Ya maroons. It is obviously Ralph Houk, May 23, 1984.
I was on a trip to Fenway with my confirmation class. I have no idea why the Blessed Virgin wanted us to go to a midweek game against Cleveland, but I assume that was one of the Seven Glorious Mysteries. All I knew is that in the great scrum around Sister Constance to get our tickets I waited until just after Ginny Mullen got hers, and just before Chuckie Condry got his. Ah, Ginny to my left, Chuckie to my right, and with any luck we'd see Clemens or maybe Oil Can get the win.
Mike Brown started. He'd ridden the Pawtucket Shuttle for a few years and finally stuck with the big club in '83 because the Sox needed a fifth starter, and he was the best of the worst options after Mark "The Bird" Fidrych proved not airworthy.
But Ginny! Squeezed in tight in those tiny bleacher seats, my arm could not but help to rest against hers -- that pretty freckled limb. Lace curtain Irish from the upscale side of the parish, dark brown eyes, that auburn hair teased and piled as Simon LeBon would have wanted. She knew not man and surely knew not me, but the game was long, and what I lacked in good looks I made up for in charm. The new Spot Bilts would help. Ginny! Ginny Mullen!
Rich Gedman, calling an improbable combination of hanging curves and lethargic fastballs, somehow coaxed a solid outing from Mike Brown, and two runs in five innings was, graded on a curve, a perfect game for Mike Brown, he of 5.75 lifetime ERA. It was the sixth inning, Brown was gassed, but I was dealing.
Houk went to the bullpen.
John Henry Johnson was not the worst choice. Kind of a Reagan-Era Darwinzon Hernandez. He got out of the inning.
Ginny leaned into me a bit. I swear it was true; her shoulder pressed into mine. On purpose. I had just done a whole bit about what if Mork from Ork was Catholic and had to do the Eucharist backward. She smiled and snuggled.
Meanwhile, the Sox came back -- Riced doubled and scored on a Tony Armas single in the bottom of the 6th (raise a glass for Tony Armas, a pioneer of the homer-or-strikeout revolution we are now "enjoying.")
Houk brings in Shag Crawford. Why not stay with Johnson and the use Crawford as a bridge to the 9th? Johnson had only thrown four pitches. Anyway, Shag holds the line in the 7th, and the Sox score three more --Dewey, Dewey, Dewey we are screaming.
Readers, Sox up 4-2, I got a boner. I am neither proud nor ashamed. I got a lot of boners in 1984, and they were activated by stimuli great and small. Dwight Evans. Loni Anderson. Joyce Kulhawik (both pre-and post-cancer). Even Sister Constance's confusing pendulousness. I hopped up, clasping my windbreaker to my waist, and announced I had to go the the bathroom.
I managed to make it to the john without anyone noticing my plight, and I rearranged my junk in a stall. Sure enough, the influence of the fetid toughs of Fenway softened me. I regretted wearing
Sweats Bi-Ebe, those cotton pants with the red piping down the seam. Should have gone with something more durable. But I tied my windbreaker around my waist, bloused the sleeves over my fly, and headed back up.
I emerged into utter fucking chaos. Stanley on the mound, puffing like he'd run up a flight of stairs. Houk had pulled Crawford, so instead of Johnson in the 7th, Crawford in the 8th, and Stanley in the 9th, it was Waste Johnson, Crawford in the 7th, and Stanley in the 8th.
I made it down our row, and over my shoulder Stanley is giving up hit after hit. Chuckie Condry has slid into my seat. I stand there. Ginny doesn't look up. I slump into Chuckie's empty seat. Stanley coughs up the lead.
Sox lose, 5-4.