Lost Ballparks

Terry Tata (Umpire 1973-1999)

• Mike Koser • Season 9 • Episode 6

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85-year-old former MLB umpire Terry Tata spent 27 years in the big leagues (1973-1999) calling the action behind the plate. From 3 All-Star Games and 4 World Series to 5 no-hitters and one of baseball’s longest games, he’s here to pull back the curtain on the toughest—and most thankless—job in the game.

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Mike Koser:

Former manager Davey Johnson, a member of the New York Hall of Fame, passed away on September 5th at the age of This episode was recorded prior to his passing. It's July 4th. Actually July 5th, 1985. The Braves and Mets are playing one of the longest games in baseball history, which, after a rain delay, started shortly after 9 p.m. the day before on the 4th of July. Now, here on July 5th, it's the top of the 17th inning.

Mike Koser: 2:

55 in the morning.

Mike Koser:

Daryl Strawberry has just been called out on strikes and about to be thrown out of the game by umpire Terry Tata.

Announcer:

He's arguing with Terry Tata. Strawberry's gone, and manager Davy Johnson storms on the Arguing balls and strikes. Here at five minutes to 3 in Atlanta.

Mike Koser:

Terry Tata has had enough. And as Davey Johnson walks off the field, umpire Terry has one of the great parting lines. He says, "Listen, Davey, at 2:55 in the morning, anything's a strike." Being an umpire might just be the toughest, thankless job in sports. Think about it. No one shows up at the ballpark with a sign that says, We the um. You're either invisible when you're perfect, or the villain the second you're not. And yet, for nearly three decades, Terry Tata put on stood behind home plate, and got it right far more often than he ever got it wrong. His journey began calling little league games in for a buck fifty back in the 1950s, and eventually led him to standing behind home plate at Yankee Stadium decades calling balls and strikes in the World Series. Former Major League umpire Terry Tata had a front row to some of baseball's most unforgettable moments. He's 85 years young, and Terry Tata is my guest on this Lost Ball parks Podcast.

Announcer:

Terry Tata.

Terry Tata:

Yes, sir. Mike?

Mike Koser:

Hey, how are you?

Terry Tata:

I'm doing good, thank you. How about yourself?

Mike Koser:

I'm doing great. Let's jump into it if you're ready.

Terry Tata:

Yeah go right ahead.

Mike Koser:

You grew up loving baseball, playing at Fulton Park in Connecticut. You would spend your whole day there sometimes, right?

Terry Tata:

Yeah, that now there's two uh two Fulton Parks. There's a Lower Diamond and an Upper Diamond. The Upper Diamond, Upper Fulton Park was where we congregated because you didn't need a permit for that field. The big field, you did need a permit. You'd have to go downtown and to the city hall and and they'd allow you to use it for a couple of hours. So the upper Fulton Park was at our leisure. We can go to any time you wanted, and that's where we

Terry Tata: We'd go down about 9:

30, 10 o'clock in the morning, play till

Terry Tata:

the afternoon, and go back after after dinner, and we'd about a lot of guys, about 20 guys for the uh night And we just, you know, had a good time.

Mike Koser:

Your first job as an umpire was in the Jimmy Pearsall in Waterbury at age 14. With uh within a short period of time, you got your first umpire job at a I think a grammar school league. How much was that? How much were you getting paid per game?

Terry Tata:

A dollar and a half, 75 cents from each coach, and they pay you right at home plate before the game started.

Mike Koser:

So you had you had a pocket full of quarters.

Terry Tata:

Oh, yeah, exactly right. Yeah.

Mike Koser:

So around 1959, uh, Terry, you saw an ad, I think, in news that caught your attention.

Terry Tata:

Yes.

Mike Koser:

The School of Umpires in Daytona Beach.

Terry Tata:

Yeah, Al Summers, S-O-M-E-R-S. Al was uh umpired in the uh Pacific Coast League. Uh he was you know the director of the school. He was a good umpire, big guy. We were staying at a uh place right near the airport in Beach. They they're like barracks. They're like almost like army barracks. We had 80 students that the year I went, 1960.

Mike Koser:

Okay, so how much was the School of Umpiring? How much did you have to pay?

Terry Tata:

Uh I'm gonna say about$80.

Mike Koser:

$80.

Terry Tata:

Well for a six-week course. Uh uh and uh my former uh stepfather in law, he was a uh he was an instructor at the school at one time and he knew Al Summers. Uh so about halfway through the uh session, uh he called Hey, what do you think? The kid got a shit out to make it and Summers says, Are you crazy? With that baby face of his, he'll kill him the first first month he's on the field.

Mike Koser:

He was wrong because you you started your career in class D in the Midwest League at uh 1960 at age 19. You were the youngest umpire in baseball.

Terry Tata:

Well, I don't know about that. I think Bruce Froemming was. Bruce was younger than me, but he started at 18. I believe he started in the Nebraska State League. His partner had his own plane, they would fly to their I mean, how do you like that? Oh, that's incredible. That's uh that's certainly the way to go, right?

Mike Koser:

You might not have been the youngest, but you were one of youngest. Um and so you almost quit after your first game, right?

Terry Tata:

Behind the plate, yeah. We were in Clinton, Iowa, and they were screaming at me out of both dugouts, and uh, what the hell am I doing? What the is this the way this thing works? So uh and uh but you know what? I stuck it out, stuck it out, and uh my first partner I with, his name was Dick Coffey.

Mike Koser:

Is he the one who talked you into not quitting? I just know that there were, you know, you only had two-man crews back at that day, and you I knew that your partner you into not quitting that night after that first game. But the ironic thing is he ended up quitting 30 days later.

Terry Tata:

He did, yeah. Dick Coffee. And as a matter of fact, his wife used to travel with us. He was from he was from Galesburg, Illinois. His father owned a taxicab company, uh, and he was with the league president, Dutch Hoffman. Uh the next year I got elevated to the Northern League and was there for four years. I that's when I was really considering packing it in I was just spinning my wheels.

Mike Koser:

After your partner quit, because it's only a two-man crew, he's gone. You had to work games by yourself for a couple weeks until they sent you a replacement. How difficult was that?

Terry Tata:

Well, yeah, they would they would pair me up with somebody from town, you know, a guy that worked in local leagues, they would come in and they'd have all these patches on sleeves and on their shirt and everything else. And hi, my name is Joe Blow, and I've worked so many games there, and I and I says to him, Would you mind working the plate tonight? No, he's I can't do that. He says, I'm well known, I'm well known in this town. I don't want to create any problems, you know. So I worked the plate, you know, uh continuously, and uh I got somebody uh from the umpire school to come up and uh work with me. It was really different back then. It was, you know, you're talking there was no umpire program. You're just you if you had if you knew somebody you'd get a shot. But um uh yeah, that's the way it was. But uh then the umpire development program came in in 1966, and it helped a little bit, but uh yeah.

Mike Koser:

You spent 13 years in the minor leagues before making it the big leagues, and that was no that was no small feat. The minor leagues for an umpire are just as difficult as they are for a player. The food is not great, the accommodations are not great, in the middle of a summer heat wave, you're constantly that there is zero air conditioning at minor league like Municipal Stadium in Davenport, Iowa, or Fans Field at Decatur, Illinois. I mean, there's no there's no reprieve on a hot day.

Terry Tata:

You know what? That's that's there's an old saying, that's why God made people to take care of babies, and that's why you're young only a certain amount of time and you try to take advantage of it, you know, because you know you're only going on a pike one one time. But uh a lot of memories there. Uh I remember I had to clear a bench. They were so rowdy. I just and you can do it. You just eject the whole team, have them go into the and if they're needed for a substitution, you just call out and uh assign them to where wherever the manager wants to put them.

Mike Koser:

Wait a second, you you ejected the whole bench?

Terry Tata:

Well, I didn't either you clear the clear the bench, you eject it. You clear the bench, and then they go into the clubhouse they're being so you know boisterous from the dugout, just creating havoc.

Mike Koser:

Yeah.

Terry Tata:

And uh so they did, and it happened. Then that's what happened. You know what?

Mike Koser:

Do you remember where that was?

Terry Tata:

That was in Davenport.

Mike Koser:

Oh, at municipal stadium, yeah.

Terry Tata:

And it's still in there, right?

Mike Koser:

Yeah. That's crazy.

Terry Tata:

Right on the river, right in the river. I mean, that's almost water level for crying out loud, sea level, or whatever you call it. Yeah.

Mike Koser:

Your first game in the big leagues was in 1973 at Three Stadium.

Jack Buck:

A good crowd on hand and a sellout for tomorrow here at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh.

Mike Koser:

Um, I'm sure you remember that game well, right? Bob Gibson and the Cardinals against Steve Blass and

Jack Buck:

Gibson Fires. Strike two, two and two. Another called, strike, two balls, two strikes.

Terry Tata:

Exactly right. Two hours and five minutes.

Mike Koser:

Wow.

Terry Tata:

They scored a bunch of runs. But I mean, it's it was a different animal back then. Um just incredible. Yeah.

Mike Koser:

Were you nervous that day?

Terry Tata:

Well, I mean, you get your butterflies just like anything you know, you do it for the first time in life.

Mike Koser:

Yeah.

Terry Tata:

But you uh your professionalism sinks in and you go and uh that's that's that's it.

Mike Koser:

You worked uh many pirates games in 1973, months after Clemente had been tragically killed in that plane

Terry Tata:

You know, I had him in in uh uh Winter ball in 1967. I was uh I went to Puerto Rico to work the Winter he uh here it is December, right? it's like he was rolling rolling out of bed, he comes out of the dugout, they know exactly what was gonna happen, they going crazy. So he hits two foul home runs and then he hits a line drive single to right field. Uh and then later in that season, we had a game at Bithorne Stadium, which is in San Juan. San Juan, Puerto Rico, yeah. They put on the tarp several times, and the groundskeepr up and says, and he's looking, he says, We're not gonna be able to put the tarp back on the field. It's gotten so wet. So what they did was they pushed it as far back as he go towards the stands, but there was a gap between the and the stands. George Scott, you remember him, right?

Mike Koser:

Oh, yeah, yeah. Big hitter, yeah.

Terry Tata:

There's a foul pop-up, and he goes running over, trips over the tarpolian, catches the ball, and rolls over towards the stands. And he comes up with it and I'm behind the plate. I I it was my call. I had to run over to see, and he shows me the glove with ball in it, so I call him out, right? Clemente was the one who hit the pop-up. With that, he gets the bat and he throws it 50 feet up in air. And I threw him out of the game. They went.. the people went crazy. I threw their big hero out of the game.

Mike Koser:

Yeah, so in Puerto Rico, you...

Terry Tata:

on the way home. On the way home, the car pulls up the side of us and says in their Spanish accent, because we we uh we got rides to and from the ballpark. Yeah, and he said in Spanish, he says, We know where you

Mike Koser:

You threw... you through Roberto Clemente out of a game in Puerto

Terry Tata:

But uh, yeah. And uh you know, that was a great learning experience in winter leagues. I went to Puerto Rico twice, and I went to Venezuela in and there you worked every game behind a plate. they paid me, they paid me a pretty good amount of money uh which was twelve hundred and fifty bucks a month. You know, and back then it was you know it was more than I was making in the minor leagues. Yeah. We were started, we started at like $300 a month. It was a learning experience. You know, and all the big players were there to this day he died. He would always come up to you and say, I knew him when he was a baby. I mean, Orlando Cepeda. Oh yeah. Yeah, Orlando Cepeda, he's rounding third base, he's to score, and he makes a big, big turn, and he runs right me. And Earl Weaver was managing the team on Thursday. And for Cepeda started to argue, I was in his way. And Weaver came out and defended me. He says, Damn it, Orlando, you gotta make that turn a turn. You can't run into the umpire. But Safeda got to like me, and every once in a while I see him at Candlestick. He was doing fame in relations for the San Francisco and uh he just passed away. Well, within the last six months, something like that. Yeah. Jeez, I knew I knew him when he was a big, he'd be pointing me out to his friend. But it was working in the winter leagues was a big help. You know, you're working with major league players. I'm still in the minor leagues, I'm in triple A. Yeah. It gives you a lot of confidence.

Mike Koser:

Terry, you worked five no hitters. You were behind the plate for two of them. The first coming during your first summer in the big It's August, uh, August 5th, 1973, at Atlanta Stadium, later named Fulton County Stadium. Phil Niekro throws the no-hitter.

Announcer:

And the drama reached its peak when Clarence Gaston hit one to Darrell Evans at third, who throws on to first Phil Niekro. no hit game, the first ever for an Atlanta pitcher.

Mike Koser:

And I love what happens to you after the game. I mean, I had no idea that uh umpires might celebrate like this. Do you remember?

Terry Tata:

Yeah, they poured beer over my head. I don't believe in that. We don't do that anymore.

Mike Koser:

You work second base during the 1978 All-Star game at San Stadium.

Keith Jackson:

This is Keith Jackson, along with Howard Cosell Drysdale, and we are ready to go with the 1978 All-Star Game.

Mike Koser:

What an incredible group of talent. I think there were 17 or 18 future Hall of Famers that played in that game.

Keith Jackson:

Rod Carew will lead off, George Brett will follow, and Rice, the third hitter for the American League.

Mike Koser:

And back then, there's there was no love lost between the leagues. Each team back then desperately wanted to beat each

Terry Tata:

Well, the National League wanted to win. The American League, they went into with, sort of like a attitude. I remember Rose saying, Come on, you got, you know, we're win this game, and they would go in and they were all out, you know, to win. But uh it's different today, as you as you know. But no, the National League was really geared up to win, they won a lot of games. They won the All-Star game a lot of times back in the 70s. Now it's just the reverse, where the American League taking uh taking sway.

Mike Koser:

That had to be special, though, for you'd work in that first All-Star game in 78.

Terry Tata:

It is, but you know what? Uh like we it's just an exhibition, an exhibition game. The playoff games and the races in September going out of way, they're much more difficult and uh have more meaning.

Mike Koser:

You were behind the plate for Tom Seaver's first June 16th, 1978, at Riverfront Stadium. That was the first one he pitched uh coming in his 12th As an umpire, you're behind the plate for that that uh moment.

Marty Brennaman:

Tom now pacing around behind the mound as he rubs new baseball provided by plate umpire Terry Tata.

Mike Koser:

Can you tell, uh, you know, fourth, fifth inning, this got something special going on here.

Terry Tata:

Oh, yeah, he's been look at the scoreboard.

Marty Brennaman:

There has never been a no-hit game pitched by a Reds pitcher here at Riverfront. The last Reds no-hitter thrown was back on the April, 1969, by Jim Maloney. At Crosley Field, he no-hit the Houston Astros 10-0.

Terry Tata:

Let me tell you about that. I remember the last hitter was George Hendrick.

Marty Brennaman:

The banner is George Hendrick as they start to feet here at Riverfront Stadium.

Terry Tata:

And he hits uh a ground ball to the first basemen., Dan

Marty Brennaman:

Seaver with a pause, the check and the pitch. He bounces to first, Driessen has it, he goes to the bag and Seaver's got it! Tom Seaver has pitched his first major league no And this one belongs to the Reds!

Terry Tata:

That was his first no hitter, and my second in the major behind the plate.

Mike Koser:

Terry, you were part of the umpire crew during the 1980 NLCS between the Phillies and Astros, and for my money, that has to be the most dramatic National League Championship series in baseball history.

Harry Kalas:

Hi, everybody from the Astrodome in Houston. Welcome to Phillies Baseball League Championship Series five. It can't go anymore. Phillies and the Houston Astros at two games apiece. Harry Kalas along with Rich Ashburn, Tim McCarver and Andy Musser will be here a little later. And all the marbles on this one, Rich.

Terry Tata:

That was a great series, you know. Yeah.

Mike Koser:

four out of five games, I think, went to extra innings.

Terry Tata:

Yeah, yeah. And then uh Ed Vargo was a crew chief. Well, Ed Vargo and Doug Harvey were on the crew, and Chuck Feeney said, look, it I don't care which one of you works plate for game five, if there is a game five, but you work it out amongst yourselves. So as it turned out, Vargo ended up work by working game And like you said, it was a phenomenal series.

Keith Jackson:

3-2, he hits it the right center field. Maddox going, it's over. The Phillies win it.

Terry Tata:

Phillies win the series, and uh the Astros were just that they lost, and uh they were in like a in a trance.

Mike Koser:

Even that last game, the Astros, I think, were up 5-2 in the eighth inning, and the Phillies the Phillies come back and win that game. I think Nolan Ryan was pushing for the Astros. Yeah, and the Phillies would go on to uh complete that run by beating the Royals in six games in the World I mean, what a team.

Terry Tata:

Yeah, just some amazing games, I'll tell you. The World Series, the one that stands out is in uh uh uh Oh, in '91?

Mike Koser:

Are you talking about the Braves and the Twins?

Terry Tata:

Yeah, 91.

Mike Koser:

the 5-4-3-2 series?

Terry Tata:

Yeah, you're talking about uh two teams who were not names.

Ernie Harwell:

The 1991 World Series, featuring the Atlanta Braves the Minnesota Twins. Imagine two last place teams from 1990 in the World one year later. It had never before happened to one team, much less two.

Terry Tata:

That was a great, probably the greatest. Everybody's talking about the series between the Reds Red Sox uh in 76, was it?

Mike Koser:

Uh 75.

Terry Tata:

75, 75, yeah. Yeah. But the 91 series was a great, great series. It was just fantastic.

Mike Koser:

So five games decided by one run, four settled in the last at bat, three went to Extra innings, and two ended on at the plate. Crazy.

Terry Tata:

Yeah, exactly right.

Mike Koser:

Kirby Puckett hit a walk-off home run in game six at the and Jack Morris pitched one of the all-time great postseason games in game seven to lead the twins to their second world championship in five years.

Terry Tata:

Yeah, it was a great series.

Mike Koser:

Yeah, it really was. In 27 years, you never missed a game, but you did have one close call. Do you remember the time you drove your brand new car? I forget which kind it was, but you only you only had like 120 miles on it, but you're going across the Bronx Bridge on your way to Shea Stadium. Do you do you remember that?

Terry Tata:

I sure do. And it cranked out, like it can't cranked out. We didn't have any cell phones back then. Fortunately enough, there was a motel just before the and I called over to the ballpark and I'm on my way, and my poor mother's watching the game on TV and doesn't see me and I didn't have a chance to talk to her at all. But uh my wife was with me, and uh Janice was with me at the time, and uh so we got there in about the third or fourth and then they made a joke of it. You know, Fred Flagg, who was director of... Fred Flagg was director of umpiring, and he worked for the Cincinnati Reds, he was like farm director, he worked for Giles. Back then, you know, when you moved, they brought the team. For instance, Warren Giles took the people from with him Cincinnati and he brought them right to the Big Well, Fred Flagg became uh an executive secretary. He could.. he made schedules up, he scheduled the umpires, he got to the umpires. So the next day uh he comes over, he says, you know, he uh these new cars are like some of our new umpires. And Jerry, Jerry Grody is in the uh with in earshot and another crabby guy where he doesn't laugh too much, and he laughed, yeah, you're darn right. I gotta agree with you on that what he says.

Mike Koser:

I can't imagine as an umpire, like you know, you gotta be Shea Stadium, and here you are on the Whitestone Bridge, your car just craps out right in the middle of it.

Terry Tata:

So the guy who came to fix it, one of one of these biker guys, and he had a he had like a denim jacket on, and he the back of the jacket, and I say, I don't give a sh- and he did was he fixed it, he opens the hood up, and there was a little clamp that went on from the carburetor to the fuel gauge or to the fuel pump, and he just reversed it or put on, and the car worked fine. But yeah, that was that was the only game I yeah, exactly Yeah, that was funny.

Mike Koser:

Listen, Terry, you routinely see foul balls come back uh umpires uh in the mask 100 plus miles per hour. Do you remember a time in your career when your bell was so hard that you weren't sure you could continue?

Terry Tata:

No, I mean I took some pretty good shots, but uh I mean I these guys today, it's it's it's really tough. You know, you get the umpire protocol now with you got the concession things. Some of our umpires, like uh Gary Darling and Larry who recently passed away within the last year, I think, they got hit so hard it was, you know, it really did ring their bells. Or your phrase. And uh yeah, it's it's tough back there. You could uh you could really get uh shaken up. And the the ones that really hurt are are the foul tips in the dirt and come up and catch you in the groin area, but not the groin itself, in the leg area. Yeah, because you have no protection there. And boy, I'll say it, it hurts. It really does hurt.

Mike Koser:

Listen, Terry, you were behind the plate for one of the games in baseball history, July 4th and 5th, 1985. It's the Mets and Braves at Fulton County Stadium.

Pete Van Wieren:

And we are underway from Atlanta Fulton County Stadium on this 4th of July before a sell-out crowd.

Mike Koser:

Because of a rain delay, the game didn't even start until 9 o'clock.

Pete Van Wieren:

At the rate this game is going, the big 5th of July show will be presented right after the contest.

Mike Koser:

Was there any point during the game where, I don't know, or 16th inning, because you were behind the plate, that you consider maybe I need to ask one of these other guys to with me?

Terry Tata:

No, you're you're there for the duration. You know, I remember that game distinctly. As a matter of fact, there's a writer from Atlanta, uh, Moore. He called me up on one of the anniversaries of it, maybe 20 years or whatever it was. Yeah. Reminisce about the game. But yeah. So I'm working a series in San Francisco, and I fly home, I take a red eye, I get into Hartford like at nine o'clock the morning, spend that day home, and then the next day I go to Atlanta. But I and I cheated. I took like maybe the last flight out. Uh you know what airlines it was on? Eastern Airlines.

Mike Koser:

Eastern Airlines, yeah. What a blast from the past. I remember them.

Terry Tata:

That's not so uh we get there, just you know, uh everything works out fine. I'm able to we're staying in an airport hotel, which very nice hotel was the Hilton. It wasn't really an airport, it was a full service Throw the bags in a room and get to the ballpark, and the starts at 9.10. And you got Rick Mahler pitching for the Braves, who's 65 mile an hour rainbows. You got Dwight (Gooden) throwing nothing but heat, right? Yeah. So obviously, uh they they both get taken out of the game uh, you know, the weather and this and that. And uh, it's midnight. We're still going along there.

John Sterling:

Inning number 16. Here's John. Here's Len Dykstra, who's been up, I think, 75 times

Terry Tata:

And I remember uh Terry Harper. Hits a.... for the Braves, hits a home run. Hits the foul pole to tie it in the 11th or 12th inning. And then Rick Camp. They're out of pinch hitters. Eddie Haas was managing the Braves. Great, great guy. He ran out of the players.

Mike Koser:

Yeah, this is like this is the bottom of the 18th. The Braves trailing the Mets 11 to 10, and Rick Camp is... Rick Camp of all people sent to the plate.

John Sterling:

This is why I always save a player. That's this is absolutely the reason. Now, two outs 0 and on. The Mets are waving their infield their outfielders in. The whole Met team waving their outfielders in. Here's Rick Camp with a game on the line.

Terry Tata:

When the ball cleared the fence, yeah, it was oh it just as it turned out, I ended up throwing Strawberry out of game and Davey Johnson. As a matter of fact, I have Johnson got in my face, so I turned my hat around backwards to get in his kisser. But uh, let me tell you, I'll tell you a little story about Davey Johnson later on. But anyhow, so uh the Mets score five runs. Top of the 19th, yeah. And then uh the Braves come up and they score two runs and they got two runners on, and who's the hitter? Rick Camp.

Mike Koser:

And you're thinking you gotta be thinking there's no way he does this again.

Terry Tata:

Davey brings in Ron Darling, to pitch, right? And he strikes him out with a pitch way up high over his his head.

Terry Tata: And uh it was at 3:

55 in the morning.

Mike Koser: 3:

55 in the morning is what time the game ended.

Mike Koser:

There were 46 hits, 22 walks, 37 runners left on base, five airs, two ejections that you talk about, strawberry and Davey Johnson, and the time of the the time of the game, not the rain delay, uh six hours and ten minutes, and the Mets somehow win 16 to 13.

Terry Tata:

Something like that. So we get back, oh, we're going back to the hotel. It's almost five o'clock, and I'm gonna...I mean the are chirping and it's it's getting bright. The sun is coming up. Let me tell you about Davey Johnson. Yeah, tell me about that story. Yeah. We were terminated, all of us were terminated. Uh my final game was in uh was in LA uh against the Brewers. And uh Dan Wickham shut the game down, he got the final out. Eric Karros was the hitter on a check swing at called three. I get to the dressing room, the phone rings. Davey Johnson says, Terry, I just want to call and say, sorry if the way things worked out for you guys. Our hearts are with you. I mean our battles on the field, but I mean it wasn't you know, it was nothing like we uh we carried it on and bitter for life, you know. Yeah. But uh yeah, Davey really showed me some class there, just uh he's uh he really uh it opened up my eyes,

Mike Koser:

Uh the one real downside of working national league games in the 70s, 80s, and 90s was the number of stadiums that had Hot July, hot July and August days, especially fully padded behind the plate on that turf, and all those river towns like Cincinnati, Riverfront Stadium, three rivers in Pittsburgh, must have been difficult.

Terry Tata:

You hit it right out of the ballpark. Exactly right. Those are artificial fields. You know, and like you say, they're river towns, they're in a low, no air. The worst were Cincinnati and uh St. Louis. Busch Stadium was so hot. Really. But uh the hot one of the hottest games was my final year. We're in uh we're in uh Cincinnati. We started the road trip in Cincinnati like 35 days. We went from Cincinnati to Houston to Arizona, LA to San and we came back. Oh, so we came back July the again, July 4th. The town is literally shut down. We were staying at a beautiful hotel, the Cincinnatian and uh we ended up eating downstairs in like a after the game. We were just like numb. It was a hundred and fifty degrees. I'm not not exaggerating, it was a hundred and on the field.

Mike Koser:

Okay, is that the game where you guys got IVs before the

Terry Tata:

Exactly right. Yes, we did.

Mike Koser:

Yeah.

Terry Tata:

And fortunately enough in Cincinnati, you can go back the plate. It was a little underneath like underneath the

Mike Koser:

At riverfront, yeah.

Terry Tata:

Yeah. And you know, and they had ammonia water for you. And I had the plate, obviously. And then I was, boy, it was hot. It was really hot.

Mike Koser:

Yeah, so that so there was a nurse behind the little uh the little spot behind home plate who would be there with water, maybe check your vitals. But one listen, once you start the ammonia water, you can't stop.

Terry Tata:

You gotta go through every yeah so I I I went to uh maybe fourth or fifth, sixth inning, something like that. And you're right. Once you once you adhere to it, you gotta go back for it. You're like you're you're uh you know you're drugged drugged up on it.

Mike Koser:

Yeah and I'm sure your wife was worried about you that game too.

Terry Tata:

Oh yeah she that she was concerned really concerned but and that's why she was happy to you know able to get out it you know I was at that time I was uh 59 years old 57 58 years

Mike Koser:

I'll get you out of here on this Terry last question a kid who grew up in uh Connecticut you and your friends I'm sure spent many days at Fulton Park uh imagining yourself a New York Yankee playing at Yankee Stadium in the World I mean in your own backyard you probably played games where the second story of your house was like the deck of Yankee Stadium and then in 1996 you make it to Stadium and to the World Series behind the plate for game

Joe Buck:

So Jimmy Key does himself a favor by keeping Grissom off base. It's Terry Tata behind the plate tonight from the National

Terry Tata:

really again you your your questions are spot on and exactly right uh Greg Maddox uh pitched pitched a massive they brought in uh Ron I think Ron Wohlers uh to pitch the the final inning or uh and he struck out struck out the he struck out Bernie Williams and he struck out uh uh the guy Martinez Cecil Fielder gets gets a base hit and up Paul is a really character anyhow he gets ahead of

Joe Buck:

and a one two to O'Neill game over and he looked like Zoro he the ball comes in and looks like he had a sword and he he couldn't hit the damn thing he ended up striking off so I'm standing there I just wanted to reflect a little bit and like he said it to open up this conversation uh you know it's a place that you know you've always been and uh thought and uh it brings back memories and as a kid you're you're something like this so I just wanted to stand there and just reflect and take and suck it in for like a a half a minute or a minute. And O'Neill turns to me and he says boy Terry you had a big tonight I said will you leave me alone for quite a loud I'm to absorb the minute and you know think of my childhood for

Mike Koser:

unbelievable hey terry listen thanks so much for the time

Terry Tata:

I'm glad it would have worked out so we couldn't get

Mike Koser:

yeah it was great talking about uh about your

Terry Tata:

thank you very much appreciate it.

Head Shot

Mike Koser

Host