Scorecard Memories - 1995!

[$heriff Tom]

And now, ladies and gentlemen...welcome to 1995! Lets get to it, shall we.

May 1st, 1995 - Yankees host Red Sucks
Welcome back me (and 17,411 others)

Back in business, strike over. The heading, aptly enough, read "welcome back me." So much for welcoming back the returning players. Both the Yankees and the Sux came into this game at 3-1, and it was time to get back to business. I noted the game started at 7:30, and added a "Thank God" cause that meant an extra 30 minutes to drink cheaper beer outside before first pitch.

Time for milestones. The first "Boston sucks" chant rang through at 6:42. 1st Crapman sighting was logged at 7:10. First Horse's Ass ditty, dedicated to Jose Canseco, was belted out at 7:40. The first fan ejection was at 8:05. The first command to "lose that tie!" was at 8:57.

I bought along a friend of mine named Eric who was pretty much in awe. "Truly unbelievable" he enthused after Captain Bob sang a long, rousing Gang Bang. "My God" he said after spending $22 on one order of beer and food downstairs.

There was a faux John Candy sighting, and I queried aloud, "hey, did you take a plane, train and an automobile to get here?" Other faux celebs who were at the game included Shaft, Roc from the Fox sitcom, BB King, Fernando Valenzeula, and Cornelius from the Planet of the Apes.

Replacement umps were on hand! In other words, SCUM-pires. "These umps could not call...their Mom" someone said. Handling this game was not the likes of Rocky Roe and the late Durwood Merrill, instead we saw the work of Jeff Henrichs, Joe Caraco, Darryl Mason, and Larry Bialorucko. LOL.

Some guy fell there in our section. "I didnt see it...I heard it. " I logged. In another spot on the scorecard I wrote "that guy fell down again." So we know while the beer was pricey, it was good!

Some old favorites were appearing on here, way back in 95. "Ho-Mo Vaughn" is here. "Thats a home run in a silo" accompanied a Jose Valentin popup to second. There was also a sing-song of "Eat A Salad" at someone fatter than us.

At one point over the PA we heard "Pop Muzik" - "holy shit, I have not heard that song in 12 years" someone mused. "There's a reason for that." was Erics retort.

The only other note on here worth mentioning is "sit down, you fuck!" There were 4 MOs, only 1 with the Yankees at bat (Tartabull in the 8th) so at least I was on for the home team.

The Yankees won 4-3 over their storied rivals, to take sole possession of first place! As I wrote on this card, "God Bless the Yankees!" Jimmy Key got the start and even though he hurled 7 strong, it was the end of 94 all over again as he could not get the win. The win actually went to our coked out friend Steve Howe, with John Wetteland notching his 3rd save as a Yankee. Paul O'Neill smacked the first Yankee Stadium home run of 95, while going 3-4 for the home team. Danny Tartabull and Don Mattingly added 2 hits each, and the Yankees had 11 on the night.

For the Sux, Aaron Sele started but it was Derek Lilliquist that was tagged with the L. "Hard Hittin'" Mark Whiten had 2 hits for Boston, and Mike MacFarlane, in his first and only season with the team, had a 3 run jack off of Key. 8 of the 9 Sox in the starting lineup had hits, with only Vaughn showing a donut. On the hill Sele was followed by one Joel Johnston, Lilliquist, and one Jeff Pierce.

The Sox had a lineup of 2B Alicea, SS Valentin, DH Canseco (who did not even have to play the field to get a Horses Ass), 1B Vaughn, RF Whiten, LF Greenwell, C MacFarlane, 3B Naehring, and CF Lee Tinsley. The Yankees countered with LF Polonia, 3B Boggs, RF O'Neill, DH Tartabull, 1B Mattingly, C Leyritz, CF BW, SS Tony Fernandez in his first and only Yankee campaign, and 2B Patrick Kelly.

I was going to profile Mr. Pierce, but his major league tenure lasted from April 26th of 95 to May 24th of 95, so lets go with Mr. Johnston instead. More renowned for what little body of work he had with the Royals and the Pirates, he managed to pitch in 4 games for Boston, and this was one of them.

What there was for his career stretched from 91-95, where he saw action in 59 games (zero starts) and escaped with a 3-5 record, with a 4.31 ERA in 85 innings. In that time he only gave up 66 hits, walking 37 and whiffing 61. His main problem is all that good came in 1 year, 1993. In 3 other seasons he showed ERAs of 13.60, 29.70, and 11.25. Boston released him on July 22nd. But on May 1st he pitched one perfect inning, striking out Kelly. Born in 1967, a product of Penn State, the guy who sponsored his page on baseball-reference.com said, and I quote, "real nice guy, played softball against him after his MLB career. Hits a softball as hard as anyone I've ever seen. His stats were deserving of a better look at the MLB level but it didn't happen." - I am happy I saw him!

There were only 17,412 on hand, so people were not exactly flocking back. The game went on for 2 hours and 30 minutes and I already mentioned your goofy umps, but its funny enough to go through it again - they were Jeff Henrichs, Joe Caraco, Darryl Mason, and Larry Bialorucko.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy 1995!



May 5th, 1995 - Yankees host the Red Sox
Teena on the warpath

Well, back in business. The regular umpires were back on the job, so no more Mike Riggers, Joe Padilla, Dick Jackson, and Terry Boveys. I had missed the middle 2 of this 4 game set, probably nursing quite the headache from my first Yankee game in 9 months earlier in the week.

I knew this was going to be a funny one on the way up as someone stormed the mic hookup on the subway train in and started chanting, "Boston sucks! Boston sucks!" I love NY. Once inside my friend Tom promptly dropped a home run ball during BP and spent the rest of the game muttering over it.

Lots of animosity during this game, set to a backdrop of weepy rain. "ooooh, pretty rain" someone sarcastically cracked as I tried to keep the scorecard dry. "We need Moses to part the infield. " someone else cracked. I go downstairs and people were washing their muddy hands in the water fountains, of all places.

Some interesting times are marked for posterity, including "guy hit a woman - 7:52." Again, I love NY. I marked the first Sox sighting at 6:52, which is actually kind of late as I was in for BP, and Ali's first bell 3 minutes later at 6:55...well over 30 minutes before the first pitch.

Teena was on one of her rampages. What piqued her ire were a bucketful of condoms that had made its way out there, and condom balloons were floating lazily around between the raindrops. Teena was beside herself, trying to pull them out of the air to pop them. She managed to corral one and pop it, and was met with chants of "Virgin!" and "Asshole!" for her efforts.

She also took umbrage at the wave. A group of yahoos dotting the small crowd of 18,994 were enjoying the stylings of a wave creeping through a bit too much, and Teena jetted down to their row and screamed, "we don't do the wave here, faggots!" Oh, was she on on this night. I also have her marked as getting into a fight with a guy that got really ugly...as she was in his face the guys friend grabbed her from behind, and she was ready to slap skins. Security ambled over and took the 2 guys out, another small victory for Teena.

I was having problems of my own. Queen Latifah on security was convinced I had snuck beer in...no remembrance if I did or not, but i mentioned on here she was on my case, and I was summarily warned.

This was the game I still cite, where we cracked on a poor old man who walked in sluglike fashion up the ramp to our left, hooked a turn, and walked SLLLLLOOOWWWWLLLLY along the front of the section. "They need to stamp a yellow triangle on his back." someone mused as he hobbled along. "Sir, your blinker has been on since you left the ramp!" I hollered after him as he was close to his destination 30 feet after the turn. "Hey, the speed limit is 5, pick it up!" someone else cracked.

There was a vicious, violent fight up there that night. Some guy in a Nebraska sweatshirt went to town and battered a couple of guys, including tossing some guy 4 seats southbound. He was tossed for his efforts, making muscle poses on the way out. Later in the game "a junkie" also got the boot, and on the way out was hit with a "stay away from our schools!" command.

But the funniest toss was a guy who kept standing by the rail Milton commands now who was "doing a jig." He was very drunk, but I think it was the bad dancing and not the public intoxication that got him. At one point, he actually stumbled and fell while dancing, and Queen Latifah on security booed him. She then told him to find a seat and "never dance again." Sure enough a few innings later he "jigged again" and he was thrown out. As he had been singing as well, someone attributed his behavior to "one doo-dah, doo-dah too many."

The "Y R U GAY" song was not in full effect yet, as we subbed "Whiten IS Gay" for the main chorus during this game at least. We were rabid, and we wanted beer, so much so that when a friendly soda vendor ambled up he was met with a "get your soda sellin' ass back in the kitchen." When a pack of tards headed up the wrong aisle after a food run, they were kindly informed "the Goofy movie is filming over there."

During the 7th inning stretch some guy in our midst gave us a heads up and a "watch this" and while everyone was standing he spun towards the loge and whipped a tennis ball at the security guard leaning on the rail up there. "Boop" - it got him right off the back, and the crime was never bought to trial. A nice shot.

The only other notes of interest on here mention a Chico lookalike that shared some space in 37 with him, and a nod to a discussion over how funny it would be if they could get a mime and a lady with a semaphone to stand by the rail and do the game for everyone.

Out on the field the Yankees went to 6-2 with a 5-3 win, coming back with 3 runs in the bottom of the 8th off old friends Lilliquist and Joel Johnston to grab it. The inning featured jacks off the bats of Paul O'Neill and Don Mattingly. Wade Boggs went 2-4, scored twice, and actually stole a base! Mattingly and Tony Fernandez also had 2 hits for the Yankees. They had a lineup of LF Polonia, 3B Boggs, RF O'Neill, DH Tartabull, 1B Mattingly, C Stanley, CF BW, SS Fernandez, and 2B Patrick Kelly. Melido Perez started and pitched a decent enough game, but the beneficiary of the late runs was Joltin' Joe Ausanio, and John Wetteland notched his 4th Yankee save.

As for the Sox, they only managed 6 hits, two from Mike Greenwell, with home runs from Ho-Mo Vaughn and Timothy Naehring. They offered up a lineup of 2B Alicea, SS Valentin, 1B Vaughn, RF Whiten, LF Greenwell, C MacFarlane, DH Reggie Jefferson, 3B Naehring, and CF Lee Tinsley. The immortal Troy O'Leary, the Irish black guy, made a pinch-hitting appearance in the 9th. Erik Hanson started for the Sox, and after Lilliquist and Johnston blew the game Alejandro "Penis" aka Alejandro Pena wrapped up.

Todays player profile is scampy Lee Tinsley, who haunted the league from 93-97, wearing 3 different uni's in that time (Boston, Seattle, Philly) - a pesky sort, he snuck into 361 games and managed 870 at-bats, showing some true Punch and Judy statistics at the stick. Batted .241, with a whopping 13 home runs and 79 runs batted in. He had a modicum of speed, nailing 41 in his tenure, but he was also caught stealing 20 times. He also struck out a lot, 231 times, basically one in four trips to the dish. In this night in May, 95, we saw him go 1-4, complete with a whiff off of Melido. Born in 69, the native Kentuckian was a first round draft pick that did not pan out, for the A's in 1987. He actually made a leaderboard in 95...9th most "sacrifices" with 9. It was a joy to watch him play!

Again, a morbidly small crowd, especially for a Yankee/Sox affair. Your umpires, back on the job, were Vic Voltaggio, Dale Scott, Jim Joyce, and Jim McKean, and the game was played under damp conditions in 3:01.

Thanks for reading, yo!



Right back at it.

May 16th, 1995 - Yankees host the Indians
"If I'm not here, I'm somewhere else"

Take me out to the Ocean, reprise! My 4th game of the year, I missed a couple of scorecards as I had other things on my mind...I was on a "suspension vacation" from my job...told to go home and call back in a week to see if I still had a job. I waited it out, called back, still had a job, went back, and was fired for good soon after.

I actually have the semblance of a scorecard from a week earlier that I wont touch, 5/7/95 against the Brew Crew, but I was so drunk it is veritably unreadable. I cant even tell you who won the game by looking at it although I made a go of scoring the whole thing. And I actually did not have a printed scorecard for it, I wrote in the lines myself, on lined paper....considering how drunk I just admitted to being, you can imagine what this looked like...

But on to baseball! I dubbed this "The All Minority Game" cause by the end of things the Indians fielded a field full of all hispanic and black men, including pitcher Jose Mesa.

We still were mired in the midst of awful Yankee crowds, coming off the strike. While I described the crowd as "all ten of us" we were actually just a bit under 20,000. I mentioned a couple of us were drinking our own beers, smuggled in and hidden inside of ice cream bags. Its funny - we joke about how the Dominicans scampered in like roaches when Manny Ramirez was in town, well - no joke, on this night Crapman was selling little Dominican flags out of his crapcart.

Teena was in a crabby mood again, hollering at someone who compared Don Mattingly to Michael Jordan. In her eyes, he superceded all that. She also fought a Howard Stern lookalike who had a few negative things to say about Dave Winfield, who was now DHing for the tribe. Teena did do something funny, though, an imitation of "Baerga's fag walk"

Ali was also taking heat, once again he was lethargic with the bell and actually did not clink and clank until the 6th after being harrassed all game. I remember him simply being annoyed at the crowds many nights, and he despised being told when to ring the bell. Sadly, looking at the date here it was almost exactly a year later that he passed away.

Your regular inane discussions were rippling through Section 39. We had a discussion about major league players who were "killed" We chatted about our exuberant support of WWF superstar Bob Backlund's run for President of the United States, at least in principle. And while discussing who would play who in the bleacher movie, Marlon Brando got the nod for the Chico role. And even back then central casting had Lucille Ball or Rosie Perez playing Teena.

There was a kid out there waving around a Domingo Jean poster which he must have pulled from Yankee magazine. Since bad pitchers were in the air, we even found time to kick up a "Start Ausanio" chant.

The Yankees were down early, when Mike Stanley blasted one to right to make it 3-1. "A nice solo homer to cheer things up" George muttered. A couple of innings later Pat Kelly sailed one into the sky and with it aloft George cracked "that ain't going nowhere" only to see it fly over the centerfield wall. There were no less than 6 home runs hit in this game, which saw the Yankees fall 10-6, dropping my 1995 mark to 2-2.

Funny how some things dont change. Manny Ramirez dropped a fly ball and got tacked with an error...with him right in front of us manning rightfield, we had a good time with him regarding that travail.

Jimmy Key, as always it seems with me on hand now, started for the Yankees now that Abbott was out of town and was walloped again. If all I had to go by were some of these scorecards, I would have thought that Key sucked. Smacked on this Tuesday night for 11 hits in 5.1, and 7 runs. Yankee killers all Albert Belle, Ramirez, and Paul Sorrento went yard for Cleveland, with Belle scoring 4 times and driving in 2. All 9 Indian starters got a hit on the night, with your starting lineup featuring our good friend Kirby in CF, SS Vizquel, 2B Baerga, LF Belle, 1B HOF Eddie Murray, RF Ramirez, DH Winfield, 3B Espinoza, and C Tony "Penis" Pena.

For the Yankees Mike Stanley, Bernie Williams and Patrick Kelly went deep, with Stanley and Mattingly having 2 hit nights. The Yankees mustered 8 hits off starter Chuck Nagy, who was out after 5, that Texas cokehead Dennis Cook, Eric Plunk (who we said takes longer to warm up than an Eskimo) and Mesa. The Yankee lineup on this May evening was LF Polonia, SS Fernandez, 3B Boggs, C Stanley, 1B Mattingly, DH Tartabull, RF Dion James, CF BW, and 2B Kelly.

After Key got whomped, he was relieved by Scott Bankhead....yes, THE Scott Bankhead, and John Wetteland, who gave up 2 9th inning runs in the rare mopup role.

For the profile I got to go with Bankhead, even though he was a Yankee at the time and I usually take it around the league instead. Thing is, till I noticed his name on this card a few weeks ago I had completely forgotten about his stint with the Yankees, and still don't remember it even though it happened and lasted a little bit.

He managed to throw in 20 games for the Yankees in 95, and that was a wrap for him and his major league career. He was released on my birthday of that year, July 25th, after posting a 1-1 record with a 6.00 ERA. For the career itself he rang up a lifetime mark of 57-48 with a respectable 4.18 ERA in 267 games (110 in starts) from 1986-1995. I best remembered him from his stint with Seattle (87-91) but he also hurled for KC in his rookie campaign, the Cincy Reds (in 92, his best season, and only season in the NL) and the dreaded Red Sox preceding his Yankee stint. He struck out 614 and walked but 289 in 901 innings of work and to date his page has had 14,161 hits on baseball-reference.com!

Born in 1963 in Raleigh, NC, he was a product of the University of North Carolina, which also bought us the likes of Clyde King, Paul Shuey, and BJ Surhoff. How can you not have been proud to have seen this man ply his trade!

As for the 16th day of May, 1995, the Yankees fell in 3:00 in front of a scant showing of 18,246, and your umpires on hand were none other than Dan Morrison, Al Clark, Ted Barrett, and Gregory Kosc.

Thanks for reading!

[$heriff Tom]

May 20th, 1995 - Yankees host the Whore-ioles

A Saturday afternoon at the Stadium. Ali showed up in a suit for whatever reason and from whatever gathering, and was putting on quite the bell-ringin' and dance steppin' sort of show. "Hey, Ali, I heard you left your heart in San Francisco!" someone cackled. To the contrary of Ali's dapper self, some slummy guy with a hangdog look sat right in our midst all by his lonesome, causing someone to crack, "he looks like he came from the track and lost all his money."

While all this was going on our good friend George was taking some heat for showing up the game before essentially to exchange pleasantries and gladhand, only to leave during THE SECOND INNING. "Hey, I had things to do" he shrugged, even as people asked him if he could leave by the end of the first on this day.

The esteemable Sherman Obando was in right for Baltimore, and catching heat from our festive selfs in the 80 degree weather. "Hey, Sherman, I heard your boyfriend Obando's over for you!" I noted the beers were now $5.50, which harkened a call over the fence towards Sherm, "Obando, get me a beer, make yourself useful!" Showing even Creatures have a sense for history there was even a "General Sherman" Obando reference.

Someone must have crashed a car around this time, as the old mantra "all in all its another Porshe in the wall" is scrawled. I thought for a moment it may have been Flyer Pelle Lindbergh, but he was 10 fucking years dead by this time. And showing our current event bent there were also Sarah Ferguson toe-licking jokes on here, and a blunt "Sarah Ferguson sucks" note to sum it up. In another discussion, someone snapped "Fuck Scottie Pippen, I hope he dies with AIDS." We were all over the board on this one.

The denizens of the bleachers were their normal canny selves. Even an oldtimer Brooklyn Dodger fan was hassled. The normal "Security Sucks!" chant had an addendum of "They like men!" In the oddball fan category, there was a guy out there wearing an Elvis Costello concert hat. And in the lookalike category there was quite the jolly Greg Brady.

This one saw TEN mystery outs, and a mystery ERROR! There was a string of FOUR mystery outs in a row for the Yankees stretching from the 5th into the 6th, and after a strikout from Tartabull, there was another one. Geez...

The Yankees sailed to a comfy 7-2 win behind a 5 run third and a decent 6 innings from Melido Perez. We got to see the legendary Rob McDonald come in for him and hurl an innings plus before Bob Wickman wrapped it up. Patrick Kelly went 2-3 and scored twice, as did BW. Leyritz, Stanley and Tartabull each drove in a deuce. The Yankees strolled out CF BW leading off, LF Velarde, 1B Leyritz, C Stanley, DH Tartabull, RF GW, SS Fernandez, 3B Russ Davis, and 2B Kelly.

The Orioles punched out an anemic 4 hits, which was duly noted by reference after the first with a "no hitter intact through one" just in case on the card. The Oriole lineup featured Brady is a Lady leading off at CF, LF Kevin Bass, 1B Palmiero, SS Ripken, DH Baines, our old friend Nokes at C, the aforementioned Obando RF, Jeff Manto at 3B, and Bret Barberie at 2B. After portly starter Sidney Fernandez left after surrendering 5 in 2.1 we saw Keith Oquist and Brad Pennington cap it off. My God, how did the Orioles win a game back then?

Ah, for our profile lets roll with Mr. Obando. Originally signed by the Yankees out of Panama in 1987 he was a strapping 6'4 and 215, he managed 13 pokes and 49 RBIs in 355 at bats in mlb. His tenure stretched here and there from 93-97 he moved on to Montreal after the 95 season in a one for one swap for the inimitable Tony Tarasco. Obando was blessed with NO speed, swiping 3 bags in his time, and he whiffed an awful lot, almost 1 of 3 times at the dish, with a cool 100. Born in 1970, finishing with a .239 average, and having 6,325 hits on baseball-reference.com, how can he not be missed!?

As for the 20th, the Yankees upped the mark to 11-9 (3-2 with me on hand) in front of 25,237, in a game played in 2:55 and called by umpires Tim Welke, Joe Brinkman, Ken Kaiser, and Derryl Cousins.

Thank you for reading, and dont forget to check your archives for your bathroom reading material in the Insane Asylum!



Happy Weekend, and hello-io!

June 5th, 1995 - Yankees host the A's-holes
My first chance to see Jeter in person
NO FUCKING MYSTERY OUTS!

Moving right along, into June of 1995 we traipse. Another Monday night game, which amuses me, cause you could not pay me to go to a Monday night game in later years. I remarked that I was just back from the "WHFS-tival" at RFK Stadium in DC, where I saw a varied bill including the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Bush, Courtney Love, Tony Bennett doing his "hip" stuff, Sonic Youth and some others I dont remember. The Ramones headlined the thing. My brother Dan was living down in Baltimore at the time. One of the highlights of the trip was being recognized by a couple in a bar as "a crazy guy" who they recognized from Yankee games back at home. Another highlight was getting kicked out of that same bar.

The Yankees had slipped in recent days, heading in with a 14-19 mark which soon became 14-20...but the big topic of the day was the acquisition of Josias Manzanillo, plucked off waivers from the Mutts earlier that afternoon. It really turned our season around! Oh yeah, and I got to see Derek Jeter man the shortstop hole for the Yankees for my first time in that day, after his callup on May 29th.

I mentioned how many "Athletic Supporters" were roaming around. It never ceased to amaze us how many A's fans there actually were with the jack to show up at Yankee Stadium. Before the game Stan Javier, who did not play much to our chagrin, blew us a kiss and was showered with Italian salutes in return. I was already starting with the gimmicks, wearing a nametag I had procured at a trade show I worked for the mannequin company, letting everyone know "Hello! My name is Thomas!" The cast of "Sunset Blvd" sang the National Anthem, or as I said "butchered the National Anthem" and then it was finally time for some baseball.

"No fucking cursing!" someone hollered. The crowd was rowdy, young and carefree. "Security is going to card tonight" someone cracked. There was even an appearance by a couple of NY's Finest later in the game, when they helped throw out someone we had named "Red Cheeks" and "Blushy." This character was drunk and kept standing up, and falling down, off the seats, a move I later trademarked.

"What happened to that guy that used to come out here that looked like Roberto Duran?" someone asked. "He don't come here no mas! no mas!" someone answered. Nice!

There was one of those ballboys on the field that would warm up the outfielders between innings, that did a little dance before he threw. Someone pointed it out, and we were watching this the rest of the game, laughing our asses off. He would do a little skippy thing, and land like a ballerina. Funny stuff.

Earlier in the week there had a been a subway collision - I believe on the span of the Williamsburgh Bridge, and I think someone died. If not, they should have. Anyway, after I invariably lost my dollar on the "Great City Subway Race" on the scoreboard I scrawled "My D Train would have won if the J train did not run into it."

The Yankees were getting clubbed once again, so we turned our attention to capers and shenanigans. There were a fair amount of children out there with Crapman bats, and by the 9th inning we finally coaxed them to hop onto the seats and partake in Three-Muskateerish battles with them. At one point the Yankees recieved the benefit of a charity call, and it was stated that "even the umpires are starting to feel sorry for us."

There were a couple of fights. A really good one across the way down the leftfield line, perilously close to the field, and then one over to the left in the box with Freddy Sez in the area. "Freddy started it!" we chanted, and he clanged his pan in response and gave us a meek wave.

As for bookkeeping, as I mentioned, I KEPT A CLEAN FUCKING GAME! Not one mystery out! I did not even know a card like this existed...it is surely the first one I have seen out of the first couple of hundred in my arsenal. Holy shit, I kept score the whole game, no mystery or guest scorekeepers, and I missed nothing! Fuck yeah! I rock!

"Jerking" Hitchcock started and got tatooed for the home club, racked for 7 runs on 7 hits and 3 walks in 3 shoddy innings of work. He was booed liberally. Everyones favorite, Scott Bankhead, sauntered in and managed to strike out the side in the 4th (amongst a walk and a run-scoring single) but also managed to give up an "epic moonshot" to Mark McGwire to lead off the 7th. "Jolted" Joe Ausanio mopped up in his usual desulatory fashion, prompting a prediction that "Ausanio has pitched himself off the team." Well...he didnt yet, but soon enough.

The As lineup boffed 13 hits, with Berroa, Sierra, McGwire and Bored-dick having a pair. The club had 4 doubles, a triple, and the rainbringer by McGwire. For posterities sake, here is the lineup - LF Henderson, DH Berroa, RF Sierra (who was met with the old "village idiot" chant), 1B McGwire, C Steinbach, 2B Gates, CF Scott Brosius (yes, you read that right...Brosius in centerfield!), 3B Paquette, and SS Bored-Dick. If you stuck around long enough you got to see the legendary Andy Tomberlin come in for defensive purposes in center late in the game. The winning pitcher was that limpwrist Ron Darling, with help from Dave Leiper, Jim Corsi, and Jim Acre.

Off those 4 buffoons the Yankees managed 10 hits and only 5 runs, which were dwarfed by the A's 11 runs. Luis Polonia of all people and Paul O'Neill both homered in the 7th off of Leiper, but otherwise it was another nondescript night in the Bronx. The Yankees threw this lineup out there - LF Polonia, 3B Boggs, RF O'Neill, C Leyritz (batting cleanup...ugh), 1B Mattingly, DH Tartabull, CF BW, CF Randy Velarde, and in front of me for the first time, Derek Jeter in the 9 hole! Jeets went 0-4 with 3 groundouts and a liner to third.

But enough about that - on to todays profile, and who better than Andy Tomberlin? Born in 1966 in North Carolina, he enjoyed a six year career encompassed of part time duty for the Pirates, Red Sox, A's, Mutts, and the Tigers. In all that time he got into 192 games and eked out 305 at-bats. And what at-bats! Lifetime average of .233, with 11 jacks and a respectable 38 RBIs. He only stole 6 bags, but was only caught once, so give him that. Another guy who struck out a third of the time, getting rung up 103 times in 305 official at-bats. And how bout this - he actually took the mound in a game for Boston, giving up a hit and a walk in two scoreless innings! His page on baseball-reference.com has been hit 6351 times, so feel the burn!

As for the 5th, the game was played in front of a sickening crowd of 14,197, and took 3:16. Gary Cederstrom, Jim McKean, Dale Scott, and Jim Joyce were lucky enough to call this one.

As always, thanks for reading! Cheers!





And here is your latest semi-regular installment of Toms Scorecard Memories!

June 7th, 1995 - Yankees host the A's

Coming into the action, the Yankees were a putrid 14-21. 9 1/2 off the pace at this early stage. Who knew it would all end in a playoff berth?

This may have been the first start for Andy Pettitte I saw inside the Yankee Stadium confines. I certainly dont have a scorecard with his name on it before this one. He was matched up against Steve Ontiveros, whom I covered and profiled on here before, along with his autographed baseball card. Pettitte was on his game, too, pitching the Yankees to an easy 6-1 win in front of a funereal crowd.

I noted Mickey Mantle was in the hospital again...in all due respect, was he ever not around this time? The fans were looking for some hope, someone even asked Ali to do the bell with the Yankees on the field to change the luck. Things started sleepily enough, in the first with 2 Yankees on the bags Mattingly flied out softly to center to end the inning, causing someone to mutter "another Yankee clutch hit."

Music was on the mind..."whats with the fucking dance music?" someone asked as people all around us bopped around between innings. But we were happy that the Yankees bought back Twisted Sister after the Yankee win...they had taken that away from us for some reason, and maybe that is why we were losing so much.

Chico was cutting slabs of watermelon and selling them for quite the profit. "Thats Chico's 89 cent watermelon scam." someone pointed out. Gang Bang Steve must have made one of his early appearances, as I made mention of "a rock" - noting "Polonia pulls a baserunning rock" and Steve was always on the rocks pulled on the field. Speaking of Yankee foibles O'Neill was nailed on the tail end of a double play, and I scrawled the observation that "he is as slow as Balboni and Phelps in their prime." When a hue and cry was made at the call, someone snapped "he was out no matter what the fuck Teena says."

I had skipped the game the night before, and regretted it, cause George was going on and on about how great of a fight in the section I missed. Apparently it sparked when someone would not throw an Oakland home ball run back (looking back it was off the bat of either Sierra or Berroa) and next thing anyone knew punches were flying. The ball trickled away and George himself picked it up and hurled it on the field when security stormed the scene.

At some point on this Wednesday night talk turned to "whatever happened to..." = someone out there insisted the guy that flipped over the pole a couple of years before KILLED SOMEONE (maybe so, we never saw him again) and that the infamous fellow who used to light his hair on fire out there "cut up his girlfriend." So we ran with quite a devious pack back in the day.

A good portion of the scorecard is taken up by a running discussion of black 20 game winners. I dont know if this was a scoreboard trivia mention, something in Yankee magazine, or a question someone pulled out of their ass. I have a list here - Bob Gibson, Mudcat Grant, Mike Norris, Doc Gooden, JR Richard, Al Downing, Fergie Jenkins, Dave Stewart, and Vida Blue. Thats only 9, and I am not going to bother and check that the list is spot on. Someone wrote in the name of Rudy May, but I figured that was malarky and I did check that, and he never won 20, but he did eke out 18 in 1977 for Baltimore.

Speaking of Yankee alumnus we came to the conclusion that "its good to see Mulholland being ripped" as he was having the time of it in San Fran that year. Things had been so bleak up to this point that I actually noted "we have a lead" at 8:03 PM. Theres also a note here that "George and Teena left together at 9:30" - um, draw your own conclusions. : ) The only other note on here is that the old topic of gay men singing about the YMCA, thus making sure none of us would ever want to stay there, was going on again. One game we even took a poll of around 20 people about "wether or not you would stay at the YMCA." Only 3 said "yes."

There was sort of a fracas on the field, as Tony Larussa got the boot for arguing a called third strike to Berroa in the 6th. As you would expect, we had a good time with that. We also had fun yelling at the bald Ruben Sierra all night, breaking out the old "you comb your hair with a sponge" line and having someone cackle "hey, Ruben, you look like a turd!"

Pettitte hurled 7 to up his mark to 1-2, giving up 4 hits and only walking 1. He got help from Wickman and Howe, who we were now calling Ow! Howe! The Yanks were helped along by Wade Boggs notching a 3-4, adding a home run to the proceedings. Polonia, Leyritz, Mattingly and Tartabull each had 2 hits off of Ontiveros and our old friend Todd Van Poppel, who when last seen was walking 6 men in the first inning at the Stadium. On this night he managed to give up a run in his one inning of work, and chuck two wild pages.

The Yankees featured a lineup of LF Polonia, 3B Boggs, RF O'Neill, C Leyritz, 1B Mattingly, DH Tartabull, 2B Velarde, CF BW, and SS Jeter. The A's countered with LF Rickey, DH Sierra, 1B McGwire, C Steinbach, 2B Gates, 3B Brosius, CF Javier, and SS Bored-dick. Nothing much happened with the Oakland sticks, with the only note Brosius having 2 hits.

For the profile, why not go with Brent Gates? As nondescript as they came, although he was a first round draft pick in 91. He haunted the league from 93-99, and played regularly in 95, batting .254 in 524 at bats, with 5 jacks and 56 RBIs. For the career he notched a lifetime average of .264, with 25 homers and 279 RBIs in 2329 at-bats over 685 games. A nice strikeout to walk ratio, with 225 walks to go with 349 Ks, and a shoddy stolen base ratio, with only 18 to go with 13 punchouts. He stuck around long enough with Oakland to suffer the ignonimy of being released, and he saw scant action with Seattle and the Twins before being shown the door. Born in 1970 he was out of the majors before he was 30. He was a product of the U. of Minnesota, which also bought us Paul Molitor, that solicitor Denny Neagle, Terry Steinbach, and none other than David Winfield. As of today, his page on baseball-reference has had 12,525 hits and Luis Sojo was named as a "similar batter" careerwise. God bless the man and the memories he provided us!

As for the 7th of June, only 16,550 bothered to come out to see the game, which was played in 2:47 and umpired by Dale Scott, Jim Joyce, Gary Cederstrom, and Jim McKean.

As always, thanks for reading!



Moving forever onward...

June 8th, 1995 - Yankees host the A's

My brother Dan's birthday. I noted he was spending it at The Ground Round. A wild guy, that Dan. There were no less than THREE presentations on the field before the game, and looking at the tepid attendance figures just about every fan at the game got some sort of accolade around home plate, it seems. "This is a ballgame, not a mental hospital" George scoffed when some retards were led onto the hollowed grounds.

A woman parked herself on the rail right before the first pitch and actually stayed there the entire first inning, despite being showered with heckles and catcalls, berations and slams. A security guard basically stood 10 feet to her left with a bozo grin on his face. She ended up leaving on her own between innings, flicking the finger at us as she sauntered off. Sometime in the bottom of the 2nd she was back on the rail, but security actually stirred this time and sent her packing.

I made mention to the fact that I touched Ali's sacred cowbell, "for the first time, I think." We all remember our first time...in other bell news, Teena dropped the thing at 8:04 and that was duly noted.

We were reminiscing about banter exchanged over the fence during batting practices gone by, and someone recounted "the Turner Ward story." Ward was out there one afternoon doing the fungo and one of us chirped, "hey, Ward, you suck!" He turned around, found the offending party and replied, "I sucked your girlfriends tits."

I made note that I was complimented "for having the loudest voice in the Stadium." This was a common refrain back then. I honestly think if it came down to it I could outshout any of you motherfuckers out there, and I will put that to the test if you want to wade those waters.

It was another slow game (like turtles having sex, I remarked) and it was pretty barren out there to boot on this Thursday night. I actually counted everyone in section 39 and the surrounding area in the top of the 9th and reached 70 and there was no more to count.

The A's hammered the Yankee pitching early and often, with Blackjack McDowell and Rob McDonald the main beneficiaries (although we got a glimpse of the infamous Josias Manzanillo later on too) - Ruben Sierra parked a couple out there in the bleachers among us, and one of them ended up in the hands of Evie, down in front in 37, by Chico. She did not throw it back, and Teena was pissed about it. "A free ticket every night and you dont throw it back....and thats a fan?" she snapped.

Regarding news from the continuing Mickey Mantle front, I noted it was announced he needed a new liver, and would inevetably hop to the front of the line. Which he did.

Remember Barry, the bleacher creature who looked like Jack McDowell? We actually called him Blackjack. At one point during this game Teena pointed to the mound and looked at Blackjack and said, "there you is!"

Danny Tartabull was hearing it from us, just behind him in right. "Hey, go back to picking garbage!" someone shouted. Can you imagine people ripping the Yankee rightfielder these days? He was also serenaded with a "Darryyyyllll, Darrrryyyylll" chant. At one point a thoroughly exasperated fan yelled "get the son of a bitch out of there!" and more than one "Bring back Mel Hall!" refrain was being bandied about.

And while the Yankee pitchers were getting tattered and another ball was smacked into the corner Teena said "son of a bitch, they're flying all over the place!"

His buddy Polonia out there in left was faring no better, "pulling a baserunning rock" for the second night in a row, getting stuck between third and home following a Mattingly double in the first. He should have scored, didnt, and therefore pulled a rock.

But no one suffered the ignomoly of Bernie Williams on that day, as an exuberant fan at one point stood up and screeched, "hey Barney!" Meanwhile Mattingly was kicking it around at first, making 2 errors in one inning much to our chagrin. Not to be outdone Jeter made his first major league error, and Mike Stanley kicked in a passed ball for good measure.

It was an ugly night. In a true sign of the madness, Stan Javier actually scored FROM FIRST on a single to centerfield! And, hold on to something - someone actually scrawled "BW SUX" on the scorecard under that note.

Only 3 mystery outs, it seems I was on the wagon for a series of games around this time. Those mystery outs were for Helfand leading off the 6th (reason given was for ironically enough "showing the scorecard"), Hefland again in the 9th, and Tartabull leading off the Yankee 4th.

Yeah, the Yankees lost this one, 8-3 with McDowell slipping to 1-4 despite fanning 11 in 7 innings of work, and the win going to the legendary Mike Harkey. The A's had a field day at the bat, with Sierra going 3-4 with the two home runs, and Yankee killer Geronimo Berroa went 2-5 with another 3rbis. Henderson and Javier at the top of the linuep chipped in a pair of hits apiece. The A's lineup on this June evening was LF Henderson, CF Javier, DH Berroa, RF Sierra (the "village idiot") 1B Aldrete, 3B Brosious, 2B Gates, SS Bordick, and C Eric Helfand batting in the 9 hole.

Mike Stanley went 4-4 for the Yankees with only a run and a RBI to go along, and Wade Boggs chipped in 2 of the Yankees other 5 hits. The Yankee lineup was LF Polonia, 3B Boggs, DH O'Neill, C Stanley, 1B Mattingly, RF Tartabull (0-4 with 2 Ks) 2B Fernandez, CF BW, and SS Jeter. This Yankee lineup was done in by Harkey, the ageless Rick Honeycutt, Jim Corsi, and Carlos Reyes.

For a profile lets go with Eric Helfand...how can we not? His 3rd of 3 campaigns, which resulted a mere 105 at-bats. He had 86 of them in 38 games in 1995, and we saw 1 of those games and 4 of those at bats on this day! And I missed 2 of them and marked them as MOs! For his CAREER he batted a whopping .171, with zippo home runs and 9 RBIs. A real speed demon, he notched no stolen bases, and was never caught. A second round draft pick in 1990, he was born in 1969 in Erie, PA, its interesting to note he was drafted by the Marlins from the A's in the expansion draft in 92, and immediatly sent back to Oakland for Walt Weiss. I thank the Lord for letting me see this man display his talents!

As for the 8th, I mentioned the weak crowd, a continued trend. 15,792 came out to see the game, which was played in 3:14. Your umpires once again were Brian O'Nora, Gary Cederstrom, Jim McKean, and Dale Scott.

Thank you for reading!

[$heriff Tom]

June 10th, 1995 - Yankees host the Mariners
Booing the marching band

A Saturday afternoon. Some of you may remember that girl Jamie that I was friends with around then. She got married on this day to a hick soldier she met while working at West Point, and I lauded it on this scorecard. We lost contact so many years ago...wonder if they made it. I enjoyed many a cigar and cold beer on their porch out there.

This was also the infamous day where my brother David and I, along with thousands of others, booed our local high school marching band, the Deer Park Falcons, who were trying vainly to entertain the crowd before the game. My brother was particularly harsh, harsh enough to where our cousin Kristin, who was in the band, broke down in tears visibly on the field. I remember back then Filip Bondy sniffing around and asking my brother why he would boo a member of the family like that and he simply said, "I had to. And I would do it again, every time."

Another funny thing that happened on this day was Randy Johnson getting dropped off by a cab right in front of the bleacher line, which was snaking down the street as it always did the morning of a Saturday game. One of our more observant few saw Johnson in the back of the cab settling the fare before he got out, and was able to muster the troops for his inevitable exit. Johnson clambered out of the cab kind of sort of in front of where Twins Fat Food is, and started his saunter around the Stadium. He had to know what he was in for. Everything from "nice back you got there!" and "Hey, whats up Big Bird" and "You're a dickhead!" rang his ears. The guy then promptly went out and K'd 12 Yankees in 7 innings. Now that I told this story, he'll probably end up on the Yankees tomorrow.

Wow, was this an eventful weekend. I mentioned that a guy was killed at the Rock Ridge Saloon the night before, with me in attendance about 40 feet away. What happened was this - I was upstairs in the area with the dance floor talking to some girl when all of a sudden she literally threw me to the ground. I remember being pissed as I hardly knew this girl and had not even said anything offensive yet, until I noticed people running around and heard one last pop. Turns out someone tossed from the bar earlier in the night returned, this time with gun in hand. He sought out the bouncer who tossed him, found him upstairs in the mens bathroom, and shot him in the head. For those of you who dont remember the infamous Rock Ridge, it is now the infamous Culture Club on Houston and Varick, and I bet it is haunted by this restless soul!

What a deal we had back then at Rock Ridge. On Friday nights it was $5 all you could drink draft, from 5PM through 10PM - a dollar an hour. And just before 10 Dean the barkeep would let up load up 10 or so cups each to keep on drinking until we left, were pulled out, or thrown out. This shooting was the beginning of the end for this place. Stupid people and their guns, I hate them!

Teena was grumpy at the Mariner fan contingent on hand, snarling "I dont think there are this many Seattle fans in Seattle." She spent the better part of the day chasing them out of the section.

I was too drunk too keep score on this Saturday so you are not getting much there. Nothing is legible beyond what I discussed, pretty much. I did mention that one of the "guest scorekeepers" was someone who dropped a stinkbomb down in the concourse area which I found funny. If that happened these days, they would evacuate the place.

A very early Blue Lou appearance on the card...I mentioned on here how he complimented my "Over Kill shirt" - for years he used to call me "Over Kill" - and this was the start of that, apparently.

I do see a crack about Chico's weight on here, comparing him to a blimp (like that joke has not been on here before) and a mention that a guy that was openly booing Tartabull was called "a Met fan" by another guy, almost causing the two of them to come to blows. Despite the prodding of many, cooler heads prevailed.

Hey, speaking of Johnson anyone else remember this "tall" tale? He had a running fued of sorts going on with Jimmy Leyritz, after a beanball and some heated words during a previous affair. We all came to the Stadium on this day wondering if we would see any fireworks, maybe even a grandoise bench-clearing brawl. Well, first thing I heard was scuttlebutt on how a bunch of folks had heard on the radio that "to clear the air" Leyritz had actually picked Johnson up at the airport to give him a private ride into the city. The story has never been confirmed or denied to my knowledge, but I remember it was all over the place that day and we were pretty chagrined about it. Looking back on it so many years later, I smell malarky on this story.

Whatever the case may be, Johnson had the last laugh on Leyritz on this afternoon, whiffing him a couple of times. On top of Johnsons 12 strikeouts my arch-enemy Bobby Ayala struck out another pair to toss up 14 strikouts on the day by the Yankee swingers. Jeff Nelson got the win in the 3-2 affair, and Ayala notched the save. For the good guys, Sterling Hitchcock actually pitched 7 very strong innings for naught, giving up only 1 run on 4 hits. Wickman and Howe each gave up single runs to swing the game to the Mariners, and John Wetteland mopped up.

A very uneventful game - no home runs, only 13 hits between the 2 teams, no standout days at the plate. Here are your lineups - Seattle offered up RF Amaral, CF Alex Diaz, DH Edgar Martinez, LF Newfield, 3B Blowers, 1B Pirkl, 2B Fermin, C Wilson, and SS A-Rod in his second year, and probably 50th or so game in the majors. The Yankees countered with CF BW, 3B Velarde, C Leyritz, DH Stanley, RF Tartabull, LF G Williams, 1B Silvestri (no, that is not a missprint), 2B Fernandez, and SS Jeter.

Ah, the profile. Why not go with Bobby Ayala? What a sourpuss. This guy did not like us at all, and he fucking hated me. We had a running feud. Before the games he would wander out in right, looking for me. "Wheres the bucktooth guy?" he would ask. When he would find me he would say such wonderful things like "go to the dentist, you dickhead" or "fuck you" or "your mother sucked my dick." It was alright, I was going right back at him, and I was honored that whenever Seattle was in town and he would spot me out there he would wave me down to exchange pleasantries. In one memorable moment in his career he missed some time as it was reported that he punched his fist through a hotel room window while he was drunk. When I casually mentioned this incident to him he said "nah, thats not what happened. What really happened was I had my finger in your mothers twat, and she liked it so much she kicked out her leg and kicked it through the window."

A charming fellow, and i miss him.

He had some good seasons on the hill, but flamed out fast. His career stretched from 92-99, with tenures for the Reds, M's, and a final season split between the Expos and the Cubs. He left the game with an ERA of 4.78, but he mixed some nice years in there. In 97 he went 10-5 out of the pen, only to follow that up in 98 with a 1-10 mark. He had a lifetime mark of 37-44 in 406 games (14 starts), walking 245 and fanning 541 in 576 innings. He had 59 lifetime saves to his ledger. Born in 69, he was an undrafted free agent by the Reds and known for being a John Franco lookalike, somewhat. His page on baseball-reference has 15,197 hits...perhaps I should sponsor it. Despite the words we exchanged, I am glad I saw this dick pitch!

As far as the 10th goes, only 25,279 came out on a Saturday afternoon to see the game, which was played in 3:03, and arbitrated by Jim Evans, John Hirschbeck, Rick Reed, and Larry McCoy.

Thanks for reading!

Happy New Year, you yokes! Now lets get on with it, shall we.

June 24th, 1995 - Yankees host Toronto
"Huff, you look good in Green!"

A Saturday afternoon. You know what that means....I was too drunk to really come up with much on the scorecard. I do notice that lots of times with the more beer I drank the more angry and surly I became and the more caustic the comments were on the scorecard. Good thing I did not keep that pattern in my lifestyle over the years!

There was an early nod to John Olerud's habit of wearing a helmet on the field that I'm thinking may have came from my then young friend Gang Bang Steve. For years he would always make a reference to the helmet whenever Olerud was in town. You know, "nice helmet, dick" and "love the helmet, asshole" - on this card someone scrawled, "Olerud should put a hat on when he plays first!" and it may very well have been in, pitching a hand with me drunk as I was.

For some reason George's girl Angel was out there and lit a candle. Remember, there were enough empty seats out there where a candle could stretch out as well as a fan could. I have no idea what her motivation was, and I dont remember doing it but I would imagine that did not last long and we either knocked it over on purpose or blew it out.

Shawn Green, ironically enough in the news today as he is switching teams again, was getting crucified by us. "Green, who did you have to blow today to play, you asshole!" someone shrieked. "Green sucks!" was a constant refrain. "Hey, is that sperm on your chin?" was a direct query sailing over the rightfield fence. There were multiple outbreaks of "Shawn Green is a Horse's Ass" - my favorite line of the day, however, was addressed to Mike Huff over to greens right, out in centerfield. "Hey, Huff!" I yelled. "I hear you look good in Green!"

There were other catty scrawls on here, most likely fueled by an alcoholic rampage, like "Methodists suck" and "Danny Heep is shit." I also see a reference to a "Jump, you homo!" command to someone in the upper reaches. "Down in front, you faggot!" is also on here, so the gays were getting bashed. Looking at this mess of a scorecard, the scrawl of "What the Hell is going on??" seems to make the most sense.

Someone drew a very anatomically correct penis on the scorecard, complete with pubic hair and bulbous balls. I myself was busy writing "mo's" - or mystery outs all over the place...at one point I asked a girl close by who was probably very annoyed at our antics what it was I missed on the field, and she downright refused to tell me.

Someone wrote "Whiten, you suck!" on here, which is funny only cause Whiten did not play for Toronto in 1995.

This was a really easy win for the good guys, which meant the beer was going down really good. 10-2, a Yankee shellack. Melido Perez was the beneficiary, with help from Josias Manzanillo, Rob McDonald, (who was all over these 1995 scorecards), and the aforementioned Scotty Bankhead. The Jay that took the lumps was that dickhead Jose Guzman, who was tacked with 8 runs (6 earned) in 6 very funny innings. Tim Crabtree and that loser Woody Williams mopped up for Toronto.

The Toronto hurlers managed to strike out only 2 Yankees all day, that being Mike Stanley on two occassions, but the Yankee pitchers outdid them, striking out only ONE Blue Jay batter, that being Ed Sprague.

The top 3 in the Yankee order (Polonia, Boggs, and Dion James of all people) all had 2 hits, with Boggs driving in 3 and James a deuce. The only Yankee starter not to get a hit was the 9-hole hitter, Randy Velarde. The Yankee lineup looked like this - LF Polonia, 3B Boggs, DH James, RF O'Neill, 1B Mattingly, SS Fernandez, C Stanley dropped to 7th, CF BW, and 2B Velarde. This lineup changed tenfold every game, looking back, with guys dropping from leadoff to 8th in the order, and everyone having a turn at cleanup.

The Jays had the only homer in the game, coming off the bat of Joe Carter, while mustering only 5 hits, 2 off the bat of Robby Alomar. The Jays threw out a lineup of CF Huff, DH Molitor, 2B Alomar, RF Carter, 1B Olerud, 3B Sprague, RF Green in his first full season, SS Alex Gonzalez, and C Sandy Martinez.

For todays profile I have decided to go with Mr. Martinez, yet another nondescript catcher. Hung around for 8 years, but only got 218 games and 564 at bats of work with Toronto, the Cubs, the Marlins, the Expos (one game), the Indians (one game), and Boston (3 games). His work with Cleveland and Boston came THIS PAST SEASON after 2 years out of the majors, so he is still kicking around. I mean, holy fuck.

In those scant at-bats he notched a .230 average with a monstrous 6 home runs and 51 runs batted in. He also struck out a wretched 147 times, while walking on 37 occassions. In 95, his rookie campaign, he actually played 62 of those 218 games and escaped with a .241 average in 191 at-bats, homering twice and plating almost half of his RBIs for the career, with 25. It was all downhill from there, but we saw him in his prime! The man was an amateur free agent signed in 1990, born in the Dominican Republic in 1970, his page on baseball-reference has been viewed 7,615 times...God bless this man!

This game took an even 3 hours to play, and was done so in front of a crowd of 28,950, which sucked for a Saturday. Well, from a Yankee standpoint...we did mind it, we liked the room. Your umpires on hand were none other than Dale Ford, Don Denkinger, John Shulock, and Tim Tschida.

Thanks for reading!!

June 27th, 1995 - Yankees host the Tigers - GRRR

A Tuesday night, and I had a couple of drunken friends from my college days on hand. I hung out with a lot of drunk guys in college...who did you think I hung out with, hot women? My friend Rob was a hit with my bleacher buddies, as he was bragging that he used to "party" with Joe Ausanio, a local product, and once had a conversation with Madonna. Love hanging with the high rollers.

I started things with a big "Oh No!" plastered across the top - the Yankees were kicking off a 13 game homestand. That meant a lot of $$ spent on beer for me up ahead...I grew to hate these kinds of homestands.

A topic of discussion with the Tigers in town was our friend Bobby Higginson. He had made some sort of bet outside around the back with George and lost, and now owed George $5. Higginson has long been a favorite of mine, since he threw me up a ball that on which he had written, "Fuck You, Too!" You may remember the story - I threw the ball back even though it was specially for me, and he promptly picked it up off the grass and tossed it right back to me. I threw it back again, and he gave up and tossed it into leftfield. It was only after that I realized I made a BIG mistake....who would not want a "Fuck you, too" ball?

I bitched about this during a game to Teena, and she cackled, "I see him in the back all the time, I will tell him to get you a new ball." Sure enough before the next game she went around back and explained the situation, and he promised to get me a ball. Well, that day, full Stadium, a beautiful weekend game, the organ is playing, the field is empty, and the Yankees are seconds from charging out of the dugout to get things going.

And here comes Bobby Higginson, at a trot, jogging out of the Tiger dugout and heading out to the outfield. Everyone is like, "what the fuck is going on..." - well, he gets out to the fence, calls Teena down, and says, "well, where the fuck is Tom?" Turns out I was outside, cramming in some cheap beers.....to make an already too long story a bit shorter, he flipped up a new ball that said, "fuck you, too!" complete with a sketch of an upraised middle finger on it. I treasure it to this day!

We were doing some polls. We had the old "how old is this chick" poll going on, as everyone was gawking at some girl out there and we had a feeling it was against the law to think what they were thinking. Age picks ranged from 16.2, to 19.1, to 18.5, to 17.2, to a chip ahead at 17.3. She was actually 16.4, disqualifying a 16.5 guy in favor of a 16.2 winner. Sam, then known as "Eddie Van Halen" won the day, while someone else groused, "who the Hell voted Price of Right rules are in effect?" I myself ended up 2.2 years off her actual age.

The picks went outside the scorecard, as money started changing hands over how old this girl really was. "Kate, how was school?" we asked once her age was out. We also had a pool going on what time the game was going to end, with picks ringing in from 10:12 through 11:12 - it ended up being a 3 hour game, an hour shorter than any of us really expected. What would you have thought, with a Scott Bankhead/Brian Bohanan pitching matchup?

In an oddity, I noted that the wave "is going in two different directions." In a comic moment my friend Rob said my friend Dave, who had thinning hair (to be kind about it,) "had no hair." Dave nearly spit out his drink and shot back, "you have known me for 6 years and him (pointing at my balding self) for 6 months and you write down a line about MY lack of hair?"

Looking over the lineups I see Lou fucking Whitaker was still playing. Talk about getting old on the job. Whitaker even made an error for our entertainment, God bless him. The celebrites were out selling ice cream and doing security, as "Dennis Rodman" was selling the cold stuff and "Snoop" was on seat patrol. It was always good to see them out there.

This was my 11th game of the year, and the Yankees were a blah 5-5 with me on hand, and running 6 1/2 off the pace in the AL East. No wonder we were doing polls.

Not much else gong on out there outside of George (who left at 8:12...no one knew where he went when he constantly did this) yelling at Higginson over his $5.00, Captain Bob singing the Gang Bang in the 8th, and those O'Neill "dartboard signs" all over the place.

As for the game, the Yankees coasted to a 7-1 win behind a group effort by Scotty Bankhead (who only went 3.2), Bob McDonald (who got the win) and Joltin' Joe Ausanio, who notched his first - and only - major league save. Brian Bohanan started and took the loss for the Tigers, with Joe Boever and Brian Maxcy chipping in a bit.

For the Yanks, O'Neill, probably boosted by those stupid signs, went 3-4 and scored twice, but the hit king for the night was Tony Fernandez, who also went 3-4 and drove in 4, including a 3-run dinger in the 5th. The Yankees managed 10 hits, putting out a lineup of CF BW, 1B Leyritz, RF O'Neill, C Stanley, DH Tartabull, 2B Velarde, SS Fernandez, 3B Davis, and LF Gerald Williams.

That relic Kirk Gibson provided the only Tiger run with a home run off of Bankhead, and the Tiger unit only mustered 7 hits, putting out this lineup - CF Chad Curtis, 2B Whitaker, 3B Fryman, 1B Fielder, DH Gibson, RF Higginson, LF Franklin Stubbs, C and good friend John Flaherty, and SS Christopher Gomez.

As for the profile, how can it NOT be Brian Maxcy? I love this fly by nighters. This was his only full season in the major leagues, and he managed to coerce himself into 41 of his major league total 43 games during this campaign. And, oh, what an ugly ERA. 6.88, giving up 40 earned runs in 61 innings of work. He also walked 31 (33 on his career) and only struck out 20 (21 on the career) - he also hit 2 batters and threw 6 wild pitches, while watching 6 home runs sail out of the park, during this most storied of careers. In 1996 he was actually involved in a swap with the Cardinals for the famous Tom Urbani. Born in 1971, he came out of the University of Mississippi, which also bought us luminaries such as Tucker Ashford, David Delucci, Bobby Kielty, and Chris Snopek.

I am proud to have seen this man work his magic on the mound.

The game went 2:53, as mentioned, and was called by the blue crew of Tim Welke, Joe Brinkman, Ken Kaiser, and Derryl Cousins. Only 19,765 bothered to show up for this one.

[$heriff Tom]

July 12th, 1995 - Yankees host the Royals
"OJ was set up."

A Wednesday evening in the Bronx. Yankees came in floundering in 4th place, 7.5 games off the mark, looking up at the 1st place Sox, the Tigers, and the Orioles. My good friend Ian, now married to Christine, was out there. Or it may have been my ex-roomate, Ian. There was AN Ian there, all over the scorecard, keeping score and telling jokes but I am not sure which one it was. They are both Met fans, so the note "Ians favorite player ever - Keith Hernandez" is not a valid clue. The comment "Ian would trade Patrick Ewing for the future" however, leads towards the jolly Ian a bunch of you may know. Also, the drunken scrawls on here are also more likely to have come from him, and not my staid carrot juice drinking roomie Ian.

How is this for a zany comment - on the subject of O.J. Simpson Teena swore "they set him up. Its all a set up." I wonder what she thinks now, nearly 10 years down the line. Whatever the case, this caused my friend Ian to snap, "she's nothing but an OJ lover"

Teena was on this evening - at one point she pointed at a guy having too much of a good time and observed, "there's an asshole in every corner, and there's one right there."

Danny Tartabull was really hearing it from the hometown faithful. After striking out in the 2nd he slunk back to the dugout with a tremendous serenade of "DDAAAARRRYYYLLLL" ringing in his ears. He heard it all night, so it was a good thing he was DH'ing and not manning right.

Going by the notes on here it appears someone representing ESPN came out there to visit, and cut to us during the game....I have a note that "we were on ESPN" attached to the 6th inning, and another note that the "NFL guy gives us free beer - never seen that before" - I dont know who the NFL guy is, but I do remember Rich Eisen being out there when he was there, although that was a few years later and he certainly did not buy us any beers when he was.

I was doing well on the free beers...by the 4th inning I had been given 3. From exactly who, I dont know. But God bless them. Peering around this scorecard it seems an old gimmick was bought back, the fan autograph. Some guy named Chris, looking at his looping sig, signed and attached "the guy known as Bill" so Walkman John being known as "Chris" by Statman is not the first case of mistaken identity out there in the bleachers.

Whichever Ian it was made an observation that "Roy White looks somewhat Chinese." Speaking of Roy White, I remember one game where Sandy, who "knew" Roy White, called him from out in the section and ended up passing me the phone. I said something like, "hello, Mr. White. It was a pleasure to watch you play." and he said, "why, thank you very much." and that was that. Exciting stuff!

There was a bit of a ruckus in the box seats to our left caused by the presence of a Mutt fan. He was spotted and duly disposed of by the chanting from our section - when he started hamming it up and making muscle poses and the like security ambled over and that was the end of the evening for our Met fan friend. I have no idea if this was a "sock night" but I did mention on the card that I was indeed "hit by a flying sock" in the 9th inning.

I also mentioned I was live on the air on 102.7 WNEW "again" that morning - a few days earlier I had won a contest which had me come in to the studio during the Pat St. John morning show to scratch off $100 of instant scratch-off lottery tickets on the air. I remember getting up there and figuring they were going to stick me in a side studio and cut to me a couple of times during the show, but after talking to Pat and producer Mr. Marty for a little while before 6AM they decided to have me seated in studio with an open mic, free to talk whenever (but they did give me the shhhh sign during serious parts of Donna Fiducia's news reports)

I ended up winning around $140, which is not all that impressive considering I had 100 tickets to scratch through. I was having a good time in the studio, making fun of people stuck in traffic and just carrying on my own brand of stimulating conversation. Well, earlier that day, as promised on the air, I came back with "breakfast" for the morning crew, which consisted of egg sandwiches and a case of Heinekin. It was a pain in the ass lugging that case of bottles from my apartment, too, at 5:30 in the morning. I remember Jim Monaghan, the sports guy running the board, cracking one open and enjoying that course of the meal. I became quite the morning show celebrity on that station over the next few years, between these appearances and my regular call-in stint to the Steve Mason show, but more on that later.

Anyhoo...the only other things of note on here is a nod to Russ Davis' "384 foot home run" in the 2nd inning, a few "what the fuck happened there?" remarks attached to mystery outs, a mention that Ian was stepping on seats and getting heat for it, and a ridiculous key as to who was keeping score during what inning. Considering it was only myself and Ian that evening doing the scorecard, I dont understand the purpose for a new mention in the margins every time one of us kept a different innning, but no matter.

As for the game, it was another easy Yankee win. This was getting to be quite the habit around then, at least the last 3 games I scored. Yankees sailed to a 9-1 victory, behind solid pitching by Andy Pettitte who gave up 1 run on 6 hits and a walk in 8 innings before Scott Bankhead, who was certainly a busy man out of the bullpen in 95 even though a bunch of us had no idea, finished it up.

Bernie Williams, back to leading off, went 3-3 and scored twice, and Jim Leyritz drove in 4 runs from the 2 hole. Davis had the only Yankee home run, and the Yankees mustered 11 hits on the night. KC managed but 6, with no player having more than one. The starter and loser was Chris Haney, who was out by the 3rd, having surrendered 6 runs. He was followed up by ex-Mariner and now at the end of the line Dave Fleming, Dilson Torres (lol!), that gawky Mike Magnante, and Hipolito Pichardo.

Your lineups looked like this - for the Royals you had CF Coleman, 1B Joyner, DH Chris James, 3B Gaetti, RF Phil Hiatt, SS Edgar Caceres, 2B Chris Stynes, CF David Howard, and C Pat Borders. Holy fuck, how did the Royals ever win a game??? The Yankees offered up CF BW, C Leyritz, RF O'Neill, DH Tartabull, LF G Williams, 1B Mattingly, SS Fernandez, 3B Davis, and 2B Patrick Kelly.

As for the profile, what the Hell, lets go with young Mr. Torres. He was another "one and done" - 1995 was the body of his major league work. On this night in June he pitched 2 scoreless innings, but he was tattered throughout his short tenure. He wrapped it up with a 6.09 ERA in 24 games (2 starts), getting clocked for 56 hits and walking 17 in only 44 innings of work. He struck out 27, but gave up a sickly 6 home runs. He also hit a batter (I hope the batter charged the mound) and hurled a wild pitch. His record in the major league encyclopedia will always read 1-2, with no saves to his credit. Born in 1970, he was an undrafted free agent out of Venezuela, but he was no Rich Garces. He did, however, make $109,000 in 1995. His page on baseballreference.com has been viewed 3,583 times (3,577 times by people with the last name Torres, and twice by people with the last name Torrez) - I am happy to have seen him, and hope you take a moment to remember him today.

This was one of the quicker games I seemed to attend, played in 2:26, in front of a boisterous crowd of 23,252. Your umpires on hand were no less than Rich Garcia, Dale Ford, Larry Young, Mike Reilly.

Hey, thanks for reading!



Forging ahead...

July 13th, 1995 - Yankees host the Twins

Back in business, a Thursday night in the Bronx. Things started on a nice note, as Don Mattingly was jogging in front of the fence a bit before gametime and stopped to soak in some of our adulation. It ended with him tipping his cap to us with a bit of a flourish, then jogging off while Paul O'Neill, standing nearby, shook his head in bemusement.

Our Willie Loman-ish slacker friend Jeff was hanging out in the box seats, and he shuffled towards the rail over there and was met with a complete and utter barrage of derision and a cacaphony of boos. I finally noticed it was him and sort of shusshed the crowd around me, as security was getting perturbed. Later in the game Jeff came walking up into 39, and as we exchanged pleasantries I said, "hey, sorry we yelled 'asshole' at you" and he simply shrugged and said, "that's ok, you're supposed to."

Talk in the bleachers was how Woody Harrelson was more than likely going to be tabbed to play Mickey Mantle in an upcoming movie that I suppose was not made. One of the regulars was holding court with a bunch of kids, making them laugh and pointing out things on the field. "Leave those kids alone" someone heckled. "What are you, a priest?" Nice...I did not realize "priest/kiddie jokes" were around back then.

The old chuckle "hey, keep your hands off the pitchers rubber!" is actually written on this card, so that is possibly the game where I broke it out for the first time. One of the few jokes out there to stand the test of time. A new ice cream vendor made his debut and some girl called him over. He was all happy to have made a sale, but instead she simply asked him, "where's the little guy that usually sells the ice cream? He's cute!" "Ha, ha, you're ice cream is soft" we laughed as he shuttled on out.

Teena was in her normal jovial mood. She actually got a guy to call her a "bitch" during a particulary snippy exchange. Some loser was out there trying to start the wave, and Teena tried to get him kicked out. She went down to appeal to security but came back with her wishes unfounded. But, joy of joys, later in the game the idiot stood up to start the wave but forgot to hide the bottle of beer he had smuggled inside, and once security caught a view of that transgression his night was over. In the meantime, since security would not help Teena stop the wave, she took it upon herself, yelling at anyone who even remotely looked like they were enjoying it or wanted to partake.

Talk shifted over to the realization that both old school George and "Blackjack" Barry were employed on the graveyard shift for UPS, working out of midtown. "Those guys handle our packages" someone said, to which someone else responded "thats absolutely disgusting, dude." But we did get to find out why George always left early, his shift started at 10PM. No wonder he went off the fly planes. On this particular night he left the Stadium at exactly 8:58.

Penis jokes were all the rage. The vendor who looks like Dennis Rodman came up and was blistered with the "Rodman!" chants. He calmly took a step back, put a hand on his junk, gave it a tug, and said, "Ill give you a rod,man!"

There is an official Gang Bang Steve mention on here, one of the very first. He was a guest scorekeeper throughout the game, so some of these jokes were his, or accounts of such.

We were having fun with the grounds crew, who were decked out in their chintzy shorts. All the normal jokes were expunged, from "I've seen better legs on a table" to "Ive seen camels with nicer knees!" - there was also a simple "the grounds crew wears shorts, ha ha" mention on the card. The ballboy did not escape our wrath, as I see a "ball boy sucks!" on here.

Some guy was parading around in an EMS jacket, showing off, I guess, causing someone to snap "EMS stands for E M Stupid." We got to see an ejection on the field, as Billy Connors got the axe. It was so funny that someone actually stood up and started yodeling. The only other note of note on here is that Kevin, a favorite to this day, sang the Gang Bang in Captain Bob's absence.

We were watching the out of town scorecard and having a laugh at Boston's expense..for a little while anyway. It was 8-0 Texas over the Sox after 4 and a half, and I noted it on the scorecard. Well, soon enough I x'd that out and wrote 8-6 underneath, then I x'd that out and it was 8-7...well, you get the idea. This story does have a happy ending, though, as Texas slinked out of Fenway with a 9-8 victory.

Out on the field Pedro Munoz, who came in to pinch-hit late in the game and promptly hit a home run spurned someone to grouse, "Pedro Munoz is a pain in the ass. Just hit him."

Munoz aside, the Yankees took another easy one, notching a 7-2 win, wapping 14 hits on the night. The beneficiary of this was Blackjack McDowell, who pitched 7 strong, before being followed by Wickman, Howe, and Wetteland, getting some work. Kevin Tapani was the unfortunate soul who was bopped around by the Yankees, and we got to see a younger "Steady" Eddie Guadardo come in to wrap it up for the Twinkies.

Wade Boggs had 3 hits for the Yankees, and Dion James, Tony Fernandez, Bernie, and Patrick Kelly had 2. Bernie hit his 10th homer of the season, drove in 3, and scored 3 times. The Yankee lineup that did the damage was LF Polonia, 3B Boggs, DH James, RF O'Neill, 1B Mattingly, SS Fernandez, C Stanley, CF Bernie, 2B Patrick Kelly.

The Twins only juice came off of a Chuck Knoblauch home run to lead off the game, and the Munoz home run, which came off of Howe in the 8th. The Twins put out a lineup of 2B Knoblauch, CF Rich Becker, DH Chip Hale, LF Marty Cordova (the best LF in baseball, so said Billy), RF Dan Masteller (LOL), 3B Lewis, 1B Stahoviak, C Walbeck, and SS Jeffrey Reboulet. I dont know what is funnier, Dion James batting 3rd for the Yankees, or Chip Hale batting 3rd for the Twins. And both men were DHing...lol.

As for your profile, lets go with Mr. Masteller. Another "one and done" guy. These fucks were all over the place. For 1995, and his career, he batted .237 in 198 at bats in 71 games. He homered 3 times, and drove in 21, stole a base and was caught twice. Logged some time at first, and in the outfield, and only struck out one more time than he walked (18 BB, 19 K). An 11th round draft pick in 1989, he was born in 1968 and came out of Michigan State University, a school that also bought us Steve Garvey, Kirk Gibson, Robin Roberts, and Mark Mulder. I have a vague memory of Masteller, he came in highly touted and flamed out fast. His page on baseballreference.com has been hit only 2,638 times, so give him some love, even if on this scorecard his name was met with a "Who the fuck?"

The game was played in a swift 2:38, in front of a scant crowd of 17,627. Across town that same night the Mutts drew a pathetic 15,276 in a 4-2 win over the Rockies. Your umpires on hand were the world famous Dale Ford, Larry Young, Mike Reilly, and Rich Garcia. And that is that.



Moving on through the summer of 1995...

July 17th, 1995 - Yankees vs. The White Sox
Tom visits the box seats!

Well, not so much a BLEACHER memory...this happened to be only one of two games I remember where I sat outside of the bleachers since I stumbled onto them in 1992. I was on the third base line with my friend Ian and his crew. I am surprised I have ANY memory of this game, it was an 8PM nationally televised game, and apparently we were at Down the Hatch earlier in the day. When it came time to leave to head to the Stadium I was found sleeping in the bathroom. The girl whose leg I had been touching under the table and actually liked it had given up waiting for my return and left. Quite the long day as noted on here. I must have either been on work suspension again, or fired, as this was a Monday night game and beforehand I was at the Hatch and not at work.

I made a few historical notes on here. First off, I was going to go see Type O Negative the next night. Saw them a couple of times, cant peg where this particular show was. There is a "this day in baseball" note that I must have stolen off the scoreboard, in that e years earlier on July 17th, 1990 the Twins recorded 2 triple plays in the same game against the Bosucks. And, in a final mention, Jason Isringhausen made his major league debut against the Cubs at Wrigley on that night, pitching 7 strong innings but not garnering a decision. At the same time Jeff Suppan was debuting for Boston, and taking a loss at the hands of the KC Royals at Fenway. A historical day indeed!

The bleachers did make the scorecard, though, as I mentioned that you could certainly hear Ali's bell "loud and clear." I also mentioned that I spent a lot of the game gazing wistfully at the bleachers, and imagining the capers going on out there from my pricey third base seats.

There was a kid learning the game out there around us...early on he hollered, "Frank Thomas, you stink!" That got some chuckles. Later on that same kid upgraded things to "Frank Thomas, you SUCK!" - that one actually got cheers from the crowd. Someone, and I actually HOPE it was the kid came up with the remark, "Yankees rule - White Sox DROOL!" Thats a keeper, huh?

Another interesting note is a heated exchange between two beer vendors out there in the seats - looks like the old "territory encroachment" issue. I saw that once going on between two pretzel vendors outside the Stadium on the sidewalk, and the two of them actually started shoving and shuffling before it was broken up much to our chagrin. We dubbed that incident "Pretzlemania!"

For everyone that is still to this day crowing about Don Mattingly for the hall of fame, I felt it necessary to mention on this evening that Mattingly had, to this point, a whopping 20 runs batted in in 212 at bats. He actually finished with 49 in 458....thats sort of sickly.

At one point we were getting on that showboat Ozzie Guillen, and he started in with the Mr. America muscle poses while standing in the infield, getting a guffaw and a nice hand from the crowd.

Holy fuck, this game must have ended early due to rain. The scorecard just stops in the 7th, and checking retrosheet it was indeed a 7 inning affair, with Wilson Alvarez getting the better of rookie Andy Pettitte, as the Sox took the day 4-1. The anemic Yankee attack mustered only 2 hits, one of them being a Mike Stanley solo homer. The Sox managed 9.

Pettitte was up to his pickin' off ways, nailing Durham who led off the game with a single to left, and then catching a sleeping Ron Karkovice in the 2nd. Karkovice should never have been on base in the first place, as Bernie showed some of that lack of hustle coming in on a bloop that he has somewhat become known for over the years. Its funny I was already bitching about it in 1995.

The Yankee lineup looked like this - CF Bernie, SS Fernandez, DH Leyritz, C Stanley, RF G Williams, 1B Mattingly, LF Velarde, 3B Davis, and 2B Patrick Kelly. LOL @ Velarde in the outfield again, and Fernandez and Leyrits in the 2 and 3 holes. The Sox countered with 2B Durham, CF Johnson, 1B Thomas, RF Devereaux, DH John Kruk (lol), 3B Grebeck, LF Norberto Martin, C Karkovice (ugliest guy in baseball) and SS Guillen. If you stuck around long enough you got to see the illustrious Dave Martinez come in for Martin.

Hey, we are actually going to do a profile with a player most of you would remember! How about Craig Grebeck, that fuck. Had a career that stretched from 1990-2001, although he never managed over 301 at bats in a single campaign. For his career he snuck into 752 games, batting 1998 times. Managed 19 homers and 187 RBIs, posted to a .261 average. Played second, short, and third, and even took a shot at DH here and there. A pesky sort, fun to boo. Logged time with the Chisox (90-95), Florida (96), the Angels (97), Toronto (98-2000) and Boston (23 games in 2001) - the fucker was all over the place. In his career he had a nice ration in walk and K, walking 228 times and fanning 274. His page on baseball-reference actually gets some action, with 13,745 hits, so God bless him!

At 5'7 and 148 pounds, he was born in 1964 and signed as an amateur free agent in the year I graduated high school, 1986. He rolled at California State University, which bought us a whopping 5 major league alum, including the world famous De Wayne Buice! Happy to have seen him, for sure.

The actual game itself was played in 2:16, I have no rain data although I now see a mention of "rain in the 6th" scrawled on the left margin, so that must have been what did us in. Seeing I did not keep much score on here, I may have went back to sleep following that grueling Down the Hatch showing. Only 22,707 were on hand for a nationally televised game, and your umpires on the evening were Dan Morrison, Al Clark, Larry Barnett, and Gregory Kosc.

Thanks for reading! We have a doozy lined up for tomorrow, and it is one that contains the first mention I have of the legend known as "Pops."

[$heriff Tom]

July 20th, 1995 - Yankees host the Royals
Rod Scurry Night!

Ah, good old Rod Scurry night. You may remember the eponymous relief pitcher who even logged some Yankee time, who later died in a drug induced rampage, flipping around on someones lawn screaming that he was covered by snakes. Well, there was a crew of rowdy fans on hand that night, promising Rod Scurry night would continue every year on July 20th, and I did indeed spot them carrying on thier show in future years. They kept yelling about snakes and held up a sign with Scurry's visage. No one seemed to get it by me. In memory of Mr Scurry I drew a nice cartoon pic of his face on the scorecard, rife with bushy old tyme bartender mustache, and a stick figure running for his life with some stick snakes on his heels. What beats Rod Scurry night?

But Scurry aside, we never forget our own, however, and we took time to note that Fat Daddy Chico's birthday was the next day, and subsequently to "watch your wallets." Hey, this is no joke here - anyone remember some of the crazy shit Chico used to do? He had poloroids of himself banging a woman in a hotel and he used to flash them around. Many of us have the unfortunate shot of a naked Chico laying splayed on a dirty hotel bed burned in our minds... he also had a bellybutton ring on around this time and that made the scorecard.

The Royals were on hand, and in welcome one lucky fan actually dropped his Yankee cap over the fence screaming at Kevin Appier during BP. Or, as I wrote, screaming at Kevin APE-ier. We also had a good time exchanging witty banter with Yankee pitching coach Nardi Contreras, or as most people knew him, "the Spanish guy." Some effiminate guy sang the National Anthem on this night, and was promptly dubbed "former male vocalist" on the scorecard.

This game was like a matter of days after the infamous Blackjack McDowell middle finger incident...talk out in the bleachers was how McDowell was set to be booed for sure, at least "until he strikes out the side in the first next time out."

We were having our fun with Crapman, calling him over and expressing our interest in purchasing "the big blue condom" which they pass off as a big blue rubber bat. Some chubby guy wearing a brown robe ensemble ambled up and was asked respectfully, "yo, Mr. Tuck, where's Robin Hood tonight?" It was only moments later another 4 or 5 guys also dressed like monks paraded up the stairs. Turns out they were a real order of monks or something....although someone in the section joked, "they're not monks, those are Jedi Knights."

What was really funny is one of these monks actually ended up dropping a home run ball off the bat of Don Mattingly later in the game. "If that was bread from the sky you would have caught it" someone joked.

Another lookalike who got some heat was a fat Asian Elvis lookalike, whom we asked to sing "Jailhouse Wok" for us. It was simply an oddball night. Teena even had to fight for her own seat, yet alone saving seats for us. Looking at the attendance figure, thats a shocker.

There were some dumb fans on hand. One of them, speaking of Joe DiMaggio, actually compared him to George Brett. "I think he was as good as Brett." he said. Ya think??? This was the kind of fan we had in mind when someone mentioned that night that the bleachers were full of the "physically challanged, economically challenged, and for the most part mentally challenged."

Howard the anti-comic, everyones least favorite lawyer, was on hand, boring us with his stories. I remember around this time I was actually asking him for legal advice concerning a car wreck lawsuit I had hanging over my head, but he was not really interested. He is one of the reasons I had my license pulled and no longer drive.

Looking back, on a maudlin note, I mentioned that Mike the bartender from Down the Hatch was on hand, complete with a pack of sluts from the bar. And they were all sucking lollipops. I think this is why Teena lost her seat, no one would hold it for her with these tarts on hand. Its sad cause I remember Mike being out there and having a hoot, and I think about how he passed away last year, from a cancerous disease. He was a great guy and put up with a lot of my crap during those all-day drinkathons at the Hatch.

We were having fun out there. I led the hooting and hollering at the grounds crew, leading one of them to shout up at us from behind the fence "please...we're trying to work over here." Inane discussions of the sort we made part of our ritual were taking place, including the observation that Tommy Lee Jones and Gene Hackmen were collectively "in every single movie ever made." But to cap it all off, there was a huge bleacher brawl out there in the 6th inning, which also featured two LONG Yankee home runs.

The Yankees won a wild one, 8-4, behind the power bats. Mattingly went deep in the 4th and a monk dropped it, then Bernie and Stanley went back to back in the 6th, with Bernie's apparently landing in the black according to this scorecard. Mattingly actually had a flashback and a good night, going 3-5, scoring 3 times and driving in a deuce. The Yankees mustered 11 hits, and after driving Appier out of there really laid a licking on Billy Brewer, who vave up 4 runs on 4 hits and two jacks in absolutely ZERO innings of work.

The Yankee lineup that did the damage was LF Polonia, 3B Boggs, DH James, RF O'Neill, 1B Mattingly, CF Bernie, C Stanley, SS Fernandez, and 2B Kelly. None of these fucking lineups look anything like the same game to game. On the Yankee hill the beneficiary should have been Scott Kamienieki but he pitched himself out of the game by the 6th and Steve Howe swooped in for the win, while Bob Wickman wrapped up.

For the Royals we saw a lineup of 2B Lockhart, CF Goodwin, 1B Joyner, DH "Ham" Hamelin, 3B Gaetti, RF Jon Nunnally (lol), SS Gagne, LF David Howard, and C Brett Mayne. After Appier and Brewer got rocked Hippo Pichardo and Rusty Meacham wrapped things up for KC on this losing effort. Royal star of the game, and this games profile, was Nunnally, who went 3-3 and drove in 3 of the 4 KC runs.

I used to be a fan of Mr. Nunnally, at least until he ended up wearing a Red Sox and a Met uniform. His career stretched in spurts from 95-2000, where he notched a .246 average with 42 jacks and 125 RBIs in 885 at bats spread over 364 games. Stole 19 bases over the course of things, but was nailed 12 times. He looked like a player in his debut year, this year of 1995, when he hit 14 home runs and drove in 42 in 119 games (303 at bats) - he never did notch that many at bats or have that success in a season. Aside from the Royals, Mets and Red Sox he also spent some time in a Cincy Reds uniform. He actually was traded to the Mets for the world famous Jermaine Allensworth.

A 3rd round draft pick by the Indians in 1992, Nunnally was born in 1971 and surprisingly enough not a college product. He ended up playing in Japan, where he was until at least recently. Hell, he may still be there. I liked him, but also enjoyed yelling at him over the fence cause, well, he sucked.

There were 17,061 on hand on this Thursday night, to see the game played in 3:15. Your umpires on hand were once again Dan Morrison, Al Clark, Larry Barnett, and Gregory Kosc.

Thanks for reading!

Wrapping up the month of July, 1995 - a couple of days before I turned 27 years old.

July 23rd, 1995 - Yankees host the Rangers
"Go to Mickey Mantles - just dont get the liver!"

Dont remember doing a Texas Rangers game through all of these "scorecard memory" posts, but here they are now. This will be a quick and easy one - I was drinking heavily on this day and there is not much that can be salvaged.

A Sunday game. I would normally arrive at the Stadium before 10AM and start drinking my own stash either up against the Stadium wall where I would hold court, or across the street at the Yankee Eatery. Sometimes I would even crack a beer or 3 on the subway ride up from lower Manhattan.

"Go to Mickey Mantle's - just don't get the liver!" was the crack scrolled across the top of the scorecard. The main topic of discussion though was some impending rain, and wether or not we would "beat it." I guess we did...this scorecard is stained with black ink all over, burying some old jokes forever, but I dont see any squishy water marks. Although there was no rain, there is a couple of mentions of lightning, noted as early as the top of the 5th, and as late as the 8th. Must have been a real nice day.

Jerk McDowell was on the mound, coming off of his recent finger job to the crowd. He was hooted and hollered during his 6 innings of sluggish work (4 earned runs) but he got out of there with a win, and did happen to be 8-6 through it all at the end of the day. In honor of his appearance, I sketched a nice cartoon of a hand flipping the bird. Ever the artiste.

Ali was looking way dapper. I described his getup as a "flamenco outfit." At one point someone hollered, "hey, Ali, take off that polyester shirt and do the bell!" I am noticing that I am mentioning Ali's wardrobe on all these Sunday scorecards, so these outlandish getups must have been his church duds.

We had a "former" Yankee Stadium security guard in our midst, and he even signed my scorecard. I have a wealth of these worthless fan signatures accumulated over the years. He had been fired at some point, and took some joy in riling up his old cronies out there. I remember once he and I almost came to blows over something or another, and he went on a long speech about how "I am not working security anymore, so I can legally beat your ass." I think it was Howard the Anti-Comic who retorted, "um, you cant LEGALLY beat anyones ass" and he would know, as he was a drunken lawyer.

It was the one year anniversary of Don Mattingly's 2000th hit, which took place on 7/23/1994, and that was aptly noted. Our rapper friend Melle Mel was in attendance, doing his Stevie Wonder impersonation and regaling us with stories about his crony Bow Wow, whoever that was.

Willie Loman-ish Jeff was ambling about, and at one point he kicked over someones beer and that raised a few hackles. He was one of those guys who would shrug something like that off and not buy the guy another one. I know this cause he did it to me more than once.

Was this hat day? It may have been, as there is a notation on here about "hats all over the field." I wonder if these were the Shop Rite ones. For years after that infamous cap day I would run into people around the city wearing a nifty Yankee hat, and then they would turn around and the back would be dotted with a really stupid and garish looking Shop Rite logo.

Some old guy walked up with a scraggly beard and unkempt white hair, causing someone to ask "where do you get a hairdo like that?" Someone else answered, "fall asleep for two years and you wake up with it."

One of the all-time funniest PA announcements was made over the course of the game. Around the 4th inning Bob Sheppard came on and recited a lisence plate and then pleaded, "would you please report to the parking lot...your motor is still running."

We were having our own brand of fun in the bleachers, and we even got Ugly Otis Nixon to turn around from his perch in center and give us the ole Blackjack, otherwise known as "the middle finger."

In one of the few shockers that we have seen out there in our time, Luis Polonia reached the rightfield bleachers on a home run poke to lead off the Yankee first. Who would have thought he had it in him? Rooting around on here I see that Gang Bang Steve (or as he was known then, Steve) was a "guest scorekeeper." It was not too long where that tag was dropped, and he simply became one of the keepers of the card.

Your lookalikes on the afternoon were a faux Al Goldstein, the man behind Screw Magazine and the popular Midnight Blue public access offering, and WWF wrestler Mabel.

The Yankees rolled in this one, with a cool 11-4 victory, with Polonia, Stanley and Mattingly all going deep. Stanley, Paul O'Neill, and Bernie all had 3 of the Yankees' 18 hits. I mean, holy fuck. Mattingly ended up scoring 3 times. The guys getting rapped on the Rangers mound were the inimitable Roger Pavlik, one Terry Burrows, and that clown Roger McDowell.

Your Yankee lineup looked like this - LF Polonia, 3B Boggs, DH James (a fixture by now in the 3 hole), RF O'Neill, 1B Mattingly, CF Bernie, C Stanley, SS Fernandez, and 2B Patrick Kelly. James and Kelly were the only Yankee starters to not muster a hit.

As for Tex-ass, they offered up a lineup of CF Nixon, 2B McLemore, 1B Will Clark, DH Juan Gone, RF Mickey Tettleton (lol), C Pudge, LF Rusty Greer, 3B our old friend Mike Pagliarulo, and SS Benji Gil. Gil actually went 3-4 with 3 runs plated for Texas, the only note of mild interest. McDowell was the Yankee starter facing them from the hill, with backup on the afternoon from Bob Wickman and Joltin' Joe Ausanio.

For the profile why not go for Terry Burrows. He had a tough time of it, in his 4 years of active duty. Working for Texas, the Brew Crew and the Padres, he left the game with an ERA of a sickly 6.42 in 68 innings of work (50 games, 3 in starts). He was racked around for a whopping 85 hits in that time, walking more than he K'd at a 38-35 ratio. Nothing good came out of this. In this year of 1995 he was just pushed around, posting a 6.45 ERA in 44 innings of work. He managed to bribe his way into 28 games before being released before the start of the 96 season.

In an interesting sidenote after starting 96 with the Brewers and being released, he was scooped up by the New York Yankees. He finished 96 in their system, but they released him too. Born in 1968, he was a 7th round draft pick by the Rangers in the 1990 draft, and a product of McNeese State University, which bought 7 players to the major leagues including Ray Fontenot, Bobby Howry, and the infamous BJ Waszgis. Mr. Burrows' page on baseballreference.com has had all of 3,411 hits, which I believe is the lowest I have seen for someone with multiple years of service. This said, I am very happy I got to see this man ply his trade.

The game pulled a crowd of 32,765 on a threatening Sunday afternoon, and they saw a game played in 3:19. Your umpires on the field were none other than Jim Evans, Larry McCoy, Rick Reed, and John Hirschbeck.

Hey, thanks for reading!
Taking some time off from being a creepy mean guy on the board, and getting back at it...

August 1st, 1995 - Yankees host the Brewers
Ruben Sierras pinstriped debut
NO MYSTERY OUTS!!!

Ah, a new month. Yankees were now enconsed in 2nd place, 4 1/2 behind Boston with a sluggish 43-42 record. This was my 16th game of 1995, and I had seen the Yankees play to a 10-5 clip. An important night in Yankee history, as this evening Ruben Sierra made his Yankee Stadium debut in the pinstripes after coming over in a trade (along with the long lost Jason Beverlin) for Danny Tartabull on July 28th. It was nice to see Tartabull gone, and interesting to have an old foe like Sierra on board. We had been carrying along a running feud with him for years out there in the bleachers.

Jamie, my freshly married friend did things backwards and had a "last girls night out" AFTER the wedding, and bought along 4 girls that night on their way somewhere else afterwards. I wrote on the top of the card "There are 5 lovely women here - all whom would sleep with me" - in actuality, not one of them even had a thought of such. As Jamie worked at West Point and these girls were transplanted wives of cadets, they were from backwoods states like Mississippi and Kentucky. They signed the scorecard with things like "it was better than what I expected" and "You're ugly and your mother dresses you funny." I am glad they had such a good time.

One of Jamies friends, a drunk named Mary, had a sign that was confiscated. What was on that sign is lost to history. Not much on here cept a lot of mentions of drunks dotting the crowd and I am not even talking about our section. Not only did a bunch of hopped up drunks try and start the "Gang Bang" before being shouted down, at one point they started ripping into Ali, with a virulent "Fuck The Bell!" chant. They figured if they could not have any fun, no one could.

Ali ended up putting down the bell for a while, and started waving around a "Mets Suck" sign. I suppose that was Mary's sign, looking back. It seems to be a running gimmick back then of people drowning Nardi Contreras, the Yankees otherwise nondescript pitching coach, with adulation. He could not make an appearance on the field without getting a loud ovation from the bleacher denizens. When pressed, people gave reasons like "he's Spanish" and "he's funny looking" as to why.

The game on the field was loony, with some references to wacky home runs and plays on the field dotting the scorecard. The old "put a tent over this circus!" refrain was hollered towards the field on more than one occassion. The "throw it back!" chants on opposing home runs were by now the norm, but after a Greg Vaughn blast to center leading off the 4th I took the occasion to scrawl, "no one could throw it back...he hit it so Goddamned far." And ring the bell! We saw an inside the park fucking home run! Whoo hoo! Problem was it was off a Brewer bat, David Hulse's. With a LOT OF HELP from Randy Velarde, who either played matador or dancing partner as the ball bounced down the leftfield line. Fantastic! I took time to note that it was indeed the first inside the park home run I had ever seen live.

And I think it may be the only one...a couple of years later the Yankees had one, but I was downstairs in the beer line. That same week I missed a triple play while, you guessed it, standing on the beer line.

Howard the anti-comic was at the height of his popularity around this time. Seems that every game a snide remark like, "oh, no, here comes the anti-comic!" dots the scorecard. At one point Howard was walking around asking "who has a phone?" He wanted to place a bet. A few people had one, but no one fessed up. He then started looking for change to use the phone downstairs, and, you guessed it - a few people had some, but no one fessed up.

While all this was going on a lucky Brewer fan actually had his shirt thrown over the wall. From what I remember, he was taking enough abuse to where he took off the shirt and draped it over his shoulder, hoping to qeull the rising tide of malice. Someone simply swooped it off, and chucked it over the fence.

One of our funnier ditties was being sung with fervor, dedicated to Brewer RF Matt Mieske. Sung to the "Mickey Mouse" song, it goes "M I E....S K E....Mieske sucks some dick!" At times, we changed it up and the chorus finished "What a piece of shit!"

Honestly nothing else here - hey, it was a Tuesday night, those were always sleepy. Gang Bang Steve was on hand, however, pitching a hand with the scorecard. And between the two of us, for the FIRST TIME IN DOCUMENTED HISTORY there were ZERO MYSTERY OUTS! Holy shit, I did not know this holy grail of the scorecards was actually out there. (editors note - there is one of these, and it is a bit above, right here in the 1995 chronicles) And it was a wacky game too, a 7-5 Yankee win. There is, however, a crossout in the 4th inning that took place at the time, right after Vaughn's home run. A Matt Mieske walk. I dont know if the play was originally missed or what, but it was caught at the time and the card is flawless outside of that. Hooray us!

As for the game, Mariano Rivera notched the W after he came in in the 5th inning for Andy Pettitte. He was rapped around though, giving up 3 earned runs on 3 hits and 2 walks in his two innings of work, but it was enough. After Pettitte's and Rivera's shacky body of work, Wickman and Wetteland wrapped it up for the Yankees, with Wetteland notching his 19th save.

As for the bats, Bernie went 3-5 from the leadoff spot, scoring twice. Tony Fernandez, Russ Davis, and Pat Kelly batting 7-9 all had 2 hits, with Fernandez driving in a deuce. Your Yankee lineup read CF Bernie, LF Velarde, 1B Leyritz, DH Sierra (in his first home Yankee at-bats - he ended up going 0-3 with a sac fly) C Stanley, RF G Williams, SS Fernandez, 3B Davis, and 2B Kelly.

The esteemable Brian Givens started for Milwaukee and went 6 ho-hum innings before Angel Miranda shuffled in and got lit up for the loss. Jeff Bronkey (lol) finished up on the Brewer hill. On the offensive side of things, the Brewers tagged 3 home runs off the Yankee pitching, with the Vaughn bomb, the Hulse inside the parker, and a shot by Jeff Cirillo. They managed 7 hits off Yankee pitching on the night. The Brewer lineup looked like this - SS Listach, 2B Cirillo, 3B Seitzer, LF Nilsson, DH Vaughn, RF Mieske, 1B John Jaha (lol), CF Hulse, and C Matt Matheny, young in his career.

Between those vaunted 3 Brewer pitchers, it was hard to come up with who to profile, but lets go with Mr. Givens (although Mr Bronkey is interesting in that he was born in Kabul, Afghanistan)

Givens plied his trade in the majors for the Brewers for only two seasons (95 and 96) after being a 10th round draft pick in 1984 by the New York Mutts. He got out of the game with a 6-10 record in 23 starts, getting torched for 148 hits in 121 innings, to a tune of a 5.86 lifetime ERA. He walked 61 and fanned 83, not the best of ratios. He was pounded for 14 home runs. This night in 1995 was one of 19 starts he made on the year, and he worked 6 innings, giving up 4 runs but escaping without an L. Born in 1965, he was once traded for Mario Diaz. His page on baseballreference has all of 3,226 hits and you can sponsor it for $5! I am very proud to be able to say I saw this guy ply his trade.

27,106 came out on the 1st to see the game, and it was played in 3:04 and arbited by Jim Evans, Brian O'Nora, John Hirschbeck, and Rick Reed.

Thanks for reading!

[$heriff Tom]

August 3rd, 1995 - Yankees host the Brewers
David Cone's 1st Yankee Start
One day before Steve's SEVENTEENTH B-day!

Lots of things going on in Yankee-land, from Sierra coming on board, to David Cone coming over and debuting on this hot Thursday evening in the summer of 95. To this day its funny to look at what we gave up for Mr. Cone - all it took was Marty Janzen, Jason Jarvis, and Mike Gordon. Way to go, Toronto!

It was nice to see, as noted, that a bunch of fans that showed up in "coneheads" had the respect to take them off for the National Anthem. I did not mark this, but I seem to remember Teena being in a surly mood regarding the Coneheads. It was a fad that died fast, probably with her help. At one point she screamed at someone in regards to Section 39, "this is OUR house! You're just guests here!" She also hollered, "take those cones to Shea!" over and over. It wasnt just Teena that was taking umbrage, there were quite a few "Coneheads suck!" chants ringing the halls.

Old-school George took it one step further, ignoring the coneheads to go after the man himself. "Fuck David Cone" he told anyone that would listen.

Meantime we were still making nice with our old enemy Ruben Sierra. We even got a wave out of him, which was a step up from the middle finger he shot at us a few times over the preceding years. It was a very warm night, I put down "the Sahara desert" in the "played at" category on the card, and all this caused us to sing "Dump some water on your breasts, do-dah, do-dah" to some tart sporting the old wifebeater.

A few notes on here regarding beer. First up, someone spilled a full beer and as we watched it cascade in waterfall fashion down the steps someone mused, "that fucking concrete is getting drunk...lucky." Some kid had a bag of balloons, and was instructed to "bring that downstairs and fill them with beer, and bring it back up, thanks." And, to top all, I made reference to "killing a six pack of Kaliber" before the game. Um, what the fuck is Kaliber?

At one point our little friend with the balloons was tossing unblown balloons in underhand fashion to whoever asked for one (amazingly enough, there are no notes on here regarding those balloons floating around later on) and George snapped at him, "hey, throw like a man!" Elsewhere in the Stadium there was apparently an imposter bell guy (they pop up here and there, to this day) in LEFT FIELD, of all places. Cause we couldnt very well get over there to stop it, we chose to give Ali a hard time instead for "letting it happen."

Various fans were being shot with our barbs. Yet another faux celebrity lookalike, while laughing at one of our jokes had to hear, "what are you laughing at, Bill Maher!" Our female friend in the wifebeater heard "GO DOWN in front!" everytime she stood up to stretch the legs. Another fan, walking up with frizzy hair and a hangdog look on his face was serenaded with "hey, its a muppet!" We also took it to the field, as our friend Matt Mieske, back in right for round 2, was hit with a straight up and to the point, "Mieske, suck me!" To add to that, someone said, "Mieske sucks cock and looks up in your eyes as he does it." Thats fucking gross.

I have not heard this one since, thank God - a pack of good looking women out there were dubbed "the Bleacher Sweet-chers!" Ugh...

Cowbell Ali was quite the superstar on this August night. "Ali gettin' some in the 8th" I wrote, as the Bleacher Sweet-chers came over to confab with him. He was dancing a lot around this time, to where we had dubbed him "Dancin' Ali." At one point, while he shimmied between innings someone said "I hate when Ali dances" and someone else said, "don't worry, he can't dance for long at a time."

The fan of the game was somone we dubbed "the 'Goodest' Samaritan." How did he win this accolade? While someone was having a hard time of it carrying his beers up the stairs, to where one was leaning precipitiously and close to falling, he ran over and saved the beer, and carried it up alongside the guy to the final destination. While we would certainly have rather seen the beer spill, we gave him a begrudging hand for looking out for what was important in life.

At one point Kevin Seitzer was picked off by Cone while sleeping at second, but I missed it. I had as good an excuse as any - "distracted by bald woman walking by." After the last perfect "no mystery out" scorecard, there was only one on this one, with Mattingly up in the 7th. I dubbed it a "security distraction."

Anyone remember my Beaker and Dr. Bunson Honeydew t-shirt? There is a famous picture of myself, Gang Bang Steve, Capone, and the Creature that was eventually arrested for counterfeiting money (John Hughes) outside of the Yankee eatery that has popped up on this board from time to time. I was wearing the phony arrow through my head. I have the pic on hand, I am going to see if I can get it tacked here. At one point during the game as the Yankees were working on their eventual stirring comeback, someone cited my shirt and implored, "do it for Beaker and Bunson!"

Not only was I styling the goofy t-shirt, this was around the time I was all about batting helmets and wristbands. I used to wear plastic batting helmets out there, which people enjoyed pounding with thier fist. I was known for two things with those - one, wearing it when it was 99 degrees and sunny and literally frying my head, and falling asleep drunk with it on, and people knowing my head dropped by the sound of my helmet bouncing along the ground. As mentioned, I topped off this ensemble with my cool Yankee terrycloth wristbands. I loved those fucking things.

Hey, anyone remember Bird? He was a gangly, wispy bearded strange sort of fellow that used to come around here and there and aggravate people. I think he was a friend of Teena's and the rest of the OLD SCHOOL crew. So he got respect, but you would still hope he would sit anywhere but next to you. Well, on this scorecard someone hastily wrote at one point, "Bird alert! Hide, hide!"

As mentioned in the tagline, I noted it was the day before Gang Bang Steve's SEVENTEENTH birthday. Holy fuck...I feel really guilty about now, as we were pounding the beers like water back then and guess who bought em? Well, things did turn out ok for all of us, did they not? Steve took a turn as guest scorekeeper on this night, along with two fellows named "Dave" and "Dan." My brothers? Two fans lost to history? Who fucking knows.

At one point George took a break from bitching about Cone in a Yankee uniform and started to belt out "Friend of Mine" to Mieske. For one of the few times documented in history, it was INTERRUPTED and halted by a Red Sox fan who started shouting over him and waving his arms around. The gall! There is no word on wether or not Teena had him chased out of there.

There were some luminaries on hand. A couple of people from the cast of MTV's "Remote Control" were out in the bleachers, and "Ed Figeuroa" was on security for the evening. In fact, it was remarked that there was a "huge security contingent" on hand....why, for David Cone? The real trouble was in the rightfield boxes, where a savage fight took place in the 6th inning. Not to be outdone, a few fans fought outside in the streets after the game. And, in a final note addressing scurrilous violence, I myself went at it with a guy on the D train on the way home, and it almost came to blows before cooler - and more sober - heads prevailed.

As I mentioned, the Yankees ended up coming back to win one of the type of games that would become commonplace in the Bronx. Cone was on in his first Yankee start, going 8 innings and surrendering 3 runs on 5 hits. He also fanned 5, but his pinpoint control was off, as he walked 5 to boot. He got out of there with the win, upping his mark to 11-6. John Wetteland gave up a run in the 9th to make us sweat, but came out of it with his 20th save on the year.

The Yankees had trailed 3-1 going into the bottom of the 8th, but they notched 4 runs. Ricky Bones started for the Brewers and lost it in the 8th with help from Angel Miranda and one Ron Rightnowar. On the bat side of things, Greg Vaughn plated 2 for the Brewers, and John Jaha accounted for that run off of Wetteland with a leadoff home run in the 9th. The Brew Crew mustered 6 hits off the Yankees, with this lineup: 2B Vina, 3B Seitzer, C Surhoff, LF Nilsson, DH Vaughn, 1B Jaha, CF Hulse, RF Mieske, and SS Valentin.

The Yankees countered with LF Polonia, 3B Boggs, RF O'Neill, DH Sierra in the cleanup slot, 1B Mattingly, CF Bernie, C Stanley, SS Fernandez, and 2B Kelly. O'Neill and Stanley each had 2 hits, and Sierra drove in 3, including a huge double in the pivotal 8th inning.

I usually go for goofy one-hit wonders during the profile, but lets change it up and call upon our good friend Matt Mieske. He hung around the game for a while (93-2000) but never played in more than 127 games or batted more than 374 times in year. He played for the Brewers, Cubs, Mariners, Astros, and Diamondbacks. He retired with a lifetime average of .262, with 56 jacks and 226 RBIs in 1547 at-bats (663 games) In a funny note he stole 7 bases in his time, but was nailed 16 times. He played all 3 outfield positions. He struck out a fair amount (313) and walked 124 times. Salary wise he peaked out in 2000, when the Astros paid him $700,000.

He was a favorite target of the Creatures in the 90s. Born in 1968 in Texas, he attended Western Michigan U, a school that also bought us Jim Bouton, Mike Squires, and John Vander Wal. He was a 17th round draft pick (by the Padres) in 1990, and all in all did himself proud. His page on baseballreference has been hit 13,868 times. I remember him well, and I miss him!

There were 25,391 on hand to see Cone's Yankee debut and wish Gang Bang an early happy birthday, and the game slogged on for 2:54. Your umpires on the field were John Hirschbeck, Rick Reed, Jim Evans, and Brian O'Nora, those scalliwags.

Hey! Thanks for reading!

Moving towards 1996, one game at a time...

August 7th, 1995 - Yankees host the Orioles
Strawberry's Yankee Stadium pinstriped debut!

Yet another debut - between Sierra and Cone and now Strawberry every Yankee game was an event this summer of 1995. Bobby Bonilla also returned to Stadium soil for the first time since his 1986 stint with the Chisox, in the colors of the dreaded Baltimore Orioles, and we heaped him with a healthy slab of abuse. Who, years before, would have imagined that Strawberry, David Cone, and Bobby Bonilla would all be on hand for a Yankee/Oriole tilt?

The Yankees were coming in 5.5 games out, and we were blaming the Blow Jays for that, as first place Boston just swept them the previous weekend in Toronto. "Thanks for nothing, Toronto - cant even take 1 at home vs. Boston" was cattily remarked in the margin.

Knowing this was going to be quite the sideshow "Joe the Guard" behooved us with the plea, "I want everybody to be good" as we strolled up the runway. Even before the game we had the joy of ripping Bobby Bo, as he was languishing around the outfield grass at 6:45 PM, grinning widely at our pointed barbs. To the contrary there were a heap of "Daarrryyylllll" chants, in actual support of the new slugger on the team, although a few "Darryl sucks" were muttered along the way. Ruben Sierra was already forgotten, cleanup spot in the lineup or no, and a poignant "Ruben who?" adorned this nights scorecard.

Once the game started one of the more clever ditties in bleacher lore was belted out...check out this one...

Bonilla beats his wife
Bonilla beats his meat
Bonilla chomps on Brady
When he wants something to eat

Yes, not only was Bonilla on hand, our favorite gaylord Brady Anderson was as well. We were able to chant "Brady's YOUR lady!" at Bonilla, who was parked just in front of us in rightfield, hating life. As always with the Orioles in town the legendary Cal Ripken Jr. was greeted warmly, with some of the pleasantries including "break your leg!" and "boooooo!"

In a singsong that would not be remembered if not for these scorecards, someone actually sung "Eat me Bob, eat me Bob, munch munch munch!" at Bonilla, much to the consternation of everyone else.

Anyone know who the fuck "Duke" was? He was a guest scorekeeper, along with our old friend Gang Bang Steve. I dont remember any fucking Duke.

Lots of faux celebrities on hand. We had lookalikes including Peter Sellers, John Amos, golfer John Daly, Kurt Cobain, Roc, Rod Stewart, and Captain Stubing from the Love Boat. An Indian fellow was on hand, too, causing Steve to scrawl, "Mujibar in the house." There was even a guy we dubbed "Snoop Doggy Lincoln" cause yes, he looked like a black Abraham Lincoln in hip-hop gear.

Fat Daddy Chico was roaming around bragging that he had "40 years in the bleachers" to which someone added, "or watching on TV." I remarked that Howard the anti-comic was "on the scene" at 8:05, fashionably late, which was always in style. I also felt it necessary to mark the first appearance of Crapman on the night, which was promptly at 7:54. The fucking game itself flew, as being that I had a time fetish on this card I marked the 8th inning as starting at 9:38, which was way early considering I believe this was a 7:30-er.

For some reason the Jets were a topic of discussion, and even back then the "J-E-T-S SUCK SUCK SUCK" chant was being bandied about. Someone blithely said, "there's nothing wrong with the Jets" to which someone snapped back, "except they suck."

Some jerkoff was walking around in a coat on this muggy August evening, and "an orange one at that." The only acrimony on the night seemed to be a spat that erupted over someone wrongly insisting that a team could NOT change pitchers in the middle of the count. They kept up with the argument even though dozens of people lined up to call that contrary claim "BS." But it was a nice evening overall, as no ejections of fisticuff accounts are on display.

This was quite the pitchers duel, as Blackjack McDowell stared down Mike Mussina and came out with the 9 inning shutout win. He gave up but 3 hits, walked 3 and fanned 5. The hard luck Mussina went 7 and gave up the 3 runs that lost him the game, before making way for one Mark Lee. There were only 6 hits in the entire game, and there had only been 2 by the time the bottom of the 7th had rolled around.

Pat Kelly drove in 2 of the Yankee runs with a 2-run double in that fateful 7th, with the other 2 hits coming off the bats of Bernie and Fernandez. The winning Yankee linup was 3B Boggs leading off, CF Bernie, LF O'Neill, RF Sierra, 1B Mattingly, DH Strawberry (he went 0-3 with a K his first time up), C Stanley, SS Fernandez, and 2B Kelly. The Orioles countered with LF Anderson, 2b Barberie, 1B Palmiero (wow, he actually DID play the field!), RF Bonilla, SS Ripken, DH Baines, C Hoiles, LF Kevin Bass, and 3B Jeff Manto (lol)

Lets hit up a profile. I usually go with the Mark Lee's of the world, but I think I will continue to change this up and display players we all may have heard of. Today we call on Bret Barberie. He had a tenure that stretched from 1991-96, where he managed to finagle himself into only 479 games for 4 different teams (Expos, Marlins, Orioles, and Cubs) - on this night we happened to catch him in his only year in the American league, where he was busy batting .241 for the Birds.

He left off with a lifetime average of .271, which was not bad for a backup infielder. 16 homers and 133 at-bats, but that was in 1434 at bats. He swiped 16 bags, but was also nailed 13 times. I am finding that my profiled players did not have the most success on the basepaths. He had a cool 164/228 walk to strikeout ratio. Looking at all this, I am surprised he did not stick around longer than he did, as he played 2B, SS, and 3B. Born in 1967, he was originally a 7th round draft pick by the Expos, coming out of the University of Southern California, which also bought us the likes of Aaron and Bret Boone, Tom Seaver, Randy Johnson, Bill Lee, Fred Lynn, Mark McGwire.....it goes on and on. He has 32,762 hits on baseballreference.com, which is amongst the highest on my ever-popular profile features. How can you not cheer the day you got to see this man play!

After I originally posted this I found out this man was indeed MR Jillian Barberie. It was pointed out that after she became famous she did indeed "dump his ass." Well, if I was him I would count it a blessing that I would not need to hear her yap all day.

The game zipped along at a 2:24 clip, and was played in front of 31,313 on a Monday night. Your umpires on hand were the infamous Al Clark, Dan Morrison, Greg Kosc, and Larry Barnett.

Forever onward...

August 8th, 1995 - Yankees host the Orioles
The Fucking Ruben Sierra show

You know, its funny. I just mentioned the scorecard before how the freshly acquired Ruben Sierra was already a forgotten man since Strawberry came to town. Well, he made his presence known on this Tuesday night, driving in 7 runs to help power the Yankees to an 11-4 victory in a game even more wild in the bleachers than it was on the field.

Before the game its noted that I bought 2 six-packs of Schmidt's for $1.99 each...not sure who I shared them with, but seeing Steve's writing all over this scorecard I would assume he was one of the guilty parties. I have a note here that says "first ball - Opie sucks" which leads me to believe that Ron Howard did indeed throw out the first pitch.

Things had changed in the span of days. David Cone was back on the hill for the Yankees, and Teena not only got a hold of a conehead from a gaggle of fans so adorned, but put it on. A banner was confiscated early from the bleachers that read "Warning AL East - nothin' but all-stars on this team!" I can see how that could be considered highly controversial.

There was a lot of throwing shit around on this night, which ended up sparking some fisticuff action, especially in the 6th inning when I simply enthused that we saw the "biggest fights in the entire world!" There was a Yankee fan throwing things all game at an Oriole fan, and he was missing as much as connecting, and that was spreading all kinds of acrimony. At one point another Yankee fan came over and begged Teena to tell the guy to stop but she demurred. Next thing you know someone caught the mood and threw something at Chico, who was lounging around on the rail between innings. While all the was going on some dickhead dropped his pizza on me, getting a glower in return.

I found time to grumble about that pizza bomb on the scorecard, and also mused, "where was the beer guy back when I had some money?" No wonder I was buying $1.99 six-packs. A bunch of us ended up in a Hall of Fame argument, with the names being bandied about in this instance being Don Mattingly (I was saying no back then too) Keith Hernandez, and MIKE NORRIS. How the Hell did Mike Norris get in there? We also found time to talk "old school Brewers" for whatever reason with names like Moose Haas, Bob McLure, and Mike Caldwell being bandied about and written down for posterity.

Some guy came walking up with a t-shirt emblazoned with the "GUESS" logo and not much else. Someone cracked, "let me "Guess"....you're an asshole!" A fan stood up holding a sign giving plaudits to O'Neill, but managed to spell his name wrong, drawing jeers and even a threat or two. "Get off the rail, fatso!" was one of the caustic barbs over the course of the night directed at other fans polluting our cherished Section 39.

The throwing of shit extended outside of the bleacher airspace as late in the game what looked like a wooden Barbie sailed in the direction of Bobby Bonilla out in right, landing and spinning on the grass. After some argument we all settled on the fact that it was not a wooden Barbie after all, but a dildo. Bonilla was a hit all night, from the moment Steve wrote, "Bonilla gets a greeting" even before the first pitch of the game.

In the 6th, even as Brady Anderson was circling the bases on a leadoff home run the bleachers exploded in a series of fights. Not only that, the wave was going on at the same time. One of the fights that sparked in the 6th was our Latina friend Sandy (you know, the one that was "friends" with Roy White and eventually cost us our playoff ticket connection) and a Rod Stewart lookalike. Through it all a Met fan sat by himself almost forgotten, "wasting his existence away" as we put it on the scorecard.

By this time I had become one of the regular crooners of "Friend of Mine" and did so on this evening "at 10:21." Unfortunatly Old School George was not on hand to see it, as he left in the top of the 5th to go wrestle boxes down at his UPS handling job. His girlfriend at the time, the ever-popular Angel, stuck around, and actually wrote "Dave (whoever she was referencing) takes it up the ass!" and signed her autograph next to that. Nice!

I was trying out my chops, screaming at Ripken at short to remind him that no matter how much hate we had dripping for Bonilla in right and Anderson in center, that we hated him too. A fan off to our right started waving, of all things, a British flag and was simply drowned by "1776!" chants.

At the time I mentioned this was the anniversary of the first night game at Wrigley Field (198 and checking back now on Retrosheet Kevin Jordan made his major league debut on this evening in 95, and Chris Nabholz made his final appearance. Hello and goodbye! We were also keeping track of other caps we saw around the Stadium, outside of Yankee and Oriole lids. You had the Mutt fans, there were a few Dodger caps, and for whatever reason we saw a Braves cap and a fucking A's cap as well.

As for the field, I mentioned it was the Ruben Sierra show. After starting the night 0-2 Sierrra notched hits the next 3 times up, including a massive 3 run shot in the bottom of the 6th, when the Yankees pounded out 5 runs to take the lead and make the infamous Rick Krivda a loser on the night. Sierra also had a double on the evening, causing me to proclaim him, "the man....the fuckin' A number 1 man" over the top scroll of the scorecard.

The Yankees mustered 11 hits off of 5 Oriole pitchers (Krivda, Armando Benitez in his first full season, Mark Lee, Jesse Orosco (another ex-Met this week joining Cone, Strawberry, and Bonilla) and Doug Jones, who managed to give up 3 runs on 4 hits in his only inning of work on the night. The Yankee lineup (Buck's lefty lineup) was 3B Boggs, CF Bernie, RF O'Neill, DH Sierra, C Stanley, 1B Mattingly, LF G Williams (noted on here that Peter Gammons said he had the best arm in the American League), SS Fernandez, and 2B Velarde. Strawberry was already taking an evening off.

David Cone worked 7 for the Yankees, giving up 2 runs on 4 hits and 4 walks, fanning 8 and upping the record to 12-6. Steve Howe came in to finish, pitching 2 sloppy innings, causing us to yell with a smirk after another walk, "Hey, no free bases!!" The Orioles lineup that hung the L up was CF Anderson, 2B Barberie, 1B Palmiero, RF Bonilla, SS Ripken, DH Harold Baines, C Hoiles, LF Bass, and 3B Jeff Huson.

For the profile lets go with Mr. Krivda. Four years of service, an awesome 11-16 record to show for it. Left baseball with a 5.57 ERA, serving for Baltimore from 95-97, and splitting his final campaign in 1998 between the two Ohio teams, Cleveland and Cincy. In 258 innings he gave up 297 hits (awful), walked 117 (awful again) and fanned 165. He watched a whopping 39 home runs sail over his head. 1995 was his rookie campaign, and we got to see him spread his magic, as he went 2-7 in 13 starts but kept the ERA to 4.54. Born in 1970, he was originally a 23rd round draft pick by the O's in 1991, and a product of the California University of Pennsylvania - only one of TWO players to graduate from there (the other being the famous Bruce Dal Canton, who pitched in the majors from 1967-1977. Hooray Rick Krivda!

This one was played over the course of 3:34....it just slogged on. Not sure what player this was directed at, but on the scorecard there is a telling scrawl of , "5 innings ago he was the man, but now he's an asshole cause its 11:00 and we want to go home." The attendance on hand was 33,078, and your umpires were none other than Larry Barnett, Greg Kosc, Dan Morrison, and Al Clark.

Thanks for reading!

[$heriff Tom]

August 10th, 1995 - Yankees host the Indians
DOUBLEHEADER!

Well, finally looking at this scorecard I see I had my doubleheaders mixed up. This was NOT the doubleheader where I stumbled in drunk before game 1, and slept on the sidewalk in between games. That is to come, in some later year. I did not have time to get drunk for this one...I actually was at work (keeping score at my desk) until the top 3rd came to a close, then on the train until the top of the 6th.

This said, lets get it going. I should say I TRIED to keep score at work during my stint with the mannequin company - I got through the top of the 1st, but was on a client call with Orange Display for the entire bottom of such. I did make a note that a loud "asshole!" chant made its way over the radio airwaves, which I found as funny then as I do now. With Susan Waldman joining the Yankee radio booth this year lets hope we hear it a lot, maybe it will drown her out. Lets pick up the action upon my arrival, in the 6th...

I got inside at 6:13 and it was PACKED, much to my chagrin. The Yankees were in business and Mike Stanley cranked his second of 2 jacks in that 6th inning to push the Yankees ahead 7-5. At 6:28 I heard the first "Jump!" chant towards the upper deck. "Jump! I need a good laugh" someone cracked.

Not much else for game 1 as I was too busy elbowing my way into a seat and catching up on the card. There was a tactful "take off your dress" command put on here, and a mention that Jerry Garcia had died. More on that on tomorrows installment of Scorecard Memories.

Mariano Rivera, in his rookie campaign, started the first game and had a sluggish outing. He ended up going 5.2, giving up 5 runs (4 earned) on 7 hits and 3 walks. This is funny, though, someone actually had the foresight to have a "Mariano jersey" on, and it went over as I said then "very bad." But the very bad in this game really came from John Wetteland, who coughed up a 4 run lead in the 9th and took the loss. After Bob Wickman got the Yankees in trouble Wetteland came in and finished the job. Considering Stanley went 3-4, hitting 3 homers and driving in 7, we ended up marking "Stanley should scalp Wetteland!" Someone did one better and wrote, "JOHN WETTELAND SHOULD KILL HIMSELF."

Aside from a notation that Manny Ramirez flipped us the bird from out in right, there was not much else to report off of this scorecard. I will wrap it up with your lineups on the day....for Cleveland game 1 saw CF Lofton (batting .323 coming in), SS Vizquel, 2B Baerga (batting .328 coming in), LF Belle, DH Murray, 3B Thome, RF Ramirez, 1B Sorrento, and C Alomar Jr. Chuck Nagy started and got the win and was battered, and Jim Poole swooped in to get the win in relief, with Jose Mesa closing it out for his 31st save on the season. The Yankees countered with 3B Boggs, CF Bernie, LF O'Neill, RF Sierra, 1B Mattingly, DH Strawberry, C Stanley, SS Fernandez, and 2B Kelly.

GAME 2!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Maybe I will find some jokes on here...by the time this game started the Yankees were now down 6 1/2 in the division, so we were sort of on the glum side. I was holding court between games, and making enough of a nuisance of myself that some fan behind me shouted, "sit down, John Kruk!" So yeah, I was tagged with that nickname, being a fat guy with a scruffy face and all.

My friend from home in Deer Park, Tom, was on hand and he bought a particularly nasty looking hot dog from one of our vendor friends. One of those ones that are shriveled and veiny. It was promptly dubbed "a hot penis on a bun." It looked so bad that someone actually offered up, "hey, I will pay you NOT to eat that." He ended up eating the thing to a cacaphony of groans.

Our good friend Steve was sitting out from keeping score during game 2, due to apparent transgressions while holding the clipboard during the opener. He actually wrote, in explanation, "Steve will not be keeping score this game because of his mushness the game before." Even though Steve did not keep score he did get his hands on there at one point to write "John (whoever that is/was) calls me a fucking homo" - Steve

At 9:24 in the bottom of the 4th Darryl Strawberry launched his first Yankee home run, a moonshot into the upper deck no less. That was duly noted, and a lot more fun to note than "John Wetteland has just blown a 4 run lead - 7:18."

I have it on record that our very own Justin sang the "doo da, doo da" song, choosing the "takes it in the mouth!" over the "takes it up the ass" version. Good job, Sir!

There was a Doogie Howser lookalike on security...where they got these guys we will never know. By 10:37 we were singing "Horses Ass" at HIM. Apparently during this game "Tom gets really pissed drunk" so even though this was not the day where I totally sleepwalked through an entire doubleheader, I was apparently as hard to deal with as usual. I keep forgetting beer was still being sold, so you could actually track my downward progression on these things.

At one point there was a touching Mickey Mantle package played on the scoreboard, causing one of us to ruminate, "Keep Mickey Mantle in your hearts, even though he killed someone for that liver." Even though he was the Mick, it did not go unnoticed that he hopped to the front of the liver line.

Being drunk, I was quick to complain about things that sucked, and proclaim them as such on the card. On this one I see "Telemundo sucks" and "pig latin sucks." Another interesting observation that was made was the claim that some guy out there was "as gay as a $3 bill."

From the things we dont usually see department there was an intentional walk IN THE TOP OF THE FIRST INNING. Sterling Hitchcock got himself into trouble again, and with 2 on and 2 out he intentionally walked Manny Ramirez. The strategy actually worked as Jim Thome came up with the bags juiced and whiffed to end the inning.

I mentioned a couple of games ago that I had a propensity to wear batting helmets at this time. Well, the brown strap inside was loose, and we ended up pulling it out. Now, SOMEONE MUST REMEMBER THIS GIMMICK. This may have been the WORST gimmick of all time out there. I would allow whoever wanted to take a shot to whip me in the back with this strap. One time before a game I bent over and someone wacked me about 10 times with this strap. I found it funny and actually based it on what was going on in ECW wrestling at the time. Others didnt see the humor, nor watch ECW wrestling. There was a girl that used to sit out there named Jessica, a lot younger than us, who came up to me one game and said, "you should stop that. It looks terrible, and we dont want you hurt." Her father ended up adding that I was "better than that" during a quiet moment on the bleacher line outside one Saturday morning. Talk about a joke going over wrong!

Sometime during this game someone borrowed the scorecard and pointed out something that was scored wrong. Drunk off my ass by this time I sort of snapped at him, "who am I, Red Foley?" Everyone kept the peace, but it stuck in my craw and elsewhere on the card I wrote "I am NOT Red Foley" for all to see. Speaking of Red Foley and the scorekeepers, in the Indian first they called an error on a shot off the bat of Baerga, but I refused to call it an error cause "I thought it was a hit." So on my scorecard it was.

The Yankees lost this one too, putting a real damper on the day. 5-2 Indian victory, with Chad Ogea of all people getting the win. Both Kenny Lofton and Herbert Perry (lol) had 3 hits for Cleveland, with Perry scoring 3 times. 5 different tribesmen drove in a run. Hitchcock took the loss for the Yankees, with help from Dave Eiland, Steve Howe, and Joltin' Joe Ausanio. Outside of Strawberry's homer, there was no juice from the Yankee lumber.

Your game 2 lineups looked like this - CF Lofton, SS Vizquel, 2B Baerga, LF Belle, RF Ramirez, 3B Thome, DH Winfield, 1B Perry, and C Tony Pena. The Yankees countered with 3B Boggs, CF Bernie, LF O'Neill, RF Sierra, 1B Mattingly, DH Strawberry, C Leyritz, SS Fernandez, and 2B Velarde. Mesa closed out another one for Cleveland (save 32) and was set up nicely by Paul Assenmacher.

Keeping tradition, I will knock out a quick profile. Why not Chad Ogea? Pitched from 94-99, and escaped with a win-loss record in the black at 37-35. An unsightly 4.88 ERA though. In 1995 he actually went 8-3, and 10-6 in 1996. In 632 lifetime innings hurled, he gave up 672 hits, walked 214, and only struck out 369. He had 94 starts in 129 games, mostly with Cleveland. He spent one year elsewhere, with Philly in 99 where he went 6-12 with an ERA of 5.62 (following up a 5.61 campaign in 9 and that was the end of the road for him.

Born in 1970, he was a 3rd round draft pick in 1991 and a product of Louisiana State University, which also bought us Albert Belle, Paul Byrd, Randy Keisler, Ben McDonald, Clay Parker, and Ed Yarnall. His page on baseball reference has had 13,017 hits, and the sponsor of such actually has a webpage dedicated to him....access that here....

digamma.net/ogea/

As for the day of the doubledip, the Yankees had an attendance 48,115 - by far the largest I have recorded in a while. Game 1 was played in 2:58 and game 2 was completed in 3:09. Your umpires on hand were Ken Kaiser, Derryl Cousins, Tim Welke, and Joe Brinkman.

Thanks for sifting through all of this!

And the wait has gone on long enough...lets move forward....we have a Creature getting thrown out on this one!

August 12th, 1995 - Yankees host the Indians
Justin gets the boot

This will be the shortest installment up till now, and probably the shortest one I will ever do. In fact, if not for Justin getting thrown out (and he is going to have to fill in the details, as I dont have much) I certainly would have skipped over this one completely, although I am glad I have an excuse to do it as it keeps the archives pristine. So after this break in the action we'll get back to it with some crammed cards coming up, I swear it.

This was a Saturday game, and I had bought a few people to the game including an ex I was probably fighting with, so I never really had the scorecard in hand. Gang Bang Steve was on relief duty, and did an admirable job scorewise, but was not yet a Picasso of the pun when it came to jotting jokes down on the card. I mean, for crying out loud under "Played at" he wrote "Yankeeland."

All we see here on this day is another reference to Jerry Garcia's death a couple of days before - "Jerry Garcia is not dead - they're going to cremate him and smoke him in a joint."

The main story of the day was Justin getting tossed out for chucking someones hat. I am sure he will be on at some point with the gory details. Apparently it was the stellar weekend for our friend Justin.

I got into a verbal spar of my own, with the beer guy of all people. Probably only cause I loved him. I dont have much of that story either, Steve was scant on details that day unless they were on the field.

Things were so barren for this one Gang Bang decided to write all of the lyrics to the infamous "Take Me Out To The Ocean" song in the left margin, written for and dedicated to the late Indian hurlers Tim Crews and Steve Olin before the previous season. This may have been the game where Wayne Kirby, in rightfield for the Indians that day, inexplicably laughed when he heard the song mocking his dead teammates. I will never forget that surreal site.

Gang Bang did an admirable job on the card itself, recording ZERO mystery outs in the 3-2 Yankee victory. Jack McDowell, off the recent appearance where he flipped the fans the bird, went the full 9, giving up 2 runs on 7 hits and 3 walks, striking out 4. For all the heat he was taking in the stripes he upped his record to 10-8. The hardluck loser, falling to 9-3, was the old relic Dennis Martinez, who pitched 7 before Alan Embree, in his first full season, finished up.

Bernie Williams and Paul O'Neill both homered for the Yankees, and each had two hits. The Yankees only managed six. Williams had 2 runs driven in. The Yankee lineup looked like this - 3B Boggs, CF Bernie, LF O'Neill, DH Sierra, 1B Mattingly, RF Strawberry, C Stanley, SS Fernandez, and 2B Patrick Kelly.

The Indians had 7 hits, off the bats of 7 different players. They offered up this lineup - CF Lofton, SS Vizquel, 2B Baerga, LF Belle, DH Murray, 1B Sorrento, 3B Alvaro Espinoza, C Pena, and RF Kirby. Whats funny is that the Indians had a veritable all-star team coming off the bench that day, as we saw Jim Thome, Roberto Alomar, and Manny Ramirez all make appearances as pinch-hitters on the afternoon.

Game was played in 2:53 which seems long for a well-pitched game like this one, in front of 35,795. Your umpires for the afternoon were Tim Welke, Joe Brinkman, Brian O'Nora, and big Ken Kaiser.

Thanks for reading this abbreviated version! No profile today, so enjoy this pic of Jack McDowell in a Yankee uniform!

Its been a little while, lets wade back into this waters. At the rate I have been going recently, we would not get this done until 2012.

August 28, 1995 - Yankees host the Royals
Grumpy Cap Night

This was a funny one. They were giving away caps with Grumpy of the Seven Dwarves on them to children, and apparently the elderly at the gate to promo a Disney movie or something. One of the bleacher memories that always stuck with me was seeing a pack of like 4 oldtimers shuffling up the steps wearing these caps, invoking the funny - but obvious - refrain of, "hey, look, its GRUMPY old men!"

Before the game there was yet another presentation on the field to boo. During the intro Bob Sheppard ruminated how whoever was on there wasting everyones time was a big sponsor of "youth-related activities." "Yeah" one of us mused. "like drinking, smoking pot, underage sex, and fighting in the streets."

This was not the night she said it, but it was the night it made the scorecard....Angel's infamous "I did not know Ripken was black." line. Turned out she confused Cal Ripkens black undergarment for a colored man's arm while he was perched at short. "Thats like being in Jerusalem and saying "Who is this Jesus guy?" someone mocked.

Talk in the bleachers was about the Columbian soccer player who was murdered for the ignomoly of scoring an "own-goal" against his own team. Universal feeling was that yes, he deserved it.

Some spaghetti-neck came ambling up, and when we hollered at him he snapped a few quips back. "Peggy Fleming is more of a man than you!" someone retorted. Another fan that was catching our special brand of grief was an Asian gent who we promptly dubbed "Hideo Homo." ANd in yet another true classing his fellow Asian buddy, who was wearing a home white Red Sox jersey was dubbed "Jim RICE" Rice, asian guy...get it?? LOL

The Grumpy old men came up in conversation again. "Psst...dont tell the grumpy old men, they're actually at the Met game."

Howard "the anti-comic" confided in us that he had joined the Hair Club for Men. Of course as soon as he ambled off to tell an unfunny joke somewhere old-school George cracked, "Yeah, he not only blew the President, he blew all the clients."

For no reason at all someone stood up between pitches and announced in a booming Bob Sheppard-ish monotone, "In the event of an emergency......yell AAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!"

Ali was not around, and someone asked Tina where he could possibly be. "He's probably dead." she shrugged. Meanwhile Chico himself pointed up at a blimp hovering over the Stadium and joked, "hey, thats me!"

A fan leaned over the loge and I got him good. I used to jump up real quick and hurl a potent one-liner. This guy not only heard it, but gave me an obscene gesture in return. It was a nice exchange. While all this was going on a man was sitting in our midst calmly eating watemelon, for Gods sake.

Someone was on the phone up in front, and one of us said, "he's on the phone with Whorephone. You'll always get a score." Witty, I suppose...

George was at his best. With a wild-card spot destined for 1995 he was on a "Buck must go" rant. When it came time for the subway race he griped, "fuck that, it's always the C......or the D." As for the wildcard for posterity I marked "3 1/2 out Wild Card" before the game started. Sad to say, I also wrote "4 1/2 out Wild Card" before I left the Stadium, so there is a result spoiler for ya.

In one of the funnier "overheard lines" in bleacher-dom we heard a young scamp actually ask, "Mom, whats a gigilo?" soon after one of our inane conversations up there. Another dummy was holding up one of those blue "O'Neill" dartboard signs, upside down, which caused Gang Bang Steve to laugh and keep repeating, "it says 'Lilien'o"

Saddam on security was in his raging heydey around this time, and for the 10000th time we were alerted that the "You suck" refrains would not work out there. He actually, honestly, and literally said, and I am NOT making this up, "You are bad, not you suck" in a way to coach us what to say. Can you imagine? "YOU ARE BAD!" clap "YOU ARE BAD!" Fucking, pluuuuueezzzze.

There were a couple of time stamps on here, including an "aborted bleacher wave" in the 5th, and a "homemade cowbell", also in the 5th. Wow, busy inning there. This is actually a very cool scorecard that always stood out in my collection - I did not have an actual scoresheet so I used a sheet of graph paper and drew in the boxes my self. Not too shabby, I must say. From a distance it looks pretty cool, this is Bleacher Creature Museum stuff for sure.

I did miss a few plays here and there, including a Greg Gagne home run in the 4th, attributed to telling "the dead fish story." Check this one out - I had a fishtank in my apartment back then, and one day I get home and one of my two fish is gone. I mean, not even a bone floating around. I figured the other fish devoured him, and went about my business after saying a quick prayer. Just about every weekend I had friends crashing in the place, on blankets and pillows on the hardwood floor. Well, months after the fish dissapeared my friend Eric (you know him from the Baltimore gunpoint robbery story) said, "that was funny that night with your fish." and I am like, "what the fuck are you talking about." and he was like, "how I rolled over on him."

Turns out the fish was not eaten, he somehow hopped the tank. Eric crashed in the blankets that night, and rolled over at one point to hear a crunch. He thought it was "pork rinds" but after a while he went to pick it out of there and it was my fish, dead and hardening. Instead of telling me he simply shoved him under the bookcase. It was only months later he let me in on it. I could not get home fast enough to move the bookcase off the wall. When I did, I had a really cool fossil over there...

Anyhoo.....for all the shit Blackjack McDowell was taking from the fans back then he went another full 9 on this night, but he did take the loss. Yankees went down 4-3, to the laughable Royal revolving door of Dave Fleming, Jim Converse, Dilson Torres, Mike Magnante, Gregg Olson, and Jeff Montgomery. Yes, it took SIX of them!!

On the bat side of things, the Yankees managed 9 hits, with Wade Boggs slapping 3 of them and Bernie and Ruben Sierra adding 2 each. Sierra homered, as did Randy Velarde. The Yankee lineup looked like this - 1B Boggs (yes, at first on this night), CF Bernie, RF O'Neill, DH Sierra, C Stanley, SS Velarde, LF G Williams, 3B Russ Davis, and 2B Patrick Kelly. Probably the 20th different lineup in as many games.

The Royals also mustered 9 hits off of McDowell, with Keith Lockhart and Michael "Mother" Tucker having multiple hit games. Tucker homered, as did the aforementioned Gagne of all people. The Royal lineup was CF Johnny Damon in his rookie campaign, LF Goodwin, 1B Joyner, 3B Gaetti, 2B Lockhart, SS Gagne, DH Tucker, RF Howard, and C Brett Mayne.

Lets do a profile real quick....David Howard is as good as any. Stuck around from 91-99 and is hardly remembered by anyone. In all those years he never played more than 95 games, batted more than 255 times...except in 1996 when he INEXPLICABLY played in 143 games and batted 420 times. It is a stark contrast when you peruse his ledger.

For the career he batted a sickly .229, with only 11 home runs and 148 RBIS in 1583 at bats. He played EVERYWHERE, all the outfield and infield positions outside of catching. He even pitched in a game in 94, sneaking in and out while only giving up 1 run in 2 innings of work. So he was versatile but could not hit a lick and was not much the burner, managing a modest 23 stolen bases while being nabbed 19 times. NOT a good ratio. Originally a 32nd round draft pick (so not much could have ever been expected from him) in 1986, he was born in 1967. I am proud I got to see this everyman play the game in front of me!

As for 8/28, six years to the day where I started classes at SUNY New Paltz, only 23,595 were on hand to see a game played in 2:49. Your umpires on hand were Jim McKean, Vic Voltaggio, Jim Joyce, and Dale Scott.

So that is a wrap for this "scorecard memory." As always, I humbly thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane, through the forests of bleacher lore.

[$heriff Tom]

August 29th, 1995 - Yankees host the Angels
Bear Ass on hand!
All 9 Yankee starters score a run!

A late summer Tuesday night at the Stadium, and Ali was not there again. A night after making her "he's probably dead" crack Tina shrugged this one off and said, "he's probably given up." Coming into the night the Yankees were a whopping 16 games out in the division, but only 4 1/2 in the wild card, I believe.

This was a HISTORICAL NIGHT - it was Jose "Chico" Lind's last ever major league game, and we were there to see it! He went 0-2, striking out in his last at bat, and was released by the Angels 2 days later.

Enough regulars were missing out of the bleachers that night that we did up a "Missing In Action" litany in the right margin. Here are some of the ghosts that haunted Section 39 in 1995, that chose to not show up to this eventual Yankee 12-4 victory. If nothing else, it gives you a good idea of the makeup of the section nearly a decade ago. Missing in action on 8/29/95...

Ali, Captain Bob, Animal, Jeff (Willie Loman), Billy (Crazy Devil Fan), Barry (Blackjack), Syphillis Joe, Hasan, Dave and Chris, Melle Mel, Redhead Dave, Oriental Girl, Mickey, Randy, Willie, Lou, Cigar Guys, Patrick, Angel, Mary Ellen, Tony, Bird, JR, Lee, and John the Security Guard. And some of you bust him for not being old school, well, Justin's name was also tagged among the "MIAs" that night. In another nod to the old school, one "Mo" wrote, "I love this game! Yankee baseball till the day I die!" - Milton also signed his autograph on the card, with an inexplicable "Just Call Me Mo!" command next to that.

Tim Salmon threw a ball up to us at 6:40 while the Angels were hitting and shagging. It was towards me but I "missed it" and so did "Dave." Tina ended up with the ball. It did not stop people from roasting Salmon on a spit. "Salmon!" a girl of all people howled, "where did you get your last name from? Your Moms box??" Yet another fan added, "Salmon, your mother is a blowfish!"

We were having a lot of fun with wordplay on names. We broke out the old "Edmonds eats Chili and pees on Snow!" in an ode to Jim, Davis, and J.T. We were in a singing mood - a heap of us belted out, "Cum on feel the Noize, Salmon likes little boys!!" a few times. There was also an attempt to sing some Elvis, substituting "Salmon sucks!" for the "I'm all shook up!" refrain.

This was around the time that the head honcho of the security brigade that looked like LBJ was patrolling the scene out there. Gang Bang Steve always had a quip for him. "Hey, LBJ, how is the man on the grassy knoll?" he hollered on this night.

We heard one of the better moans and groans revolving around a gambling loss on this night, as someone behind us muttered "I lost the house and bought the farm both last night." There was a guy with a tie on out there, and he was getting it all night. "He wont take it off unless the 'lose the tie' message is faxed to him" someone quipped. At one point Tina marched over and asked with a sarcastic grin, "do you hear the abuse they are giving you?" and he shrugged in depracatory fashion and said, "I dont care."

Tina was regaling us with "road stories" while we sat there and watched the Yankees pound one out. These included Tim Stoddard walking around a team hotel with his penis hanging out, asking someone, anyone, for "a fuck." She also recanted the time that Spike Owen "mooned her" in Boston.

Its funny to see that even then I marked a little star next to a Yankee getting thrown out at the plate with the message, "Windmill-ie Randolph waves him in" With the Yankees slogging along in the standings as they were there were a lot of nitpicks towards the pinstriped on this night. Someone grumbled the old, "Kelly could not hit water if he fell out of a boat." And during the top of the 2nd we sat there adn tried to name "every bad Yankee pitcher in recent history." It must have stretched on for another couple of innings...

Couple of time stamps for posterity, including a warning that came down in the 6th (presumably for a chant that included "fuck") and a frowny face nod that the "wave goes round" at 9:27. Also a note here that Chili Davis went nuts after being called out on strikes in the Angel 8th and took to exchanging barbs with the home plate ump, and he was ejected for both his troubles and taking up our valuable time.

Hey, anyone remember Bear Ass? He may have been my first gimmick out there...he was a little bear that used to drive around with me in my car that I ended up bringing to games.....yeah, I dont get it either....one Bear Ass moment I wont forget is when someone once wryly said to me, "No wonder you call him Bear Ass - if I carried around a bear like that I would be Em-Bear-Assed." : 0

By this point in his Yankee tenure some fans had taken to calling Pat Kelly "jughead." Next to an E4 someone wrote, "thattaboy, Jughead." While Kelly was helping out on a double play, someone in the stands howled, "turn that, you jugheaded prick!" After a ground ball to second I noted someone had implored, "throw him out for once, jughead!" So that was where we were at with Kelly in the summer of 95.

And, finally, in the only faux celebrity sightings of the night, outside of LBJ on security we caught a gander at a "very old Hulk Hogan" and a Fabio wannabe we promptly dubbed "Faggio."

As for what was playing out on the field, the Yankees rode the pitching of David Cone (14-7) and 13 hits to tank the Angels 12-4. Bernie had 3 hits and plated 3, and Boggs, Sierra and Stanley each had two. Stanley went deep in the 1st off Angel starter and loser Chuck Finley (13-9) - how many times do you see this...ALL 9 YANKEE STARTERS SCORED A RUN IN THE GAME. This is the lineup that did it - 1B Boggs, CF Bernie, RF O'Neill, DH Sierra, C Stanley, 3B Velarde, LF G Williams, SS Fernandez, and 2B Jughead. Cone went 8 on the hill, and Rob MacDonald wrapped it up.

For the Angels Finley, who was tagged for 5 runs in the very 1st, was followed by good old John Habyan, Mike Butcher ("butcher THIS!") and one Bob Patterson. The Angels mustered only 5 hits, but that included 3 homers, off the bats of Bony Tony Phillips, Tim Salmon, and JT Snow. The Angel lineup was 3B Phillips, SS Owen, CF Edmonds, DH Davis, RF Salmon, 1B Snow, LF Garret Anderson in his rookie campaign, C Fabragas, and 2B Jose "Chico" Lind.

For our profile, lets go with Mr. Butcher. A 2nd round pick by KC in the 86 draft, he lasted for 137 innings between 1992-1995 for the Angels, posting a lifetime ERA of 4.47. A sharp lifetime record of 11-4, with 9 saves to boot. In those 137 innings he walked a pungent 82 while fanning 96. He was also tagged for 130 hits, 14 of which were home runs. On this night in 95 he was tagged for a run on a hit and 3 walks in ZERO innings. Born in 1965 he made his swansong for California in 95 at the tender age of 30, never to be heard from again. We should feel honored to have seen him wrapping things up with such a nice bow!

As for the 29th, 24,233 were on hand to see this drubbing by the Yankees, which was played out in 2:53. Your umpires on hand were the honorable Vic Voltaggio, Jim Joyce, Dale Scott, and Jim McKean.

Hey, thanks for reading!!!!!!!!

August 31st, 1995 - Yankees host the Angels
"Sbarro pizza is also available at Sbarro"

Despite floundering around 15 games back in the division, the Yankees entered this Thursday nights affair 2 1/2 out of the wild card, so hopes were high. I bought along my little Yankee teddy bear, Bear Ass, whose record on the season was 1-0. Someone wrote the same exact joke that debuted the last time on the last scorecard vs the Angels all over again, that being "Salmon, where do you get your name from, your Moms box!?"

This was one of those games where the sound system was not working for whatever reason before the game. We alternated from yelling at the grounds crew and Al Trautwig, who was waltzing around the field. Later in the game one of the grounds crew workers came up simply to tell me that I had the loudest voice they had heard in the Stadium, and that I was clearly heard yelling jokes from the bullpen area. So take that, Larry and Vinny!

There was a retard walking around, causing George to utter, "Uh, oh, we got another loony tune in the house." The retard ended up in 37, and someone else decided to act out his meeting with the foul pole. "Hi there, foul pole. You are so yellow." Well, you get the idea.

"Salmon, you Snow-blower!" was a short and sweet barb and a tip of the cap to both Tim and J.T. And, in a more detailed and lurid play on names we shouted, "Salmon goes in 'Easley'" in a nod to Tim and Damion.

Outside of the retard, there were a lot of other oddities roaming around, to where someone finally lost it and shouted, "Jesus Christ! What the Hell is going on here! You got a skinny lady with a bald head, and that old woman over there speaks for herself.....that guy over there has 12 kids, and there's a guy with a button shirt and a Boston hat....ah, fuck it..." I have no idea who made that rant, but they should be on stage somewhere.

Yet another fan was walking around with a Yankee jersey with the # 88 on the back. "Are you supposed to be a baseball player or a wide reciever?" someone snapped. To cap off the lunacy, there was also a girl that looked like "Raggedy Ann."

Bob Sheppard was on his game, including his trademark obvious statement of "Sbarro Pizza is also available at Sbarro." Ya think?

At some point in the game Tina was tossing a baseball around in her hand and a little kid walking by said to her, "You didnt catch that ball." Story came out that one of Paul O'Neills 3 homers on the day went sailing out there and after a series of flubs Tina ended up with it. Someone was griping that they had a shot at the ball that Tina now held. This little kid, who apparently cleaned up during BP said, "I'll give you one of my balls" and because he said that we promptly dubbed him "as queer as a $3 bill"

Tina was on, herself. At one point she pointed down to where Chico was, chatting with an old man by the rail. "Hey, look - its Laurel and Hardy" she said. Speaking of Chico, his claim of coming to Yankee Stadium "for 44 years!" was being met with a lot of skepticism. "malarky!" Steve spat. "44 years? My dad was 6 years old!"

Out on the field it was the Paul O'Neill show. 4 hits, 3 of them home runs, and EIGHT RBIs. The Yankees scored 4 in the first and 3 in the second, which included 2 of the O'Neill launches and another blast by Mike Stanley. Brian Anderson and Mike Harkey were the beneficiaries of this harsh treatment. The Yankees went on to win 11-6, but not after some scary moments around the 6th inning. After Buck removed Sterling Hitchcock for Bob Wickman and Wickman started getting tagged Tina snapped, "Thank you, Buck, you fucking asshole."

In closing, there was a little bit of history made on this same night, as steady vet Mike Moore appeared in his final game in Chicago while all this was going on.

Back in New York the Yankees knocked 15 hits, 3 by Boggs, O'Neills 4, and a pair each for Sierra, Stanley, and Kelly. The Yankee lineup was 3B Boggs, CF Bernie, RF O'Neill, DH Sierra, C Stanley, 1B Mattingly, LF G Williams, SS Velarde, and 2B Kelly.

On the Angel side of things, they had 14 hits of their own including 3 each by Salmon and catcher Greg Meyers. Here was your Angel lineup - 3B Phillips, 2B Hudler, CF Edmonds, DH Chili Davis, RF Salmon, 1B Snow, LF Anderson, SS Easley, and C Meyers.

Hitchcock got the win for the Yankees, not without trying to lose. Upped his mark to 7-9. Wickman, Howe and Wetteland ended up giving up 8 hits in the final 3 innings. The Angels had a veritable parade to and from the mound, with Anderson and Harkey starting the mess, followed up by Bob Patterson, Mike Butcher, John Habyan, and Troy Percival in his rookie year pitching the 9th and fanning 2.

For the profile, lets go with Mr. Harkey. One of the bigger busts in recent baseball history - a 1st round pick (4th overall) by the Cubs in 1987. Kicked around from 88-97, for the Cubs, Rockies, A's, Angels, and Dodgers, with only a 4.49 ERA and 36-36 record to show for it. In 656 lifetime innings on the hill he was touched for 720 hits, walked 225, and only wiffed 316. Racked for 75 homers. A San Diego native born in 1966, he was a product of Cal State Fullerton, which also bought us Phil Nevin, Aaron Rowand, Brent Maybe, and Mark Kotsay among others. Hell, even Huck Flener came out of there! As for Harkey, I was proud to see him in his short major league stint, which was encompassed in 1995.

25,633 came out on this Thursday night, and the game was played in 3:21. Your umpires on hand were Dale Scott, Jim McKean, Vic Voltaggio, and Jim Joyce.

Thanks for reading!

September 4th, 1995 - Yankees host the Mariners
Its Labor Day! Monday Nitro debuts!

Before this game started we were having a chuckle at the standings around the league, which included the Minny Twins lounging THIRTY-SEVEN AND A HALF behind the pace set by the Indians. We saved some laughter for ourselves, however, as the Yankees were lollygagging 15 1/2 behind the dreaded Bosux, in second place at that. Three cheers to the wild card!

While the Mariners shagged Randy Johnson was skulking around, and someone said, "look, there's the big unit." "You would recognize it" I retorted. Bob Sheppard was doing one of those pregame diatribes that tails on forever, causing someone to snap, "what, is he reading a fucking a novel up there?" The grounds crew apparently debuted their "safari look" on this day, or its at least the first mention such a garish getup has recieved on a card.

This was "Party Bag" day at the Stadium. Anyone remember? I forget what was in there now, but it was stupid stuff like a comic book, a pack of tissues, maybe a phony tattoo....shit like that. I have tried to put it out of my memory.

Couple of current events going on....for one thing, the Jets game from the day before. "If you had the Jets + 37 1/2, you STILL LOST" was on there, so you can just imagine what kind of day the Jets had. I also made a mention that later that night the very first edition of "WCW Monday Nitro" was airing live from The Mall of America, where Lex Luger ended up shocking the world by showing up, thereby leaving the WWF. To this day, I am still stunned.

We were calling Vince Coleman out in left "Urkel" all day, although one of the girls with us thought we were calling him "purple." It was Labor Day, so the drink was on. The card was a mess. We used the Chico blimp gag again, with a simple "Chico's flyin!" scrawl. I noted that the "homos from Reggie Day" were back, and we also called someone "spaghetti head."

Edgar Martinez hit a bomb off of Andy Pettitte in the very first inning, causing someone to scream, "Watch out, sun!!!" Home run be damned, this was the Yankees' day as they torched Saloman Torres for 6 in an innings worth of work, and went on from there. The Martinez homer did get thrown back, which is a wonder as we did not realize someone so high up in the Stadium could have an arm like that.

Ali was back on hand following an unexplained absence of a few games, and the bell was officially back at 1:51, duly noted, and people were dancing in the aisles, giddy about the Yankee fan or simply as a prelude to making love.

Old School George had a cool Yankee 6-pack bag. The fact that I mentioned it means I did not have one, and I also wonder if that was a regular giveaway yet. For someone who was one of the more noted alcoholics in bleacher lore, I never seemed to have a 6-pack bag. Figure, I go to 60 of 80 every year, and that is the giveaway I miss, but I make "Party Bag Day."

It was 10-1 Yankees by the halfway point, causing someone to joke, "Bring in Wickman and make it a game!" Talk turned to other things, like Tina's job as a waitress. Gang Bang Steve (well, just "Steve" at that point) made a wry grimace and wrote, "Tina a waitress? I dont think so."

The Yankees had an astounding 14 runners reach base by the time there was 1 out in the 3rd. After Torres ran for his life, my arch-enemy Bobby Ayala came in to get some, then Jim Mecir, in his rookie year, came in to pitch in 1 of the 2 games he appeared in 95. Jay Buhner, who started in right, came out for a pinch-hitter and we knew it was simply cause he could not "take our abuse."

20 ounce boxes of Cracker Jacks were making the rounds, and the old "can I get some milk and a bowl with that" chuckle made the scorecard and possibly the bleacher rounds for the very first time. History, I tell you!

Back in the day Captain Bob and Old Schooler Kevin, who still appears out in 39 now and again, shared the Gang Bang crooning duties, and it was Kevin's turn at the mic so to say on this day, and he belted it out at 3:40, in the 8th inning. Where were you at that moment in time?

Yankees took this one, roping in the Mariners to the tune of 13-3. Pettitte went 8, evening up his mark at 8-8. Joe Ausanio was trusted to close it out. On the bat side of things the Yankees musted NINETEEN hits, with Boggs, Bernie, O'Neill, and Dion James each having 3. Bernie drove in 4 and hit his 16th home run, O'Neill 3. All nine Yankee starters had a hit, and here they were....3B Boggs, CF Bernie, RF O'Neill, DH Sierra, LF James, 1B Mattingly, C Leyritz, SS Fernandez, 2B Velarde. Ruben Rivera actually made one of his initial appearances, coming in to run (he must have stole something)

For the M's, not much juice outside of Edgars sunshot in the first, although Luis Sojo was on hand and had two hits. The Mariner lineup on this day was LF Coleman, SS Sojo, CF Griffey Jr, DH Martinez, RF Buhner, 3B Blowers, 1B Tino, C Chris Widger (lol), 2B Felix Fermin. On the hill after Torres, Ayala and Mecir took their lumps one Scott Davison took the hill for one of his 3 1995 appearances, and one of 8 for the career.

As we are nearing the homestretch on this whole project lets run our profile. Why not Warren Newson, who came in to play right and bat for Buhner? A career that stretched from 91-95, with the White Sox, Mariners (just 33 games in 95) and the Rangers, he got out of the business with a .250 lifetime average in 489 games (just 992 at bats). Never played more than 91 games or batted more than 235 times in a given season. Hit 34 home runs and drove in 120, but had a decent walk/K ratio with 196 and 292. Although that means he struck out almost once in every three at-bats....holy fuck. Born in 1964, the Georgia native was a 4th round pick by the Padres in 1986 and a short fuck at 5'7. The most he ever made in a given year was $375,000 for Texas in 1997...nice work if you could get it! I am happy to have seen him in his prime!

As for the 4th, only 24,855 came out on Labor Day to see the Yankees hitting parade, and your umps on hand were Dale Scott, Jim McKean, Vic Voltaggio, Jim Joyce. The game was played in exactly 3 hours.

For those of you who are sticking with this, thanks for reading and some good stuff is to come.

[$heriff Tom]

September 5th, 1995 – Yankees host the Mariners
Ripken ties Gehrig!

A Tuesday night in the Bronx, and the Mariners were in town. History was being made all over baseball on that night – Cal Ripken Jr was busy tying Lou Gehrigs consecutive games streak at home against the Angels, and elsewhere around the circuit Marvin Benard and Matt Lawton were making their major league debuts. So much going on, and I dont know which story is bigger! Coming in we were 1 ½ out of the wild card, but as I pointed out that was “along with almost everyone.”

Tina was in one of her characteristic sour moods, regarding the Ripken/Gehrig link. “Ripken will never be Gehrig, even if he dies and comes back 3 times!” she barked.

Security was in a frowny mood, which was not helped when we sang (to the tune of Horse’s Ass) “What’d you get on your police ex-am….you – got – a D!” Saddam himself came storming up after a time and told us to quit it with the “Up the Ass - No Vaseline” song. This caused someone to make one Hell of an observation, “Hey, he’s Iraqi. No mentioning any kind of petroleum products!” As Saddam strolled back down the steps someone shouted, “someone throw a SCUD at him!”

I mentioned I was going to donate my liver, or what was “left of it.” With Lou Gehrig’s streak being the talk of the town someone took the occasion to point out a retarded fan (they were crawling all over the place back then) and smirk, “for ever $1.00 you give to Lou Gehrig’s disease he gets 30 cents.” Speaking of donations and livers and the like, someone cracked before the game “there will be no Anthem tonight…Eddie Layton donated his organ.” (GROAN)

Talk turned to that “goody” bag we got the day before, a day I had dubbed “Load of Crap Day.” When I typed up that card I could not remember what was in that bag, but I did write the contents on this one - the game after. In my “party bag” was a little box of Viva towels, a mini mouthwash, and a May 1995 issue of the Sporting News. Yeah, I really needed all that stuff to “party hard!”

Before the game Ken Griffey Jr exchanged pleasantries with us, going so far as to call our friend and fabled old-schooler “Jungle” a drunk. He also pulled the old “rear back and make like you are going to throw us a ball but turn around and toss it into the infield instead” trick, which made him a lot of friends in the general area. His buddy Jay Buhner was subjected to an insult we had not heard before, a volley of “Buhner, your mother smokes cigarettes at Yankee Stadium!” Griffey ended up having a busy night…aside from homering off of Mo Rivera this was the game where a fan ran onto the field in the 5th inning and ended up shaking his hand out there in centerfield.

Talk turned to current events, and OJ. We sort of agreed that OJ did not do it, and blame as the actual culprit ranged from Ricardo Montalban to Ron Goldman, and someone even chimed in with “the dog.” Ah, what the Hell, he had blood on him. A couple of denizens reminisced about watching the Bronco chase right out there in the bleacher seats. (I was at a Metallica/Danzig/Suicidal Tendencies show in Middletown that night) We then started talking about computers until someone finally snarled, “Why are we even talking about his malarky?” and we decided to get back to watching the game.

For whatever reason Ali decided he did not want to ring the bell, and he spent the night telling fans who came up to ask him “no" and not always in the rosiest terms. Ali, God bless his soul, was one of the friendliest and happiest fellows around, but when he would get petulant like that crowds could start to hound him, and he would turn around from the rail and exchange harsh words with them. Ah, the dark side of Ali Ramirez…who woulda knew?

Other notes of interest on here include a mention that we were all getting a “cheap contact high” off of a beer that was spilled on the concrete right in front of us, and the very first ECW wrestling nod, with a simple ECW! on the lower right-hand portion of this crowded card. There was a Vince Colemen firecracker reference as he was leading off for Seattle (“he left New York with a bang”) and a Simpsons reference from when the Simpsons were funny all of the time (“Sit down, Dancing Homer!”) And does The Zoo Bar still exist, between 82nd-83rd Street? There is a reference to that as well. I was also carrying around my Yankee bear, “Bear Ass” which caused someone to say, “If I carried that thing around I would be ‘em-BEAR-ASS-ed.”

As for the action on the field – the Yankees dropped this one 6-5, downing my mark in attendance for the year to 17-10. The Yanks had been trailing 6-0 after the top 5, but their plodding comeback fell short. Mariano Rivera started and took the loss, giving up 5 runs on 7 hits in 4-plus innings. Rob MacDonald and Scott Kamienieki mopped up his mess. Bob Wolcott got the W for Seattle, and was followed on the hill by a veritable parade of Bill Risley, Lee Guetterman, Jeff Nelson, and Stormin’ Norman Charlton, who notched his 6th save on the year.

The Yankees did muster 12 hits, so that was not the problem. Boggs, Bernie, Dion James and Don Mattingly all had a deuce, with James and Mattingly each parking one into the seats. The Yankee lineup read 3B Boggs, CF BW, RF O’Neill, DH Sierra (anyone file the missing persons report on D Strawberry yet?) LF James, 1B Mattingly, C Stanley, SS Fernandez, and 2B Velarde.

The Mariners scored their 6 runs on only 8 hits, including 3 home runs. Jay Buhner hit a crucial 3 run shot off MacDonald, and Griffey and Luis Sojo added blasts of their own. The Mariner lineup was LF Coleman, 2B Cora, CF Griffey, DH E Martinez (batting .365 coming in), 1B Tino, RF Buhner, 3B Doug Strange, C Wilson, and SS Sojo.

As for a profile, why not Battlin’ Bob Wolcott? 95 was his rookie campaign, and he stuck around till 99, working for Seattle, the Diamondbacks (Seattle lost him in the 1997 expansion draft), and closing shop with Boston. Lifetime mark of 16-21, with a hefty 4.75 ERA to show for his efforts. In 325 innings he was torched for 391 hits, walking 113 and striking out 178. Not all that sharp. Born in 1973, he was a 2nd round draft pick (or should I say bust) for Seattle in the 1992 draft. Did manage to start a game in the 1995 playoffs against Cleveland, and hurled ONE complete game in his time. Good for him! Happy to have seen him ply that trade!

A putrid crowd of only 15,340 were on hand, which I dubbed “a fucking ghost town.” The game was played in 3:08, and your umpires on hand were none other than Jim Mckean, Vic Voltaggio, Jim Joyce, and Dale Scott.

As always, thanks for reading! And fear not, the playoffs are coming!

September 8th, 1995 - Yankees host Boston
Steve does "the Gang Bang" - first time?

Ah, a Friday night in September, with the Bo-sucks in town. Yankees were a staggering 15 ½ games behind 1st place Boston, but the wild card beckoned. There were actually 35,000 in the park, 20,000 more than there were a couple of days earlier when the Angels were stinking up the town.

This one is a mess. I was obviously drinking hard, being a Friday night and all. But there appears to be a tremendous nod to bleacher history and lore on this very card….unless there was some other “Steve” than the one that was my cohort back then, helping to keep score even on this very night and pounding beers on the sidewalk outside in my company, GANG BANG STEVE ACTUALLY SANG THE GANG BANG on this night. Duly noted, in drunken scrawl, is “Steve does Gang Bang.” In 1995….this legend has had a long life.

How is this for a prolific fucking statement. Before the game while Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter played a simple catch on the outfield grass someone – and I don’t remember exactly who, said confidently, “there they are – the future of the Yankees.” I bet they got some upturned brows in the case of Rivera at least, who came out of nowhere of course, but wow did they ever hit that on the head. I wonder if it was actually a quote of my own, but alas no credit given so I'll take it for now. Go me!

People were calling Fat Daddy Chico “the Fridge” and he was milking it up. He had crashed through a few “goal lines” himself in his day, running away with the money he stole from us with his crooked pools. Since Boston was in town we were playing around with our own shanty accents, saying things like “Pahk the cah in the gah-rage” and stuff. We also paid homage to Boston and their storied history in our normally straightforward “you suck” chants, coming complete with such bon mots as “Jerry Remy sucks!” and “Rick Burleson sucks!”

A fan actually mooned us from the box seats, and was ejected for his efforts. A full moon, complete with ass waving back and forth. We also pointed out a chiseled white-haired relic sitting out there, calling him “Donahue in 40 years.” When I first saw that note on here I was thinking our friend Mike Donahuge and I felt a wispy tear of nostalgia coming in, but this was a bit before his time in retrospect. So Phil Donahue it was. Other interesting fans on hand were a “Chinese guy that looked like Phil Rizzuto” and his fellow Asian friend, known as “Chinese James Earl Jones.”

A Boston fan on hand had his cap stolen and thrown – was Justin accounted for on that night? At some point before his hat went flying and he meekly shuffled his way out of the Stadium Steve noted on the card that “Boston fan gets the kitchen sink thrown at em” Through all of this a Little Orphan Annie lookalike was trying to remain inconspicuous out there, but she was met with “where’s your eyeballs?” chants and queries all night.

They were still having problems with the sound system that left the Stadium silent before the game earlier in the week – at one point between innings they started playing a highlight package of Mike Stanley complete with no music at all. Just as we were commenting on how bogus spliced clips of home runs and nailing guys trying to steal looked without the music accompaniment Eddie Layton started playing a bouncy jig on his organ. “Just doesn’t fit” we decided.

Here’s a funny one. Tim Wakefield, that fuck, was on the mound for Boston and we composed a striking little ditty. Sung as yet another “doo da, doo da” song. Here goes - Wake-field likes to knuck-le balls, doo-da, doo-da.” “Knuckle balls” heh heh.

Some other useless notes - a toddler on hand took Bear Ass from me and tried to feed it her bottle. That was cute. At some point someone asked me my age, and being drunk I gave the wrong one. I actually had an argument with my friends out there over how old I really was (I was 27...not sure if I was claiming 26 or 28…I couldn’t have been 2 years off, could I??)

Ooooh, boy, I see now that this was during my “tobacco experiment” - Steve noted that “Tom is chewing tobacco and liking it.” Welllll….I may have liked it fine, but my stomach sure didn’t. Not sure if this is the game where as soon as the final out nestled into someones glove I yuked all over the place, but there were not many tobacco chewing nights I had out there that I survived intact. There used to be a guy out there, I think his name was Chris…he had played “minor league ball” - (if I had a dollar for every person out there that told me they played minor league ball I would be paying someone to type these for me right now instead of doing them myself) and he was constantly packing a chaw. Come to think of it, maybe he did play minor league ball….the only other thing I remember about him is he disappeared off the face of the Earth soon after and he was a dead ringer facially for knuckleballer Dennis Springer.

The Yankees won this one, whittling the Sox lead to 14 ½…..it was an 8-4 victory for the local heroes. David Cone started and went 7 strong, upping his mark to 15-7, and Steve Howe stayed clean long enough to notch his second save on the year. Wakefield took the loss for the dreaded foes, but his mark was left at a strong 15-4. He was followed by Matt Murray (?), Brian Bark (making his 3rd and FINAL major league appearance on this night) and everyones favorite, Jeff Suppan.

New York scored their 8 runs on only 5 hits, as Boston pitchers walked 9. Darryl Strawberry blasted a 3-run shot in the first inning, and Paul O’Neill homered later in the game and also plated 3. 6 different Yankees scored runs on the night. The Yankee lineup was 3B Boggs, CF BW, RF O’Neill, DH Strawberry, LF James, 1B Mattingly, C Stanley, SS Fernandez, and 2B Velarde. Geez, do any of you guys remember Dion James getting so much playing time as a Yankee? He’s all over these things.

Boston squirted 7 hits off Yankee pitching, by 7 different batters. Your Sucks lineup looked like this – CF Willie McGee (lol), SS Valentin, 1B Ho-Mo Vaughn, DH Canseco (how bout that), LF Greenwell, RF O’Leary, 3B Naehring, C Haselman, and 2B Alicea. And if you were there like I was you actually saw the MAJOR LEAGUE DEBUT of Scott Hatteberg, who came in for Haselman and ended up going 1-2 and scoring his first run. Cheers to that!

For a profile, how bout we stick with someone people may remember (as opposed to someone like Matt Murray who had a lifetime 9-plus ERA in a short stint) - lets go with Luis Alicea. A tenure from 1998-2002 (sans 89 and 90) - he had only this one year with Boston in 95, playing more games (132) than any year but one. He was mainly a 80-120 game kind of guy. Finished up with a respectable lifetime BA of .260, with a mere 47 jacks and 422 RBIs in his 13 seasons of work. Nice walk to strikeout ration, getting 500 free passes while whiffing 624 times. All this came in 3971 official at-bats. Stolen base ratio not as impressive, as he nabbed 81 bags but was nailed 50 times. A pesky sort, played for the Cardinals (88-94), Boston (95), St Louis again in 86, Texas (98-99) and wrapped it up with the Royals for 2001 and 2002. Born in 65 and a product from Puerto Rico, he was a 1st round draft pick by St Louis (23rd overall) in 1986, out of Florida State University. I will never forgot Luis Alicea!!

As for the 8th, there were 35,896 on hand, and they saw the game played in 2:40. Your umpires on hand were Greg Kosc, Dan Morrison, Al Clark, and Larry Barnett. And in another note of interest on the history side of things, elsewhere around the game Luis Andujar and Kevin Sefcik were busy making his major league debut.

Hey! Thanks for reading!

September 9th or 19th, 1995 or 1993....
Yankees host the Red Sox

I am not going to do a Scorecard Memory today, per se, as I am staring at a scorecard that I really can not decipher. For one thing, not only was I trashed beyond belief, but so was whoever was helping me keep score...this is a drunken mess. I really need to learn how to use the scanner at home so you can share in this..

For the other, the date is all fucked up so I originally could not find the game...it says ALMOST CLEARLY on the top 9/9/95 - game against the Red Sox. Weeelllll, the Yankees DID play the Red Sox on 9/9/95, but this was not the game. This was not even that series, as Danny Tartabull was still in the Yankee lineup on the scorecard I am staring it. As a matter of fact, FRANK TANANA started for the Yankees...so this is actually a game from 1993, despite someone writing 1995 clear as day, and it being enconsed in the sleeves for 1995...

On top of that it is NOT 9/9/93 either.....all I fucking had to go on is that Danny Darwin started for the Red Sox, the Yankees lost the game by an undetermined score, Buck was thrown out of the game for arguing, I got into a fight and punches WERE thrown (thats what someone else wrote on here) and the Gulf blimp was hovering up above. It also looks like John Valentin hit a home run, but then again that could just be a groundout scratched out with something written on top of it. Most importantly, it says that this was Dennis' "last game" which was written complete with a "sob, sob." No wonder we drank so much.

What a quandry. It was actually starting to drive me up a wall, so I bolted over to retrosheet.org and found the damned thing. A clue I had to work with is that someone wrote "put the season to bed" and "the party is over" on here so it was late in the campaign. It was acutally 9-NINETEEN, 1993, and this one is 2 years too late for this thread. In other news, Steve Trachsel made his major league debut on this day, and yes, Valentin did hit a home run.

Thanks for reading!

[$heriff Tom]

September 9th, 1995 - Yankees host the Sucks
"Pete Rose was kicked out of gambling for participating in baseball."

A Saturday afternoon in the Bronx, and despite a 38-25 record at home the Yankees had managed to find themselves almost 15 games off the pace set by Boston. I was in one of those moods (you know, a drunk one) and its noted on here I was literally throwing ice cubes at Sox fans. I connected on a head shot in the 5th, too! Old-school George emphatically stated, "we always beat these assholes" so I guess he had not taken a gander at the standings before heading to the park.

There was a girl on hand with "horse's ass hair." You see, horse's ass hair contains a ponytail that looks like, well, a REAL ponytail. Thats not a good thing. A little boy was walking around with a gaudy beeper to his hip, causing someone to query, "who's going to beep him, Captain Kangaroo?"

There were a heap of Sox fans on hand. "They're not used to going to a game and not seeing poles in their way" someone cracked. The old, "ground ball to Buckner....ooops!" ditty was a crowd favorite on this day, and there was a nod to the various "Bleacher Bimbos" who made the trip to look at some real men in the stands for a change.

THE BEST, though, was a fan who had a pro-Boston sign that mispelled Boston. You can't make this up...the sign apparently said BOSTEN and was referenced on this card more than once. "The only thing Boston is good for is clam chowder." someone said. "Thanks for the Bambino!" was a favorite repeated more than once, as it is to this very day.

I kind of have an idea where Steve was singing the Gang Bang way back then. There is a telling quote...."if he's here (referring to Saddam on security) I have to do it." So I thinks we had a racket going....since Steve was SO young - 17, I believe - he would not be tossed as quick as a Captain Bob or an Animal. Its noted on here as FACT that Steve did indeed belt out everyones favorite bleacher jig on 9/9/95, at exactly 3:38 and that it "goes over well" outside of George insisting on including his "O'Neill drops the soap" campaign.

Steve was on point even then and showing knowledge beyond his years, at one point referring to Crazy Billy with a simple, "he's an idiot. I pay no attention to him."

Gang Bang aside, there were some song controversies out there among the family.....Ali himself put a stop to the "Take Me Out To The Bleachers" refrain, in a tip of the cap to the families taking advantage of the sun on that day. And Tina ALREADY was carrying on her "no Charlie Pride" edict during the Gang Bang.....what was so obscene about that lyric, that did not apply to some of the other humdingers in that song?

I mentioned on here, complete with frowny face, "just spent $6 on hot dogs." What, that would get me ONE hot dog today, I should have kept it to myself.

In a line I have heard from a few stand-up comics since then someone said, "Pete Rose was kicked out of gambling for betting on baseball." Thats a good one.

Willie McGee, then battling for the tag of ugliest man in baseball with the likes of Otis Nixon and Ron Karkovice, was taking a lot of our shit out there in right. Many an ET joke. "ET, GO home" for example. As always McGee took it not well, and traded barbs over the fence both with us both before and during the game. Another Sox there apparently to make friends was Erik Hansen (who actually went 15-5 in that year, his only one with Boston) who threw a few balls to the Creatures during BP to rampant howls of "throw it back!"

There was a nod to a few of the fans we saw all the time on here. Our elderly old black friend, the hunchbacked Mickey Rivers was on hand, and that was noted by a "slow down, Mickey Rivers!" barb someone hurled as he shuffled his way around. The annoying Yankee fan with the Uncle Sam tophat and the painted face was there, but sans painted face. So we hardly recognized him. There was also a "Chris Elliot" lookalike, who we aptly told to "Get a life!" There was also a beer vendor that looked like "Ruben Sierra."

Hey, anyone remember the portly hispanic "ex-security guard" that used to come to the bleachers and raise all sorts of tumult? He once went after me, flashing dukes, and we almost got into it. Well, on this day in 1995 he was actually thrown out of the Stadium by his former brethren for transgressions not noted here.

Here are the useless scorcard tidbits for the day....there was a guy named Coghan on hand all the way from Ireland. Animal was not there (thus Steve sang the Gang Bang) but his brothers were. The hot dog man seemed to have "more rolls in his chin then in his pot." We were discussing the observation that "Red Man" tobacco was "racist" (that always came up) And some guy named "Mike" actually shook a Boston fans hand, which was enough of an oddball sight to make the card. A fan, taking a number of pics, was politely asked, "why are you taking pictures? You're not Japanese."

To the field! An easy Yankee win on this day, 9-1, behind Andy Pettitte, who went 8.2 before Bob Wickman came in for the final out. He upped his mark to 9-8, while Sox starter Zane Smith, that hick looking fuck, regressed to 7-8 by giving up 5 runs on 7 hits in 2 innings of work. Mike Maddux than came in and pitched to an awesome line - 5 full PERFECT innings, with 4 K's, before Eric Gunderson, Joe Hudson (lol) and good ole Mike Stanton took turns getting hit.

On the bat side of things the Yankees mustered 11 hits, including 3 from Sierra (you know, the beer vendor lookalike) and a pair off the bats of O'Neill and Gerald Williams. Williams hit the only Yankee home run, off of Stanton in the 8th. The Yankee lineup read 3B Boggs, CF BW, RF O'Neill, DH Sierra, C Leyritz, SS Velarde, 1B Mattingly (now reduced to batting behind Velarde), LF G Williams, and 2B "Jughead" Kelly.

For the Sox, they squibbed out 7 hits, including 2 each from ET McGee (including a triple) and Tim Naehring. The Sox offered up RF McGee, SS Valentin, 1B Vaughn, DH Canseco, 3B Naehring, LF Greenwell, C Haselman, CF Tinsley, and 2B Alicea. If you stuck around long enough you would have had the privelage of seeing Matt Stairs pinch-hit.

For the profile lets go with Mr. Joe Hudson. A piddling middle reliever who only stuck around from 95-98. His stats are funny in parts. 102 games (all in relief) - In 127 innings he was tagged for 151 hits, and he walked more than K'd besides (73-62). Its a wonder he escaped with only a 4.82 ERA. 95 was his rookie campaign, so we can say we saw the start of this awesome showing, and he appeared in 39 games for Boston, the most he ever showed up for in a year. In 98 he pitched all of one game for the Brew Crew, was torched, and that was it for him. Born in 1970, the Philadelphia native and 27th round draft pick in 1992 was a product of West Virgina U, a school that also bought us the infamous Scott Seabol. My gosh, what was in the water there! Very happy to have seen Mr. Hudson in his prime.

As for the 9th, a whopping 47,719 were on hand to see the game played in 2:49, and your umpires on hand were the veritable Dan Morrison, Al Clark, Larry Barnett, and Greg Kosc.

Heading deeper into 1995...wild card playoffs, and crushing pain right around the corner.

September 19th, 1995 - Yankees host Blow Jays
One out - One week to go

The "Last Stand." A week to go, and one game out of the wildcard. I am stunned to this day to see there were only around 15,000 on hand with the Yankees one game out of the hunt, which got a "where the fuck is everyone?" tagged on the scorecard. The temp was getting cooler, as it was noted that the grounds crew actually were not wearing thier "safari shorts" on this Tuesday night.

Not only was the mood tense, it was a bit maudlin as there was announcement before the game that a "longtime ticket taker" had died. Of course, leave it to one of us to put it in perspective. "So what?" they said. "He never passed me no bones...no free tickets. I dont care."

But we came in giddy nonetheless...during BP a fan in the bleachers took a batted ball off the head. Chris, the self-proclaimed "former minor league ballplayer" took a gander at me grabbing a chaw of Red Man that was offered and said, "Red Man? If I want candy I will bring a lollipop." Ironically enough this appears to be the first appearance of Cotton Candy out there, or at least the first time we noticed it, as this scorecard is littered with nods to Cotton Candy. "Take that shit to the carnival!" was one. "What is this, Dodger Stadium?" was another. "Stick that cotton candy up your ass!" was a third, which was later amended to "sticky that cotton candy up your ass!" since it was cotton candy and, well, you know - sticky.

In the first inning a fan stood up holding a big sign, trying to get on TV. And he did not sit down...Hell, the seats were empty, he probably was not blocking anyone. We put a clock on him...he actually stood for over 4 minutes with his sign over his head, until the inning ended. Then he put the sign away for the evening. For some reason I did not save what exactly the sign said for posterity, but I am sure it was dumb.

There was a Met fan on hand trying to hide his cap from view, but we saw it and were all over him. His "Where's Waldo" backpack did not help his cause any. An ugly girl strolled by, causing someone to crack, "Shit...I would not touch her with a 4,916 foot pole." Someone told us to tone it down, as there was "family about." "Yeah, family." we mused. "A bunch of bitches, motherfuckers...." No one was safe from our barbs....when a latino did not sit down fast enough to suit us at the beginning of a frame someone shouted, "down in front, beans and rice!"

I think the price of beer was getting to us, as we had a long talk on the subject of "Beer-noculars" and the benefits of such. "Hell, 16 ounce Beer-noculars won't do it for me." someone said. "I need a 32 ounce telescope to hide my beer in." Soon enough it was time to heckle the Toronto contingent, and that included a "dont you wish you were still in Cleveland, you fuck?" addressed at Mr. Joe Carter in left. Someone actually thought calling him "Joe Farter" would be funny....then again, I wrote it down, so I am no better.

Other minor notes of interest.....Chris and I actually sung a duet version of "Friend of Mine" and everyones favorite, Dancing Ogre guy, was on hand. So was Howard the "anti-comic" who always got a frowny face on the card. A guy named "Joe from Rock Ridge Saloon" was on hand, that was worth a mention, too. Someone actually said, "I'll huff and puff and blow your Mom!" whatever that means, but I am going to guess it was addressed to Mr. Mike Huff in centerfield for the Blow Jays.

The Yankees actually had only 3 hits on the night, but a 5-spot in the 2nd was enough to coast them to a 5-3 win behind Andy Pettitte. Jose Guzman, starting for Toronto walked a ridiculous SIX in 1.1 innings, and therewith lie your problem for Toronto. All 5 runs were tacked to his ledger, dropping his record to a staggering 3-14. Check out this bottom 2 with Guzman on the hill...

Dion James singled, then after a Mattingly flyout to right, Leyritz walked. Velarde singled to center, driving in James. Guzman hit Pat Kelly. Boggs walked. Bernie walked. O'Neill walked. Then Guzman was lifted, and I lost track. He had also walked two in the first, but Bernie Williams helped him off the hook by getting nailed stealing, causing someone to grumble, "he couldn't steal a base with a gun in his hand."

"Walks matter." someone aptly quipped.

Mystery outs all over the place on here. 7 in the 3rd and 4th alone, when I was apparently putting on a show for the kids on hand with my prop, Bear Ass. I noticed another recurring theme on these recent scorecards....for some reason I was wearing a Hawaiin Lei late in the 95 season, and it appears on every scorecard recently. I was also chewing tobacco. What a fucking mess I was.

Here was your Yankee lineup on the night - 3B Boggs, CF BW, RF O'Neill, DH Strawberry, LF James, 1B Mattingly, C Leyritz, SS Velarde, 2B Jughead Kelly. Pettitte upped his mark to 11-8, going 8 strong, and John Wetteland finished up for his 26th save, whiffing 2 in the 9th.

Toronto only had 5 hits of their own, including home runs by SS Alex Gonzalez (in his first full season) and Joe Carter. Your Jays lineup looked like this - SS Gonzalez, DH Molitor, LF Carter, 1B Olerud (nice helmet ya got there!), 3B Sprague, CF Huff, RF Robert Perez (lol), 2B Domingo Cedeno (lol), and C Lance Parrish batting 9th. On that team, that was a Hell of an accomplishment. A young Carlos Delgado ended up pinch-hitting for Perez late in the game.

After Guzman's comedy act, the no-name tandem of Ken Robinson and Jimmy Rogers got some work in, and Mike Timlin, that dickhead, wrapped it up.

For the profile, lets call on Mr Domingo Cedeno. Yet another Dominican shortstop, not so high profile. Stuck around from 93-99, honing his trade for Toronto, the Chisox (12 games in 96), Texas, Seattle and Philly. Never played in more than 113 games in a season or batted more than 365 times. With a .251 average, 15 home runs and 121 RBIs in 1219 at-bats over 429 games, you kind of get an idea why. Did not offer much up in speed either, stealing 14 but getting nailed 12 times. Talk about a roll of the dice sending the runner. Walked 83 times and struck out 280, which is also way too much. He did play everywhere, and I dont just mean his 5 stops along the way. Logged time at second, short, third, and even the outfield. DHd here and there, when everyone else was too hung over to play.

Born on 11/4/68, the lanky Dummy-in-a-can was signed out of the Dominican in 1987 by the Jays scouting machine. How can you not be happy that you saw this man in his prime!

As for the 19th, a pathetic showing of 15,772 found it within themselves to attend, and the game was played in 2:52 (it takes a long time to walk so many guys) - your umpires on hand were the esteemable Larry Barnett, Greg Kosc, Dan Morrison, and Al Clark.

Thanks for reading!

Heading toward crunchtime....the playoffs beckon!

September 20th, 1995 - Yankees host Toronto
Ali needs that marijuana!

This appeared to be a wacky night. I cant believe some of the shit I am seeing on this scorecard.

Ali was a centerpiece on this night. He started the "Hip Hip, You're Gay!" chant, even. He admitted to a bunch of us that he needed "some of that marijuana smoke" to "really go crazy on the bell." When we laughed him off Tina said, "no, its true. He would smoke out of that bell if he could." At one point, feeling the mood, Ali even handed off his bell for a beer vendor to play. I got caught up in it and yelled "YANKEES Suck!" really loud, obviously in error, during the chorus, totally fucking up as I was drunk and taking the appropriate amount of heat the rest of the night.

The night started off on a funny note, as Laura Branigan of all people sung the National Anthem. I guess Gloria Estafan was busy that night. While she (or I should say the anthem) was cheered as she was going off the field, she was booed heading in. Someone had a "Bleachers Suck" sign, and he was IN the bleachers. That, predictably enough, did not go over well.

It was "Long Island Firefighters Night" at the Stadium, and I remember getting all excited that I saw someone way down and way to the right in the same old black and yellow snazzy windbreaker jacket I was issued back in my Wyandanch Fire Department days. I finally put down my beer and made the long trek over there to see which friend of mine it was, and saw he was not even in my department. But I saw that they did indeed have the same exact color scheme and lettering inside of a cool yellow circle out there in Malverne...then a couple of innings later I noticed so did another fireman from Patchogue, and a third from Ronkonkoma later in the night on the beer line. Fucking A, didn't any fire department in Long Island have an original jacket, including my own? Geez, what a downer that was.

A buzzcutted blonde guy leaned over the loge to take a gander at us, and was met with a friendly, "jump, you fucking Nazi!" We then turned our attentions back to the field and Robert Perez in right. "Perez, your Mom buys quarter Sun-Dew drinks!" someone howled in a friendly nod to his ethnicity. Our good friend Bird, the gangly and boring guy that everyone avoided, strolled up. "Bird, fly away already" someone grumbled.

A skinny elderly man with a white beard shuffled up the steps in sandles, and was promptly dubbed "Santa Lite." But in the true groaner of the season, and maybe of all-time, I mentioned that with all the beer that we drank, we truly made the mens room a "Urine-Nation" and wrote it on the card. Ugh....

The scoreboard filled us in on a fancy "this date in baseball" tidbit, accompanied by funny calliope music. In 1992 Mickey Morandini notched an unassisted triple play, so we ruminated on those for a while. At least we were talking baseball. The baseball talk turned to the Yankees, and Roy Firestone's recent and public observation that "Mattingly may be done." How right he was.....but I had been saying that since Opening Day, 1994. Tina, however, was already pushing him as the next manager of the Yankees. At least she was ready to push him off the field, too.

The cotton candy guy was still catching shit after debuting the game before. "Hey, cotton candy, where's your clown?" someone asked. The beer guy was not spared our barbs either. While he dilly dallied on the lower reaches someone snapped, "what are you doing down there, brewing it?" When he finally started up the steps a bunch of impatient yokes, led by me, started exorting, "Run, beer guy! Run!"

"Former minor leaguer" Chris was on his "Jughead" kick when it came to Pat Kelly again, howling things like, "way to go, Jughead!", "Nice try, Jughead!" and "Kick him in the head when he slides in like that, Jughead!" We were still trying to incorporate Mike Huff's last name into obscene chants, with "Perez huffed it" being one of the lamer efforts, and a few more "huff and puff and blow" jokes. A girl was on hand with a Tenessee cap, which caused someone to crack, "You should be proud...Tenessee is the only state Arkansas can pick on."

Seven mystery outs on this thing. I seem to get worse with mystery outs as the seasons plod along. Too many distractions. Elsewhere around the circuit, history was being made as Joe Roa was making his major league debut for Cleveland, and Sam Horn and Chris Howard were both playing in their final major league tilt for Texas.

We actually had a pitching duel for once, won by the Yankees and Sterling Hitchcock of all people. Fearing a misprint, I did check retrosheet.org and sure enough, he went the full 9 and gave up only a single tally (in the top of the 1st) on 6 hits and a walk through the game. Upped his mark to a piddling 9-10. Pat Hentgen was the hard luck loser, going 8 and giving up both Yankee runs in the first as well, so we saw a lot of blank frames after that early stage. After Hentgen threw 8 innings, giving up 5 hits, the nondescript Tony Castillo finished up for Toront-blow.

3 of the Yankees 5 hits were in that first inning, and this was your lineup. 3B Boggs, CF BW, RF O'Neill, DH Strawberry (who Windmill-ie Randolph got nailed at 3rd in the first), LF James, 1B Mattingly, Stanley, SS Velarde, and 2B Kelly. For the Blow Jays we saw SS Gonzalez, DH Molitor, LF Carter, 1B Olerud (nice helmet ya got there!), 3B Sprague, CF Huff, RF Perez, 2B Cedeno, and C Randy Knorr (lol)

Lets roll out a profile, and we will go with Mr. Knorr. Stuck around from 91-2001, but here were his game totals by year. 3, 8, 39, 40, 45, 37, 4, 15, 13, 15, and 34. The CONSUMATE backup catcher. 253 games total, in 11 seasons. A season and a quarters worth of at-bats, with 676, in which he mustered a cool 24 homers and 86 RBIs. It was the lifetime average of .226 that did not do him any favors. Never had more than 132 at-bats in a season, and this was the year, 95. Born 11/2/1968, he was a 10th round draft pick in 1986 by Toronto, whom he logged time for in 91-95. Moved on to Houston, Florida, Houston again, Texas, and wrapped up in Montreal. NEVER stole a base, but did manage to get caught once. I miss him!

As for the 20th, another weak crowd of 20,541 saw a blazing quick game, played in 2:16. This may have been the quickest one I have officially scored to this point. I marked at the end of the 8th that it was only 9:47. When the game starts at 7:30 and change, you got something there. Your umpires pushing it along were Greg Kosc, Dan Morrison, Al Clark, and Larry Barnett.

Hey, it might not be "Bleeding Pinstripes" but thanks for reading nonetheless!

[$heriff Tom]

September 22nd, 1995 - Yankees host Blow Jays

A Friday night at the Stadium, with the wildcard there for the taking. Lets get on with it.

I must make immediate note of one of the funnier little ditties we came up with out there, a nod to nondescript Yankee reliever Rob MacDonald. Sung to the tune of, what else, Old McDonald Had a Farm. Here goes...

"Rob MacDonald has no arm" (alternated with "Rob MacDonald gave up a bomb") with the tagline chorus being "with an oh, fuck here, and an oh shit there" -pretty solid stuff from amatuer songsmiths such as ourselves!

Before the game Orlando Cepeda was on the field getting some sort of award or gushing over some cause, and he never seemed to leave. "What, did he take up residence on the field?" someone finallly snarled. A fan was out there with one of those party bags of potato chips, selling the chips in there for $1.75 a bag. He sold his chips, but took a lot of grief while doing so. Some tart had butchered the national anthem, causing us to wait for the announcement of "another moment of silence, to mourn the passing of our National Anthem."

How times have changed....someone ticked off the names of the Yankee starting pitchers of Cone, McDowell, Pettitte, Key and Hitchcock and bitched they were making "20 million." Fuck, these days that would have only paid for two of them. A few people were pissed off at Key, and someone actually was clamoring for his "release" out there. Stunning.

The law was in full force out there in 39 that night. First two kids who had to be around 16 or 17 years old were busted for drinking beer right in front of the security guards. There is something to be said for "act like you belong there or should be doing it" but, fuck, these kids did not look old enough to get into a rated R movie, yet alone drink beer. Someone up by us (name withheld or never tabbed at the time) was busted "smoking pot" which caused Latina Sandy to go bezerk, so it was probably one of the vanful of people she bought along with her. Another of that group, her young daughter Christina, stole my teddy bear Bear Ass that night, and held him hostage most of the game.

Our gangly friend Bird was making messes, first knocking over someones beer and then talking the ear off of a security guy against the rail, which bought a heavy downpour of "sit the fuck downs!" and "fly away, Bird!" 's. Even Ali got into it, turning to us and snarling, "Bird makes me sick."

Speaking of Ali, already, in 95, there as talk about what to do with the bell once Ali was no longer around. Although he was 7 months from his passing, one would not know it as he was a walking party in a ballroom. Tina went so far as to describe a "ceremony" to pass the bell when the time ever came. Mmm, dont remember it ending so formal when Milton took over.

An Asian fellow was bitching about us and our boisterous behavior to anyone who would listen, and even took a trip to the rail himself to rat. For all I know, he could have been the one that pegged the marijuana smoker. People mocked him, of course, he being an easy target Asian and all. "This is a Ramily Section" we smirked. "Rit down."

One funny crack was directed to a busty Latina that was dancing on the seats between innings. "Sit down, you big booty bitch!" someone shouted, adding "you take it up the ass!" Soon enough, though, people were clamoring for her to stand up, with her exotic dances that many of us had never been privvy to. After Shawn Green doubled in the 9th to make the Yankee lead tenous someone was able to see the bright side of things, as the ball skipped into the corner. "Well, at least that got her to stand up again."

After the game ended people were watching her gather her things, getting ready to go, mentioning how they felt they just had a free showing of a "latin porn." As she passed old school George on the way down the steps he sincerely told her, "thanks for not charging us."

Lots of mentions of a security guard named Harold out there, especially on a night like this when things seemed out of control to a point. I actually noted on here that at this point in late 1995 he honestly did not know who Derek Jeter was. Well, what did we expect, as we noted that he seemed to have an unhealthy obsession with Sandy's daughter Christina. Unhealthy as in I am not even sure she was in double figures in age...we were watching a lovely Latina dance around and here was Harold, feeding Christina potato chips and having a pretend conversation with Bear Ass, who was firmly in her grip. Christina herself was very funny, at one point marching up to Tina and saying, "you bleacher bimbo." Someone coached her well.

Some yoke was hanging around, wearing a football jersey with the # 85 on it, and he had to hear the old, "what's 85, the last time you got laid?" Someone than chirped, "nah, thats what he paid for it."

This was one of the very few occassions I was on hand for a homer that dropped in a 2 or 3 seat radius of where I happened to be. It was off the bat of Ruben Sierra, a 3-run bomb in the 8th that basically put it in the books for the Yankees. I remember watching it off the bat, muttering, "looks like it is coming this way.....coming right here....holy shit, thats coming to me." Well, I did not get it, I was knocked down by the wave reaching for it, but I remember that shot for sure.

Looking at the scorecard I see we played with the names in the lineups again, a little. Ed Sprague was "Ocean" Sprague, and Shawn Green was "Queen" Green. Of course Oleruds name came with a "nice helmet ya got there!" attached to it. Funny moment on the REAL scoreboard, as when Green batted for the first time Roberto Alomar's gay looking visage smiled down on us next to Greens stats in err.

I used to have real chops back then, and screamed Mattingly's name a few times during the game. This was pre-roll call, but I got Mattingly to turn around and give a little wave. But even as he was doing that, a ton of people were turning to one another out there and shaking their heads, talking about "Mattingly's last stand." We knew it was done for him.

Yankees pulled this one out, 6-4, behind a litany of pitchers. Jack McDowell started and was beaten about a bit before he left in the 5th. MacDonald came on, and despite our song, caused no harm. Wickman, Howe, and Wetteland finished up, with Howe notching the W and Wetteland the save. For the bats, the Yankees had 11 hits, with Boggs, Sierra and Velarde having 2. The big hit was Sierra's 3-run gift to us in right. Your Yankee lineup was 3B Boggs, CF BW, RF O'Neill, DH Sierra, LF James, 1B Mattingly, C Stanley, SS Velarde, and 2B Jughead Kelly.

Paul Menhart (lol) started for the Jays, and went 7, giving up 10 hits and leaving the hardluck loser. Mike Timlin, a longtime bleacher nemesis, wrapped up for Toronto. The Jays mustered 9 hits of thier own, and Green had 3 of them. Alomar and Olerud also had multi-hit games, with Olerud driving in 3. The Jay lineup was 2B Alomar, DH Molitor, CF Carter (in center!), 1B Olerud, 3B Sprague, RF Green, LF Delgado (lol - Delgado in LEFT!), C Sandy Martinez, and SS Tomas Perez.

For our profile lets go with the esteemable Mr. Menhart. Did not stick around long, but played the vagabond. A year in Toronto, a year in Seattle, and a year in San Diego. It all added up to 41 games (23 in starts) and a lifetime tally of 5-9. A sickly 5.47 ERA, thanks to his 100 earned runs allowed in 164 plus innings of work. In that time he was lit up for 169 hits, and walked 85 to 90 strikeouts. It all started so promising, he was a 9th round draft choice by Toronto in 1990 out of Western Carolina University, a school that bought us the likes of Wayne Tolleson. 95 was indeed his rookie campaign, and Mehnart can always say he was involved in a trade for Miguel Cairo, in December 95. I am happy to have seen him work!!

As for the 21st, the Thursday night game was played in 3:03, in front of only 17,766 fans. Considering the Yankees were clawing for a playoff spot, that is pathetic. No wonder Mattingly was able to hear me at first. Your umpires on the evening were Dan Morrison, Al Clark, Larry Barnett, Greg Kosc.

Thanks for reading!!

Welcome to the weekend! I have an abridged version of a late September 1995 doubleheader (abridged as I was so drunk I cant get much out of this) and that will put a bow on the 1995 regular season. And that means PLAYOFFS! Wildcard playoff scorecards will kick off early next week, followed by the legendary season of 1996!


September 23rd, 1995 - Yankees host Detroit
A double-dipper!

Contrary to popular belief, I was not 3 shades to the wind on this day. I was 48 shades to the wind. At one point on this scorecard someone blamed it on Gang Bang Steve and admonished, "Steve, why did you let him get SO drunk?"

This was an old trick of mine in which I am not proud, but years after the fact as I lounge at my computer table chattering with my daughter, who is drawing on her leap pad to my left, I can laugh about it. I used to get bombed even before game one, and hear the inevitable, "um, you got 7 more hours to go, dude" as I was helped up the stairs. During one legendary doubleheader a couple of my cronies got tired of holding me up and walked me outside to "get some air." I ended up going to sleep on the sidewalk, where people shuffled around me for the next 30 minutes before I woke up in time for game 2.

But I digress, lets go to 9/23/95, shall we?

Top left margin was pretty clear cut, as Steve crytically penned, "Tom is seriously drunk." So this entire card was his baby, I did not even attempt to write the lineups, which I often did under the influence, in comic fashion. Someone else who had taken one look at me said and transcribed for posterity "this is going to be an ugly day."

Ugly enough that early on a fan in the box seats, who was under verbal attack, snapped the finger at us and was booted for his efforts. This is the sort you hope came all the way in from Monticello for the day, only to get thrown out 3 innings into the first game of a doubleheader. What a tool. But it was even uglier before the game started as none other than Meatloaf sauntered onto the field to sing the National Anthem. "Meatloaf?" someone whined. "I'd rather have steak."

Steve was actually enough on point to mention my little bon mot about the Yankees being 9-1 with my teddy bear "Bear Ass" in attendance. By the end of this day they would make that 11-1, and the playoff possibilities were endless. But for the rest of the day Steve simply kept to the business at hand, the game, and did not really get into the bufoonery around us in the bleachers. With me essentially out of commission there may not have been much.

So I wont get too deep into Game 1, aside from telling you that the Yankees won 5-2 with David Cone (17- besting Jose Lima (2-9 in his first year of regular work) John Wetteland notched save 28, striking out the side in the 9th, and Ruben Sierra hit a Yankee jack. Your Yankee lineup was 3B Boggs, CF BW, RF O'Neill, DH Sierra, LF James, 1B Mattingly, C Stanley, SS Velarde, and 2B Jughead. Tigers countered with CF Curtis, SS Gomez, 3B Fryman, DH Fielder, 1B Clark, RF rookie Bobby Higginson, LF Phil Nevin, C John Flaherty, and 2B Steve Rodriguez. (lol) - Lima was followed on the mound by Greg Gohr, Dwayne Henry, and Ben Blomdahl. I mean, why even bother showing up?

GAME 2

I seem to have come around a bit, although Steve wrote "Tom's still piss drunk." For some reason this game was scored on yellow paper. I had some cool scoresheets I had run through and i had taken to photocopying more, but for some reason I went with the mustard hue. To celebrate the last regular season game I would attend in 95? Who the Hell knows, but it does look ghastly.

I actually managed to pick up the pen during game 2, but added nothing, really. I wrote "Curtis sucks" and "Sweep!" I also mentioned we started a "Central Park Killers!" chant at a band of brigands hanging around the railing. We were in the mood to compare fans with criminals I see, as there was also a Unabomber chant.

Other notes of interest - Steve sang a "good" Gang Bang, a man was walking around with a sticker on his back, Curtis "looked at us", and a stringent observation by Steve that "there's an asshole born every day." The old even then line of "Higginson, you suck so bad you aren't even in the video game" was dusted off.

At one point, with yet another beer in hand, I lifted it up for a toast, waving Bear Ass around in my other hand, and announced (or I should say slurred) "this is the best $6 I spent this year."

Yankees won this too, notching Bear Ass's mark in attendance to a cool 11-1. This was a 3-1 win, behind Scott Kamienieki of all people. He evened up his season mark to a middling 6-6. Wetteland fanned 2 in the 9th for his 29th save, so he pitched a perfect 2 on the day, fanning 5 of the 6 men that came up to face him. Then again, this WAS the Tigers..

For the Tigers Felipe Lira was the hardluck loser, and he had the ignomity of being followed by Brian Bohanon, Brian Maxcy, and Mike Meyers. Lira especially had a fun day, throwing two wild pitches and plunking Jughead Kelly. The Yankee lineup facing the Bengal arms in game 2 was 3B Boggs, CF BW, LF O'Neill, DH Sierra, a rare appearance by Strawberry in RF, 1B Mattingly, C Leyritz, SS Velarde, and 2B Jughead Kelly. The Tigers "countered" with CF Curtis, SS the aged Allan Trammel, 3B Fryman, DH Fielder, 1B rookie Tony Clark, RF Higginson, LF Phil Nevin, 2B Scott Fletcher, and C Ron Tingley.

Sad day for the city of Detroit, 9/23/95, cause not only were their Tigers getting swept in New York, but fabled Tiger alum Lance Parrish was wrapping up his great career in a Blue Gay uniform, out at Fenway on this Saturday.

I was not going to do a profile, but seeing Ron Tingley's name made me laugh, so he it is. A good old "backup catcher" that managed only one seasons worth of ABs (563) in only 278 games over parts of NINE seasons of mlb baseball. First appeared in 1982 (!) in 8 games for the Padres of all teams, then dissapeared until showing up for the Angels in 1988 (where he stuck around till 93) - he split 94 between Florida and the Chisox, and closed the curtain in 1995 for the Tigers, where he batted .226 in his second-largest amount of ABs in his career (124)

Overall he left the game with a lifetime .195 average - holy fuck! - with 10 homers and 55 RBIs. Walked 54 times and fanned 165, a ridiculous number. Stole 2 bases over time, and was nailed 5 times. What the fuck was he doing running? This is the kind of guy that was always fun to watch. 10th round draft pick in 1977 by the Padres, he was born in 1959 in that baseball hotbed of Maine. Goodnight Mr. Tinsley, wherever you are!

There were an announced 36,248 on hand for this twinbill, with game 1 being played in 2:44 and game 2 being played in a hyper 2:38. I dont think the Tigers wanted to be there...your umpires on the day were none other than Rich Garcia, Dale Ford, Larry Young, and Mike Reilly.

Thanks for reading, and the regular season on 1995 is a fucking wrap! Stick around for playoff action early next week, and here comes 1996!!!!!!!!!!

END OF REGULAR SEASON

[$heriff Tom]

PLAYOFFS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

October 3rd, 1995 - Yankees host Seattle
GAME 1 - Wild Card 1995

Its ironic, I actually flipped on a Yankeeography the other night (I generally avoid them) and the subject was Don Mattingly, and they went into depth about the crowd reaction when he took the field on this fateful night. I remembered all of that but it was nice to watch it again. I do remember a lot of things regarding that game...it was only in later playoff games in later playoff runs where I would get sloshed.

In a prophetic note I wrote "Beginning of a Run" in the "Date" section, and oh, was it ever the beginning of a run, for the Yankees and we fans that followed along.

I was very cogent of my surroundings on this night, as although the scorecard is full it is legible (attributed to little to no drinking) and not the funniest card I had seen. There was some business at hand. In the intro section on the card I also remarked on the "bunting" we would get to know so well in future years, and that I forgot my friend Bear Ass, an inexcusable faux pas, as the Yankees were 11-1 with my furry friend on hand.

This was a year where we had our tickets taken care of us beforehand, as during the last game of the season George and Tina had gone up to the Yankee offices with $600 or so, cash money, and secured our ducats. This was a wonderful privelage which died in later years, mainly cause most of us could not keep our fucking mouths shut.

Before the game a "mystery guy" in a Seattle uniform was down and hurt on the warning track. Took a BP fly off the noodle, apparently. We later learned who it was, but it never made the scorecard.

They actually carted out what was then an 11 year old to sing the Anthem, which bought snickers and some groans. Joe DiMaggio threw out the first pitch, and we all remarked how nice it was to see the Yankee Clipper. I tagged on the names not eligible for this rounds go-around, including - lol - Jeter, Mariano, Melido Perez, Jimmy Key, and the other Joltin' Joe, Mr. Ausanio. I noted one thing from the introductions, the fact that Steve Howe was "booed." Of course, by this point whenever he entered a game someone would invariably mutter, "Howe big a disaster is this?"

We were letting all of our friends and familiars nudge in with us no matter where their ticket was, and the seats were packed, but you guys all know that well. Nothing new. I actually kept my headphones on that night, and listened to the WABC-Radio feed during the game, which bought me a lot of little bon mots and pearls of wisdom that I added to the card.

For one thing, if I marked this correctly, the Yankees were 10-15 on the season if Randy Velarde was not in the starting lineup. Who woulda knew? During much of the game you could hear a lone voice chirping up in favor of Seattle over the radio feed, causing John Sterling to muse, "99.9% of those on hand are rooting for the Yankees...the other .1% is right here next to me." I got to hear the always smarmy Michael Kay refer to someone as a "dolt", as he broke that one out when a fan ran onto the field during the proceedings.

People were ID'ing me across the board, with one fan telling me I looked like Don Mattingly, and another fan mistaking me for "Cousin Brewski." "Got the night off?" he asked, patting me on the back. In a little hilarity Ali swiped Fat Daddy Chico's walker and hid it up by us, shrugging and explaining, "Chico can roll his ass out of here."

Your regular quips were flying from 39. After a call that did not go our way someone moaned, "all this money you got, Steinbrenner, and you can't buy the ump?" I mentioned that the Mayor was taking what was soon to be the obligatory trip to the booth, which raised a, "thats why the city sucks." Someone even found the time to mention that Gloria Estafan was "accident-prone."

I happened to be sitting behind the tallest guy in the whole place...I am sure many of you have been there. I actually looked around, all the way down the rows in front of me, and could not find anyone even remotely as tall as the guy that was sitting directly in front of me. And of course the fact that fans filed into the seats little by little, all the way to and above the 5th or 6th inning of play, was mentioned.

There were few Seattle fans out there in the bleachers, but they were there. One of them completely "ran the gauntlet" as he took the stairs all the way up to the top, and heard it step by step. Another Seattle fan was greeted with a "Seattle jerkoff" tag, and told to "step on a mine." I later remarked that "Seattle hats flying all over" so there must have been more of them out there, and by the end of the night they were lid-less.

"Fuck you, Buhner!" was an epitaph that got through, as I remarked on a remarkable lack of security out there. There were innings at a time where there was stone-cold NONE. Of course, that would change in later years. Vince Coleman was met with a loud, "shoulda stayed with the Mets, you fucking prick!" Tina gleefully added, "you fucking National League piece of shit!" Ken Griffey Jr was also "ripped" just so he would not feel left out.

It was a little disheartening to see The infamous "Wave" making its way around the Stadium during a playoff game. And humiliating, no way for a Yankee fan to behave. To top all of this off, there was a smattering of rain throughout the game, dunking the 57,178 on hand.

I heard a great quip regarding the quick shot off a one-hitter, as someone said, "check him out getting high on the handy horn."

One of our friends who carted beer let us know that once this season finally wrapped up, he would not longer be around. "Don't retire" we pleaded. "We're already short beer guys." Playoff game or no, Crazy Devil Fan Billy was regaling us with his tales of visiting the Dawg Pound in Cleveland, and how he had a picture at home where fully half of them were giving him the finger. When we said that was nothing special he added, "the other half were throwing shit at me."

Yankees won this one 9-6, of course, with David Cone pitching 8 before John Wetteland made it interesting in a bad way in his one inning of work, giving up 2 runs on 3 hits and a walk. It got so bad that when Wetteland ran up 2 strikes on someone one of our fellow fans snarled, "one more, dickhead!"

Yankees had home runs from Wade Boggs and Ruben Sierra, with Boggs, Sierra, and Bernie each driving in 2. Chris Bosio started and was rocked by the Yankees, and was followed by Jolly Jeff Nelson, my archnemesis Bobby Ayala, Bill Risley, and Bob Wells, a facial twin of Ayala.

The Yankee lineup for this first playoff game in eons was 3B Boggs, CF BW, RF O'Neill, DH Sierra, 1B Mattingly, LF James, C Stanley, SS Fernandez, 2B Velarde. The Mariners countered with LF Coleman, 2B Cora, CF Griffey, DH E Martinez, 1B Tino, RF Buhner, 3B Blowers, C Wilson, and SS, our friend, Luis Sojo.

Game slogged along, played in 3:38, and your umpires on hand were Mike Reilly, Dale Scott, Jim McKean, Larry McCoy, Jim Joyce, and Rich Garcia.

Thanks for reading!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1995 Wildcard - Game 2!!

October 4th, 1995 - Yankees host the Mariners
The Leyritz home run game!

Handwriting is a little more sloppy on this scorecard, so I obviously found some time for pregame drinks, whereas I did not partake before game 1. But it is all highly legible, so I was coherent and lucid, unlike, say, game 6 of the 1996 World Series...

The cynical fucks that we were, we were already joking about the bunting adorning the tiers. We were already tired of looking at it, and thinking about it now it was something we grew to take for granted. "Looks like Grandma sewed that fucking stuff." someone said.

"Welcome to the fucking show!" howled Captain Bob, with both beefy arms aloft. I remember when he got so excited about the Yankees even getting a sniff of first place during a regular season campaign...I have a picture at home of Captain Bob holding up a newspaper with Jim Abbott pitching on the back, with the headline, "Hey,Abbott, Yankees are in first!" And there is Bob in the picture, with the biggest shit-eating grin ever, celebrating a first-place tie in the month of July...did not take much to please a Yankee fan in the dark days.

Phil Rizzuto threw out the first pitch, which caused people to yammer on and on about how much he was missed in the TV booth. There was a guy going topless on the cool, drizzly night, but knowing he was inviting trouble in his attempt to get on TV he had "I'm an asshole" painted in blue paint on his back. "What an asshole" we muttered, as he walked by.

While we settled in we discussed our pregame activities, which included a "God bless the bowling alley bathroom" from me. There had been a guy walking around outside, gladhanding and drinking out of a bag, dressed as the Pope with big Pope hat and everything. We looked around for him in the bleachers as he was last seen by the gate, but to no avail. "He must be in Stans, drinking out of the almighty chalice" someone speculated.

I gave a nod to the true old-schoolers who were on hand. From Captain Bob to Kevin, Animal to George, Tina to Ali, and a cast of thousands that "no one wants" it was all for them. Tina was on seat patrol, and got into quite the spat over a corner seat that she would not relinquish. "What, is your name on that seat?" one guy snapped, to which Tina shot right back with "as a matter of fact, now that you mention it..."

I see where we were hung up over a bad call on the field for a while. It even got a "bull-fucking-shit" out of someone named Joey three different times. Someone blamed it on us all standing up during the play. "Every time we stand up, something bad happens." he grumbled. Wish I could have introduced him to Junior. Regarding the call, someone shouted, "Ump, you couldnt lead Ray Charles through the forest! You asshole!"

We were keeping a running tab on bad umpire calls, and it reached 3. And, oddly enough, Buck Showalter made 3 different appearances on the field to question calls on that cool October evening.

A fistfight actually broke out, and to no one's surprise our very own Animal was involved. I wrote down an abridged play by play - a guy was arguing over a seat, Animal told him to get to stepping, he went after Animal, and a third guy jumped in. Well, first guy and third guy gone, Animal gets to stay. Amazing how that worked.

Bear Ass was back on hand, with his mark now at 12-1. The unthinkable happened as he dissapeared at exactly 8:08, and I thought he was stolen and cut to shreds for shits and giggles, but he reappeared at 8:20. In a comic note, I handed him off to one of the old crew to "babysit." The babysitter on that night? John Hughes. You know, the guy that was later "arrested for counterfeiting money." He ended up autographing the scorecard (another bad gimmick bought back for the playoffs) as did Syphills Joe, who even added the tagline, "Syphillis....it all started with a simple kiss!"

This game went deep, into the 15th, and by the time I got to page 2 "The Pope" reappeared. "Jesus Christ, the Pope is here!" someone said, bemused. By then the ground beneath our feet was covered in a sea of empty beer cups and old school George, among others, proudly announced, "after we win, these cups are going that way" - pointing either to the field or to the people in front of us that annoyed us all night by standing up for all the wrong reasons.

When I remember in my head some of the funny lines over time and recount the simplicity of some of our wit and humor, this one always came to mind, and it was from this very night....a guy with a Gilligan hat was one of those people standing up, and finally fed up with it someone shouted, "Down in front, Little Buddy!"

Its amazing at how, even during a playoff game, we could find time to argue about something dumb, or wonder about stupid minutia that has nothing to do with the task at hand. After a couple of innings of seeking out the answer we finally learned that the song that "Dancing Homer" did his thing to was in fact "The Baby Elephant Dance."

I went through both sides of the scorecard during this extra inning tilt, and Page 2 has the 11th through the 15th innings, and even that late we were still grousing about the umps. "The ump needs to get out of here early, he has to get up in the morning for umpire school." someone reasoned. "Even the OJ jury would not find them innocent of killing us" someone chirped in. "This is a tragedy...a debaucle" someone surmised.

But all is well that ends well. I dont remember exactly what happened, but leading into Leyritz' home run apparently the Yankees got back an "even-up call." "I can hear the ump now" someone said before Leyritz laid into one. "Games over, Yankees win, go home."

You always get some of these...I had to comment on the spate of people that actually got up, collected their coats, and left with a 4-4 playoff game in front of them. I understand the game ended up at 1:20 in the morning, but come on now...

And after that ending, one of the moments out there that will stay with me FOREVER, maybe the first one. 10 minutes of celebrating in the rain, singing to New York New York, dancing on the benches, slipping off and falling down, only to clamber up again. Someone passed around a flask, and we struggled to light soggy cigars. But that singing....I will never forget the Stadium singing in unison, and our high hopes for the rest of the playoffs. And it was incredible to spend it with that crew that was out there on that night, in that fashion. Good times, good times...

I'll make this quick. You dont need a recap from me on a playoff game, and this is long already. Here are your starting lineups for posterity...the Yankees marched out 3B Boggs, CF BW, RF O'Neill, DH Sierra (a few "where's Strawberry"s were uttered despite Sierra's monster spurts), 1B Mattingly, LF Dion James (lol), C Leyritz, SS Fernandez, and 2B Velarde. Your Yankee hurlers on the night were Pettitte, Wickman, Wetteland, and Rivera, who went 3.1 innings of scoreless ball to notch the W just a day after I had written down that he was not eligible for the playoff roster.

And Sierra did it AGAIN. Another home run, and for the second time in a matter of weeks a home run right to our little gaggle out there in Section 39. Don Mattingly, in the middle of his last stand, followed that with a home run of his own, there to lead off the 6th, and put the crowd all agaga.

The Mariners countered with LF Coleman, SS Sojo, CF Griffey, DH E Martinez, RF Buhner, 3B Blowers, 1B Tino, C Wilson, and 2B Cora. That pesky bastard. On the hill we saw Andy Benes, Bill Risley, Charlton, Jeff Nelson, and of course, Timothy Belcher, who belched up the winning HR.

5 hours and 12 minutes to play. 57,126 on hand, and 89,009 claiming they were there today. Your umpires on hand were none other than Dale Scott, Jim McKean, Larry McCoy, Rich Garcia, Mike Reilly, and Jim Joyce.

And THAT puts a wrap on the playoffs of 1995. And what comes next but 1996.....after some soul-searching I decided that yes, the project WILL continue. Maybe some of you may start seeing your names a bit more often off of these cards.

See you later this week with your first installments of the wild ride that was 1996!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[whalerfan]

Tom, the August 31st game was on Yankee classics today and I watched it from start to finish in my ill state. Gotta love the announced crowd of 25,000 when there was no way even 20,000 were in the building, in a pennant race no less. And I miss the Eddie Layton organ being played throughout the game instead of the annoying sound effects they never stop with now.

[$heriff Tom]

Why on Earth were they playing that game? What was the tagline?

[whalerfan]

O'Neill hit 3 HRs. One awkward tidbit was Al Trautwig changing the bases with the grounds crew in-between innings, dressed in their uniforms.

[$heriff Tom]

Ah, I see. Do me a solid - let me know if and when they replay that game, Id like to record it. I did a quick perusal and tomorrows glut of Yankee classics are 2001 WS games.

[MSBNYY]

When Leyritz hit the HR, I happened to be watching the game in my parents' house, since I was home from Albany for a job interview. The problem was that my parents were sleeping and I had to control my yelling because of that. My mom was awake and listening to the game quietly on her radio, but my dad was never a baseball fan. Anyway, when Leyritz his that shot, I tried to muzzle my yelling with a pillow and as much self control as I could muster, given what just happened. While that worked to an extent, a high pitched yelp managed to escape.

My dad thought a dog was in the house.