“Years before beers started pouring like spit in a schoolyard, before a gangplank of stringy flesh had been constructed between Jonah Hex’s crevisious lips, before the sweet ravages of gutter-twang swept me off my cleats…there was Michael Burke. Punk hero.” BTF fixture Repoz contributes “Lasting Yankee Stadium Memory #8” to Alex Belth’s tremendous Bronx Banter, the former putting a human face on late Yankee president Michael Burke (above, left).
Speaking of an independent’s day, here it was July 4th, 1969¦A double dip with the tough Scheinchock/Klimblum led Cleveland Indians. 17,884 mourning fans in attendance¦mourning yes, for you see, ex-Stone Brian Jones had died just the day before.
“He Anita Pallenberg.
We Aneeda Blomberg”
Became The Stadium cry!
In between games Mr. Burke was laying his usual solid craic from his dugout box, when four kids slowly walked down the then-unchained aisle and tossed a full pack of Chinatown’s finest under Mr. Burke’s seat. It made an explosive blamm-o of a sound not heard at The Stadium since Tony Kubek got a special invite to the Bill Virdon Laryngala Ball.
Naturally, the nearest burr-headed souse of usher stumblebummed into action, yelling at the top of his Yuenglings¦”I’LL GET THOSE FUCKIN’ NIGGERS!”
But a shaken Mr. Burke (obviously still suffering from severe CSR’s thanks to the Hermann Göring Panzerkorps pulverizing 1943 fall tour of Salerno) said something that has stayed with me forever¦”No, no. They’re only kids having some fun. Let them be.”