My father passed away on October 2, 1989.
As many of you know, I wrote a book called Send The Beer Guy, and did a lot of soul searching during it. It’s a Mets-themed book and folks seem to like it. From time to time I share chapters here at MetsPolice.com, and today seems the right day to share this one. Love you dad.
Sympathy For The Devil
October 1989
1989 marks the start of the holes in my Mets memory. That August we moved my father to hospice where he lived his final six weeks.
I knew he was dying, and he knew he was dying. I will never forget the “get me out of here” look of terror he had that first day at the hospice and it’s a scab I don’t want to peel at here in my ostensibly happy Mets book.
Being 19 and realizing that something that happens to other families is happening to your family will change your priorities. I can’t tell you much about that stretch run without looking it up. In summary: Dynasty dead, childhood over, dad gone.
The Rolling Stones had announced six dates at Shea. This would up the number of “events” the vendors had to work, and by working all six I got back to over the 65% threshold and would keep my seniority for 1990.
With my father having died at the beginning of the month I realize all these years later what a blessing these Stones concerts were. They kept my mind off the horrible reality of October 1989. As I write this book and dust off the memories of the Stones concerts I think of music and hanging with friends, not the depressed person in a dark room that I would be when I got home.
From the vending standpoint, concerts opened up a whole new area: the field. I don’t mean Field Level, I mean The Field.
Think about how Shea was laid out for a concert. There are no concession stands on second base. It was all vendors down on the floor.
I outsmarted the beer guys and asked for Steve’s Bars on the field.
That October was unseasonably warm, and the tarp protecting the grass made it warmer. I made one normal trip down to the field and then realized the correct move.
I took out my entire allotment of ice cream on-credit and pre-paid for a little more. I took as much ice cream as I could possibly carry and dragged it downstairs. It’s a lot easier to carry a heavy load of ice cream than multiple trays of beer with flimsy lids.
I plopped down on the floor/field and at normal speaking voice I said “Ice cream.”
A line formed and I passed out ice creams with moves like MC Hammer. No running, no yelling, just cash for ice cream. I don’t remember the amount but it was a big money day. Six big money days actually.
Then came the bonus round.
You couldn’t actually sell during the concert, so we were all wrapped by like 8pm, and inside the stadium where there was about to be a Stones concert. The first night I stayed dressed as a vendor and “fake sold” all the way up to the front and at one point was in front of the front row eyeing Mick and the boys.
Once I got that out of my system I realized the best place to watch (factoring in no-seat, bosses, hassle, getting out of there, hanging, bathrooms) was in the stands over where the Frusen-Gladje stand was on Field Level.
One of the nights it started to rain, another good reason to hang by Frusen-Gladje, and the red lights in the mist made a tremendously awesome spooky setting as Mick sang Sympathy For The Devil.
The only downside to The Stones was that they pretty much played the same setlist night after night. Eventually we started leaving early to beat the crowds. Like anything else, once you get enough of it, you stop caring and you want to eat the crowds.
People would find out I was a vendor and almost always say “that must be nice, you get to see the games.” Well, no, we worked on commission and had bosses. I mean if you really wanted to see a batter or a few outs you could slack off, but we never enjoyed the games. I didn’t care if the Mets won or lost as long as they did it quickly. And the opposite of quickly was named Sid Fernandez.
Sid Fernandez was a pretty good pitcher for the Mets, and he saved us (the team and the fans) during Game 7 of the 1986 World Series. Fast he was not.
I’m not making fun of his weight, but I have nightmares about how much time he would take between pitches. Every time he got the ball it seemed like he’d step off and walk a circle around the mound. His games took forever and I just wanted to go home.
The Beach Boys are one of my favorite bands, but when I hear Catch A Wave (his warm-up song) all I can think about is how long my day is going to be.
All this leads us to another fascinating group of humans in the Sheacoshpere: the autograph hounds. They would stand outside the press gate every night before and after the game hoping to snag a few autographs. There is nothing wrong with the folks who do that once. Maybe you always wanted to meet Ron Darling and this was your chance. I can tell you from what I saw that Ralph Kiner circa 1990 didn’t seem to want to meet you.
There were the guys who were there every night. These weren’t fans. These were more of that segment of society who decided the way to make a living was to stalk the same players night after night to sign their names.
Eventually we started messing with these fine folks.
As vendors we’d often still be in the stadium long after the crowds had left. If you want to see the most fascinating stadium happening ever you need to stay about an hour after a game. I don’t know what happens at Citi but back at Shea an army of vacuumers would start in the uppers with some sort of orange space suit/super-duper vacuum and clean up the joint. One person with a vacuum per row making the sweep all the way across.
When you stop to think about the amount of crap (think peanut shells alone) that is thrown on the ground it is truly amazing that you can show up at a pretty clean stadium with every seat up and no peanut shells to be found. Conversely my son still marvels when I leave a beer cup under my chair. I guess I have him well trained to use garbage cans and his dad’s lack of decorum surprises him.
Anyway, we’d sometimes exit through the press gate, just like the players. There was a group of five or so of us and out of any combination of “who looks like who” we decided that Juan looked the most like Sid Fernandez.
Did I look like anyone? Nope, not at all. Ditto the rest of the gang.
Juan didn’t even look like Sid Fernandez, but he had similar enough build that if we went out before him and yelled, “Sid!!!” and approached “Sid” for autographs we sure could fool a few folks. “Sid” was always kind enough to sign a few as he walked by. As I write this I realize we were a bunch of knucklehead teens messing with people hahahaha!
To this day I will occasionally greet Juan with a “Sidddd.”
My book Send The Beer Guy is $8.99 (print plus free Kindle edition) or just $2.99 for the eBook. If you have the technology to read this post you have the ability to read eBooks via a Kindle app for whatever device you are using right now. Buy the book.
Your words mean something when they make the reader do some reflection at the same time. Good work Shannon and great job on the book.
Erik thanks very much! It does mean something to me that folks seem to really dig the book.