When you’re writing up an official game story for SABR, it’s best to stick to the facts. Quite correctly, they want the story to read like a newspaper account, sort of the official version of events.
That’s particularly true when you’re writing up a landmark game, like Game 2 of the 1985 World Series. So, when I wrote this article for SABR, I made sure to play it straight, which means the heartbreak of Charlie Leibrandt is on full display.
Telling the straight game story did force me to leave out a couple of things, though.
I was actually at that game. My then-girlfriend’s father had wangled some seats to the first two games of the Series, and let us use them for Game 2. They weren’t great seats, well down the right field line, essentially even with the foul pole, but I was a 17-year old baseball fan, so I wasn’t about to get picky about the location of free World Series tickets.
Somewhere in the middle innings of the game, a cameraman squatted in the aisle next to our seats, pointing his camera behind us. We had no idea what he was doing, we just figured they were doing some random crowd shots. But, a short while later, I got up for some reason - bathroom break, hot dog break, whatever - and as I walked up the steps I noticed two familiar faces sitting a couple of rows behind us.
Al Molinaro and Anson Williams, better known as Al Delvecchio and Potsie Weber from “Happy Days.”
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That should give you an idea of the level of fame those guys had. Our giveaway right field foul pole seats were in front of theirs.
Anyway, they weren’t in town as plants for ABC to promote Happy Days, because that show had ended the year before. It turns out they were in town because of a joint business venture they had, the first of a small chain of burger joints call Big Al’s. Here’s an interview of Anson Williams where he describes exactly how well that went.
Sadly, I can’t find a single online image of the place now. There are lots and lots of images of restaurants and diners called “Big Al’s”, but none of them with Molinaro’s identifiable face on the signage. It did, however, get a brief mention in Molinaro’s obituary.
So the game went as it did, not well for the Royals. We stayed until the end, of course, because you’ve gotta be a jerk to leave a close World Series game early. Also, we were forced to stay, because we didn’t have a car.
Neither of us owned one, and my girlfriend’s dad wasn’t about to let us use one of theirs in terrible World Series traffic. Instead, they drove us to some parking lot where shuttle buses were running to the stadium, and told us they’d pick us up there after the game.
Needless to say, the buses were packed. And there were lots, and lots, and lots, of really angry drunk people on those buses.
We managed to find our bus, and piled on board. Someone was nice enough to give my girlfriend a seat, while I stood next to her. Just before the doors closed, one more guy managed to squeeze on. He was older, or at least he looked pretty old to 17-year old me, and he was HAMMERED. Like literally staggering.
People were pretty eager to let him move further into the bus, because he also didn’t smell particularly great. So the crowd of standing room-only Royals fans parted as he slid further into the bus, until he parked him self directly next to me…
Directly in front of my seated girlfriend…
Where she was eye level with his unzipped fly…
And his complete lack of underpants.
This was not some perverted attempt to expose himself to a teenage girl. This was a staggeringly drunk guy who was oblivious that his pants were wide open. He was barely able to stand. She saw what I saw, we made eye contact, and it was pretty clear that we both thought it was pretty funny.
Until the bus started moving, and it became clear that he was in no condition to keep himself from bumping into her every time the bus stopped, started, or turned. Then she stopped looking at me with an amused look in her eye. She looked pretty terrified at that point, and she was looking for me to do something.
Pretty quickly, I realized I didn’t want to confront the guy, because I had no idea how he’d react. So I decided to kill the situation with kindness.
Me, tapping his shoulder: “Sir, would you like to sit down?”
Him, not focused yet: “Huh?”
Me, louder: “Would you like to sit down, sir?”
Him, not quite getting it: “Ummm.”
Girlfriend, seeing what I was trying to do and standing up: “Here you go.”
Him, the lightbulb finally on: “Oh.”
And he then sat in her old seat without another word. She stood next to me, slowly shifting away from where he was now seated. Once that was accomplished, we made eye contact again, and the situation returned to being pretty hilarious.
These are not the kinds of details you get in the SABR game story I wrote, but I hope you enjoy reading it anyway.
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