Cheap Seats

Give me an M, give me an A …

Back in Fargo, N.D., in 1961, Roger Maris’ dad, Rudy, used to drive to a radio station to follow the New York Yankees games via ticker tape.

“We’d just sit there and wait for the updates,” a Fargo sportscaster, Bill Weaver, said.

“Tick … tick … tick … HR … tick … tick … tick … NYY … tick … tick … M … tick … A …

“It drove us crazy waiting to see if the next letter would be an N or an R.”

Letting go of some baggage

Hours before Mark McGwire hit his record-breaking home run, he was on the phone to good friend Jim Corsi, listening to the Red Sox reliever complain of how his teammates were mocking their supposed friendship.

“Guys were ragging on me when he hit 61, ‘Oh, we can’t believe your buddy didn’t fly you out there,”’ Corsi said.

Reliever Tom Gordon had offered that if McGwire mentioned Corsi to the media after No. 62, Gordon would carry his bags the rest of the season.

So McGwire thanked Corsi for his friendship in the press conference following his historic home run.

So now Corsi has a new name for Gordon.

“My little bellhop,” Corsi said with a wide grin.

Open season on Al Davis

Kansas City quarterback Elvis Grbac remembered a story that he said encapsulated Denver coach Mike Shanahan, known for his ruthlessness.

It was 1994, and Shanahan and Grbac were both with the San Francisco 49ers. Shanahan, the offensive coordinator, was working with Grbac before a game against Oakland. Shanahan had spent just over one season as coach of the Raiders before being fired by owner Al Davis.

Davis was walking the field, talking to players. Shanahan pulled Grbac aside, Grbac recalled, and gave an unusual order: “See Al Davis over there? I want you to throw the ball right at him.”

A shocked Grbac replied: “I can’t do that. If I hit him, do you know what he could do to me?”

Shanahan looked at Grbac with his intense glare and said, “Throw the ball.”

So Grbac did. He threw a hard spiral some 30 yards directly at the head of Davis. At the last second, Davis saw it and ducked, the ball missing him by only a few inches. Davis then made an obscene gesture.

Stickler for superstition

The famous Red Sox curse supposedly began when they sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees for $120,000.

The Red Sox are trying to make it up to the Bambino, if belatedly. On the 50th anniversary of Ruth’s death, they invited his daughter, Julia Ruth-Stevens, to a game and held a ceremony in which they officially apologized to Ruth.

“Hopefully, that will hold some sway,” said Mike Port, the assistant general manager.

Port also confided, “I have these miniature dolls to represent all the teams that might be involved in the postseason and pins to stick in them. But that’s not to indicate we believe in such things.”

The last word …

“Everything you do is under a microscope in New York. Here, it takes a month for half the country to know what’s going on.”

- Houston Astros G.M. Gerry Hunsicker, who used to work for the New York Mets, on the difference.