stadium speakers just as Syphillis Joe finished singing a rousing version of, well, "Syphillis."

Our good friend Dennis was bitching that with the game on the line the Yankees, in Paul O'Neill "we have the best arm in baseball, and he is on the bench!" And why? Gerald Williams came in for defensive purposes to spell Tartabull, while O'Neill was on the bench. Ah, memories of gripes.

Ah, sad to say we must head to the field sometime. I earmarked this evening as a "bullpen disaster." Yeah, the bullpen choked it up. I fucking hated that sort of thing. Yankees were holding a 4-2 lead in the 9th when the funny business started. Thanks Bob Wickman! Wickman had thrown 2 scoreless innings after picking up for Key in the 7th, but his luck ran out and he was touched for 3 runs in the 9th, with a little help from Steve Howe. Roberto Hernandez then sauntered out to lock and load it for Chicago, and that was it for the Yankees, dipping my record in attendi during 1994 to 12-5.

in that 9th inning the Yankees not only went down 1-2-3 but it was the good old racist inning - K K K. Polonia (batting for G Williams), O'Neill (batting for Leyritz), and Darryl friggin' Boston (batting for Mike Stanley...why??) all pinch-hit in the 9th, and they all struck out.

On the Yankee side of things Danny Tartabull had a nice evening, going 2-4 with 3 RBIs and a 2-run jack. Randy Velarde led off and went 2-5 with a RBI and a run. The Yankee lineup looked like this - Velarde, Boggs, Mattingly, Tartabull, Leyritz, Stanley, BW, Gallego, and Patrick Kelly. The White Sox served up leadoff hitter Tim "Rock" Raines, 2B Norberto Martin, 1B Frank Thomas, DH Julio Franco, 3B Robin Ventura, RF Darrin Jackson, CF Lance Johnson, C Ron Karkovice (one of the ugliest baseball players ever) and SS Ozzie "The Manager" Guillen. Working the hill for the Sox behind Alvarez were one Dane Johnson (in his rookie campaign!), followed by that Texas cokehead Dennis Cook (who actually stole the win) and the aforementioned Mr. Hernandez.

We had a nice laugh at the expense of Mr. Lance Johnson, who managed to get picked off with no one out after he led off the 2nd with a walk from Key. Key uncharacteristically walked 5 in his 6 innings of work, prompting his hasty retreat. He also managed to make an error, throwing away a pickoff attempt with the lumbering Frank Thomas on base as if he was going anywhere, capping off a Hell of a night.

Time for the educational portion of this offering - another player we saw and may have forgotten about...probably by choice. How about 2B Norberto Martin? Career epitaph -1993-1999-. Never played more than 79 games in a season, and escaped with a nifty .278 lifetime batting average. In 880 lifetime at-bats he hit 7 jacks, and drove in 89. Stole 23 bases too. Yet another product of the "baseball factory" known as San Pedro De Macarais, in the Dominican Republic. A lifetime White Sox, in 1994 he made $112,000 with the team. Toast one to his memory!

The umpires who had the pleasure to work this game were Derryl Cousins, Rick Reed, Ted Barrett, and Jim Evans, and this tough loss took 3:20 to play.

[$heriff Tom]

June 3rd, 1994 - Yankees host the KC Royals
Ah, a Friday night...I love Friday nights! And the Royals in town...how could you go wrong!

I see this is Dennis' birthday - happy birthday, Dennis! I also see he was not there, and neither was our mutual friend Jamie who was always good for a cake or some cookies on our birthdays. Unless there is something I dont know about, maybe she didnt like you after all!

For whatever reason Teena called George "a Met fan in disguise." It must have been his overhype of Scott Kamienieki. Chico came in late so I figure the fixed attendance and home run pools did not go off as scheduled...he hobbled up with no less than Security Elvis at 8:46PM. Security Elvis was joined on faux celebrity security by Security Sancho Panza, who I am assuming was just another portly short Mexican guy.

This was one of those nights where the sun was in our face for the first couple of innings. "Put the fucking sun down!" was a battle cry in the bleachers. I finally noted that the "sun is gone" at 7:22 in the top of the 2nd, but was still "trying to make reemergence through slit." At 7:23 I noted "it does." However, by 7:27 it was "finally gone." See what we were relegated to doing in those early days? Following the fucking sun. And how dirty does "reemergence through slit" sound? Heh heh.

"Whatever happened to night games?" someone groused, waving a fist at the sun.

Vince Coleman was in left, and we gave him a nice hand simply cause he was specifically told "you will never wear the Mets uniform again!" after he was unloaded after the infamous fireworks incident. Hell, anyone lucky enough to hear those words is good folk! And who doesn't love someone who tosses lit fireworks at children?

Even with all this revelry at times Teena was not a fan of the sideshow we got going on. As a matter of fact at one point on this night she snapped "you all dont care about the game...you're just hear to do ballads!" Already, back in 1994, Tina was fighting with the "Mickey Rivers" guy, although back then he was also called "Cab Calloway." On this night they exchanged words and it was duly noted.

This was a bad night for Teena. A real humdinger. Along with our old black friend, she also had a running battle with some girl out there, and they actually headed downstairs at one point in the 8th to "fight." The benches emptied so to speak as a dozen of us followed them down, unknowingly alerting security - and Chico - who joined us and broke things up. Wow. Punches were going to fly. Teena ended up coming back up and crying in Chico's arm, this girl had her so upset. But moments later she came storming back up and said, "things are going to change around here!" Oh, looking at the years to come did they ever.

And then next thing you know Teena was at it again, with some guy that was down there with Chico. Again a bunch of us scrambled out of our seats as nasty words were exchanged and it looked like she was going to hit him. But cooler heads prevailed, I am sorry to say.

"Who dressed you, Helen Keller?" was a question popped at some slovenly fellow. What was really funny is we spotted a Richie Cunningham lookalike, and not long after we laughed at him we spotted ANOTHER ONE, directly to his right and about 8 seats over and 3 rows down. "Its the battle of the Richie Cunninghams!" someone shouted.

This was one of those days where there were two "Last Calls" on beer. Some people used this as an excuse to chide the second "last call guy" but I took it as a great time to buy more beer.

Holy shit, Teena was still not done. In the 9th some guy picked up Ali's bell, which was on the ground, and she went bezerk. I believe around this time I legit feared for my life around her.

Remember "Stevie Wonder" aka Melle Mel? At this time all I knew is a famous rapper with real street cred sat out there with us. I had been telling people outside the Stadium it was Kurtis Blow...it was, of course, Melle Mel, who was part of Blow's posse. What can I tell you, I did not have street cred and was not up on such things.

There are a few inside jokes here. A whole lockstep and barrel of them. They look funny but they dont make any sense and I am not going to bother even putting them on here especially as I already noted Dennis was not on hand and can not help me decipher them. Sorry bout that.

There were cookies out there, I have no idea who bought them or why. Well, whoever it was also managed to "fumble them" and drop them on the ground. Didnt stop people from "jumping up like seals" to grab at them afterwards, according to this.

9 mystery outs on this thing, for reasons varying from "buying beer" to "goin' for cookies." Hooray me!

Out on the field the Yankees dropped a 7-4 decision, dropping my season mark to 12-6. That nerd Paul Gibson notched the L and Billy Brewer of all people nabbed the win in relief. The score was 3-3 after 2 innings, and nothing changed until all kinds of hokum began in the 8th. Gibson and Xavier Hernandez was shelled coming in for Melido Perez, and although the Yankees choked out a run in the 9th they were done for the evening as Jeff Montgomery came in for the save.

For the Royals Greg Gagne went 4-4 with 2 runs and 2 batted in, and he also poked 1 of 3 Royal home runs. But in a funny note he was thrown out stealing in the 5th "by 20 feet."

The other Royal jacks were off the bats of Brian McRae and Gary Gaetti. 8 of the starting 9 for KC smacked a hit, with only Coleman going goose-egg, probably cause we were having fun with him for being kicked out of the Met organization and chucking fireworks at children. The whole "reverse psychology" thing. Don Mattingly homered for the Yankees off of the inimitable Bob Milacki while going 2-4 with 3 batted in. And Mike Gallego evened things up with Gagne by going 4-4 himself, but with simply a run to show in the other columns.

Your KC lineup consisted of LF Coleman, CF McRae, 1B Wally Joyner, DH and cleanup hitter Bob Hamelin (who I called Bob Ham Lick), Gaetti, our old nemesis Felix Jose in right, C Brett Mayne, SS Gagne, and 2B Jose "Chico" Lind. And if you paid attention Dave Henderson came in to pinch-hit!

The Yankees combatted with Polonia, Boggs, Mattingly, Tartabull, O'Neill, Darryl Boston in CF, Stanley, Velarde, and Gallego. The Royal mound parade was Milacki (who gave up 3 runs in 6 plus, walking 2 and striking out 2), Brewer, Stan Belinda, and Montgomery, and for the Yankees on this night we saw the efforts of Melido, Gibson, Sterling Hitchcock, and Pope Don Pall.

Hitchcock had one of those "zero lines" - no innings pitched, no hits, no runs, no walks, and no strikeouts. The card is enough of a mess that I dont know what happened. Pickoff? Taken out with a 3-1 count? What?

In our profile tonight lets look at Mr. Milacki. Things were winding down for him. After 4 full seasons with Baltimore he was plying his trade in KC, and not well. He lasted 10 starts in 1994, going 0-5 with a 6.14 ERA. After this campaign he did not appear back on a major league mound again till 96 with Seattle when he was shelled again and ushered out of the major leagues for good. As for 94, when we were lucky enough to see him on this day, he ended up hurling only 55 innings, walking 20 and striking out 17. Love when they walk more than they K. He finished his career at 39-47 with a 4.38 ERA.....I'm happy to have seen him! I hope he has a nice Thanksgiving tomorrow.

This game was played in front of 26,617 and took 2:58 to play. Your umpires on hand were none other than Ed Hickox, Jim McKean, Jim Joyce, and Matthew Winans. Um....who the Hell is Matthew Winans?

Thanks for reading - Happy Thanksgiving - see you Friday with your next installment, you mo-fo's!

Happy day after Thanksgiving. Here is a scorecard memory to go with your leftover turkey sandwich and whiskey sour.

Saturday, June 4th - Yankees host the Royals
"F U K C"

Ah, a nice Saturday afternoon in the Bronx. While I was at the game I noted that 2 cousins and one of their husbands were "lost in NYC." Well, if they came with me to the game in the first place, that would not have happened now, would it.

Lots of these cards blend together...I understand it is some slow going for some of these games where the comments are either not there, or just not funny. But this is the harsh reality of the bleachers. Not every night were we "on." The life of a bleacher improv group is not an easy one. So stick with me through the bumps in the road and you will find some gems coming up. I am now resolved to recap every single game I have scored, for better or worse, and even I cant breathe life into some of these things.

I saw fit to mention a plane interrupted the National Anthem, and next to the "passed balls" category on my scorecard I wrote "none by Mcrae...he never passes up balls!"

So this was not one of my better days. On top of having family lost in Metropolis, and leaving them hanging on a payphone in the runway to get upstairs in time for the Anthem and first pitch, I had to pay back beers to both "Chris and Dan" for whatever reason. In those days we were always kicking over one anothers beers. It was one of the worst hazards of drinking $6 beers up there, and this may have been buybacks for kicked beers.

I remember one time I purchased a warm brew up there, and as soon as I went to pull it back from the vendor I dropped it. Everyone laughed but me. I promptly ordered another one, and actually was able to put this on the ground under my seat where no one could kick it over. Well...no one but me, apparently, as I kicked it over. That was two, in a span of ten seconds. I actually had to buy a third, and it was all on me. The vendor could do nothing but shrug and sell me another one. What amounted to an $18 cup of warm beer.

Anyhoo....speaking of vendors and vending on this night "Spike Lee" was pushing soda. "Hey, Spike, do the right thing! Get the beer guy up here" was a common refrain. "Knicks suck!" was another. When Terry Shumpert homered in the Royal 3rd as Spike Lee was handing out syrupy sodas we promptly blamed him for it. And, how is this for irony, Shumpert (who had no business hitting two home runs in a season, yet alone a game) clanked another one off the foul pole in the 8th as, you guessed it, Spike Lee was out there once again in our midst shouting "last call soda!"

"Vend elsewhere" became our mantra for the day in terms of that idiot.

Its funny, Dennis was mentioning how the Buck-era Yankees had a penchant for getting into dust-ups....well, this game almost featured a first inning brawl as Polonia was dusted by Mark ("eye chart") Gubicza and made a motion towards the mound. This followed Brian McRae being plunked by Terry Mulholland in the top of the first. The teams slinked onto the field a few feet but nothing else developed, even though we were all trying to incite it from the rightfield bleachers.

This was one of those Saturday night games...God bless them. At least I think so by my notation of "Animal arrives 7:14" - thing is Retrosheet shows this a day game. Maybe it was a 4PM game and Animal showed up for the 9th inning. Don't know.

And even then Saturday late afternoon/night games could get ugly, for example I noted that a few people were yelling at a retard. Even Chico was getting some heat from his fixed pools. These were the days of the attendance pools where you would pick 23,938, the attendance would be 23,959, and you would lose cause "someone" would have had 23,947. Yet people would still play and pad Chico's pockets, and then holler "get the fuck out of here and take your pool with you!" at Chico the next game, as someone did here.

There was actually a fife and drum band out on the field before the game, and I never recall seeing this before but a few of them found their way into the bleachers for the game. I proudly noted on here that I shared a few ales and a few tales with them. They could really drink.

Some skirt came up peddling beer, causing Animal to jump up and shout a merry "Hello!" along with an exaggerated wave of greeting. "Are you saying hello to the girl, or the beer?" someone asked.

Between the 4th and 5th inning something that sounded like porno music blared out of the Stadium speakers, and two guys started dry humping. It did not go over well. I understand their attempt at humor, but it would have helped if there were any girls out there at all and they did not have to rely on one another.

Some oldtimer with a big nose was out there, bringing on both Jimmy Durante and generic "old man" jokes. One of us put on a fuax old man voice and mimicked the guy with the old, "since when are the monuments off the playing field?" line.

A little black boy was hopping up the stairs, and someone stopped him to point out that "the Con-Ed seats are that way."

I am catching 4 "mo's" on here and I have reasons for missing the plays attributed to 3 of them. "Reading the NY Post" for Greg Gagne in the top 3rd, "telling jokes" for Gary Gaetti in the 9th, "Ali's bell" with BW up in the Yankee 2nd, and sadly no reason cited for Polonia leading off the Yankee 8th.

Remember how I mentioned Mulholland ended up having a crap year for the Yankees? Well, regardless of that fact he pitched his second complete game in a row with me in attendance, although he got hooked with the loss in this one. The Royals eked out a 4-3 win, even though the Yankees made it a cliffhanger with 2 in the 9th off of Royal closer Jeff Montgomery.

Shumpert was public enemy #1 on this night, with his 2 home runs and 3 RBIs. The other Royal tally came off the bat of that relic Dave Henderson, who homered in the 4th to put the Royals up 2-1. On the Yankee side of things Jim Leyritz jacked the 2 run homer in the 9th off of Montgomery to plate O'Neill and make it interesting, but Bernie whiffed to end the game immediatly following. O'Neill ended up with 3 hits on the evening, but only a "run" to show for it in the other columns.

The Royals tossed up a lineup of LF Coleman, 1B Joyner, CF McRae, RF Henderson, C McFarlane, 3B Gaetti, DH Hubie Brooks of all people, SS Gagne, and 2B Shumpert. The Yankees countered with LF Polonia, 3B Boggs, 1B Mattingly, DH Tartabull, RF O'Neill, C Leyritz, CF BW, SS Velarde, and 2B Patrick Kelly. While Mulholland went the full 9 for NY the Royals countered with Gubicza, Hipolito Pichardo, Billy Brewer, and Montgomery.

As for the every unpopular "profile" feature, lets go with Mr. Shumpert. He managed 8 homers in 64 games in 94, and we saw 2 of them here. Mr. Shumpert enjoyed a 14 year career, never batting more than 364 times in a season. His lifetime batting average of .252, with 49 home runs and 223 RBIs makes him the most accomplished hitter I have profiled so far. After 5 years with KC, where most people pick the scampy two-bagger, he plied his trade with the Red Sux (21 games in 1995), the Cubs (27 games in 1996) the Padres (13 games in 1997), then 5 seasons of work with the Rockies before finishing up for now with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in a heralded return to the American League in 2003. During his storied body of work he saw time in the outfield, 2B, SS, 3B, and first. Its funny to profile him off this 1994 game, as he is still sort of kicking around today...he played this past season on the AAA level for Pittsburgh. Cheers, Mr. Shumpert!!

As for the particulars of June 4th, 1994, 30,693 were out at the vaunted ballyard in the Bronx to see a game that went off in a lightning fast 2:09 (no wonder there is nothing on here of note...who had time?) - the umpires who rushed us through this one were Jim McKean, Jim Joyce, Matthew Winans, and Ed Hickox.

Hey, I said "ckox" heh heh.

Thanks for reading!

Ah, what the Hell, time to get back into the swing of things.

Monday, June 20th, Yankees host the Twinkies
"Women know nothing about baseball."

Check me out, making Monday games. From 1996-2004, when we did not play as much anyway, I probably made 1 or 2. But here I was on a "bad night for a balllgame" as I cited under "date", where I also mentioned it was played at "a sauna." Perfect night for a 3 hour game!

We were warned going in by Saddam, "No more bleacher wave!" Not taken seriously, I'm sure, but I marked down in the 8th there was "an aborted wave" and Ali of all people was warned. As old and staid as he could be, Ali was known to wave the middle finger around.

We had the pleasure of seeing future Hall of Famer Kirby Puckett in front of us in right (so Shane Mack could play center) and we heaped him with all kinds of abuse worthy of his station in the game. George cracked, "he might hit a homer if you hit him with a pitch in the stomach." Someone else pondered aloud, "who else has a body like that?" and another old-timer, Big Willie answered "Chico!"

From then on people started hollering, "Chico, get off the field!" Chico would respond with a wave and a grin...between bites, that is. "Round Round Big and Round...He's Big and Round!" we sang to the tune of the Beach Boys "I Get Around" and of course all the fat guy one-liners were being parlayed towards the field. "Hey, Kirby, did you order a pizza?" someone screamed from the rail. "Get some peanuts, Dumbo is hungry!" another chimed in.

Someone was hanging K's off the loge (stupid when Abbott was on the mound in the first place) and as we discussed what a waste of time that was someone put themselves in those shoes and cracked, "I put the K's up...people like me!"

I mentioned our good buddy Dennis was missing this as he was attending live Monday Night Raw wrestling action. Among other things he saw on that night, In "The King's Court," Jerry Lawler insisted Duke the Dumpster stay outside the ring because he stinks. After receiving a barrage of insults, Duke left. Lawler caught him from behind and bashed him with a garbage can...Dennis, feel free to email me for the full card so you can giggle.

This was the night where the scoreboard read "Bob WICKAMN" when Wickman came in to pitch late in the game. "Who typed that, Abbott?" we asked.

"McCarty has no Knob-lauch!" was put out there for public consumption. Good one. When Stanley was batting with 2 on in the 4th he was spurred on with a "May the power of Thurman compel you!" but he whiffed.

I had mentioned in an earlier scorecard memory that we had started to hear ruminations of the "1994 Gay Games" coming to New York, and among other venues - Yankee Stadium. It was a reality now. "Shit, there are going to be two guys having sex in your seat" someone grumbled. "This gives a whole new reason to the term 'pole vault.' was another. How about this one - "as an insult at the Gay Games people chant "You DON'T suck!" We also heard the woman's relay team passed one another dildo's.

George, showing ambition, said "I am going to write Gay Games suck on every seat....all 54,000 of them."

"McCarty has no Knob-lauch!" someone yelled. Good one. At one point Alex Cole, who came in for Mack late in the game, made the mistake of tossing us up a ball, and "back it goes."

Abbott was absolutely shelled, and was booed for his efforts. That got us to talking about the subject of booing the Yankees. George reasoned, "I won't boo Perez, Key, or Pope Don Pall. Everyone else sucks." As Polonia misplayed one into a hit out in left, someone spat "where is Dave Collins when you need him?" But while this was going on an old man had the "audacity to say" that, on this pitching staff, "Hernandez and Mulholland are the best." Sure, at this stage they were throwing lights out, but we all know how that movie ended...even Teena went on a "pitching diatribe" on this muggy Monday night.

"Women know nothing about baseball" Animal spouted at some point and probably referring to Teena, or Angel, in a contender for line of the year.

Four "mo's" on here, including Polonia leading off the game for the Yankees (busy insulting Puckett) - the others, for Walkman John's perusal and correction were Mack leading off the second (goofing off), Mack again in the 6th (I must have really hated Shane Mack), Polonia in the 1st, and Tartabull leading off the Yankee 6th. Looks like most of my "mos" were leading off innings, so after all the hoopla between innings (which included good lounge and lobby music on this night) I had trouble putting my game face back on.

The contest on the field turned into a bitch-slap fest, and the Yankees ended up sneaking out with a 7-5 win, upping my season mark to 12-7 and more importantly upping the Yankees mark to 40-27. No wonder people were still in love with our pitching.

For the Yankees it started with the top third of the order. Polonia went 2-5, scoring twice and driving in a run. Boggs was on all 4 times, walking and going 3-3 with a triple, a run, and an RBI. Mattingly had 2 hits and and drove in a deuce. Darryl Boston, pinch-hitting for Gallego in the 9th hit a 3-run shot that essentially won the Yankees the game, with Wickman getting a vulture W. The Yankee starting lineup was Polonia, Boggs, Mattingly, Stanley, O'Neill, Tartabull (moved down in the order), BW, Velarde at short, and Gallego at second. Abbott (12 hits in 5.1 innings), Pope Don Pall, and Bob WICKMAN saw mound time for the Yankees, with the latter two hurling 3.2 hitless innings to lock and load things.

The Twins managed 12 hits of their own, but came up short on the run tally. Bobby Munoz went 3-3, and our old friend Dave Winfield went 2-4 with a couple of runs scored. He jacked a homer, as did Puckett (and no, it was not off his stomach). We aplty dubbed Puckett's blast "a big, fat home run." The stupid Twins had a 5-2 lead into the 7th when Roger Erickson imploded (with help from Mark Guthrie and Carl Willis). Well, that was their problem. The Twins blessed us with a lineup of 2B Knoblauch, SS Jeff Reboluet, RF Puckett, CF Mack, DH Winfield, LF Munoz, 3B Scott Leius, 1B McCarty, and C Matt Walbeck.

If you were lucky enough to be there that night, you got to see none other than Chip Hale pinch-hit for Reboluet in the 9th. He bounced back to the mound, but we pointed out that it was "almost a home run." Mr. Hale saw time from 1989-1997 (sans 92 and 93) and managed to sneak into 333 games in that time. He did manage a respectable .277 lifetime average but with minimal power - 7 home runs and 78 RBIs in 575 at bats. Check it out, a seasons worth of at-bats in seven campaigns. He did not even steal bases, with only 2 in his career. He was once traded for Craig Shipley. He did manage to play first, second, third, and all the outfield positions, but for fucks sake, I dont know what he was doing out there either, but I am happy to have seen him!

There were only 20,566 on hand to see the ultra-hot Yankee machine, and the game slogged on for 2:56. Your arbiters for this affair were Al Clark, Dan Morrison, Larry Barnett, and Gregory Kosc.

Thanks for reading!

Forever forward....

[$heriff Tom]

Wednesday, June 21st, 1994
The Stanley Cup Is On Hand

Well, the Twins were still in town. They had yet to have enough. 37-30 at this time, having a decent enough campaign. But the Yankees were pretty much running the table, and there I was for the 21st time in 1994, with a 13-7 mark to my name.

The main topic of conversation coming in was the stupid Rangers winning the Stanley Cup. "Wel, it IS the Rangers...they may lose on the replay." someone chided. In a nod of deference, I scrawled "the house of the cup" in the 'played at' slot. Mark Messier and Brian Leetch threw out the first pitch, and Nick Kypreos talked them into letting him throw one out too. Even though the guys were announced by the voice of God himself, and the Ranger fans on hand knew exactly who they were and were vouching for them, Teena was arguing with anyone who would (or wouldnt) listen that it was Mike Richter out there, and not "any Nick whatever his name is!"

While all that was going on someone was out there pleading for us to "root against the Knicks and keep the cable bill down."

While all this was going on, I took a crack at the Red Sox by noting their AL flag was at half mast on this night. But Boston had the last laugh, as concurrently they notched a 10 spot in the first in Toronto, and had a 12 run lead after 2 while all this was going on. Not to get off track, but our good friend Scott Brow (who I profiled a few games back) managed to walk 6 guys in an innings worth of work out there...and give up 5 hits to boot! I mean, holy fuck!

Devil Fan Billy was at it again. Not only was he suggesting Graig Nettles would be a worthy Hall of Fame candidate, he swore that if he was inducted "he would draw a larger crowd than Reggie." Um....

Not much going on out there in the bleachers. These Tuesday night after Monday night games were a grind. I even saw fit to mention such trifling stuff as AC/DC being blared between innings, which we found cool. I also noted that unlike the night before Bob Wickmans name was spelled right on the scoreboard. That said, what, did this guy pitch every day or what?

Check this out - I played Chico's Home Run pool before the game, and drew "LF." Well, Gerald Williams was out there to start and he bounced into a double play and struck out. Way to go! O'Neill came in for him and actually logged some time in left, and he did not hit a home run either. Actually, no Yankees did. And these were the nights Chico would magically disappear with all the money, and not everyone had the cajones to bother him to get it back the next game. He had quite the pizza pie racket going.

Stupid me entered the wrong pool that night, too. I had long since abandoned ever partaking in the rigged attendance pool he had going, but turns out we guessed out there amongst ourselves anyway for laughs here and there and I ended up 28 fans off. Funny thing, though, is that would not guarantee a win in his below-board pools. Chico would try and have me believe someone was 12 off.

Even though the scoreboard operator got things right in terms of spelling, we got a Bob Sheppard blooper of all things as Pat Meares came to bat for the Twins. "The second baseman.....the shortstop, Pat Meares." How bout that!

I made mention of a White Sox brawl on here, but there are no further details. Nolan Ryan had kicked Robin Ventura's ass the year before, so that wasn't it. I did mention that Aunt Jemimah was playing the role of Crapman on the night, and when a pretty girl came out selling ice cream someone sheepishly asked the group to "find out if thats the old hot dog girl and if we should call her Ice Cream Girl now" and Teena snapped back, "Well, she IS selling ice cream!" Some of you longtime readers may remember the "Hot Dog Girl" saga in a past scorecard memory.

I had some cracks regarding some of the players on this night. After a Gallego double I scrawled "first time I have seen him on second without a glove." After Dave Winfield struck out and sent his bat sailing in the 3rd inning I remarked, "Throws bat...thats the Dave we know and love." And I identified the starter for the Twins, one Carlos Pulido, as "The Shadow" which was a nice and creative way for us to say "who the fuck is that?" Pulido was an enigma, he pitched in part of 2 years in the majors, in 1994....and 2003. Nice 8 year break you took there!

The Yankees took this one in a long dragged out muddle of a ballgame. At the top I had written "another 2 1/2 hour...no, 3 hour...no 3 1/2 hour affair..." Jimmy Key was on the mound for the Yankees against the aforementioned Shadow, and while he got the win to up his mark to an awesome 11-1 he was average, giving up 4 runs on 7 hits and a couple of walks in 6.1. Wickman came in with another 2 hitless innings, and Steve Howe stopped sniffing the baselines long enough to notch his 6th save.

Bernie Williams led off the for the good guys on this night, and went 2-5 with 3 runs batted in. O'Neill, coming in for GW went 1-2 and scored a run, driving in 2 of his own, and Gallego also scored twice. The Yankees offered up a lineup of BW, 3B Boggs, 1B Mattingly,RF Tartabull, C Stanley, DH Leyritz, SS Velarde, LF GW, and SS Gallego.

As for the Twinkies, who dropped the 6-4 decision, the loss was tacked to one Brett Merriman. The Twins offered up one of the most amusing pitching crews I have seen on a scorecard with Pulido, Merriman, and the esteemable Larry Casian. As for the bat side of things, Jeff Reboluet was playing first (not exactly Kent Hrbek, huh) and had a 2-4 evening, with a walk. Shane Mack and Pat Meares also had 2 hits. The Twins offered up 2B Knoblauch, 1B Reboulet, RF Puckett, CF Mack, DH Winfield, 3B Leius, LF McCarty, C Derek Parks (lol) and SS Pat Meares.

Fuckin A - between Pulido, Merriman, and Parks it was hard to pick a profile, but I drew beer bottle caps and I am going with Merriman. How can I go wrong! On top of that, he DID get the loss that night, one of 2 for his career...along with 1 win. In 2 seasons (93 and 94) he saw action in 34 games and pitched to the tune of an 8.39 ERA. Thats some work. He hurled 44 innings, getting torched for 54 hits and 37 walks. He also hit 7 guys, and threw 2 wild pitches in his tenure. That night against the Yankees he gave up 3 runs in ZERO innings, walking Velarde, giving up a single to O'Neill, and hitting Gallego before they got him out of there so Casian could give up a double to Bernie to clear the bases. In other interesting Brett Merriman news, he was a product of Grand Canyon University, which also bought us Chad Curtis and Tim Salmon.

As for the game there on the 21st, it clocked in at 3:24 and was played before 27,972 (again, I was 28 off!) mostly appreciative fans. Your umpires on the evening were once again Dan Morrison, Larry Barnett, Greg Kosc, and Al Clark.

Thanks for reading!

Another month by the books! We'll be up to 2000 before you know it. July 1994 is here!

July 2nd, 1994 - Yankees host the Mariners
Oh God was I drunk...And hello, Kevin Elster!

You are not going to get much out of me on this one. I was inebriated...this scorecard is a MESS. The only reason I am even touching this one is the game itself was fucked up too, a 12-6 Mariner win, with Jimmy Key of all people getting peppered. Pops...were you there?

I was so drunk I did not even bother to put a heading on the scorecard. Part of the fun in every game I scored was deeming something funny enough to make the top of the card...but the whole top white margin on this one is blank. The only joke near that prime real estate spot referred to when Robert Merrill started belting out the anthem, with the old canned music in the background. "Its amazing how Robert Merrill brings that band along with him every time" someone mused with a wink. Reminds me of a couple of years ago when a fat black cop guy and a wispy white cop woman were doing a duet for the anthem, and the guy started with a booming stacatto, then the women came in with this angelic hue and I believe it was Midget Mike who pretended it was the same person singing both stanzas and said "how did he get his voice to change like that?"

Randy Velarde started at second, which led me to write one of my few smarmy lines on the card, when I pointed him out on there as a "noted second baseman." And why was he at second? Why, making room for Kevin Elster of course! Yes, THE Kevin Elster, signed on by the Yankees just so he could go 0-20 in 1994 in the Yankee duds. Velarde even managed to make an error at second, causing someone to mutter "Roy Smalley would have had that." As for Elster, he did go 0-3, but at least he came error free.

The first strike reference of 1994 appeared on this card, as I bought back an OLD gimmick, the fan autograph, which had not been seen on here since early 93 and was not missed at all. Someone signed a Johnny Hancock, adding "if they go on strike, they go to Hell...seasoned cheapened, I wont go." So in other words while they thought a strike was possible, they figured short walkout that would cause the season to re-commence after a short break, albeit without them in the stands. Little did they know...

Even back then we were on Ken Griffey Jr. over his "suicide thought" admissions. That feels like yesterday. I am sure we hit him with some Billy Martin get out of the clubhouse gags, too. Good times, good times. We stared the "suicide jokes" in the very first inning. Feeling retro, I was marking times again, such as the first Ali bell at 2:05, and a rousing "Gang Bang" from Captain Bob at 2:40.

Here are some current events for you. This came soon after that soccer player got made dead quick for scoring that "own goal" during the 1994 World Cup. We shrugged it off with a callous, but funny "he scored on his own goal...he deserved death" note on the scorecard. Hooray us!

There is really nothing else I can salvage out of this. As a matter of fact, there is a big X through the entire Mariner batting area, with the explanation "all fucked up." Things are all out of order, apparently. I mean, there are 7 mo's, all late in the game, but I dont even know if they are in the right place.

As to the field, the Mariners had a grand old time, scoring single digits in the 2nd and 3rd before exploding for 8 runs in the 5th. Key was the tackling dummy, leaving with no outs in the 5th after giving up 3 singles and a double. Pope Don Pall sauntered in and was tatooed himself, giving up another 4 hits and a walk in 2/3 of an inning, only stopping to watch Velarde tack his "E" on the board. It took that nerd Paul Gibson to stop the bleeding, as he worked the final 4.1 innings in mercy fashion, giving up just 2 more Mariner runs.

Griffey, who had an annoying habit of smirking at us all game, stuck it to us by going 5-6 on the night. Former Yankee waste Mike Blowers went 3-5 with 2 runs scored and 3 batted in, which included a solo poke off that nerd Gibson in the 9th. The Mariners had an astounding NINETEEN hits and also walked 5 times. The beneficiary of all this was Dave Fleming, a good pitcher from Jackson Heights, NY, whose career ended up flaming out early due to a series of injuries. The win that evening upped his season mark to 6-10 (he was on his way downhill after going 29-15 in the previous 2 seasons) while Key slipped to 12-2, so you know a lot of folks lost some money on this night.

For our entertainment the Mariners served up a lineup of 2B Amaral, SS Felix Fermin, CF Griffey, DH even then Edgar Martinez, 3B Blowers, RF Keith Mitchell, 1B Tino, C Bill Haselman, and LF Brian Turang, who had a triple off the Pope.

The Yankees managed FIFTEEN hits of their own, but that was little solace. Bernie hit his 11th homer while going 2-5. Tartabull and Stanley also went 2-5, and Leyritz did them one better by going 3-5. The Yankees offered up CF Bernie, 2B Velarde, 3B Boggs, DH Tartabull, C Stanley, RF O'Neill, 1B Leyritz, LF Polonia (who had been batting leadoff most of the season) and SS Elster, that son of a bitch. As a gag on the scorecard someone wrote in "Oscar Azocar" as a pinch-hitter under the Yankee lineup. I almost fell for that one just now.

We got to see The Goose on this evening! Rich Gossage hurled the 9th for the Mariners, and "hurled" is a good word for it, as the Yankees kicked him for 2 runs on 3 hits. We had a good laugh at his expense. Good to see him, I guess. And with Mike Blowers on hand too!

And now, for the ever-popular feature section, where we reminice about a player that was really not all that important in the grand scheme of things....hey, how about Kevin Mitchells brother Keith?

Out there in left for the Mariners, a shadow of his brother, who cast quite the shadow with that girth. Keith did not make as much of a splash, playing in parts of 4 seasons (1991 with the Braves when he actually saw some postseason action, 84 with the M's, 96 with the Reds, and 98 with the Bosucks)...through all this he managed to sneak into 128 games in his major league tenure, garnering all of 242 at-bats. He wrapped up with a .260 average, clocking 8 home runs and driving in 29. To his credit, he almost managed to walk as many times as he struck out in his career, 34 walks to 42 Ks. Sure, we were laughing at him in 1994, but he did make $150,000 that year...all in all, we're glad to have seen him!

To wrap the 2nd of July, 32,717 came out on this Saturday afternoon and the game played out in 3:07. Your umpires on the afternoon were none other than John Shulock, Don Denkinger, Fieldin Culbreth, and Tim Tschida.

Thanks for hanging in! Leafing ahead, things will pick up the next few cards, I promise. Peace!


Happy 4th of July!

Monday, July 4th, 1994 - Yankees host the A's
Happy Birthday, George Steinbrenner! And USA too!

This is funny, and I can get the intro out of it. Today, while shopping at Target with Emma, Dana got me a Beckett Baseball Card collectors tin. It contained 250 random baseball cards from all brands and any of the last 20 or so years for $20. It included a random major leaguer autographed card, a signed prospect card, and a "Graded 10 STAR" card (which turned out to be a special Greg Maddux card, numbered 4 of 6)

Reason I bring this up is that oddly enough, as I pulled out this scorecard to continue forever onward on my scorecard memories, the winning pitcher that day was Oakland A-hole Steve Ontiveros, and the autographed major league card in my box that I opened up minutes before I set to work on this was...a 1987 Steve Ontiveros. As Mel Allen would say....how bout that!

Moving on from that...I used my old "more people at a 1928 high school reunion than here" gag at the top of this scorecard. The Yankees never drew on these July 4th games, despite all the fanfaronade surrounding the day. Under date, keeping with the theme, I wrote "beat the British", and perhaps thinking wistfully of where I would probably have seen more action then on another slow afternoon at the Stadium which saw the Yankees shut out, under 'played at' I put...the beach. The scant showing actually stirred me to call the attendance of 22,021 "pathetic" and added that "no one's here but us."

That could not stop Robert Merrill, who was in a boisterous enough mood to preface his version of God Bless America with a sweeping wave of the arm and an "Everybody!" invite to join in before he started singing. "Nice to see him come out of his shell." I noted.

Chico was working the small crowd, shilling his pools, and not having much luck. Howard the Lawyer explained this away by saying, "It doesn't take a bloodhound to smell a scam." As he shuffled his way in front of the bleachers with a goofy grin on his face someone stood up, cupped their hands over thier mouth and shouted "Chico's a crook!"

For some reason Ali was sitting on his hands, I dont think the empty seats thrilled him. It got bad enough to where as he sat there in stoic fashion he was bombarded with a chant of "Ring the God-Damned bell! Ring the God-damned bell!" When that failed to stir him a pack of lads started hitting him with an "Ali's a Mets fan!" chant instead. At this Teena hopped up and snarled, "You want the bell? Shove it up your ass!"

The old-school Creatures were not in the mood for any nonsense. When a beachball started bouncing around in the 8th the Willie-Loman-ish Jeff grabbed it and put the pop to it, almost causing a riot. Some guy actually wanted to beat him up. 2 innings later, as the game was wrapping up in the 9th, Jeff was at it again. I mean, this guy could not beat an egg, and here he was raising dukes, causing my final mystery out of the afternoon. While all this was going on, Teena was hollering at a lot of the nitwits out there, and one of them barked back with the schoolyard favorite "Can I have some cheese with that whine?"

I just hung out and drank by all the crooked letters on this thing. I spent my time wisely, putting little cracks next to the A's player names on the card. Next to Stan Javier I snidely remarked "Julian was better!" (you old baseball fans getting that?) Next to McGwire I wrote "hit him in the ankle!". I also mentioned that Teena dismissed Brent Gates (who played 135 games the year before and was established as the A's starting second baseman by now) by giving him the old "pshaw" and snapping "I've never heard of him."

There was a group of kids huddled together wearing purple shirts...looking at this now I suppose it was some camp or little league team or something. Whatever they were they were welcomed with a good old "Purple takes it up the ass, doo-da, doo-da" serenade.

The highlight of the day for me was seeing Yankee Stadium stalwarts Chico and Freddie Sez sharing the same table at Steve's eatery across the street after the game, having a bite to eat, and not acknowledging one another in the least bit.

The Yankees did not escape the scorecard wisecracks either...after Elster flied out harmlessly to right in the 5th I remarked "thats as good as Elster's gonna be." Seeing he went 0-20 as a Yankee in 1994, I was not too far off, huh?

My mind was drifting. I actually missed a Troy Neel home run off the bat cause I was reading Joey Adams' column in the Post. I ended up with 5 "mo's" - all of them with the A's up at bat, so at least I was paying attention with the Yankees swinging the bats. If you can call getting shutout 4-0 "swinging the bats." Walkman John, here were my 5...Sierra in the 3rd, Bordick in the 4th, Gates in the 5th, Neel in the 8th, and McGwire to lead off the 9th.

Not much more here worth salvaging. I apologize. I just dont get some of the jokes...as I mentioned the Yankees put up the donut, getting shut out by the 35-45 Jokeland A's. The aforementioned Steve Ontiveros started and handled the first 6.1 before giving way to a cavalcade of relief help. Marc Acre, Dave Leiper, that yutz Billy Taylor, and Ed Vosberg finished the job. The Yankees ended up with a piddling 4 hits, and only Paul O'Neill worked out a walk. Nothing much happening on the pinstripe side of things...

The anemic display was put on by LF Polonia, 2B Velarde, 3B Boggs, DH Tartabull, RF O'Neill, C Matt Nokes, CF BW, first baseman Mike Stanley (lol - first base), and the aforementioned Kevin Elster at short. Dave Silvestri, who went to his prom with MSG/FNC anchor Deb Kaufman as his date, pinch-hit and struck out for his efforts.

The A's banged out 11 hits, with Neel and McGwire homering. Those two were also the only Oakland hitters to have 2 hits in the game. Scott Kamienieki started and was roughed up, before making way for Xavier Hernandez in the 7th (so much for the closing role), that nerd Paul Gibson, and none other than Greg Harris, making one of his only three appearances as a Yankee. He had been released by the Sox on June 27th, and only signed by the Yankees the day before. He worked an uneventful 1.1 innings. Good job, deek!

The A's fielded a lineup of LF Rickey Henderson, CF Javier, DH Neel, RF Ruben Sierra (taking LOTS of abuse from us), 1B McGwire, C Steinbach, 2B Gates ("Ive never heard of him!"), SS Mike Bored-dick, and usual catcher Scott Hemond at third. (he could not hit there either)

I suppose we will go with Mr. Ontiveros as our profile, autographed card and everything.... Logged time from 1985-2000, with a bunch of holes in there...he did not pitch on the major league level in 91, 92, or 96-99. I know he had some sick arm injuries along the way...but thats his problem, not ours, I suppose.

He pitched in 211 games in his career, 200 in the American League, mostly for Oakland, but he also had short stints in Seattle and Boston. He hurled in 11 games for Philadelphia in the National League in 89/90. Finished with a winning 34-31 mark and an impressive 3.67 ERA. Too good to be profiled in my jokey profiles, but the baseball card commanded it! He started 73 games, walking 207 and striking out 382 in 661 career innings. A 2nd round draft pick, he came out of the University of Michigan, a school that also bought us Jim Abbott, Steve Howe, Chris Sabo, and his foe on the mound that day, Scott Kamienieki. I will never forget him!

I mentioned the pittance of a crowd already...you would have thought that at least the game went by quickly so we could go on with whatever else we had planned that day - um, no...it took an Austin 3:16 to play this one, and your umpires on hand were Jim Joyce, Terry Craft, Ed Hickox, and Jim McKean.

Thanks for reading, yo!

[$heriff Tom]

July 6th, 1994 - Yankees host the A's
Welcome Russ Davis!
Happy birthday, Dana!

One legend moves onward for the year in Kevin Elster, and another one comes in, in the form of Russ Davis, making his MLB debut. My 26th game of 1994, and I was carrying a 14-11 record. It was fucking hot and with the remnants of July 4th not to far in the rear-view mirror, it was painful to be out there. "Its hot as Hell...the Devil is positively evil." someone groused. "The sun is beating the crap out of us." someone else mused. And while this was going on, somewhere my wife, unbeknowenst to me, turned 16.

I actually was there with a guy (Phillipe) and a girl (Lisa) from work - this same Lisa ended up getting me fired not long after this by ratting on me after I threw plastic bricks from a window display in her direction during a work-related altercation. I was working at the French mannequin company at the time (so let the jokes commence)

Lisa especially was really dumb, it was her first baseball game ever - watching live, seeing in passing, or hearing an account of. I know, unbelievable in a "Domi has never eaten a condiment" sort of way. She watched Ali riffing away on his bell and asked loud enough for everyone to hear, "when he dies, are they going to pass on the bell?" It was absurd. Sadly, Ali passed away less than 2 years later and yes, the bell did pass.

There was announcement before the game that the Yankees were hosting THREE THOUSAND kids who won some sort of award. I remarked that that those 3000 were "about all that is here." We also noted that there were camps all over the place out there, like "30,000 of them." It never failed when someone was out there for the first time, it was all kids and camps and G-rated humor and not a "bleacher experience" at all.

It was such a cutesy crowd that on one trip up the steps Crapman actually sold THREE bears. I dont think he has sold 3 bears before or since. This whole transaction actually provoked a mystery out as I could not really believe I was seeing it. Later in the game he sold ANOTHER BEAR, and a bat to boot. He was really raking it in.

There were the usual sights to see. Some yoke was wearing a Yankee shirt and an Oriole hat. Some guy from a supermarket threw out the first pitch. People were still bitching about the Gay Games at Yankee Stadium, with Animal bellowing "I dont want them here. Or Pink Floyd either!" I mentioned that some old people were just walking around aimlessly, unable to find their seats if they were even looking for them in the first place.

As the game unfolded we were keeping an Elster watch. He came in 0-18 as a Yankee. He whiffed in the 3rd off of his old Mutt buddy Ronald Darling, and was now 0-19. He then flied out to cap his 1994 Yankee campaign at 0-20. He was demoted shortly after only to return in 1995 to go 2-17 before being mercifully cut loose. Buck Showalter, keeping with the Mets Suck theme of the evening, sent Darryl Boston up to pinch-hit for him against Darling. In Darling, Elster, and Boston talk about Dumb, Dumber, and Dumberest.

Not too much else on here. I figure I was hung over, and don't forget I was teaching baseball to a couple of people who forgot everything I said once we left and never thought of the game again. I mentioned that Matt Nokes "runs like a statue." I remarked that someone hit a "single off the wall" but did not divulge who. And when a fan ran onto the field at 9:59 I happened to be looking out towards the rightfield line and actually saw him hop over the fence and begin his trek.

Only ONE mystery out on here! Fuckin A...stupid Crapman...it was his fault. It happened with Terry Steinbach up in the 4th.

Jim Abbott was on the mound again - he always was, it seemed. He hurled a complete game but got an L hung on him (moving him to 7-6) as the A's waltzed out with a 4-2 decision. Darling (7-9) was the beneficiary, with help from Dave Leiper, Jim Acre, and the save from Dennis "Upper-Deck-ersly."

There was some funny business during the game. Rickey Henderson vehemently argued a called strike in the 3rd and was met with a crescendo of boos. Henderson later scored from first on a rip from Troy Neel in the 5th, smashing into Mike Stanley at the plate and knocking him out the game. The rest of the game saw a nice exchange of pleasantries from the bleacher denizens and the aforementioned Mr. Henderson.

The A's had home runs from Scott Brosius and Neel, who went 2-4 with 2 scored and 2 batted in. The A's only managed 5 hits off of Abbott but that was enough with those jacks thrown in. The A's proffered a lineup of CF Henderson, DH Neel, LF Berroa, RF Sierra, 1B McGwire, C Steinbach, 3B Brosius, SS Bordick, and Scott Hemond, usually a catcher, now playing 2B.

The Yankees had 11 hits and lost the game with their chintzy 1 run. O'Neill had 3 hits, and Polonia, Boggs, and Bernie all had 2. The Yankee lineup was Polonia, Boggs, O'Neill, Tartabull, Nokes 1B-C, BW, Stanley, Velarde, and Elster. With Nokes moving from first to catcher, Boggs moved across the diamond to play first base, and Russ Davis made his major league debut at third. He ended up going 0-3 with a whiff. I am happy I was there, and seeing Boggs man the first-sack was fun. Add Davis' debut to the list of Yankee major league debuts I was on hand for, from Sam Miletello to Mark Hutton, to Deion Sanders to Hideki Irabu....it goes on and on.

As I know Jackass cant wait to see another one, here is your personal profile of the game. Lets go with strapping A's DH/1B Troy Neel. I liked Troy Neel. This was his swansong in the league, he only stuck around for 3 seasons (92-94) It sort of baffled me....he managed a .280 lifetime batting average, with 37 career home runs in 758 career at-bats. He did whiff a lot (177 times) and had little speed (5 lifetime steals) but he could hit and play first or the outfield, and I remember big things were projected for him. I have no idea what went wrong. Born in September of 65, he was a product of Texas A& M, a school that also bought us Chuck Knoblauch, Casey Fossum, and Jason Tyner.

As for the 6th of July, there were 26,211 on hand, and the game was played in 2:55. The umpires on hand were Matthew Winans, Jim McKean, Jim Joyce, and Ed Hickox.

As much heat as I have been taking for having a bit of fun and writing these, I thank you for reading them. See you next time, with another one of Toms Scorecard Memories!

Welcome to the weekend. Time to trot out another one...

July 8th, 1994 - Yankees host the Angels
Tom tossed!

Jackass' Angels were in town, and I was not long for this world. Yours truly got the boot for doing, well, not much of anything. More on that later.

Ah, another Friday night game. Security was in one of those moods from the get-go, and our barbs in their direction did not help quell anything. The rent-a-cops looked particularly stupid during this particular evening, causing someone to ask aloud, "what, did WFAN run a contest to be a security guard for the night?" When Kathy, the woman that looked like TVs Roz the bailiff in Night Court, strolled out we chanted "Night Court! Night Court" at her and she stalked up the steps, waved her arms and snarled "start that again and I'll show you Night Court!"

Moving back to the business at hand, I remarked on Kevin Elster's demotion, waxing poetic by saying "Kevin Elster...you won. And the prize is a trip to Albany."

I dont really remember $3.50 beers, but I mentioned them on here twice. I said "paid $3.50 for a shot of beer" and "I bought a little $3.50 beer." Was this inside the Stadium? On sale for legal public consumption? Was it after I was tossed that I got these gems? Or did I buy it out of a bathroom stall downstairs like I used to buy my mini liquor bottles? Dennis, answer the question, you were there. You actually got mad at us cause a bunch of us had O'Neill signs and O'Neill actually hit a home run right into our cluster, and none of us had our signs up at the time. "I told you to keep the friggin' sign up" you muttered, and I noted. You also said "what did you pay for that, loser....$17.50?" I have no idea who or what you were referring to, but there it is near the top of the card, attributed to you.

It was a Friday and beer was flowing and our Yankees were playing but we still found the time to wonder why the subscription price to Yankee Magazine was the odd number of "$14.97." What the fuck is with the .97?

Someone, dont ask me why, came up with the term "BFT." It appears more than once on here. We called Jim Edmonds a "BFT." We called Chad Curtis a "BFT" as well. I was sitting here wondering what the Hell that meant, and there it is in the lower left corner of the scorecard....BFT means "Butt Fucking Team." Nice. We were also breaking out the old "Edmonds does Curtis and pees on Snow!" gag.

Even back then we were asking elderly Asian men "don't you own the Mariners?" At some point Animal started belting out Horses Ass, but flubbed it. I gave myself credit for "picking it up" and saving the day.

Some sort of hokey contest went on where a fan of the game was announced, and they won a set of binoculars. First they showed the binoculars on the screen, and the fans booed. Then they showed the winner, and they booed louder.

Got to see Russ Davis' first major league hit, a single to center in the 2nd off of Brian Anderson. He was then promptly doubled off when he got caught wandering when Patrick Kelly lined out to third. We even got to see Al Leiter's brother Mark make an appearance, always a treat. You have to hand it to me, by marking this it shows I knew what was important, and what was not. Fat Daddy Chico won his own home run pool with that poke, which was a common happening out there.

Animal was "on" that night, not only butchering the simple stanzas of Friend of Mine, but partaking in a verbal altercation with Night Court's Roz in the 8th, that led to me and others getting the boot along with him. She came storming up that inning with a scowl, and was obviously looking for someone. Animal pushed things along by standing up and asking "what, did Saddam send you?" That was all for him. She beckoned him over and out.

Then she started randomly chucking a few of us out. With another very scant crowd I had nothing but leg and elbow room. My bag was taking up 2 seats to one side and I was on my own little island out there. I chuckled as she pointed at someone and said, "you, you're out." She swerved left and with another point said, "you....come on down. You're out of here." Then she looked right up at me, and I was doing absolutely nothing, cept maybe smirking. And she was like, "you, come on. You're gone."

I looked behind me and there was no one there. I could not understand what she was doing, but I went anyway. Wasn't my first time, and sure as Hell would not be my last time getting thrown out. I passed off the scorecard to someone who took care of the most of the rest of the game and bungled it pretty bad, and watched the end across the street in the comfortable surroundings of Steve's sidewalk cafe.

Four mystery outs on here before my ejection in the 8th, one atrributed to a "discussion of the small crowds." Amazing I would take my eyes off the field for that. These "mo's" came for Mark Delesandro and Gary DiSarcina leading off the 8th for Cali, Randy Velarde in the Yankee 1st, and Stanley leading off the Yankee 2nd. A little help here!

As for the field of play, The Yankees squeaked out a 4-3 decision, with most of the action coming in the 9th when I was outside chugging a Fosters at the Yankee Eatery. Going into the 9th the Yankees had a 2-0 lead, then Melido Perez, who had been absolutely sailed along, got into serious trouble. When he left and Steve Howe was done it was 3-2 Angels, with all the runs on Perez' ledger. The Yankees, however, came back for two runs and a walk-off victory on four hits off of Joe Grahe in the bottom of the frame and that was that. Bob Wickman got the gift victory after thrown .1 of an inning in the 9th, and giving up a hit of his own.

The Angels mustered a mere 6 hits on the night, offering up a lineup of CF Curtis, LF Rex Hudler (way to get busted with marijuana traveling as an Angel announcer this year) RF Edmonds, DH Chile Davis, C Greg Myers, 2B Easley, 1B Snow, 3B Delesandro, and the SS DiSarcina. On the mound we saw Anderson, one Scott Lewis, Bob Patterson, Mark Leiter (for a third of an inning, anway) and the aforementioned Mr. Grahe.

The Yankees had CF BW, SS Velarde, 3B Boggs, DH Tartabull, C Stanley, RF O'Neill, 3B Russ Davis, 2B Kelly, and batting 9th the leftfielder GW. O'Neill had 3 hits, including the home run, and BW had a pair. On the night the Yankees racked up 11 of them.

Lets hit up a profile, shall we? Mark Dalesandro seems as good a place to go as any. This is one of those guys that even after I read the name and check his stats, I hardly remember. An 18th round draft pick in 1990, his playing career stretched from 94-2001, with holes in place of a few of those years.

He managed to see action in 5 different seasons in those 8 years. Just 79 games, and 129 at-bats. Way to represent! 3 homers, 17 RBIs, a .240 lifetime batting average. Actually stole a base in 1999 with Toronto, and walked only 3 times in his career. This guy, despite the fact that he caught, played third and the outfield, was as nondescript as they come. Born in 1968, he is my age today, and a product of the U of Illinois, which also bought us Darrin Fletcher, Tom Haller (who just died - RIP!), Scott Spezio, and Pope Don Pall! He actually got to play in ONE game as recently as 2001 for the White Sox, but did not even bat. Good evening, Mr. Dalesandro, wherever you are today!

As for the 8th of July, only 23,770 were on hand to see the Yankees, who were still rolling merrily along. Your umpires on hand for this 2:55 game were the honorable Mike Reilly, Tim Welke, Joe Brinkman, and the late Durwood Merrill.

Thanks for reading! Only 2 more games for 1994, and another year of scorecard memories is in the book! So stay on board, the best of the worst is yet to come.

Its Sunday morning, a bit after 9AM, everyone is still sleeping...what better time for a scorecard memory!

July 26th, 1994...Yankees host the Red Sox
The morning after...and the strike beckons

Ah, the day after my 26th birthday. By my shaky scrawl on here, and the fact I wrote "the day after" in dramatic fashion, this is one of those days I would have been better off staying home, but showed up just to show everyone I was indeed still alive and survived another birthday.

As we settled in for the night we saw what appeared to be a bodybuilder type from the box seats arging with someone in section 37. When the banter got heated and we were really egging it on, the guy pulled offf his shirt and started making Hulk Hogan poses out in box seat. Um..he was no bodybuilder. "How bout that." someone said. "Muscular to fat in seconds."

Speaking of fat, Big Daddy Chico was peddling his pools when he was officially noted by a representive from our section, "Chico, you have just been declared the 6th borough of New York City. Congratulations."

Chico was under heavy artillery fire for all his scamming. It usually revolved around his collecting for the home run pool, and not returning the money when there were no Yankee blasts. It was never actually explained that was part of the deal. On top of that, we speculated that his shady pools that kept him rolling in pizza dough went back to the Polo Grounds, when he would sucker middle aged men out of their derby hats. Even Teena was mad at him on this Tuesday night. "Hey Chico, even Tartabull wants his money back from you!" someone hollered.

But tonight the controversy stemmed from Chico once again winning his own attendance pool. He always managed to pull that one - its a wonder people simply did not take the list from him once he wrote it and monitor things their own selves or at least note Chico's pick, but the past is the past. After the attendance was announced and word of Chico's victory made the rounds, it was on. "You fat thief!" someone screamed. "Give us your money back...you eat like a pig!" someone else hollered.

There were a few of the regular tally of dopes walking around on that evening. This was back in the day where Boston fans were ready and willing to fight us, as we did not have much of a gang out there. In fact, when some thimble of a Yankee fan gave a Sox fan heat while he strolled up the steps, the Red Sox fan barked, "what the fuck you want, you Brady Bunch asshole!"

One lucky fan actually was asked, "didn't I see you in Hot Shots part deux?" Some girl was trying to eat a hot dog in peace and my friend Brian was watching in the perverted sense. "Oh yeah...eat that hot dog. Ohhh boy." he slobbered. While this was going on I observed "my beer smells."

Someone was wearing some sort of funny hat and I snapped off "nice hat" and Dennis jumped in and added, "that's not a hat, that's a lamp." Dennis had come in late, while the Yankees were enjoying a 5 run first inning. Of course the second he walked in Patrick Kelly grounded out to second to end it.

We were chatting about what else was going on around the sports world, such as the Cosmos winning and the Mets losing the day before. "I didnt see the Mets score since the paper moved them to the classifieds" someone mused. We also ate up some time discussing a fight that recently sparked on Phil Donahue's show that was in the news. It was also remembered that when the Yankees got that last out and finally won that 78 playoff game, they had 9 white guys on the field of play.

We heard it being bandied that it was some girls birthday out there and someone actually turned around to her and said loud enough for just about everyone to hear, "Happy birthday, dear fat girl." "Hey, check it out" someone pointed out, "the evil scientist from Bugs Bunny is here."

A Red Sox hat started flying around the section in the 5th....I missed it as I was in the bathroom peeing out yet more beer. It ended up in some ejections. Saddam took the role of "upper deck spy" for the rest of the night, peering over the upper deck at regular intervals, chatting into his high-tech walkie-talkie.

Through it all, only 2 "mos" - Ho-Mo Vaughn leading off the 5th, and Patrick Kelly leading off the Yankees 6th. As you can see, getting back to business after the between-innings zany capers was my bane.

The game itself was pretty much a joke. The Yankees opened up a 5-0 lead after 1, but it was 5-4 by the time the bottom of the 4th rolled around. The Sox then threw up 4 of their own in the 6th, and another 2 in the 9th which rendered the Yankees own 2 in the bottom of that inning moot, and the final score was Boston 10, Yankees 7.

Jimmy Key was blasted again. He was sputtering around this point, 15-3 record and all. 11 hits in 5.1, 6 runs on the ledger. He also uncharacteristically walked 3. Xavier Hernandez came in "to close the 6th" and he was tattered. Everyones favorite, Joe Ausanio, came in to get racked around a bit, and it took that nerd Paul Gibson to stop the bleeding.

As for the bats, BW, Tartabull, Stanley and Leyritz all had 2 hits for the Yankees, and Gallego drove in 3 runs. Nokes had the only Yankee home run, a 2 run shot in the 9th off old friend Steve how "Farr" will they hit it. The Yankee lineup at the start read CF BW, 1B Mattingly, LF O'Neill, RF Tartball (who we called "cottage cheese arm" on this night) C Stanley, DH Leyritz, 3B Velarde (where's Boggs!!) SS Gallego, and 2B Kelly.

Ho-Mo Vaughn went 4-5 for the Sox with 2 runs, 4 BI's, and a long jack off of X Hernandez. Tim Naehring (now a suit in the Reds system) hit a homer and drove in 2, and Damon Berryhill and Wes Chamberlin of all people also drove in a couple of runs. "Ugly Otis" Nixon played tablesetter in his pesky, annoying fashion, going 3-5 while hearing it from us all night. The Sox showed a lineup of CF Nixon, 2B Naehring, SS Valentin, 1B Vaughn, RF Brunansky, LF Greenwell, DH Chamberlin, 3B Scott Cooper, and C Berryhill.

Chris Nabholz actually started for Boston, and settled in after being torched for 5 in the first and got out of there after 5 with only those runs on the tally. Following him on the Sox hill were one Chris Howard, Scotty Bankhead, Tony Fossas (who was 36 then and is still hanging around), Steve Farr (in his last major league season) and Ken Ryan.

Ah, to profile. How bout Chris Howard? In 95 he actually got into 37 games, situational, managing 39 innings. Pitched well, marking down a 3.63 ERA in 95, and giving up no runs in a 1993 stint with the White Sox and a 1995 stint with the Rangers totalling another piddly 6 innings. All in all he threw 46 innings in the majors, to a sharp 3.13 ERA, walking 16 and striking out 22. I wonder what happened to him. I can tell you this - he was originally signed by the Yankees as an undrafted free agent in the year I graduated high school, 1986. On August 31st, 1995 he was swapped for a former "Scorecard Memory Profile" subject Jack Voight. Born in 65, he was a product of the University of Miami, who count Pat Burrell, Aubrey Huff, Mike Pagliarulo, and Jay Tessmer as some of their alum. Either way, I am proud to say I saw this guy pitch!

As for the night of the 26th (only one more card to go before the strike hit and 94 is in the books) 38,448 were on hand in the Bronx (Chico probably had 38,447 in the attendance pool) in a long 3:56 and your umpires on hand were the late Durwood Merrill, Mike Reilly, Tim Welke, and Joe Brinkman.

Thanks for reading yo! See you tomorrow night with yet another scorecard memory!

[$heriff Tom]

One last one, and its a wrap for 1994!

August 9th, 1994 - Yankees host the Orioles
Phil Rizzuto night....the re-scheduled one!

In a nod to the upcoming strike, the Yankees moved up the eagerly anticipated Phil Rizzuto Day and made it into Phil Rizzuto night. Knowing what was ahead, I took the occassion to get sloshed. It was a somber night, even though it was supposed to be celebratory. The Yankees even paraded out "My Life" from the Beatles, as they showed a clip melange of the inimitable Scooter.

Quite a few dignataries were on hand. Frank Messer, who once read off recipes on the radio airwaves during a rain delay, was your Master of Ceremonies. Mel Allen, Joe D, and Enos "Country" Slaughter were there...it was like a parade of the soon-to-be dead. Representing the "still living in 2004" faction were Bill White, Rudy Guiliani, and via taped scoreboard message (and booed upon introduction) Mario Cuomo. Meat Loaf also apparently had something to say on the board, and we laughed at how bad the dubbing appeared to be with the delays over the mic. That is what passed for fun with a strike hovering over us like the Sword of Damocles.

This is where Scooter broke down when awarded a meeting with the Pope, and Bill White gave him some sort of ring. Right underneath these notes I found time to scrawl, "no beer guy in 31 minutes" so you see where my priorities lie. Some woman representing the Hall of Fame paraded out on the field and was showered with "Show Your Tits!" chants from the bleachers.

"Our last game - we go out loud" was how I headed this thing. Ali, probably sour at the prospects of the strike and an early hibernation of the bell, played his "first and last bell" of the night at 8:27. Beyond that, this scorecard is a mess. I can not read just about anything on here. I mentioned that Dennis, in what was his swan-song (unbeknowenst to us at the time) sang "Blender" in the bottom of the 7th??? What the fuck does that mean? Is that a Nirvana song or something?

A couple of celeb lookalikes were not treated well. "Down in front, Bleacher Bill White!" was yelled. "Hey, Clarence Thomas, get the beer guy out here!" was another.

People were taking the Leroy Neiman collectors posters and making them into nifty (and rather large) paper airplanes. They were flying about, and a few landed on the field. Bob Sheppard made an announcement to stop, and sure enough that was simply an invite for a fleet of more planes to sail to the field before he was even done speaking.

We sort of mailed it in for this one. Under "Caught Stealing" someone wrote "probably Polonia...but who cares." To the contrary, Polonia stole a base early on. In another case a player box has a groundout to short reported, but an arrow leading out to the margin reads "I dont know, but he's on first..."

There is a mention here of a Broncos/49rs game, and a reference to Steve Young, but it is unreadable. What makes this possibly even more noteworthy is the autograph underneath by a fan at the game, and it looks like our friend Justin, who was a Bronco fan way back then. I am trying to confirm if this was indeed the first direct Justin reference on my cards, back there in August of 1994.

To show how stupid the idea of going out on strike was, and a tip and a nod towards Rizzuto, there were 50,000 plus on hand for a Tuesday night game. The Yankees dropped this game, but left the Stadium with an 8 game lead on the second place O's.

Its fitting that Jim Abbott started, its long been a joke on here that every time I went to a game it seemed like he was on the mound. He pitched 5.2 sluggish innings, giving up 6 runs in that time, enough to tag the L on the Yankee ledger. The main foe was Brady's a Lady Anderson, who went 3-5 with 2 runs and 2 RBIs from the leadoff position. Cal Ripken Jr and Christopher Hoiles also had a couple of hits for the birds from Baltimore. The O's proffered up a lineup of RF Anderson, LF Hammonds, 1B Raffy Palmiero, SS Ripken, 3B Leo Gomez, C Hoiles, DH Lonnie Smith, and 2B Mark McLemore.

For the Yankees, they outhit the O's 10-9, with Bernie, Boggs, O'Neill and Stanley (the top 4 hitters) all getting 2 hits. Boggs connected for his 11th home run, off of starter Jamie Moyer. In some tragic irony Lee Smith, who cameoed for the Yankees the year before, nailed down the save after Moyer pitched 8 innings, giving up 5 runs. Moyer upped to 5-7, Abbott dropped to 9-8.

The final Yankee lineup for 1995 as far as I was concerned (there were still a couple of games left) was CF BW, 3B Boggs, RF O'Neill, C Stanley, 1B Mattingly, DH Leyritz, LF GW, SS Gallego, and 2B Kelly. This card featured THIRTEEN mystery outs - too many to name them all - what a fucking mess this is - this includes 3 straight mystery outs in the bottom of the Yankees second.

As for this night, there were a whopping 50,070 on hand, to see a game that went a slogging 3:31. Your umpires on hand were Larry McCoy, Jim Evans, Derryl Cousins, and Rick Reed.

What the Hell, lets roll one last profile for 1994. Lets go with Leo Gomez, who came into baseball with such promise, but I believe ended up making most of his mark overseas when he fizzled out. A tenure that lasted from 1990-1996, he played in 611 games and could not nudge his lifetime average above .243. He did go yard 79 times, plating 259 runs. He finished his career with 4 stolen bases and 10 caught stealings, a pungent and apalling stat. In 1916 at-bats, he stuck out 399 times, and walked 255. Born in 1966, this Rican was signed by the O's as an amateur free agent in 1995. Without researching, I believe he went on to Japan after one year with the Cubs and ended up hitting many a home run over there. I am happy to have seen him!

Hey, thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed 1994. I think you know what is set to come in 1995...the regulars start appearing, and the humor steps up a notch. As for 1994, it was fun, unofficially I scored 28 games, finishing with a 16-12 record.