No Wonder Your Team Is Crap

Sent in by Charlie Danick, New York

Let me tell you a story--it's not a tale but a real story.

My first season as a basebball fan was in 1948. My cousin Bobby, now gone, was a diehard Brooklyn fan and it was he who turned me into a Bums fanatic at age 10. I really began digging those Ebbets Fielders; Bobby took me there for my first game and I saw my supermen in baggy uniforms. Especially Billy Cox at third..my Lord, what an infield arm. He was, in the infield, what Carl Furillo was in the outfield.

Well anyway, being a Bums fan,the NL team I hated the most was the NY Giants and in the AL, the Yankees.We had a neighbor across the street named Milt Pashman who was a diehard Yankee fan with season box seats. So one Sunday in the summer of '49, he asked my parents if he could take me, along with his kids, to a Yankee game. They said yes.

The Browns were in town. In '49, the Yankees and Bosox were hot squads so I had a warm spot in my heart for the lowly Browns. I already was building a library of baseball mags so I knew the names and numbers of every player in MLB.

We got to the Stadium early and the Browns were warming up tossing, playing pepper and what not.

By their uniform numbers I was able to pick out Sievers, Dillinger, Kokos, Lollar etc. I stood in back of the visitors' dugout and right in front of me, Bob Dillinger was having a soft catch with whomever. I yelled out, "You're a thief like John. He stole money and you steal bases. Are you related?" He walked right to the guard rail and yelled, "Oh, you must be one of those Yankee-loving New York snotnosed bastard kids." I kid you not--he was aggravated. Heck I was rooting for the Browns that day but he got me so mad,I yelled back, "No wonder your team is crap if you speak for it."

So help me, I thought he was going to come into the seats after me. But just in time, one of the guards, sensing Bob's anger, grabbed me by the back of the shirt and hauled me away from the guard rail. But here's the payoff. After getting the s--- scared out of me, when I returned to the seat, Mr. Pashman, a lawyer said, "Charlie, do you know what kind of lawsuit we would have,had he hit you?"

Those were the days!!!