Ryczek: How does it feel? Game 6 of the 1986 World Series
From SABR member Bill Ryczek at The National Pastime Museum on May 21, 2015:
Lou was a big man with gargantuan appetites. He weighed well over 300 pounds, ate a lot, smoked a lot, and loved to gamble. He also played golf, where his most notable skill was cheating. Lou was an accountant, but he wasn’t very good at counting strokes. He never lost his ball; no matter how deep in the rough he drove, he always managed to find it, or one that looked almost like it. After a lengthy sojourn in the woods, he would appear on the green putting for a par, unless there had been a couple of loud thwacks emanating from the trees, in which case he might be putting for a bogey. We always played for small stakes, and while we bickered with him over his strokes, we didn’t care, because that was just Lou.
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As befitted a man of his bulk, Lou was loud, and at the ballpark he was unforgettable, a profane version of Hilda Chester, the vociferous Brooklyn Dodgers fan who was as well known as any of the players. No one who attended a game within earshot of Lou would ever forget it. He once offended an entire section at Yankee Stadium by loudly and repeatedly calling Bernie Williams, one of the most beloved Yankees of recent memory, a “piece of garbage.” Bernie’s slow start had ruined Lou’s fantasy league team.
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I managed to score four tickets for Game 6 of the 1986 World Series, which turned out to be one of the classic games in the history of baseball. Our party consisted of me, Lou, my cousin John, and my friend Bruce. When last seen in these columns, John was a nearsighted six-year-old who couldn’t read the Yankee Stadium scoreboard. Now he was a college graduate, in his mid-20s, and ready to take on the world. But he wasn’t ready for what he was about to experience. Bruce, with his sharp sense of humor and endless supply of patience, was the perfect foil and straight man for Lou.
Read the full article here: http://www.thenationalpastimemuseum.com/article/how-does-it-feel-game-6-1986-world-series
Originally published: May 22, 2015. Last Updated: May 22, 2015.