Art Vandalay's Poker Memory

I received this story from Mark today. McGwire broke the record in 1998, so that means the poker game has probably been going on for about ten years. Whew! Time flies. Anyway, here's Mark's comments:

I don’t know if this will help you identify how long this monthly ritual has been going on, but I remember the first poker game that I participated in. It was on the same day that I was at a Giants game vs. the Cardinals at the ‘Stick with Josh & Seth during the year that McGwire made his home run record. We were sitting about half way down the right field line which happened to be right by the Giants bullpen. Old rag-armed Danny Darwin was pitching that day for the Giants and the Giants had also just called up some rookie pitcher that day from Fresno whose name I can’t remember.

It was a typical Danny Darwin game, lots of baserunners and in constant trouble. The Giants got this kid up at least 3 times during the game to warm up and Josh, Seth & I were ragging this guy relentlessly every time he started throwing. A number of people sitting nearby joined in on the action and I can only wonder what this poor kid must’ve been thinking to himself about his first day in the majors. It must have been something like Tudor Turtle yelling to Mr. Wizard, “Help me Mr. Wizard! I don’t want to be a big leaguer any more!” They shipped him out the next day and I don’t think this guy ever made it back to the big show. That’s a shame.

At one point during the game, Josh & I were negotiating a trade (what a surprise) and one of the guys I was supposed to getting back was an injured Alan Benes. Just at that second, he pops out of the visitors clubhouse door down the right field line and begins to make the long trek down the first base line to the visitors dugout. As he gets close I yell out, “Hey, Benes. I’m about to make a trade for you. Are you going to pitch this year or what?” He looks over without breaking stride and gives me the thumbs up. Well, I had to make the trade at that point. We all know how that turned out. What a freakin’ bum!

During the game we managed to also organize a pretty healthy attendance pool in our section. We got 24 people to throw in a dollar and the pot was won by a guy I knew, Pat Bechelli, who happened to be at the game sitting 3 rows behind us. What is interesting is that Pat, who happens to be one of the owners of Bechelli’s Restaurant on Chestnut Street in the Marina, was at the game because McGwire arranged to have him cater the clubhouse spread for the Cardinals team. When McGwire was a member of the A’s, he lived in the Marina and he often frequented Pat’s restaurant and they struck up a friendship.

That day before the game in the clubhouse, he gave McGwire a red Bechelli’s Restaurant T-shirt. Anyway, we fast forward to a month after the season ended and a package shows up at his restaurant. He opens it to find quite a bit of Cardinal memorabilia and the very same Bechelli’s Restaurant T-shirt he had given McGwire, but with the arms cut off and the following inscription hand-written on the shirt:

“I wore this shirt under my uniform for homers #48 through #70. Thanks for being a good friend. Mark McGwire.”

Pat had this shirt framed and it hung in his restaurant for quite some time. Channel 4 did a news story about it and soon after, the memorabilia buzzards starting circling. I think he finally did sell the shirt after holding out for a while. I don’t know what he ended up getting for it, but I do know at one point that he turned down over $200K for it. Not bad, huh? I think a replica of the shirt still hangs in his restaurant to this day.

Anyway, just like a Seinfeld episode, I’m going to tie all this back to the start. I invited Josh & Seth to go have a beer after the game and they declined, telling me that they had to get to their poker game that night. “Poker game? Hey, can I get in on that?” Josh says sure and a tradition was started. I don’t think I’ve missed more than 1 or 2 games since.