Here’s a story known by few people, even my family. In the late ’70’s, a friend in High School (in Seattle, WA) introduced me to Ruppert Jones. Ruppert was the #4 batter, the clean-up man, for the Seattle Mariner’s. Ruppert had just recently been picked up by the M’s to help them get some baseballs moving. Rupe had no family in Seattle, and was friends with my friend from school through a youth program. So Rupe, who had no family in Seattle at the time, offered me and my friend his free family will-call tickets. These were primo seats, about five rows back directly behind the plate. I used to sit amongst the wives and kids of Willie Horton, Larry Cox, Bruce Bochte, Julio Cruz, and Mario Mendoza. <\/p>\n
This is all background to the real story. So the point is, for about a year or so in about ’79 or ’80 or so, I went to *every* Seattle Mariner’s game, in the Kingdome. And at every game was a beer vendor by the name of "Bill The Beerman". Bill had a unique ability to get people cheering. It started simply enough, with his trademark beer pitch "Freeze Your Teeth and Give Your Tongue A Sleigh Ride". But soon enough, Bill was a pro-am cheerleader for Seattle sports teams, eventually reaching the point that when he stood up in the middle of a game and did his work, half of the Kiingome would scream "GO!" and the other half would scream "MARINERS!".<\/p>\n
This was the stuff of my youth. Bill Scott, AKA Bill the Beerman died last Sunday of complications from Colon Cancer. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Here’s a story known by few people, even my family. In the late ’70’s, a friend in High School (in Seattle, WA) introduced me to Ruppert Jones. Ruppert was the #4 batter, the clean-up man, for the Seattle Mariner’s. Ruppert had just recently been picked up by the M’s to help them get some baseballs […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rantings-ravings"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t