Classic Stuckeyisms Pt. II: The Untold Stories

A collection of intraoffice emails further develop OMS’s legacy as a baseball historian and resident storyteller…

The Great Pizza Battle of Chillicothe, Ohio
Back story: Every day we debate about where we should eat lunch. When choosing between Mastey’s and Timmy’s, we did some back research (the way historians are supposed to work).

Email 1: Description of Pizzarias via Business Websites
Mastey’s Pizza started it’s long term love affair with Central Ohio pizza consumers when Juliet Siri, Guedo Casa and The Mastey Brothers introduced pizza to Chillicothe at Juliet’s Italian Restaurant on West Fifth Avenue. In 1949, Jim and Dan Massey opened Chillicothe’s first pizzeria on East Main Street. The rest is history. Today, Chillicothe is the pizza capital of the world!

Timmy’s Pizza has been proudly serving Southern Ohio for over 50 years, making us one of the oldest pizza restaurants in the area. Thomas Iacono opened his first restaurant on Fifth Avenue in 1952, using his own family recipe brought over from Italy.

Reply Email: The OMS Interpretation
Those still sound like santryisms though. The way I heard it went down was like this:

Timmy Mastey was the best chef in all of the midwest, but he suffered from a severe case of schizophrenia. You see Timmy loved his pepperoni, but his best friend, who went by “Mastey” (his Tyler Durden if you will) took his love of pepperoni too far. He was always trying to make it spicier and spicier, to the point that his pizza caused 13 deaths from heart attacks and 5 more from heat stroke in 1950. Unbeknownst to Timmy was that Mastey was specifically targeting prominent business leaders in Chillicothe with his “pizza of death.” His plan was to take over the downtown area, then the rest of Chillicothe, then Ohio, then Vancouver, British Columbia, then the world. It wasn’t until Tommy awoke one morning in a hospital that he realized what was going on. He had been found on the floor of his kitchen by a neighbor after Mastey had forced him to eat a pepperoni that was made with ingredients that included: the merciless peppers of Quetzlzacatenengo, grown deep in the jungles primeval by the inmates of a Guatemalan insane asylum and a small hint of nitroglycerin. After Timmy regained his strength he tried to stop the pepperoni pollution revolution started by Mastey, but he soon found out that Mastey had too many “spicers,” people who loved sticking it to the man with their hot pepperoni. Timmy Mastey was involuntarily placed into the Athens Hospital for the Insane in 1958, but a huge split among the Chillicothians had been created and the pizza civil war has been raging ever since.

The Mick’s Exploits in Chilli
Shortly after that picture was taken, the Mick went to 4kegs bar and grille for $1 mug night. Of course, back then it only cost two bits for a round of 44 oz. (not the wussy 32 oz.) mugs and they drank steel reserve, becuase it puts hair on your chest. Then Mick and his crew met up with Frank Howard and played 3 on 3 in the parking lot outside of the Memorial Stadium. After suffering a crushing defeat, Frank Howard jumped into the Scioto, hitting his head on a rock. Seeing his unconscious friend drowning, Mantle jumped in the river, swam out to the Capital Punisher and dragged him to shore. “I will be forever grateful to you and your family Mick,” said Howard when he was resuscitated at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center. From that point on, whenever someone rescues a 6′7″ man from drowning it is known as the Mantle Procedure.

Eyewitness Testimony = A Historian’s Best Friend
i was also at the seattle game and guess what? i was walking through the concourse at safeco and i saw some lanky, shaggy looking stoner huddled up in the corner (probably just got done sparkin one) and i looked real close at him and then jeff weaver said, “yep, it’s me.” and then i said, “but you’re supposed to be pitching, how is this possible?” so it turns out jeff did not throw a complete game shutout last night. jered flew up from LA with a three day old goatee and tossed a game for big bro.

Classic Stuckeyisms Pt. I

Old Man Stuckey is well known throughout the great state of Ohio. Nicknamed “The Dean” by his historian buddies, Larry Stuckey is best known not only for his incredible ability to regurgitate baseball facts and figures, but also his delivery.

The truth: The stories OMS “recounts” are, like his nickname, made up in his peanut head. And, he’s a pervert.

Now, I present to you some of OMS’s classic tales. Some have been embellished, but you should get the idea.

A Stitch in Time
The Milwaukee Brewers Sausage Race has been a between innings fan favorite for as long as there has been baseball in the Dairy State. But did you know that between innings races started right here in Chillicothe? These foot races were not only the first of their kind but they were actually Presidential Races!!! It all started back in 1862 when Abraham Lincoln was traveling with Teddy Roosevelt, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson through the Buckeye State. The quartet was on their way to South Dakota to sit for a sculpture that was going to be carved into the side of a mountain by Columbus’ Gutzon Borglum. During their overnight stay in Chillicothe the four friends decided to take in a Chillicothe Buckeyes baseball game.

After a few beers they started reminiscing about their younger days when Honest Abe, widely considered one of the most athletic Presidents because of his length and bounciness, made the claim that he was at one time the fastest man in America. That struck a chord with Thomas Jefferson who was one of the most competitive guys ever known. So, after some argument the two decided to stage a foot race. George Washington, never one to back down, also threw his name into the contest. Unbeknownst to Abe, Tom and George, Teddy’s childhood friend Edward Tiffin, who also happened to be the first governor of Ohio as well as the namesake of the city of Tiffin, was in charge of between inning promotions. Teddy rigged it so that after the 5^th inning the four of them would have a race to home plate with the winner getting to appear first on Mount Rushmore.

Needless to say, none of the Presidents were in great shape after years in politics, which led to a pretty comical race. George Washington, a 16-1 longshot because of his age, made a late charge to pull off the biggest upset since the British surrender to the Continental Army at Yorktown. Jefferson finished second by half a length followed 4 lengths back by Roosevelt (a $2 trifecta bet would have netted the holder of the ticket $622.50). Lincoln, the unanimous favorite, pulled a hammy right out of the gate and was unable to finish. That is how the order of the Presidents was determined on the side of Mount Rushmore and ever since then fans have been delighted by between innings races at baseball games.

…um, Larry. That race was opening night this year… and those presidents, they weren’t real. They were people dressed up in costumes.

The River Rats
i also could not make it through the story about the first 40 times lights were used and how the jerky boys were traded with a stick of gum for a case full of lightbulbs so that the first game under the lights could be played, but the lightbulbs were 100 watt bulbs and the sockets couldn’t handle that so the lights kept burning out and then they decided that they would just shoot fireworks throughout the game and play by the light of the fireworks and then one of the trees in greenlawn cemetery caught on fire and all of the rats that lived in the cemetery had to scurry out of their homes, but one rat did not want to leave his homeland so he led a band of strong, brave rats down to the scioto river and they filled up buckets to take back and put the fire out and they succeeded in putting out the fire before the firefighters arrived and the firefighters were so in awe of the rats that they trained everyday to become the best firefighters in not only chillicothe, but all of the midwest… and that’s how the firefighters on england hollow road became known as the “river rats”

The Birth of the Bellyflop
He forgot to add that “Bellyflop” Jack Lelivelt was the inventor of the famous dive from which he earned his nickname. You see, shortly after being sold to the Highlanders, Lelivelt was with his new teammates on a road trip to Chillicothe, Ohio; and needing to cool off after a day game in the brutal Mid-Western heat the Highlanders decided to go for a dip in the pool at the team’s hotel. While Lelivelt was on the diving board his new chums thought that they would have a little fun with the new guy, so as he was about to take a dive, New York pitcher “Chicken Wing” McGee shoved him in the back and sent Lelivelt sprawling. Jack landed in the water on his stomach with a loud smack. After getting out of the pool, a certain young lady, who would later turn out to be Bellyflop’s 2nd wife, made a comment about how attractive Jack’s bright red upper body was. Always a quick thinker, Jack told her that he purposely did the new dive, which he called the “Bellyflop” to get his beautiful scarlet appearance. So that’s how the bellyflop was invented, right here in your own backyard of Chillicothe, Ohio.

The Beginning of the End

T H E W I L L C A L L F O X was conceived after an email, in which I described to a former employee (the guy whose desk was behind me who used to turn the volume of the fax machine up to piss off the Old Guard) the events that transpired which led to my ultimate decision to leave the Fox Show. Now, I realize almost none of this will make sense (i.e., who the hell is Old Man Stuckey, etc.), but I think it’s important to commemorate history. Anyway, it went a little something like this.

Note: Names have been changed to protect the guilty.

Re: Just Heard The News…
April 15, 2008 3:01:22 PM EDT

So I yelled at Larry, Larry yelled at me, Mike Bernstein yelled at me, and yada yada yada, I’m leaving the Foxes on June 6th.

I don’t have any real plans right now. First, I’m going to enjoy the “Summer of Jim,” then I think I’ll try to be a teacher or an A.D. somewhere. I’m going to try to get a G.A. somewhere, because I want to be like you, and because I don’t want to pay for college…again.

So…if you’re hiring, where can I send my resume?

If you’re not hiring, then screw you. Oh, and you probably want some of the juicy details, so I guess I could throw you a bone….even though you probably heard from your “source” already. So anyways, Stuckey was talking shit behind my back to Clarence about me not working that hard and goofing off too much. Leo overheard it after work one night, so he tells me about it first thing the next morning, and I blew a gasket because, as we all know, I think Larry Stuckey is legally retarded. So I walk over to Stuckey and Clarence’s desks and confront them about what they said. I asked them to come to me if they have a problem with my work ethic.

Clarence backs down immediately and says that he never said that about me and he thinks I’m one of the hardest workers here and blah, blah, blah, but OMS (Old Man Stuckey) decides that he would like to get all bat-shit crazy and call me out right there in front of everyone. He tells me that I’m not a hard worker….Everyone congregates around my desk for too much goofing off….Nobody here works as hard as him and Mike Berstein b/c there the last ones to leave every night….etc. I’m blacking out with rage just thinking of all the stuff he said. So anyways, I just kinda laugh at him, call him a liar, tell him that nobody is buying his “martyr shit” and that I think the quality of his work is some of the worst in the office.

Clarence tells us we need to take it outside, so I just go back to my desk, grab my car keys and coat and leave the office. I started driving around, then I figured I shouldn’t waste gas, so I came back to the stadium, went down to the clubhouse and hung out there for the next 2-3 hours. I figured out that I was ready to leave the Foxes, but I was going to stick it out through the new stadium. I came back to the office, apologized to Clarence and everyone else (except Stuckey…he was giving a speech somewhere or something), then I just continued my work. I dusted off the resume and started applying to a couple jobs, but I was still planning on staying with the Fox Show in the meantime…

THEN…about a week after this little incident, Mike Bernstein forgot to take his crazy pills, and he erupted on Kevin and I. First he started screaming in front of the entire office at Johnson for not sending him a logo or something???? Everyone just kind of froze. Then after about a 20 second rant about Johnson, he turns on me for no apparent reason at all and tells me that I had better start answering phones for season tickets. He called me a “worthless piece of shit,” a “goddamn son of a bitch,” and a “goddamn motherfucker.”

I stood up and started yelling back at him. I didn’t cuss or anything. I was yelling that he was being very professional in front of the whole office. I just kept yelling, “Good job Mike. This is really professional. In front of all these people. Way to handle this in a professional manner, Mike!” Then I said something about Mike having no idea how hard I work, or how involved I am in the season tickets, and once again, Clarence stepped in and told Mike to get a grip and take a breather. Mike stormed off upstairs, and I immediately announced to everyone that I wasn’t going to put up with this anymore. I said I would talk to Randy in the morning (He was down at Spring Training at the time), and I would be leaving in June.

I talked to Randy. He didn’t want me to leave, but it’s not like he did or said anything to stop me, so now I’m outta here. I would already be gone, but I actually felt bad for the Fox Show and some of the people that I like here. I didn’t want to leave them hanging on some of my projects and I didn’t want to leave on bad terms with Randy and everyone else, so I’m waiting until June so Scotty can take over for me when he’s done with school. I have to start training him in a couple weeks.

Oh, and I promoted myself to Assistant Director of Ticket Operations (as you can see below and on the website), and I no longer speak to Larry, and I speak very little to Mike Bernstein. In all seriousness, I think he should’ve been fired or severely reprimanded for the way he acted that day. (I know for a fact that I would’ve been fired if I had been the one to lose control like he did.) You know as well as anyone that we all work too hard for too many hours and we all make too little money to put up with people treating us like that. I know I’m going to come across people in the future that I don’t like, but I don’t expect any of them to threaten me like MB did, and the Fox Show is such a poorly run organization, that I won’t miss it too much. (This is all probably stuff you realized before you high-tailed it outta here, but some of us aren’t as smart as you, so get off my back about it!)

Well, I should probably get back to work…I don’t want to get fired for sending personal emails thru the Foxes account!

Add this email address to your permanent email address:

I don’t want to fall off the face of the earth after June 6th.

Jim Thompson

Assistant Director of Ticket Operations

Chillicothe Foxes

Triple-A Affiliate of the Chicago Whales

Phone:
Fax:

www.foxesmedia.com

www.foxesbaseball.com