Mehring Monday: 1994 Foxes home games

Last week, Mehring Monday was used as a pilot for a new off-season feature on Rattler Radio.  This week, we use this column for the same purpose.

Backstory:  You may have heard - or seen - that there are some major renovations to Time Warner Cable Field at Fox Cities Stadium.  In the last few weeks of the season, the front office had to move to a temporary office .  This move necessitated people going through boxes of material that hadn't been opened in a long time.

One member of the front office was about to shred some documents that she thought were no longer needed.  Fortunately, she looked before she shredded the paper.

The folder outside of the folder is marked 1994 FIRST HALF SCORESHEETS.  This is awesome.

The first half of the 1994 season would be the first professional games for a certain Alex Rodriguez.  These are just the home games for the Appleton Foxes, but they include the full scoresheets by the rotating cast of official scorers.  The old HOWE boxscores that had to be filled in by hand and faxed after the game were also included in the folder...well, except for one.

There are a couple of reasons for this new feature.  The main one would be to cash in on the fact that Alex Rodriguez and Raul Ibanez were teammates to start the 1994 season.  The second would be to give a little life to the stats.

Everyone can look at the stats on Baseball-Reference.com to see how everyone on that Foxes team did during the season.

The purpose of this feature is to look at individual games within the first half of that season and see if anything jumps out about individual players.

I started writing this about ten days ago and it began as a straight game summary.  But, that could get a little dry. 


Instead, quick notes on the game, interesting plays, focus on some of the future superstars, and see if there are any standout performances.

The first games of the 1994 season for the Foxes were held on the road.  They opened with in Quad Cities on April 8 and April 9 and a four game series in Madison from April 10 through 13.

That means we jump into the time machine and set the dials to Goodland Field April 14, 1994 for the Home Opener against the Fort Wayne Wizards! 

Unfortunately, this boxscore is missing.  The scoresheets were saved and have been posted over on the blog, if you want to take a look.
DATE: April 14
OPPONENT: Fort Wayne Wizards (Twins affiliate)
FOXES STARTER: Ivan Montane
OPPOSING STARTER: Troy Carrasco
NO, SERIOUSLY: Alphonso Marquez was the base umpire in this game.  He is in the majors as an umpire right now.

FOXES LINEUP:
Michael Barger - CF
Giomar Guevarra - 2B
Alex Rodriguez - SS
Jason Cook - 3B
Raul Ibanez - DH
Brian Wallace - 1B
Alex Sutherland - C
Chad Dunavan - RF
David Lawson - LF

FORT WAYNE LINEUP:
Jason Baker - CF
Danny Venezia - 2B
Ryan Radmanovich - 3B
Tim Costic - 1B
James Motte - SS
Grier Jones - DH
Tom Knauss - RF
Scott Stricklin - C
Romulo Vizcaino - LF

The Foxes trailed 2-0 after a two-out, two-run home run by Tim Costic in the top of the first inning, but rallied with a six run bottom of the first inning. 

They had five hits against Carrasco and took advantage of three errors by the Wizards defense to go up 6-2.  The first six Foxes batters reached in the inning and all six scored on the way to an 8-6 victory.

Ivan Montane, a defector from Cuba, settled in after the first inning and worked a total of five innings.  He struck out four, walked three, and gave up two runs on four hits.

Alex Rodriguez went 1-for-4 with an RBI and a run scored in the game.  He knocked in a run in the first inning with a single and scored on a single by Brian Wallace in that same inning.  He also lined out to center, grounded out to third, and grounded out to short.

Raul Ibanez was 1-for-2 with an RBI.  He singled to right for an RBI in the first inning that drove in Rodriguez from second base.  He had three other plate appearances.  He would leadoff the third with a grounder to first and was retired with the pitcher covering, walk to lead off the fifth, and be hit by a pitch to lead off the seventh.

Ibanez scored his second run - and the Foxes final run - on a Chad Dunavan grounder in the fifth.

Despite the 8-2 lead, the Foxes almost let it get away.  Reliever Oscar Rivera allowed two runs in the eighth.  Grier Jones and Scott Stricklin each had RBI doubles in the frame.

Chad Rupp, who had a pinch hit single and a run scored in the eighth, hit a two-out, two-run home run off Tim Bruce in the top of the ninth inning, but Bruce got the final out of the game and the Foxes won their home opener.

FOX OF THE GAME:  Giomar Guevara.  The Appleton second baseman went 3-for-4 with a walk, an RBI, and a run scored. 

The attendance and weather were filled in on the scoresheet.  But, the time of the game was 2:29.

FINAL NOTE:  The plate umpire in this game was John Creek.  I found this from google books on him.  He was an umpire in the International League and was involved in a situation where the manager of each team was ejected from the game on the SAME PLAY!

Back to regular columns next week.