Sunday, November 06, 2016

Comedy writers can be bad ass

In the summer of 1990 I was broadcasting for the Tidewater Tides, the AAA affiliate of the New York Mets. It was a Sunday afternoon game and I had to read a commercial for the Day’s Inn at Military Circle – “Home to the visiting teams of the International League”. I noted that our dreaded rivals, the Columbus Clippers (Yankees ) were coming to town next and said, “Why don’t you call them all at 5 a.m. and welcome them to Tidewater.” Now you have to bear in mind that no one listened to minor league radio broadcasts other than players’ wives.

Or so I thought.

The next afternoon I arrived at the park only to learn that the Clippers had been besieged with pre dawn wake up calls. Needless to say they were pissed.

I guiltily went down to their clubhouse and apologized to their manager, Rick Down. He was very gracious, said he had heard it on the air and thought it was pretty funny. He also felt this would stir up the team, I might have done him a favor. (It did. They won that night. So now I had pissed off both teams.) But Rick was very forgiving.

The Clippers’ trainer however, was not. He went ballistic when he saw me, calling me words that were too harsh even for DEADWOOD. And he vowed to get back at me when we were in Columbus the following weekend.

I calmly asked if he ever watched CHEERS. He said, “Yeah, why?” wondering why that was relevant to anything. I then asked if he ever caught some of the bar wars episodes between Cheers and Gary’s Old Towne tavern? Again, he said, “Yeah. So what?” “Well, I wrote those shows, motherfucker, “ I said, “Do you really want to get into a practical joke war with me?”

That was the last I heard of the trainer.

The moral is clear.

Do NOT fuck with comedy writers! EVER!

We may appear harmless but we can fill your office with sheep just for looking at us funny.

10 comments :

Stephen Marks said...


The trainer said...

Ken, holy shit, it's me Marshall Fisher the Clipper's trainer at the time. Can't believe you told that story. Yea I was pissed by that prank but no hard feelings man. Just to catch you up, I'm currently living in Toledo where I work with the Mud Hens and, get this, I'm also owner of a bar. It's called Fourth Base down on Division St. (you owe me a plug pal) and if you attempt to bulldoze it down with a phony demolition permit may I remind you:

Do NOT fuck with a Toledo Mud Hens trainer! EVER!

VincentS said...

Great story, Ken - and I'm a Yankee's fan!

Johnny Walker said...

I have no idea what to make of Stephen Mark's comment...!

Eric J said...

It's ON!!!

Andrew Bissonnette said...

This is very funny Ken, whooda thunk you would have The Guy respond to you post?

Barefoot Billy Aloha said...

You're baaaaaaaaaaaad.

B A said...

I always enjoyed the comedy writers' room scenes in THE SIMPSONS, with commentary track explaining various caricatures. Can't imagine writers rooms look that comfortable nowadays.

Mike said...

I'm a big Mets fan, and had no idea you did Tides games in 1990. How long did you do it for? Any memorable stories (that you can share) about future Mets?

Charles H. Bryan said...

Wayyyy off topic: Have you been following Owen Ellickson's twitter feed? @onlxn He writes for SUPERSTORE, but the feed is a series of "leaked" Trump campaign conversations. It's a great feed. He's pinned the old tweets in sequence.

Also, I just saw an ad with the Trivago guy in bed wearing pyjamas. I'm a little creeped out right now.

Ralph C. said...

Will this be the dawning of Levine's "Blog Wars"??? (Or has that already been happening?)