Kramer and Newman describe an incident where Hernandez spit toward them after Hernandez had a bad game and Kramer sarcastically says "nice game pretty boy". Seinfeld deduces that the spit from Hernandez could not have done what Kramer suggested unless it was either a magic loogie or there was a second spitter.
Hernandez finally says there was a second spitter - Roger McDowell from behind the bushes. McDowell is remembered for being a fan favorite even in towns where his Met teams were not liked.
Chicago is one of the towns that liked McDowell. Why? Among his many fan friendly ideas was that on hot days he was known to grab a hose and spray the fans in the bleachers. He constantly interacted with fans during batting practice.
One day, just for fun, I brought my 1940s Waite Hoyt model glove with me to the bleachers for batting practice. As you can see from the photo, this glove hardly resembles the gloves of today.
From my normal seat in row one of left field, McDowell spotted me and we started talking. Roger, now that we are talking I figure we are on a first name basis, asks if he can check out the glove. I quickly said no to that request but added that the answer would be yes if he threw his glove up to the bleachers for me to use. I threw my glove down to him and much to my surprise he tossed his glove into the bleachers to me.
Batting practice became lots of fun as he kept missing every ball since he's accustomed to a glove that is certainly a lot larger. In the bleachers, the glove was passed around amongst all of my bleacher friends. I didn't catch anything with it, but I think one of my friends caught a BP homer with it.
Too bad we didn't have phones back then.
More Seinfeld cameos to come on this blog.
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