Sheriff Tom Brown

Oct 25, 2012

The Right to Boo the Yankees

Sheriff Tom will boo the Yankees when they perform the way they did in the ALCS and he has earned the right to boo over the years.

Yes, I boo my own.

First, let me be clear. It didn’t start as simply booing a Yankee because he used to be a Met, or even writing it off as booing a player I don’t respect because he is on Page Six too often. To me, applause and boos should be based on performance, not on proclivity alone. If I go to the aquarium and the seal drops the hoop during the scuba show, I’m booing. Bad performance. Tomorrow the seal may be on, and he will get his claps and he will get his little fish. What I don’t want to see is the seal drop this hoop and collect its fish anyway, sort of like Nick Swisher stinking up the postseason and collecting bank at the expense of the fans. If you’re not putting up performance, you’re putting up with us.

I’ve earned the right to boo. I’ve spent my money on Stadium grounds (even dropped some blood out there) and that’s not mentioning TV time, merchandise and discourse. Yeah, I have like 600 games in the docket, but that doesn’t make me any better than the fan who strolls in for the first time, as we all are allowed to boo. We paid our money for a show. If we don’t like the show, we have the right to bark and bray about it.

I’m not sure what surprised me more the last couple of weeks: the Yankees offense or the hue and cry that cloaked the sky as the boos rained down at Yankee Stadium. Sanctimonious Yankee fans in their own minds flying the flag of faith, against those who were straying from the parading herd. Sometimes Yankee fans are funny in that it’s us against the world, but if we turn on one another it’s the most egregious of offenses. I don’t see it that way. It’s not like the fans were booing 30 minutes before first pitch (well, the ones who showed up, anyway) and all was forgiven game to game until the stink wafted from the field and the booing happened again. And oh, did it ever.

How many times in the nearly 30 years I have been going to Yankee games have I booed the Yankees? You can count them on two hands with a finger left over to flip at a Boston fan. But not only was I booing like a ghost this year, I was even doing so from my couch where the only people who could hear me were my wife, daughter and two disinterested cats. Come on folks, this was ridiculous. If the Yankees went down 6-4 here or 5-1 there then this wouldn’t have happened. Baseball happens and sometimes your team loses. There’s no shame in that unless you’re the Cubs and you haven’t won the big one since things were paid for with rocks. We have all seen the Yankees lose playoff games before (many of them in person) and probably too many of them in recent years. That doesn’t mean we booed. This was something different. This was something odious. This was something we may never again see in our lifetime … well, lets hope! To insure this, the Yankees need to jettison the likes of Nick Swisher and probably Curtis Granderson, and if this world is really a happy place and one full of candy canes and rainbows, the much maligned A-Rod.

Do you have to boo? Hell no! Are you allowed to frown while others boo because you subtly disapprove of their actions? Absolutely! Should you reprimand them? Well, go ahead, we don’t care and we will laugh at your lecture. Should you fight over it? Well, that’s just stupid although I saw and heard of people trying. What really puts a burr in my britches is this attitude out there that everything we see on that field is beyond reproach and that we’re supposed to keep staring at the horror show that unfolded behind our pinstriped blinders and possibly give a nice golf clap after someone in the home duds just struck out for the 11th time in his last 18 at-bats. Sorry, if I see the “Clap Car” pulling to the curb, I’m stepping aside and waiting for the “Boo Bus.”

Let me tell you of a time I once booed. It was the first regular season game I kept score and pretty much my first game in the bleacher seats. As enamored as I was with simply being in Yankee Stadium and seeing these wonderful, magical Bleacher Creatures for the first time, I still found it in me to boo. The Yankees had a four-run lead in the ninth inning and Steve “How” Farr “Will they hit it” coughed it up and the Yankees went on to lose the damn game. Not only did I boo – and lustily at that – but I vandalized. Well, to a point, and pretty much to my own property. I took my little souvenir bat and smacked it on the bench in front of me and shattered the thing. (They were still picking splinters out of there as that Stadium came down over a decade later.) To add more credence to my right to boo, I shared the Stadium that night with a mere 14,090 fans. So I put in the time and earned the right to wax venom. The last time you probably saw a mere 14,090 fans in that Stadium was when you were simply counting the people in front of you in the bathroom line.

Looking back on it, the main kicker of boos toward the home nine have been directed at those who held the closer mantle over the years, as they are set up for failure and sometimes the last wretched thing you see before a “W” shimmies away from the box score. Considering Mariano Rivera has been that guy since the halcyon days of the 90s, it hasn’t happened in eons. But man, in the early 90s and mid-90s, we made booing the closer an art form. There’s not much a guy like Rivera that could do to get a burst of boo. I have seen him leave after the rare blown save to a murmuring of discontent, but that’s more the “boo the seal who dropped the hoop” bad day sort of thing and there’s no malice in it. Guys like Farr, Steve Howe and John Wetteland (despite some fine work) heard the hoots for sure, usually coming from the likes of me. Because of them the desperate cry of, “Quick! Lock the bullpen gate!” was coined as relievers started warming up at the Stadium.

One of everyone’s favorite Yankee boo-birding moments came out of our twisted relationship with Jack McDowell. As he left the mound to a crescendo of boos one not so fine evening, he petulantly flipped that bird up in the air and pretty much told the fans, “Right back at ya.” That prompted one of the more jolly backpages I have seen over the years with a full page of McDowell, finger aloft and the block heading of “JACK ASS.” That baby spent a couple of years taped on the closet door in my apartment for a quick look and a chuckle when I needed a pick-me-up or a get-up-and-go. Bring that story up to someone griping about the treatment of the circus clown Nick Swisher or the doting dugout courtier Alex Rodriguez and they will call for a pass and probably add something like, “Save your boos for Jack McDowell.” Well, Jack McDowell, who was looked at akin to the old man on the corner that waves his fist at kids skipping to the bus stop, went 15-10 in his year of service with an ERA on the south side of 4. But he is considered boo-worthy, when today’s pinstriped heroes are immune. Not on my watch!

I’ve seen good men rack up a Golden Sombrero and they were booed for that. In retrospect, it’s not easy to strike out four times in a game, so maybe they should have been applauded. But there is nothing wrong with saying, “Look, I’m not happy with what I saw out of you today. I want you to go home, think about it and not sleep well. Let’s hope for the both of us tomorrow will be a better day.” That said, I have seen dozens of more guys strike out three times on the day, and not get booed. Bad day. We have all had them. Actually, we had a lot of them watching the Yankees this October. So yeah, the three-strikeout guy was not necessarily booed. Well, unless one of them came with the bases loaded, of course.

There’s also a touch of hypocrisy in the “tisk, tisk” thinking of a lot of Yankee fans when it comes to the boos hurled at the heroes. Yankee fans are known to hurl the sharpest of invectives at the foes and are known for not only a rapier wit, but a mean streak that a badger would envy. So, when you think about it, when you have a dog in the house who will bite any idiot that walks in the door, it may turn one day and nip at you. You don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to realize it may come to that very thing. We are wired differently, and rightfully so. It’s not simply being spoiled. It’s looking up and noticing the payroll is $200 million. This team should win. Especially when part of that $200 million payroll comes from our $11 beers and our $35 parking charges.

There were rumors making the rounds that Nick Swisher turned into the little girl on the playground who had her pigtail pulled because of “personal insults” that rained down on the clown for one of a dozen reasons. I don’t endorse this and I can see where it would drive fellow fans crazy, but let’s save that stuff for when he comes back to Yankee Stadium next year in the Red Sox uniform. If he thought he heard boos before, wait until he comes to visit in his spiffy new road tags. He may end up being the most hated player in baseball history and not just the worst playoff player in baseball history.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. To “blame” Swisher for Derek Jeter’s injury is so laughable and silly that it should be discounted by him and not used as a reason to pout. Apparently he was taken aback and offended he heard this waft from the right field stands. Yes, Jeter would not have gotten hurt if the Yankees had been out of the inning, but there were a dozen things that led to that. Comments against his wife? Uncalled for, if they happened. I find this dubious, and if they did, it was a fan here and there, and not a pack of rabid Yankee fans looking for amends or his “Bleacher Creature friends turning on him” as this was offered up. Boos are great. Insults to the home team, not necessary, and counterproductive. That said, I believe Swisher should have had some cheese with that whine of his. (And his wife’s TV show sucked, and I’m glad it got cancelled.)

I read some petulant tweets a couple of days before the Yankees were shown the door that the A’s, their World Series hopes dashed, were then serenaded with a nice ovation from the local fans with comments like, “That’s class! Too bad we won’t be seeing that if the Yankees are eliminated.” Ding, ding! You win what’s behind door No. 2! You nailed it, ace! After that postseason performance from the Yankees? I can sit here and recite the putrid numbers that were put on the board, but they can be found in the obituary section, as well as the record books. What the hell would I be applauding for? I did my share of applauding all year and it cost me a pretty penny to do so. I also sat through some bad baseball, and even worse, some lazy baseball. I’ve seen Robinson Cano get down the line so slowly that butterflies passed and beat him to the bag. This sort of thing should not be booed? Years of playoff ineptitude in the cases of Swisher and A-Rod should not be booed? (Yeah, I know “the Yankees would not have won that World Series without A-Rod,” but hey, even a blind squirrel finds a nut sometimes.)

In the end, there was a lot of support for the “I Will Boo a Yankee” doctrine I follow myself. One night, after Granderson stuck to plan and struck out, I took a picture on my phone of some lout in Yankee Stadium engaged in a hearty “Booooooo!” toward the field on my TV, which also featured a crabby looking lady in mid-holler behind him. I tweeted this work of art, with a simple “Boooooooo!” as the caption. Well, I continued this on and off over the next couple of days to a litany of my Twitter followers that soon were asking me to break it out if the situation warranted it. I got to know this booing guy in the picture quite well simply by forwarding him out three to four times a night when things were at their worst. While we don’t like what leads us to boo, we like to boo. It’s cathartic.

So here is the deal. Yes, I have booed Yankees. I’m sure I will do it again. It’s not a task I take to lightly, but I’m prepared to do so if the situation warrants it. I raise my glass to others who booed since they know a bad product when they see it. And if you think I’m not a real fan for booing, you never walked in my shoes and you can go to bed tonight in your Yankee pajamas and count Nick Swishers walking back to the dugout after striking out in your sleep.

Yankee ALCS baseball! Booooooooooo!

Blogs

Oct 10, 2012

The Evolution of Yankee Fans’ Expectations

Sheriff Tom remembers a time when clinching a playoff berth was a big deal in the Bronx. Now the postseason is a given for the Yankees, but he doesn’t mind.

Well, the Yankees are in the playoffs again. Welcome to every year. I was lucky enough to roll through the 90s from my bleacher bench in the much-missed Section 39, where I saw most of the playoff glories from that point unfold in front of me. As I watch these current affairs from my couch with my family and not my bleacher family, it’s easy to justify not being out at the Stadium with the old, “Let someone else have a chance to see this.” The Yankees and the playoffs have become attached at the hip and I was lucky enough to ride along for most of it, but when I started my first forays into Yankee Stadium, you would never have been able to convince me it would be so. Well, unless it was happy hour and you were buying.

In my wee days I was a drib and drabber – a Yankee game here, a Yankee game there. I have vague memories of attending an Easter Sunday doubleheader with my mom, as inexplicable as that seems to sound. I remember being outside the Stadium one time in 1983 and hearing Bert Campaneris’ name as he came up to lead off for the Yankees and proudly telling anyone who would listen that he threw a bat at Lerrin Legrow during a World Series game “back in the old days.” I was at Deion Sanders’ first game in Yankee Stadium and whooped accordingly. I was at the game where hurler Rick Rhoden was the Yankees DH! I was at the game after the infamous Yankees-White Sox trade that bought the Yankees the joys of Joel Skinner, Ron Kittle and Wayne Tolleson. I was in the stands the night George Steinbrenner’s banishment from baseball was announced and the crowd burst out in spontaneous and hearty applause. That story sure had a different ending than the one in the seats that night would have written.

Well, one constant with me in attendance for those early affairs on my ledger seemed to be the Yankees losing. The first year I got my driver’s license and could get myself to and from the Stadium in my fancy-dan, lime-green Camaro was 1986 – the year I left high school with much aplomb and a “Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out!” – I decided making games was my mission. While I was not keeping regular score then (and my old scorecards from this era disappeared from the basement like a heap of my old pro wrestling magazines and all my porno magazines), but I would often wax poetic at the Yankees’ ineptitude with me on hand. I went to 18 games in 1986 and saw three wins. Take that in. Three wins in 18 games for a sterling 3-15 mark. The Yankees were 41-39 at home that year, which meant when I stayed my silly self home they happened to go 38-14. This is astounding and grounds to banish me from the grounds. But when you take time to consider what was to come for this boisterous fan, especially being in house for the epic runs to come, I get a pass.

After this run of mine in 1986 I slowed it down somewhat, as everything from car troubles to girls to the Yankees always losing when I went to games to college to girls to beer to girl troubles got in the way, and I was a “here and there guy” for a few years. I remember going to a heap of the Mayor’s Trophy affairs with friends against the crosstown Mutts, usually in late March, bundled in coats and gloves in the stands while whooping it up in the frosty exhibition air. On one of these occasions my brother Dave meandered down by the dugout and asked then-mayor David Dinkins to toss him a ball, as the Mayor was set to toss out the first pitch. Mayor Dinkins told him with a wink, “I’ll be right back” and went out and did his thing to a cascade of boos. My brother called for the ball again as the Mayor headed back, be the mayor simply waved, causing my brother to holler, “Hey Mayor! You suck!”

My vaunted run in the bleachers started in 1993. I’ve gone into more detail elsewhere and I will get back to it again at another time, but mainly I was new to the city and looking for a place to hang out by myself where I would not stick out like an open fly. This leads me to address something here: the Orioles fans are taking a lot of crap for creeping out of the woodwork like roly polies under an overturned piece of rotting tree bark in the yard, but hey, we did this too. Well, not me. I was there in 1993, so leave me out of this. But man, did we have the place to ourselves just a couple of years before another world title for the mighty Yankees was plastered in the book. One interesting thing that came out of my Scorecard Memories, as I painstakingly worked through the minutia, was the putrid attendances I was dealing with. I was, to my astonishment, seeing numbers like 18,320, 20,259 and if the Yankees had a cool giveaway like a WABC transistor radio, 29,023. I surely remembered the bleachers having space not only for our beers and bags, but to lay down if we had too many or we simply wanted to strike a pose. I have a famous picture tucked away somewhere of a bunch of us posing on the last day of the season in 1993, on the bleacher benches, with about 25 empty rows behind us. Someone who saw the shot once asked, “What, did you guys sneak in after the game to take this picture in the empty Stadium?” and I responded, “Eh, no … that was actually during the game.”

So yeah, we had the run of the place. And this continued well up into ‘95 when the Yankees made a jaunty dance into the playoffs, and then it was on! There went the empty seat for my bag next to me, and the Yankee fans showed up kind of like the Oriole fans are this week. It happens.

Here’s how far things came along, for the team back then and the fans following. There is a legendary figure from early bleacher days, the infamous Captain Bob. With his burly nature, booming voice and epic beard he was one of the early foundations. His resemblance to Thurman Munson immediately made him a lovable figure. If you look like Thurman Munson you can steal an old lady’s handbag and that crew of Creatures back then would cover for you. Well, Captain was the focal point of another legendary photo I have tucked away somewhere – what passed for Yankee glee and grandeur in the barren years. There was Captain outside the bleacher gate, holding up the back page of a local newspaper, showing Jim Abbott in action with the bold heading “HEY ABBOTT, WE’RE IN FIRST!” So yeah, the newspaper was trumpeting the fact that Yankees had a share of first place. I believe now (without researching because who has the time?) that the Yankees had simply moved into a tie with Toronto on this occasion. I also believe they were out of first by the time the next edition hit the stands. It was probably July or so, but it may have even been May. Jim Abbott was on the team, so you know not much came out of it. But that is not the crux of the matter.

The crux of the matter is that Captain Bob took this newspaper, held it aloft and shouted with glee. A grand “Whoo-hooo!!!” or something to that effect. This was clicked for posterity on whatever camera I had at the time and had not lost yet. I have since seen pictures of the Bleacher Creature crew after the Yankees won the World Series time and again a couple of years later. Hell, I’ve seen pictures of people after we won World War II and they are not as overjoyed as this jolly Yankee fan over the Yankees simply being tied for first place early in the season. So yeah, times have changed. And with them, so did the crowds and the expectations toward the team.

I’m not sure which bar I was in when the Yankees clinched that first wild card on the last day of the season in 1995 since they all blend together at times like that. That initial euphoria was so new and fresh, and we thought so elusive. Who knew in 1995 that the Yankees were just starting a run for the ages? And this one started with a wild-card berth, something that some fans still look upon with derision. Hey, in the interest of full disclosure I was one of those purists that pooped on the whole parade of the idea, even though I was among the first to feed on that fruit as a fan of a team who used it to their advantage. I railed long and hard against the thing and still hold a grudge, but it is what it is.

In coming years I was out there in the bleacher seats when the Yankees clinched playoff berths and the joy and euphoria is something that every baseball fan (well, except for Red Sox and Mets fans) should experience firsthand at least once in their lives. The fact that we Yankee fans have enjoyed such euphoria dozens of times is a blessing and a boon. I remember one year after the Yankees took care of their business and slotted themselves in for hot playoff action I marched out the bleacher gate right after the clincher, parked myself by the entrance down to the subway by the old cigar shop that used to be there and started slapping the high-fives. I saw this news item earlier this year about some doof who was out to break the record for “most high-fives” given in a certain timespan. He was in some park or with much hoopla and was wearing gloves because I guess he was either too good to touch others or afraid a fervent high-five would hurt his precious pinkie. Well, screw that guy, as I’m sure on this night I gave that chucklehead a run for his money. I was out there going on an hour, slapping five with every person going down to the trains, coming back up from the trains or loitering on the streets. I was not the only one. Hundreds, if not thousands, were packing River Avenue and hugging, kissing and falling down. Milton the Cowbell King was out there with his tin, clanking the happy hits and everyone was adding a voice to the mix. People were shimmying up posts and stagediving to the crowd below. Typing about this now almost brings wistful tears to my eyes. I’m not saying we have become jaded, but wow, winning all the damn time really made it almost “business as usual” as the years rolled by. I hate to say this, but in further years I think some reverted to happy handshakes and congratulatory pats for this honor of seeing the team we loved move onward through the playoff field. Though I attribute some of that to age and our backs being bad!

So yeah, I miss a lot of that initial glee. I loved winning it all in 1996 when the Yankees payroll was not more than that of the rest of the league combined. In time I hope to write a lot more about playoff experiences, up to and including World Series parade experiences. Life as a Yankee fan has been a fun one.

***

This new playoff format bites the bone. A couple of weeks ago co-workers would line up at my desk as they always do, as they like to see me get riled up. In one form or another I would be queried, “So what do you think of the Yankees’ chances in the playoffs?” I would then usher them out of there with a “Get back to me when I know who they are playing, and why.” There was so much mystery involved in most of these matchups I was waiting for the networks to call in Miss Marple to figure it out. Look, everyone likes baseball drama. What we don’t like is invented baseball drama. As much as I was against the initial wild card, I’m even more so against the added wild card and the wonders of a one-game playoff. Will I adjust? Sure, what’s my choice? Stop watching baseball? If the Yankees end up sneaking in one year due to all this tomfoolery I will take it as a fan and use it against others because you are simply working within the parameters in place. That said, the parameters are dumb and once I’m done with this blog I will work on a letter to the commissioner. While he will never see it, someone will have to read it and maybe if it ruins their day cause they have something better to do at the time, so be it.

So yeah, from the wonkiness of the wild card to the pulling out game times only a couple of days before the game like a magician pulling a rabbit out of the hat hoping for applause, its all a big mess. But I will persevere and drink my beer because not only does that sound like a cool motto, it’s how I choose to live. Thankfully I will be doing so once again as I watch the Yankees in the playoffs.

Enjoy the ride, folks. We are Yankee fans and we have it better than everyone.

Blogs

Sep 27, 2012

Scorecard Memory: Cowbell Fight and Mystery Outs All Over

Sheriff Tom goes back to April 25, 1996 in Section 39 of Yankee Stadium for a Yankees-Indians game.

This is a recurring series of recollections, where I will be marching though my old scorecards from my halcyon days in good old Section 39 of the Yankee Stadium bleachers. You’re invited to join me. Please bring beer.

April 25, 1996: Yankees host the Cleveland Indians

Ah, a Thursday night at the Stadium, and I was right back at it. Weekday or not, I was drinking again, as judged by the squiggles and slashes that make up this scorecard. Fun fact: the Yankees and Baltimore were fighting it out for the division and Boston was languishing in the rear with a disgusting 6-16 record. They should have been ashamed. The more things change…

Not much here, and I promise not to simply try to get blood out of a stone. This should be a rather rapid effort and you should be in and out of here quickly!

I see we mentioned “Jerkin’ Joe Girardi-o” on this card. This was probably not simply tossed to the field from our perch, it may even be a nod to our good friend Bad Mouth Larry, who in the past had asked me to look for random Girardi mentions on the card, as that is what we were calling Larry in early days. If you have or had been around to see this guy morph from “Joe Girardi” to BAD MOUTH LARRY you have had a hell of a ride. Seeing that Joe Girardi was not in the Yankees lineup that night, I can probably safely say “Hi, Larry!”

At 7:23 p.m. they had still not read the lineups for the 7:35 start, which caused someone to crack that they were probably trying to find one of the ticket guys to do the job (the ticket guys were notorious for opening the windows for daily game sales a few minutes late for no particular reason). Talk turned to fare from around the league, particularly on how the Twins had battered Tiger pitching for 35 runs in the last two days. Stuff like that was always a cause for chuckle. I was happy to rat out our bleacher friend Crazy Dave, who had been spotted on the A train in a Pittsburgh Pirates cap, which has yet to be explained, these 16 years later. Queen Bee Tina used this to call out our friend Jeff, who she swore she saw once in Central Park in a Mets jacket! “He saw me coming and he ran away!” she snarled, adding that she tried in vain to chase him down.

Brian Setzer, best known for fronting the Stray Cats, sang the National Anthem or a reasonable facsimile of such. Not everyone saw it that way as someone howled, “Arrest that man for murder! He just killed the crowd!” Yet another fan cracked, “He’s a stray cat … he licks his own balls!” After Setzer slinked off the field to polite applause and a smattering of boos an “Italian skier” came out to throw the first pitch. To commemorate this fact I wrote on the card, “Some Italian skier throws out the first pitch, then eats pasta.” And yes, I happen to be half-Italian and I’ve had my share.

Ah, a cowbell battle raged on this night. A random fan bought his own cowbell, and it got him into fisticuff action. As Gang Bang Steve described it on the scorecard, “First he got the point … then he got the fist.” We’ve all been there. Someone had accosted him for encroaching on the legendary cowbell man Ali Ramirez’s turf, an argument ensued, and a finger was pointed, followed by the punch. Both combatants were tossed for their troubles and for our entertainment. For the record Ali rang his first cowbell serenade at 7:35 p.m. and sadly, less than a month later, he would no longer be with us.

I see here I dropped a beer, which was known as the “Five Dollar Fumble” back then. That always sucked, but hey, it sucks more in 2012 with prices of beer being what they are.

After a spirited “Mets suck!” chant someone snidely asked, “What do they suck?” and Tina snapped, “They suck everything!” Ah, she has never changed. One funny line I see on here was directed at someone running (lets assume it was a player on the field as there was not much running room out there in Section 39). “Run, you lanky ass!” someone howled. LOL at “lanky.”

Mystery outs all over this thing. For the unencumbered we would scroll “MO” for any play that whoever was scoring at the time failed to witness. Alarmingly, this happened way to often. I’m quite embarrassed at my behavior seeing them all over this card. One MO in the first, one in the second, two in the third (along with a mystery “HIT”), two more in the fourth, another mystery HIT in the fifth, two more MOs in the sixth, another two in the seventh and the entire ninth was a mystery. I guess we gave up by then. It wasn’t just me, Gang Bang takes some of the blame for this as we were passing the card back and forth like a peace pipe.

I see I was missing outs here and there, but still had time to scroll down the classic line we’d howl after a particularly impressive pop-up in the infield: ”Hey, if you were at the carnival you would have won a stuffed animal with that!” Another fun “pop-up” joke was, “That would have been a home run in a silo!”

I guess the Knicks had a big game or something on that night as “Knicks by 19” is written on here in a messy scrawl. The only other things of note on here are a “Hit him in the head!” command written next to Hall of Famer Eddie Murray’s name and a “You f-cking punk!” written next to that of Manny Ramirez. It’s also been noted for history that some guy named Dave (who may or may not have been my brother) purchased cotton candy.

The Yankees dropped this one to the Tribe 4-3 with Andy Pettitte taking his first loss on the young season, getting spanked for 11 hits in seven-plus innings of work before Bob Wickman and Steve Howe came in to shut it down. Howe got his ERA down to 7.36 with his sterling work. Old friend JERK (Jack) McDowell started for the Indians. He kept his finger to himself and though the Indians won thankfully he didn’t get the win. That accolade went to Jim Poole. We also saw Julian Tavarez and that dope Jose Mesa toe the slab for Cleveland. Martinez had the sole Yankees homer, and he and Jim Leyritz each had a pair of the Yankees hits. Here is your full Yankee lineup on that eve.

1. Wade Boggs, 3B
2. Bernie Williams, CF
3. Paul O’Neill, RF
4. Ruben Sierra, DH
5. Tino Martinez, 1B
6. Tim Raines, LF
7. Jim Leyritz, C
8. Andy Fox, 2B
9. Derek Jeter, SS

For the Indians, Julio Franco notched three hits, and Eddie Murray, Sandy Alomar and Omar Vizquel each had a pair. Albert “Joey” Belle homered, as he always did against the Yankees. It seems he also made an error, which I’m sure went over great with the crowd. Your Indians lineup shaped up like this:

1. Kenny Lofton, CF
2. Julio Franco, DH
3. Carlos Baerga, 2B
4. Albert Belle, LF
5. Eddie Murray, 1B
6. Manny Ramirez, RF
7. Sandy Alomar, C
8. Scott Leius, 3B
9. Omar Vizquel, SS

For a profile lets go with Yonkers, N.Y. native Scott Leius, who went 0-for-4 in this game with a whiff.

Leius haunted the league from 1990-99, wearing the colors of the Twins, Indians (only 27 games, all in ‘96) and Royals. A nifty .244 lifetime batting average, with a mere 28 home runs and 172 RBIs in 557 games of action. He stole one more base than he was caught stealing, at a 16-15 mark. Sketchy. He walked 161 times and struck out 236, nothing askew there. He played all over the place, but mostly was ensconced at short and third. He did log some outfield action (which made it easier to yell at him from bleacher seats) and a few stops at first base. He was born in 1965 and was a 13^th-round pick the very month I graduated from high school (I will let you guys look that up) by the Twins out of Concordia College, which actually sports four MLB alumni. His Baseball-Reference page has a low 8,839 views as of today, which to me seems limited to friends, family and me. That said, I’m quite happy I got to see this man ply his trade!

As for the game, it was played in front of the scant crowd of 18,580 (which should show some of us Yankee fans that are laughing at Baltimore fans coming out of the woodwork that this was nothing new around baseball) and went off in three hours and seven minutes. Your umpires on the night were Mike Reilly (HP), Terry Craft (1B), Rich Garcia (2B) and Gary Cederstrom (3B). They were booed.

Blogs

Sep 11, 2012

The First Game Back at Yankee Stadium After 9/11

Sheriff Tom goes back to September 25, 2001 in Section 39 of Yankee Stadium for the first game at the Stadium after September 11.

Of all the countless things I wrote, and all the nonsense I have spewed, I am most proud of the following piece. I wrote this in September 2001, in a much different place than I am now, and certainly in a different mindset. What a sad, bleak time it appeared. The Bleacher family was relied on heavily to get through the pain of that month, and it’s when the family really came together. I pull this out every 9/11. I hope you read and remember what ended up being a very special night at a very sad time.

September 25, 2001.

Well, I suppose it’s time to return to some degree of normalcy. These last few weeks I have sat perched at my computer between rampant attempts at sketchy levity and consistent checks of porno, trying to find something funny to write, and I couldn’t. Some would argue I never could.

Our world changed on the 11th, even the little part of it that we call being a “Bleacher Creature.” Although my zest for caustic commentary has died a bit, my love for so many of you have grown. And when I remember back to that stupid, horrible day decades from now I will remember so many of you and how this little family of ours pulled together. From the postings on the message board, looking frantically for our own, to crying silently together in a sea of beer cans, to going out for drinks with those we used to only drink to avoid, many things have changed amongst ourselves.

People who have not spoken anything but angry words to one another all season took the time to say, “I love you.” Subsequently the things I will take away from this are not simply the horror of seeing people limp down Broadway, screaming and bawling and covered in dust, but rather standing in Union Square in front of a sea of candles with 41 and Gang Bang Steve, paying silent tribute while holding back tears. Or how, thanks to the benevolence of Lucy and her family, being able to hug the likes of Kwik, Debbie, Phil, “Fat Rak” Scott, Nicole and Jess, Bald Ray, Brooklyn Joe and Midget Mike at the Memorial held inside of Yankee Stadium a couple of sad Sundays back.

That said, I will try and be funny I guess, and take it back to our return two weeks later against Tampa Bay, who I may add is a team that really, really sucks.

Usually, the top of each night’s scorecard is reserved for campy lines such as “Knoblauch was eating a salad in the park” or “Tom is so drunk he asked Tina to sleep with him,” but on that night, after much fiddling, we went with a simple “We pray for the lost, and love those who are still here.”

Before making it inside we saw that our park, the place where we drank and peed, copped feels and passed smokes on the rocks, was now a veritable police precinct with a police van taking up the very space where I used to make sandcastles with neighborhood kids and duck rocks we would throw straight up in the air and try to avoid in a stupid game of chance.

We hankered over to the bodega, where the only drinking going on so far was by Gang Bang Steve, who was waving around a bottle without a bag, loudly pontificating on the month’s events. Bald Vinny and Uptown Mike were crouched on the sidewalk, gleefully mixing birthday drinks for the Bald Baron. One year ago on that very same day I was running around the section in a gorilla costume at Donahuge’s behest, making stupid muscle poses and nabbing hugs from any woman I could find. Bald Vinny ended up hopping on the benches that night, doing a rousing “Rick Rude” routine, peeling off his shirt to a rousing choir of hoots and howls from a playful crowd. How times had changed, even in our silly little section.

Getting in was “evolution slow.” Security was checking to make sure cell phones were really phones, sniffing bottled water, and waving a little magician wand that didn’t seem to really do anything because it didn’t beep at the silly Sheriff’s badge now hidden in my pocket, which I knew set off the same thing the time I went to court to answer that horrid peeing in public charge.

The night obviously began with ceremonies, the same things we had seen as Yankee fans so many times. It was touching, but the crowd was already itching to make the sadness go away, even for a little while. Big Tone Capone was loud and boisterous, as somehow earlier he had managed to kill at least a six-pack under the smothering phalanx of cops around outside. During the opening songs he was busy telling this guy to take off his cap or that girl to stop chewing gum. Finally a few of the testy ones in the crowd told him to shut it, and here we were again, fighting amongst ourselves. It was actually nice to see.

We found out there will be an addition to Monument Park, a memorial to “those who perished in the WTC tragedy.” I had always held a secret hope the next monument would hold my Sheriff’s badge, Ali’s plaque, Milton’s cowbell, Walkman John’s scorebook or a few beers. (Funny how some bleacher fantasies never work out.)

I knew things had come full circle and really changed around the time Old Man Jimmy went down by the rail to take a picture of our flag-adorned and glory-bedecked crew. Our nemesis, Old Man 176 (a cranky guy with No. 176 on his hat, which made him look even less imposing than he actually was) who was the Riddler to our Batman and the Gargamel to our Smurf came over almost angrily. We started to rise in protest, ready to howl, as he angrily stalked towards this genial old man and his camera on the rail. But alas! He arrived, demanded Old Man Jimmy give him the camera, so he could take the picture so Jimmy could rejoin the crew, his bleacher family and be in the picture, as he should.

The finale to the pregame was our old friend, the Eagle, who swoops down on Opening Day to land on the mound in a fervent blaze of glory. Unfortunately, a sad announcement was made that although the Eagle was in attendance he was not signing autographs until after the game. No, that was not the announcement. Actually, they were “grounding him” on the mound, as a tribute to those who fell at WTC. He would do no flying. Too bad none of us heard the announcement because Capone was talking so loud, so at the end of the Anthem everyone was craning their necks towards the Stadium roof waiting for it to fly in, while the Eagle was already doing a little hop around on the mound the whole time. But the ceremonies were now at an end and as Gang Bang Steve wrote on the scorecard, “No explanation for pre-game events. If you weren’t here, you missed history.” But here I am trying to recount it anyway.

There were further delays as all the uniformed firemen and cops left the field, which caused a few of us who wanted that sense of normalcy to tell Cowbell King Milton to start clanking his tool of tin. Milton hemmed and hawed, but finally acquiesced, and started banging his cowbell and at that very moment the Yankees took the field, and that seemed fitting enough to us. Usually when Milton bangs the bell out of nowhere, a booming “Tom Tom” drum goes off, stealing his thunder, but this time the Yankees took the field to a raucous “Ho!”

When it came time to do the vaunted Roll Call, we hastily added the FDNY, NYPD and Mayor Rudy to it, and it seemed to go over well, including the mayor giving a quick wave from the radio booth. Our own Rudy, the security maven that was a dead ringer for the mayor now up in the booth was greeted with “Great job with the city!” and “Four more years!” every time he walked up to the section to tell people to stop using expletives.

But what proved the Creatures were indeed back were the loud harangues of “Box seats suck! Box seats suck!” immediately following Roll Call. Man, did that feel good. The box seaters, still very emotional from the pregame, were appalled. Hollers of “Mind your business!” and some more racy stuff were hollered up at the nosy upper-deckers and mezzaniners, who stuck their noses in to see what all the hubbub was about in Section 39 and its nearby reaches.

Around this time the joke line of the night made its appearance. Milton, from his comfy perch on the rail, asked aloud, “Does anyone know for sure if Stacker 2 works?” Remembering someone who took the stuff I said, “Ask (insert fat bleacher guy here) … he took it.” Milton took one look at our still portly friend and said, “Forget it. It doesn’t work.”

More lunacy abounded as Jonathan pulled out a portable TV out of nowhere and started setting up shop. First off, this was a night people couldn’t get a tuna fish sandwich, a purse or even an ugly woman in due to heightened security, but he gets in a freakin’ television! Go figure. Anyway, why does he have this TV? To see the tribute we just recanted? To see what else is going on around the league or down at Ground Zero? No, he brought a TV to see the season premiere of JAG. I mean, Lord.

Gang Bang Steve could not let this go, and immediately began giving it to him, which prompted Jonathan’s mom to call him “jealous.” “Yeah,” Gang Bang snapped, “I’m jealous of a guy who brings a TV to a baseball game to watch JAG.”

Roger Clemens started getting whomped early on, prompting Steve to call the proceedings on the field “odorous.” But the emotion stayed high. There were other moments of levity, including an “Osama Is a Horse’s Ass” song, a few “Taliban sucks!” chants and a message on the Fan Marquee that actually said, “Thanks for the Liver Transplant! You Saved a Life!!!” (And yes, it had three exclamation points.) On top of this, and I have no idea what the actual conversation was about at the time, but the buzzing birthday boy Bald Vinny actually used the words “Gazelle” and “Perk” in a 10-second span.

Of course, in the time of mourning “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” was replaced around the league by all sorts of versions of “God Bless America.” On this night here at Yankee Stadium it was a duet, with a deep voiced operatic guy joining an angelic-toned woman. Of course, this could not escape a joke. After the woman sweetly crooned the first bars, the deep male voice kicked in, prompting Midget Mike to feign ignorance by asking aloud, “How did she get her voice to do that?” Water Girl Debbie, who God bless her, spent so many nights volunteering at a crisis center, properly confirmed the event as a simple “change of octaves.”

It wouldn’t be the bleachers without a couple of fights amongst the group, but being I was in a glad-handing mood and extra friendly due to pregame ales, I didn’t partake in any for once. Turns out the night’s undercard featured “Superfan” Handel and Bad Mouth Larry, followed up by a doozie of a main event between Cowbell Milton and Crazy Pat.

But what it was all about for me (besides the fact it was very cold and I needed all the hugs I was able to score from the girls) was near the end, when a man in a Fire Department uniform leaned over the rail of the mezzanine with his young son in his arms. As he gazed out, a man who I knew must have lost a score of people he knew, his little son was removing his hat and putting it back on all askew. Over and over. Knowing this was a scene that should have been repeated by so many men who were lost made me mist up a bit, all over again. And then the chant began. “FDNY! FDNY! FDNY!” Everyone left in the seats at this late stage of the game hopped up, pointed to this man and chanted, touched their hearts, waved their flags, cried. And he smiled, and waved back, and this kid that was oblivious to it all continued to play with the hat.

And that is what I will take away from this night.

Thank you for reading, and God bless you all.

Blogs

Sep 7, 2012

Scorecard Memory: UFO Sighting and Roy White on the Phone

Sheriff Tom goes back to April 24, 1996 in Section 39 of Yankee Stadium for a Yankees-Indians game.

April 24, 1996: Yankees host the Cleveland Indians.

A Wednesday night affair at the Stadium, one of those comic 10-8 games that featured balls bounding down both lines, walks galore, and more mosh-pit celebrations in Section 39 celebrating deep Yankees tags. Be that as it may, we could not combat what they had going on that night in Detroit, where the Twins were pounding the Tigers 24-11 (or I should say the Vikings were beating up the Lions, apparently) as we watched that score flip around on the scoreboard like the National Debt Clock and laughed all night.

I had come walking in with my headphones and a wee one named Christina immediately accosted me and wanted to listen. I’m guessing she was somewhere around five years old at the time. I had some 80’s thrash metal in there, a folk/pagan metal act named Skyclad. I put the phones on her ear and before I was able to lower the volume she pushed play and the music screeched and bleated. I expected her to shy away at best, to throw the headphones in horror at worst, but she ended up listening to that damn cassette tape until the batteries ran out a couple of innings and hours later. To this day, even without seeing this note on the scorecard I could never play that band again without thinking of that kid and that night she commandeered my Walkman.

It was a night for enterprising by creative fans. First some fans set up a “K Corner” off the loge for Scott Kamieniecki of all people. Always a fan favorite, Kammy ended up leaving the game in the sixth with a whopping two Ks tacked to the wall, so there wasn’t much return on that investment. Yet some more fans that wanted in on the action had made a sign for Paul O’Neill, each of them holding up a letter of his last name … on loose leaf paper! Are you kidding me? Yeah, that will stand out from the batter’s box. Someone in tribute to this lackluster effort drew a tiny circle on my scorecard and promptly held it aloft, stating that it was now a home run target of the magnitude of the mini O’Neill tribute out there.

There was this idiot out there nicknamed Bird, a lanky guy that would shuffle around and annoy any and all. He was walking around with Slim Jims, offering them out like anyone would want them. Here’s something weird on here (aside from creepy Bird) … a UFO sighting at 9:19 p.m.! No, it was not yet another home run given up by John Wetteland. It was a mysterious hovering light overhead that was zipping about in a seeming trajectory that no plane, blimp or copter could do in our thinking. Nothing else came out of this big UFO news aside from a note in the margin of my scorecard that night that we saw it. For the record, I was never privy to another “UFO sighting” out there, in all my 600 games or 6,000 beers.

In the fourth inning, Tino Martinez clouted his first home run in Yankee pinstripes, setting off another pile-on out there in the bleachers. I don’t know what was taking security so long to put a stop to this dangerous endeavor. I mentioned current Cowbell Man Milton was flying all over the place, and I also mentioned that Gang Bang Steve once again ended up on the very bottom each and every time.

This is funny. That relic Dennis Martinez started for the Tribe and got the old heave-ho in the fourth for arguing balls and strikes. He was not long for the ballgame regardless, as before he left the mound he was tagged for seven runs and probably was looking to go out with a bang. He ended up leaving, an ejected man, to a savage chorus of boos. It was always fun to show the old-timers respect!

Ah, I see this was the night I actually spoke to Yankees legend Roy White on the phone from my bleacher seat. As alluded to on here before, a bleacher elder had something going with him, which seemingly everyone knew about but me. Well, at one point this now somewhat-forgotten woman walked up to me out of the blue and told me Roy White was on the horn, and I could say hello. I exchanged a few pleasantries, none of which I remember beyond referring to him a few times as Mr. White and him never telling me I could just call him Roy.

A couple of random musings on here. A tune from A Flock of Seagulls was blared over the sound system, causing a “What is this, 1982?” snarl. Some guy was wearing such a large and clunky hat he was promptly dubbed “Pepperoni Pizza Box Head.” There’s a mention that pro wrestling’s “The Giant” had won the WCW World Heavyweight Championship a few days before (he competes to this day as “The Big Show”). There was apparently a “box seats-bleachers altercation,” but sadly no further details. We even engaged in a pleasant conversation on how odd it was that after all the hoopla we had seen in previous seasons to this regard, not one person had been seen by any of us running on the field at Yankee Stadium so far that year.

Devils fan Billy (famous for once calling the Twins’ Marty Cordova “someone who would be remembered in time as the best left fielder of his generation”) was talking about the circus for whatever reason and someone snapped, “Why don’t you go back there with the rest of the clowns?” And speaking of clowns Gang Bang noted on the card I spent most of the game making funny clown faces at Christina. Hey, I was always good with kids out there, and she did have my headphones after all. I mentioned at one point that Steve “threw a cup,” but explained it away as simply “subterfuge,” which leads me to believe all these years later he was doing it to cover up for someone else at the time to keep them out of trouble.

Out on the field (speaking of clowns again) the Yankees pulled off a wild 10-8 win. Kammy got the win with a modicum of help from Jeff Nelson and John Wetteland, though they were both bopped around a bit. The Yankees had 13 hits, including pairs from Bernie Williams, Paul O’Neill, Ruben Sierra, Mariano Duncan and Derek Jeter. Tino drove in three on the night, and eight different Yankees scored a run. Your Yankees lineup was:

1. Wade Boggs, 3B
2. Bernie Williams, CF
3. Paul O’Neill, RF
4. Ruben Sierra, DH
5. Tino Martinez, 1B
6. Tim Raines, LF
7. Mariano Duncan, 2B
8. Joe Girardi, C
9. Derek Jeter, SS

On the Indians’ side of the ledger they mustered 11 hits with Yankee killer Manny Ramirez and Jim Thome each scoring three runs. Thome also drove in four, including a three-run jack. Omar Vizquel, of all people, also had a home run. After Martinez saved himself by getting the toss we were lucky to see Jim Poole, Eric Plunk and Paul Assenmacher (whose last name Steve managed to morph into an obscene word on the pitching line) on the hill for the Tribesman. Your Indians lineup on the night, met with boos, went like this:

1. Kenny Lofton, CF
2. Julio Franco, 1B
3. Carlos Baerga, 2B
4. Albert Belle, LF
5. Eddie Murray, DH
6. Manny Ramirez, RF
7. Jim Thome, 3B
8. Sandy Alomar, C
9. Omar Vizquel, SS

Lets do a quick profile, and we’ll go with the aforementioned Mr. Dennis Martinez, affectionately referred to by many, but not me as “El Presidente.” Not like most of you need a reminding of him.

He was no Tippy Martinez, that was for sure. Anyway, he hung around from 1976-1998, pitching for Baltimore, Montreal, Cleveland (’94-96), Seattle and a wrap with the Braves. He won 245 games, so no joke there. He lost 193 games and had an impressive 3.70 ERA. He made 562 starts (692 games) and has a whopping 3,999 innings on his ledger. He walked 1,165 and whiffed 2,149, by far the highest totals of each in my dozens of profiles over time. Actually, I don’t think all of the pitcher totals I ever did added up to Martinez’s stats in that regard if you combined all of them together. I had always found him pedestrian, but he was a solid hand for a long time. He never won more than 16 games, but reached double digits in wins 15 times. He was one to remember. Born in 1955, this Nicaraguan was signed by the Orioles in 1973. His profile page on Baseball-Reference has 70, 949 views as of today, which seems sadly low. Cheers to Mr Martinez, may he enjoy his golden years, the jerk!

As for the game itself, only a ragtag group of 20,187 came out for this one, and the game dragged on for three hours and 37 minutes. I bet Michael Kay was mad. Hell, as games started after 7:30 at this time, I was probably mad too! Your umpires on this cool evening (61 degrees apparently) were Gary Cederstrom (HP), Mike Reilly (1B), Terry Craft (2B) and that moron Rich Garcia (3B). They were also booed.

Author: Sheriff Tom Brown

The Right to Boo the Yankees

The Evolution of Yankee Fans’ Expectations

Scorecard Memory: Cowbell Fight and Mystery Outs All Over

The First Game Back at Yankee Stadium After 9/11

Scorecard Memory: UFO Sighting and Roy White on the Phone