Milton Ousland

Robby Incmikoski: So Kyle goes mute sometimes, and he’ll pop back in, but he’s always there—as we’ve done now 66 interviews. We’re going to get to about 115, 120, 125, somewhere around there when it’s all said and done. Anyway, so we already talked to Mark, so I want to talk to you, Milton, for a little bit.

Robby Incmikoski: Mark, obviously feel free to jump in anytime you want, because it’s as organic as we want it to be. Milton, you’ve been a Bleacher Creature for how long?

Milton Ousland: Bleacher Creature since 1984? Around there, I would say. I mean, it wasn’t “Bleacher Creatures” at first. It was called “the regulars,” if you want to go back to the original story.

Robby Incmikoski: Tell me the story. How did you become “the regulars” to the Bleacher Creatures? Tell me that story, please.

Milton Ousland: Well, Bleacher Creatures just became something Filip Bondy did with the Daily News—he was doing articles with us and kind of gave us that name. But before that, you know, before a lot of people that were sitting there, it was just called “the regulars,” and it was just a bunch of people who went to every game and supported the Yankees with a passion and a love like no other. We were sitting out there by ourselves; there was really nobody out there.

You’re talking about the ’80s, where we never even seen a playoff game. People complain now about losing in the World Series—how about not seeing one playoff game for fourteen years? That’s suffering. But once it just became a little more, to be honest with you, once the Yankees started winning, more people come out; you start meeting more people.

Robby Incmikoski: Yup.

Milton Ousland: The Bleacher Creatures start growing, the family starts growing—it’s like having babies. We just started to grow. It was just amazing how it all coincided together, with the family getting bigger and the Yankees at the same time—right at the peak of more and more people coming in the early ’90s and just going into like winning championships all [added? dn] to the fun.

Robby Incmikoski: Milton, how did you develop your love for the Yankees and the game of baseball? Where did that begin?

Milton Ousland: That was just me, sitting at home in Brooklyn, New York. It just happened. I literally turned on the TV. It was 1981, and there was Yankees and Dodgers in the World Series. I guess I’m a bandwagon jumper—think about it. It was Fernando Valenzuela against the Yankees, and I just fell in love with the uniform immediately. Being born and raised in Brooklyn, I’m huge on supporting where I’m from, and I’m from New York and I love it—I have a passion for where I’m from. So the fact the Yankees were playing against LA, I just immediately became a Yankee fan on my own. Once Don Mattingly came, it was a wrap. It was just a love that I grew on my own.

Robby Incmikoski: One of the greatest hitters ever—I remember when he homered I think it was eight straight or nine straight. [Transcript said “Tying” but I couldn’t hear that. dn] Dale Long’s record. Remember that?

Milton Ousland: Yeah, eight in a row.

Marc Chalpin: Yeah.

Robby Incmikoski: I think Griff did it too. But anyways . . .

Marc Chalpin: He did.

Robby Incmikoski: Don Mattingly, Dale Long, Griff—they were the only three I think to hit a homer in eight straight games, which is actually kind of freaky insane to hit a home run in eight straight games, but anyways, hey, so I’m going to ask another question. I’m kind of all over the place with this, but these are the stories we want to tell. When I ask this question, people are always on the other side of big moments in baseball, right? And I’m not saying, I’m not talking shit, I’m not talking trash—we’re just trying to describe the experience.

For example, at AT&T Park in San Francisco, we interviewed the guy who gave up Barry Bonds’s record-setting homer. He talked about what it’s like being on the wrong end of history, right?

Milton Ousland: Yeah.

Robby Incmikoski: So I know when I ask this, I ask it with full respect: How hard was it to watch the fifth inning unfold for both you guys, and what was that like, and obviously, you saw how it impacted the rest of the World Series—but it’s hard to get to a World Series, man. It’s just hard to do it. And it’s hard to be in the dance every year, and the Yankees are in the dance every year for one reason or another. But with all that said, what was the vibe like amongst the Bleacher Creatures as that fifth inning was playing out?

Marc Chalpin: You want to go first?

Milton Ousland: I mean, with me, it’s a total—I’m gonna give a different, you know, I don’t bullshit —I’m gonna give a different answer.

Robby Incmikoski: That’s what we want—we want authenticity.

Milton Ousland: Listen, it was hard, but you gotta understand: I’m a Jet and a Knick fan. Those two teams have never won. To me, as a Yankee fan my age, the fact I saw the Yankees beat the Mets in the World Series, the fact that I saw the three-peat, [? dn] the fact that this team is literally always contending for a World Series, every year they’re giving me a chance—every year my owner puts out a team that’s going to kick ass during the regular season.

Robby Incmikoski: Yup.

Milton Ousland: So for me, being somebody who saw them not make one playoff game, I used to pray to see them play just one playoff game. So I get over it a lot faster than a younger Yankee fan. Now if I’m a young Yankee fan that never seen 2009, I’m super-pissed. I’m probably crying. I mean I can’t believe that it was almost like “Space Jam.” Somebody took away their powers. It was embarrassing.

I was sitting here with my wife and my daughter and my son watching this, and I really was embarrassed. I’m like, “What is going on?” They’re drooping fly balls, and just all in the blink of an eye, it went away. I can just imagine the heartbreak for fans watching it live. The heartbreak of people at Billy’s. I mean, I was there for the home run at Billy’s when Freeman hit that home run. I’ve never been around something so exciting, and then in a drop of a dime, the quiet and the silence—just like that, like somebody closed a door, soundproof door, and that was it. It was sad. So yes, I was pissed, I was angry, but me being a veteran Yankee fan—me appreciating what they’ve done in the past—I do get over it a lot faster than a lot of Yankee fans. But Mark, I don’t know; that’s just my opinion. I’m ready to go to battle next year. I’m ready to go to battle.

Marc Chalpin: Yeah, look, I mean part of the problem is you gotta learn to turn the page, and to his point, I have seen, we’re the same age, so we’ve seen the same championships, been through the same issues. That fifth inning, though, was the worst inning of baseball I have ever seen live.

Milton Ousland: Horrible. Horrible.

Marc Chalpin: It was horrible. My first reaction with Judge was, “This man has only made one error in two years. I’m not giving him any crap for that.” But not covering first, and what happened after that—that was just . . . Look, I was there in 2004, and Milton was there too, when they blew it in the first inning with the Red Sox in Game 7. I remember from that game just yelling at the team for about half an inning, and when that was done, I got it all out of my system, and I felt better.

In this case, I think, more to Milton’s point, what gets me—I’m a Giants fan, so I’ve seen some championships in multiple sports.

Marc Chalpin: Well, lucky you.

Marc Chalpin: So my attitude is more, “The best championship is the next one.” I’m not sure if it was Jeter or Kobe who said that, but that quote stuck with me. ’cause that’s how I feel. When the Yankees win a championship, I celebrate for maybe a month, and then I’m thinking, “Okay, what do we do to do it again?” So yeah, to me, this was terrible. But back to what Milton said about the younger Yankee fans who haven’t seen this—part of the reason I wanted to win this one so badly was to see all the younger Bleacher Creatures who haven’t been there as long, who wasn’t there in 2009 and before, they have never won it. And the idea, there is something to be said about not just winning it all, but winning it all with the people you’ve watched games with, not just this year, but for several years—or in Milton’s case, with me, a thousand years. It’s different; it’s special. And it’s something that I don’t think other stadiums have. So I really want to win, not just because I love watching the Yankees win, but so I can see the next group of people know what it’s like to climb the top of the mountain and get there.

Robby Incmikoski: Yeah.

Milton Ousland: Can I same something real quickly?

Robby Incmikoski: Hell yeah, absolutely.

Milton Ousland: What he’s saying with the new Bleacher Creatures, there’s a lot of new people out there, and you know what? This builds character. Buck up, suck it up—it’s not going to be easy-peasy. You’re not gonna come sit in the bleachers and we’re just gonna win championships. I want them to suffer. I want them to go through this. Let them know what pain is. You know what? Fuck it. If they want to just sit there and cry, if they want to leave because they’re upset or they’re embarrassed—I wore my Yankee hat and jersey the very next day. I don’t give a shit about anybody.

Marc Chalpin: Me too.

Milton Ousland: One Met fan on the street told me, “How can you wear that?” I said, “1986, buddy—that’s how, because that’s the last time you won.”

Marc Chalpin: Yeah, right.

Milton Ousland: So if you can wear your stuff when you haven’t won since ’86, I can definitely win by losing, I lost last night in the World Series. So it’s a just back-and-forth with the Yankee and Mets fans—that’s fun. And let the Bleacher Creatures, the new guys, experience this pain so when we do win, you get a greater appreciation for . . .

Marc Chalpin: Oh my gosh.

Milton Ousland: And it’s just going to be that much more fun when it does happen. This is part of the whole story of being in the bleachers and being a Yankee fan: You got ups and downs. You gotta deal with it.

Marc Chalpin: It’s going to be that much sweeter when it finally happens, and it will happen. We don’t stay down forever.

Robby Incmikoski: I think the rest of baseball knows that. You know what’s funny—I think it was Milton. You said something about, how many years? You said fifteen years without a World Series?

Milton Ousland: After the ’81 World Series, I didn’t see a playoff game until ’95.

Marc Chalpin: Yeah.

Robby Incmikoski: Oh, so ’81 ’95. That’s right.

Milton Ousland: ’94 was a strike.

Robby Incmikoski: That reminded me of the Pirates, ’cause I was with the Pirates from 2013 through the end of 2023, so eleven seasons. There were years, man, like, I’ll be in spring training in Bradenton, and I’m talking to a couple people, you know, the other announcers and stuff, like, “Man, let’s just hope we’re competitive until May. You know, like maybe if we’re lucky, we get to June and we’re not completely out of it.” Like August, September, we’re just counting down the days. My first three years, ’13, ’14, ’15, they were competitive, and they made the playoffs. But since 2015 through the end of 2023—that’s eight seasons—we never had a fuckin’ chance at being competitive.

Milton Ousland: Let me tell you something.

Robby Incmikoski: [? dn] these other teams. I’m like, “Yes, did the World Series suck?” Abso fuckin’ lutely. It sucked. Did that fifth inning suck? Yes, it did. Gerrit Cole and I are very close. It was hard for me to watch that inning happen to Gerrit, who I consider a close friend. I know his mom, his dad, his sister. I know the guy’s whole family very well. And I know how much it—you think it pissed fans off? You have no idea how much it pissed Gerrit off that he didn’t cover first base. You know what I mean?

Marc Chalpin: I get it.

Robby Incmikoski: You think he doesn’t know that basic . . . You can be teaching a ten-year-old kid the fundamentals of covering first base. There’s a big leaguer who’s won a Cy Young award in the World Series on the biggest stage didn’t cover first base. You know what I’m saying? There are lessons to be learned at all levels of baseball, even at the highest level on the biggest stage. But the point is, you at least have a chance every year, and that guy . . .

Milton Ousland: This is what I’m saying. That’s the argument I have with fans now who complain. How do you complain about a team that’s always—like the Jets, they haven’t been in a playoff game, they’re the longest franchise in all of sports. I would do anything just to see the Jets in a playoff game. Anything. The Knicks—look how long it took them. Years. I’ve never seen, I mean, years, twenty-five years, what? Just to be relevant? I’m happy they’re relevant. That’s it. And here Yankee fans are complaining because they make the playoffs every year, because they’re losing in World Series and ALCS. Come on. You gotta have a love and appreciation for what this team does. Look at other teams that never make it at all, that don’t win. So yeah, you can get mad, you can get angry . . .

Marc Chalpin: Hey, thank you. [I didn’t hear this. dn]

Robby Incmikoski: Be in the Mariners, man. Try being in the Mariners every year.

Milton Ousland: Yeah, I went to the, speaking of Mariners, I went to the Kingdome one time—that was weird.

Robby Incmikoski: I got a picture I’m gonna show you here in a second once I find it, but one of my close friends is Joe Douglas. I’ve known Joe for a very long time. We’ve done like Christmas dinners, [? dn] dinner, and all that. So I gotta tell you. However big a dumpster fire you think the Jets are, I think it’s a little bit worse, but that’s my personal opinion. Hey let’s move on, ’cause I’m gonna get you guys out of here, but I want to talk to you a little more. The Bleacher Creatures—I’d have to rack my brain and look at it, Milton, but you guys are probably the most unique, organic, authentic group of fans that could possibly exist in all major sports. Now obviously you get a lot of attention because it’s the Yankees, and it’s New York, and it’s Yankee Stadium. But like think about what you do: There are players playing the game at the highest level who are paying attention to you when the first couple pitches of a game are thrown, right? 

I don’t think that happens in any other sport across major professional sports, right? Like they might, you know, players might acknowledge the fans, that kind of thing. So that’s impressive in its own right.

What’s more impressive is how like organically how this has kind of taken off. None of it seems, in my estimation, what I’ve read about it, you guys and talking to Mark and now talking to you, none of this seems contrived or forced or fake—it’s just a bunch of people. And Mark was very honest. He’s like, “Look, some people can’t afford World Series tickets.” But that’s what makes it great—not so much that they can’t afford the tickets, but that it’s a genuine love and passion for the game, and it’s a genuine friendship you guys have all formed over the game of baseball. How does that come about over the years, Milton, in your experience?

Milton Ousland: It all starts with the queen of the Bleacher Creatures, Tina Lewis, who from the very beginning, from day one when I walked into the bleachers , , ,

Robby Incmikoski: Was this in the ’80s?

Milton Ousland: This is the early ’80s. My first game was in the left-field bleachers, and I’m sitting there and I’m hearing all this noise and all this stuff, and I was like, “You know what? I gotta sit there.” And once I found out tickets were three dollars—that’s how old I am, tickets were three dollars—that changed my life. I’m like, I’m going to every game! I could go on the train for one dollar and come back for one dollar, buy a ticket for three dollars. I need five dollars to go to a Yankee game? So once I started going to these games, I sat in the right-field bleachers, and it was just excitement—there was like a tension. And Tina would sit there—this was “first come, first serve”—and she would put papers on the seats. Nobody could sit in those seats. Nobody was allowed. Security would back her up back then. And it just grew.

And then let me tell you something about the roll call. The roll call originally was with Dave Winfield actually in 1988 probably. I think it was something like that, when he was going for the record for I think of a hundred RBIs for a certain number of years in a row, and he missed it by one—he got ninety-nine one year. We used to always just chant, “Dave, Dave, Dave!” and he would turn around and acknowledge us, and then go forward into like the early ’90s, ’91, ’92, I’m sitting there with George and these guys, and just as a joke, we, I think it was Nablah [? dn] or Roberto Kelly, not Roberto Kelly, Pat Kelly, somebody was playing second base, and we said as a joke, “Do you think they can hear us?” So we started chanting his name, and he turned around, and we were like, “Oh shit, they can hear us!” Then next thing you know, it just became like let’s fucking do every player, see if it works. And we started doing every fuckin’ player. We figured out that Michael Kay and John Sterling could fucking hear us, so we was like,” Holy shit.” We started doing Kay and Sterling.

Marc Chalpin: Until they broke up.

Milton Ousland: Kay and Sterling were in the original roll calls. We said, “Michael Kay.” And he used to wave to us. “John Sterling.” He would wave to us. We never did the catchers. We never did the catcher.

Robby Incmikoski: Do you do the catcher now?

Milton Ousland: No, we never do the catcher.

Robby Incmikoski: I didn’t think so.

Milton Ousland: I think David Wells was the only pitcher that we did. David Wells waved to us. Then, you know, it just became a life of its own. The roll call, Vinnie started doing it. First of all, it was always somebody doing it. Vinnie stuck with it for a long time—now Mark’s doing it for a long time. It’s just exciting for a lot of fans that are not Bleacher Creatures. It’s become like mainstream.

Marc Chalpin: Yeah.

Milton Ousland: People come to the stadium. They want to see that. The players turn around. The players love it. They’re getting acknowledged. They’re acknowledging us for our passion. I ring the cowbell—I don’t go as much as I used to, but when I do go there, the fellow Bleacher Creatures are excited, the players get excited.

Marc Chalpin: It brings an element.

Milton Ousland: Yeah, it’s a lot more fun. It’s great.

Marc Chalpin: It’s true. And this year, social media kind of took the roll call to another level, in a way. Like just this week, there’s some video on Instagram where some college kids in a hotel pretended to do the roll call, and they like used my words like verbatim, almost verbatim. And it got a lot of attention, and so it’s becoming like a thing. The twenty-somethings really are into it. So it helps us grow, and that’s what it’s all about. And you’re right that it’s absolutely organic because it’s not like we go out and hire people to do this, and the Yankees don’t us free tickets. We don’t get any of that. We’re literally there going every game with a great group of people, and I love it. I love every minute of it.

Milton Ousland: One thing is the players always appreciate us. They always acknowledge us on the road. When I used to go on the road, you know, Bernie Williams, Evan Mendoza—a bunch of players—Cone [? dn]. You know, if we needed tickets on the road, they would help us, or they’d acknowledge us on the road. We actually would hang out with them. They love our passion. They knew who we were. They recognize us. To this day, if Bernie Williams sees me, he’ll shake my hand, say, you know. Mariano Rivera is very nice to me. I met him when he was a rooky. He’s very, very cool with me. So it’s just a thing that is not only fans to the players, it’s also the players—they’re fans of us.

Robby Incmikoski: I was gonna say Jim Leyritz. He was in the World Series. Jim frickin’ Leyritz next to Mark. I saw the shot of Mark. I didn’t catch Jim right away, but I texted him the next day, “Was that Jim Leyritz?” [I didn’t hear the last part. dn]

Milton Ousland: Mark brings everybody out there.

Robby Incmikoski: That was a World Series hero himself. So that’s what I’m saying—so how do you put that into words, the fact that not only is Mark, obviously I know Mark’s a leader since 2016 I want to say, right? Been doing roll call. So he’s been doing roll call for eight, what nine seasons now. So like Jim Leyritz is a World Series hero himself, and there you are, there he is sitting with you. Now look, Jim Leyritz is still a human being; we’re all fucking humans. Nobody should be just free to . . . Not that Jim Leyritz should be treated better because he happened to be better at baseball than we were. But what I’m saying is like, is like, “That’s cool, man.” Like this dude, I know for a fact spending sixteen years in clubhouses—I know the impact that fans have on players, or excuse me, yeah, that fans have on players. And they know who the fans are. Like we have the Renegades of the Rotunda in Pittsburgh. They sit all the way up top at the left field. In fact, I’d love for you to meet my buddy, Chris, who’s the head of the Renegades. They dress as actual pirates.

Milton Ousland: Nice.

Robby Incmikoski: These dudes love to just slug beers and watch baseball. I’ve had these dudes at my house before. They’ve hung out, drink beers, watched Pirates road games, hang out—they’re just good dudes, they’re good people, right? They’re just good people. And like, and they’re big fans. They don’t get free tickets. Same thing: they buy their own tickets. Now they’re Rotunda tickets, so they’re standing room only. But during the pandemic, the Pirates went and gave them their own area. They were like, “This is reserved for the Renegades in  the Rotunda.” Small gesture, but it meant a lot to the team, right? How do you put that into words that you’ve got like a World Series hero sitting with you? And that’s not to demean you guys. But like you don’t see many World Series sitting with the fans. That just doesn’t happen often.

Milton Ousland: They’ve been on third base. [I may have misunderstood the previous sentence. dn] Charlie Hayes sat out there with them, came out there with them. Mickey Rivers.

Robby Incmikoski: Mickey Rivers, really?

Marc Chalpin: Mickey’s been a lot of times. This year alone we had Mickey, Ron Blomberg, Chuck Knoblauch, Shane Spencer, and of course, Jimmy. We also had Meredith.

Milton Ousland: What was his name? Fritz?

Marc Chalpin: Yeah, Fritz. But that was a long time ago. He passed away.

Robby Incmikoski: Who are you talking about? Who?

Marc Chalpin: Fritz Peterson. I don’t know if I told you this story the first time, but I met Fritz at the Fantasy Camp, and he was the first Yankee to take me up on coming to the bleachers. And he actually told me that he had such a good time that it was the first time since 1977 that he stayed all day.

Milton Ousland: And David Cone—David Cone also. He even rang the bell.

Robby Incmikoski: Cone came out to see you guys out there?

Milton Ousland: David Cone loves, he knows me by name. He’s really cool, man. David Cone, yeah.

Robby Incmikoski: Perfect game, man.

Milton Ousland: Two perfect games that  I missed, by the way, because I don’t go to day games.

Marc Chalpin: I missed two perfect games too.

Robby Incmikoski: Wells and Cone?

Milton Ousland: Every time I think about that . . . I wasn’t at the Gooden one, ’cause I just day games. One was my daughter’s birthday, and then the other one, I was just at the beach. I’ll never forget driving back from the beach, the David Cone perfect game going on, and I was so selfish. I’m like, “Dude, just throw a no-hitter. Just don’t do another perfect game. Please somebody walk. I cannot be the guy who missed it.”

Robby Incmikoski: What business do you work in, if you don’t mind me asking?

Milton Ousland: Well, right now I’m working at Costco actually right now.

Robby Incmikoski: Okay. Got you. And Mark? I don’t know if I even asked. What business are you in?

Marc Chalpin: I am in commercial real estate. I own several properties, and I’m a tax lawyer by training. I worked in my family business for a couple of decades, and then I ended up owning some property, and that’s what’s paying the bills.

Robby Incmikoski: Okay, gotcha. I was just curious. Again, people might wonder, Who are the Bleacher Creatures? What do they do? What are they like?

Milton Ousland: We got a little bit of everything.

Robby Incmikoski: Milton, you’re a husband and a father. You said you have a son and a daughter. Is that right? Did I hear that right?

Milton Ousland: I got two daughters and a son.

Robby Incmikoski: So you got three kids.

Milton Ousland: Three kids. Been married thirty-four years. Just working, paying the bills. If the Yankees want to give me free tickets to sit in the bleachers, I’ll take ’em.

Robby Incmikoski: Yeah, we’ll put that in there. Mark, do you have family—married, kids?

Marc Chalpin: No, I’m purely single.

Robby Incmikoski: You’re like me brother. I’m turning fifty. I’ve never been married. I don’t have any kids.

Marc Chalpin: Anybody in the thirty-something range, I’m listening. Especially a Yankee fan. But no, my parents, my nieces, my nephew . . .

Robby Incmikoski: That’s what I have. I have two nieces too. I’m at my brother’s house right now actually, but yes, I’m in Philly at my brother’s house right now. Kyle, I don’t know if you really have much more—we talked about the World Series, probably got Milton’s story. We are going to reach out to Tina, for sure, and talk to her. That’ll help us tell a real good story of you guys of the bleachers.

Milton Ousland: Let me just say the one thing about being upset about that fifth inning—the only thing that upsets me about the Yankees is the construction of the team, the all-right-handed power team. That pisses me off. I’m always getting angry about it. They need to like just bring up players that can could run, can play multiple positions and make contact. You don’t need fifty home-run guys, and we all know this. I just don’t understand how they don’t get it. Like why do they just keep bringing these slow, right-handed [? dn] batters. I just don’t get it. Short right field, speed, contact, lefty batters. Hello. Fix it. That’s the only thing that pisses me off. It’s not that hard.

Marc Chalpin: Look up Caleb Durbin. I’ve been following this guy for a year. He has a 10 percent strikeout rate, and he can hit about 280. Doesn’t hit much power, but he gets a lot of doubles and steals a lot of bases. He was just in the Arizona Fall League, stole twenty-nine bases in twenty games or something. It’s ridiculous.

Robby Incmikoski: I like that. What do you got for these guys, Kyle? Anything?

Kyle Fager: I want to talk about the ballpark for a second. Just tell me one thing you miss about the old ballpark and one thing you love about the new one.

Marc Chalpin: Is that for Milton or for me?

Robby Incmikoski: Either of you. Preferably both of you.

Milton Ousland: One of the, I mean, it almost brings a tear to my eye. I miss the old stadium so much. Me being the cowbell man, and I got permission to stand on the rail, and in the old stadium people had to go down past me to go to the bathroom and come back up. So that interaction I used to have with all the fans, talking or making fun of them or joking or just being able to communicate with fans that I didn’t know. The fact that they passed me and they had to come back up. It was just so wonderful to have that interaction with the fans. I would give kids little gifts or we used to do little jokes and things like that. Now everything is behind me—everybody has to go upstairs to the bathroom. I don’t see nobody. It’s like I’m there, you know. I have to turn around. It’s still fun, but I just really, really miss that about the old stadium: the fact that I was able to communicate with the fans a little more. And I liked that. I liked to give the kids the chance to ring the bell. I used to like talking with fans, and just getting a feel for who’s in the stadium. And it’s kind of tough now. Everybody’s like behind me.

As far as the new stadium, I guess what I like the most about the new stadium is I mean just how beautiful it is, you know, on the inside, being able to walk around and see so much that you didn’t see before—and the scoreboard being so big. It still feels like it’s special, which I wanted. I just miss that one little part, that’s all. It’s still a great stadium.

Robby Incmikoski: Yeah.

Marc Chalpin: For me, I still remember my very first game going, in the old stadium, it was very dark on the inside. And then you go through the tunnel, and then there was this like, on a nice sunny day, and the magic of, it’s like when you see the light on the field, it was like when Dorothy got to Oz and everything became color. That was something that I, you don’t quite have that at this stadium. Also, the acoustics were better in the old stadium, so it was a little bit louder because the upper deck was hanging a little bit more over. So the acoustics were better and just going back to the stairs thing Milton just said, you would have, like sometimes, first of all, a lot of the regular Bleacher Creatures—Milton included—would show up in the third or fourth inning, they got a nice boo from the whole crowd. Booed the hell out of them.

Marc Chalpin: I gotta take my beers, man, for two bucks before I go in.

Milton Ousland: I get it. I get it. That wasn’t my issue, but I get it. That, and sometimes there would be a celebrity lookalike come up, and the whole section would start chanting the celebrity names.

Robby Incmikoski: Oh my God.

Milton Ousland: We used to have a blast, man.

Marc Chalpin: My favorite one me that just stands out was a guy kind of looked like Kenny Rogers, and as soon as he walks up the stairs everybody hits “The Gambler.” “You gotta know when to hold ’em . . .” The whole crowd did it, so it was like nothing he could do. That’s the kind of thing I miss from the old stadium.

Milton Ousland: Yeah, man. It was just amazing.

Marc Chalpin: And he’s right about the new stadium. You can walk around a little bit. The museum I like, but ultimately, the old one, there was a magic there.

Milton Ousland: The new stadium is just a little more nice when you bring somebody who’s not a real major diehard baseball fan. You know, you’re gonna bring somebody you know, you hang out, let’s go to the game. There’s other things to see and do and walk around. And when you went to the old Yankee Stadium, you went there to watch a baseball game. You went there to see the New York Yankees kick ass.

Robby Incmikoski: Right.

Milton Ousland: When you come here now, you got the judge’s chambers. You’re walking around. There’s so much food, different kind of restaurants, the whole opening, it’s just like a museum. So there’s so much to do, and it’s fun when you bring somebody who’s not, who’s a casual, but as a diehard baseball fan, there was nothing like walking into Yankee Stadium and just that feeling of, “You know what? This is the Bronx. Welcome to hell, and we’re gonna kick your fuckin’ ass.” It was just crazy, man. That’s how it was, man. It was absolutely nuts.

Marc Chalpin: Yeah. And there’s still a similar vibe in the bleachers, which is why most of the regulars never venture outside the section. You now, we go there, we go to the bathroom if we have to, but for the most part, we don’t walk around the way we could.

Milton Ousland: But we were trained that way. We were trained that way. We were not allowed to walk around the stadium for all those years—they kept us in a little cage!

Marc Chalpin: That’s true.

Milton Ousland: We was not allowed to walk around the stadium, so once they let us out, you know.

Marc Chalpin: No, that’s true.

Milton Ousland: You know the funny thing is they put a ban on beer on us one time.

Robby Incmikoski: For what?

Milton Ousland: I don’t know. I guess we were too wild. I guess. I don’t know. They put a ban on beer.

Robby Incmikoski: Hold on. They put a ban on beer? In the bleachers?

Marc Chalpin: Yeah.

Robby Incmikoski: Grown-ass adults can’t drink beer? What?

Marc Chalpin: In the old stadium. Not in the new.

Robby Incmikoski: In the old stadium. You’re a grown-ass man.

Marc Chalpin: That’s why they snuck it in all the time.

Milton Ousland: You know what? Mark, remember the ironic thing was, the first night of the bear ban . . .

Marc Chalpin: Yes. I know where you’re going

Milton Ousland: Some guy, some guy from the upper deck jumped onto a net over the home plate.

Marc Chalpin: They delayed the game for like thirty minutes.

Milton Ousland: They wanted to say that we were wild. Couldn’t sell us beer, but some guy jumped from the upper deck over home plate and landed on the net.

Marc Chalpin: And it was the same night, the first night of the . . .

Milton Ousland: It was the first night . . 

Robby Incmikoski: Did they stop selling beer at the stadium totally?

Marc Chalpin: No, just us.

Milton Ousland: I don’t know. They must have got upset at us. Or we must have been a little too wild. I forgot what year that was.

Marc Chalpin: That was 2000. So they started banning it in ’99 in sections, basically our two sections, 39 and 37, but then they [?] back for about three weeks, and then they banned it again. And yeah, that’s the night that guy fell, but . . 

Milton Ousland: Robby, we have some crazy songs out there. I mean we even had [?] Japanese.

Marc Chalpin: [? dn]

Milton Ousland: Mock [?] used to come with a list of bad words in Japanese.

Marc Chalpin: I started yelling them at Ohtani in the World Series. I told you about that before.

Robby Incmikoski: He was the agent, so I guess . . 

Marc Chalpin: Yeah, it wasn’t easy. You know, a funny thing that Milton said about being trained. One time, we’re used to sitting on a bench, so one time we were all in Toronto on a road trip together, and if you looked at our group, nobody was sitting on the back of the chair. We were all kind of hunched over, like we were on a bench. It’s true. It’s like you become, and one of the reasons we’re called Bleacher Creatures is we’re creatures of habit. And we are. So, yeah, we are very much trained in doing what we do.

Robby Incmikoski: Let me ask you this. Milton, this is, I talked to Mark about this. I want to get your opinion on this, Milton. There are gonna be fans. There are first of all, I would venture, seven figures or more of fans that would love to see every stadium in major league baseball, right? They want to go to all thirty stadiums. Which is why [? dn] take a little bit of a tour through baseball. [? dn] through photos and stories, right? If there’s a fan’s that’s contemplating going to Yankee Stadium, and they know about the Bleacher Creatures, and I say to them, “Go see Milton, go see Tina, go see Mark,” what would the experience be like for them? I’m talking a fan of a visiting team going to see you.

Milton Ousland: I mean, for me, they’re gonna get a handshake, and I’m gonna say, “Welcome to Yankee Stadium—and welcome to hell. If you can’t handle it, you might want to turn around. This could get a little rough.” It’s not like it used to be—we were a little more rough around the edges. We were a little more over-the-top, and now they’ve stopped us from doing certain songs,. We can’t do, a lot of things we can’t do no more. But we still got the bell, we still got the roll call. Tina doesn’t come no more, so they’re not gonna see Tina. So, listen, if all night, Mark is gonna say hello. I’m gonna shake their hand, and they’re gonna experience the roll call. They’ll see me ringing the bell, and they’re gonna have a great time. As long as nobody’s disrespectful or doing anything stupid, it should be fine. It’s not like we’re gonna say, “Turn around, I don’t know you!” We’re not like that, you know. Unless you’re coming in there with a Red Sox hat on and doing something dumb, trying to sit in the middle of us, cursing us out—then you’re gonna get thrown out.

Marc Chalpin: Yeah, if you’re not a jerk, we’re not going to be jerks.

Milton Ousland: And that happens every game. Every game, some fan comes up to me and says, “Hey, I wanted to see the bell. I’ve been coming the last three games. I haven’t seen you. I’m so glad I’m here. We came here for the roll call.” So people actually go to games, I remember one time a whole family came from Houston. And they said, “We literally came to the game just to be part of the Bleachers.”

Marc Chalpin: That’s happened multiple times. I come from Iowa.

Milton Ousland: Yeah, yeah. Happens all the time. It’s a wonderful thing. It’s just you feel proud of yourself for being dedicated that long to this team. Hopefully, you get something back. And to me, getting something back is that reaction from other fans I don’t know.

Marc Chalpin: Yes.

Milton Ousland: So acknowledging us.

Marc Chalpin: It’s nice to do something that makes other Yankee fans—or other people—enjoy the game a little bit more. We’re just fans too like them, but they do come up, and they, obviously what we do resonates with them and it’s important that we show them the kind of friendliness that they would expect. It’s an interaction, so I’ll always shake your hand. I’ll take the picture. I’ll ask you your name, and hopefully you have a good time.

Robby Incmikoski: Yup. Great. Great. Kyle, anything else for these gentlemen?

Kyle Fager: That was fantastic.

Robby Incmikoski: This is as expected here. This is tremendous. Thank you guys. Kyle, you can stop the recording and the transcribing. We’ll call, we’ll get in touch with Tina, by the way.

Marc Chalpin: Good.

Robby Incmikoski: If we have to do it via phone, that’s no problem. We can do that too. She said she doesn’t come to a lot of games, right?