Ten years ago today, the New Hampshire Fisher Cats defeated the Binghamton Mets (now known as the Rumble Ponies), 5-4, thanks to a Moises Sierra walk-off home run. I was there, but I don’t remember that home run. What I do remember is the scorekeeper of the game: Frank Wilner.
Honestly, the things Frank was complaining about that night were more interesting than the game early on, so here’s a list of things I overheard him complaining about on that day. A week later, he added three more things to this list: Will Farrell and Conan O’Brien, the fact that he only got to see former Red Sox prospect Jose Iglesias once because Jose missed the bus once, and a belief that the Concord Monitor never said anything about away teams in their sports coverage.
Wherever you are now, hopefully things are well with you, Frank.
- Those kids that wear their baseball caps backwards.
- Those kids that leave those stickers on the bills of baseball caps.
- Those kids that don’t crease the bills of their hats (basically just any kids not wearing baseball caps in the traditional manner…)
- Trying to figure out the direction of the wind by looking at a flag.
- The Carolina Hurricanes website (loads too slow for Frank) (correction: it was his computer, not the website, that made it slow.)
- People that misinform you about computers, particularly that time when the girl at Staples said he needed to buy Microsoft Office with the purchase of a new computer, even though Microsoft Office had already been installed on the new computer and he had to return it.
- Internet cookies.
- The phrase “too little, too late”. (“How about you stink?” said Frank. “You had your chance and you blew it!”)
- Tommy Heinsohn (ok, this one was from Chip, his partner in crime up here, but close enough. I think Frank agreed with this.)
- These kids out there dressed in black without any coats singing the national anthem on that night (“What are they, the death squad?” said Frank. They were the American Sign Language Honors Society.)
- Shaved heads.
- The word “brave” in American Sign Language
- Former major league pitcher Rick Sutcliffe in his new role as an announcer (“he talks too much”), also Jack Edwards and the Bruins in general.
- Pro Basketball (“It’s incredibly boring”) and Kevin Garnett (“his banging his chest irritates me, what happened to Bill Russell and Togo Pallazi?”)
- That time they ran out of Mashed Potatoes a week earlier.
- The fact that WKXL only has three full time employees. (Frank had a show on WKXL called Frankly Jazz)
- The fact that there isn’t enough appreciation for the things that Frank likes and the fact that I was keeping track of all the things he disliked.
