this has been a rough season for the Yankees.
Their jersey is like a huge death memorial at this point.
I already sent this to UK Redsox, but I went for a dinner/tour of fenway the other night for work, and I met a few famous Sox (one was also a yankee), so here is my take on these guys:
They gave us all 4 balls and 4 sox hats (which I obviously didn't take) and bought out some players to sign some stuff.
Jim Rice: kind of an asshole, but from the stories I heard, I don't blame him. I know that when he first got there fans racially abused him. He was probably thinking "yeah... They gave me a hard time and now these white boys want me to sign their shit'. My father loved Jim Rice (even though he was a yankee fan) and actually has 3 framed pictures at home. A jim rice pic, jackie robinson pic and a mickey mantle pic. So I got him a signed ball and when he asked me how he was I told him "he was a great guy, really nice!". Figured I would keep the ghost alive.
Dennis Eckersly: he was OK. He was a little creepy with the girls, which was funny (we have quite a few very very attractive women at our company), and he was pretty drunk. I wanted to tell him that the sox shouldn't have traded him for Bill Buckner, but I bit my tongue. He was the only one who would personalize a ball he signed. When I walked up I jokingly said "you were a redsox? I thought you were an A?". He laughed and signed my ball "Dennis Eckersley Oakland A's Pitcher -dennis eckersley".
Luis Tiant: I was excited about him. Although I wasn't alive yet, he was a yankee for a few years. We didn't know who would be there, but I was wearing a yankee hat and was probably the only person there (with about 15 sox fans and 15 yankee fans in the group of 200) who knew he was even a yankee. I asked him to sign my yankee hat. He did it the whole time shaking his head and giving me a dirty look. Not in a joking way, he was really annoyed with me. Oh well! After I laughed I googled him to see if his time in NY ended poorly and couldn't find anything. My dad said it didn't end bad, he was popular and overall left with a good record. I did notice however that he had a half full bottle of Jack Daniels under the table. The guy was really angry to be there. Wouldn't make eye contact or anything with anyone.
John Longbord: awesome guy. Seriously. The whole time he was just like "Free booze! Gorgeous women waiting on line to meet me! This is the life!". He stuck around for an hour after the others left just taking pics, eating and drinking. Telling stories and jokes. Taking pics of himself with people on HIS camera! Really cool. I was really impressed with him.
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