Tina Lewis
Robby Incmikoski: Here we are with Tina Lewis. We’re recording now. Tina, so how long have you been in the Bronx?
Tina Lewis: Permanently since 1990, but I used to commute from California.
Robby Incmikoski: Wow. Now, is that just to go to—you commuted to go to Yankee games? What was the reason for the commute?
Tina Lewis: So, well, see, the thing is—like I told you before, I was born in California, moved to Detroit when I was one. My dad passed, and lived there until I was almost fourteen, fifteen, and decided to leave home. I went to California, finished my schooling, went to UCLA, played softball there,.
Robby Incmikoski: Okay.
Tina Lewis: And I worked. And then I would save the money, and I worked, and I was young. I went to schools, graduated, did all that. Then I was old enough, I started coming to New York because I would work hard, and then I would come in the summer here. And being that I grew up in the restaurant business, I’d go to Fourteenth Street.
Robby Incmikoski: Okay.
Tina Lewis: And I’d go to the agency and get a, first I’d rent a room. You could rent rooms, you know, you could rent rooms then.
Robby Incmikoski: Right.
Tina Lewis: And I’d go [to? dn] the agency, pay them a week’s salary to get me a job. So I’ve worked in the restaurant business all my life.
Robby Incmikoski: Okay.
Tina Lewis: And I would come here and go to the games, and I bought a Sunday plan, and I went every game—almost every game, I would go. And then every year I came, until 1990 I said, “You know what, it’s getting a little too expensive for me.” So I decided to move to New York, and that was it. But I used to sit in the, I was a big, big—I was a big Greg Nettles fan, and you know, Thurman and all them. But the days that I came from California—no, Thurman, he was gone before I got to see him. I don’t think I seen him play in person, because I was still young, and I think maybe once or twice.
Robby Incmikoski: Okay.
Tina Lewis: My brother and I came down from Detroit. But where was I at? I sat behind Greg Nettles for a long time, and then I decided—I used to hear all this stuff in the bleachers. I said, “They’re looking at the Cowbell guy . . . ,” and I used to see—I would go and walk in the bleachers, I met a couple of people. And finally, I said, “You know what, I liked what’s happening.” I was going to visit them. Anyway, this was while I was still living in California. This was in the ’80s.
Robby Incmikoski: Okay.
Tina Lewis: You know what? So 1983, I saw, I said you saw, “You know what . . .” I went to . . . I said, “You know I [? dn].” I sold my ticket that day, or whatever—I think I sold my Sunday. And I know I went Sunday, was a Monday—I went. I said, “Let me go.” I went to the bleachers on the Fourth of July, 1983. You know what that was, right?
Robby Incmikoski: What—what’s that date? What date in ’83?
Tina Lewis: Fourth, July 4, 1983.
Robby Incmikoski: I don’t remember that.
Tina Lewis: We used to say, “Pray for Righetti” then, because they ruined . . . it was Righetti’s no-hitter. That’s my first day in the bleachers.
Robby Incmikoski: Was Dave Righetti there?
Tina Lewis: Yeah, that was my first day in the bleachers.
Robby Incmikoski: Really?
Tina Lewis: And then I seen everything that was happening, and then I never left. The next day I came—after that, it was a Tuesday—I came, picked up my spot, LL 25 in Section 39. It was a perfect seat, right on top of the pitcher, and that was the history. I never went back.
Robby Incmikoski: That’s amazing. What a story. So are all your family—your family is all Tigers fans, is that right?
Tina Lewis:: Yeah?
Robby Incmikoski: And you’re the . . . so tell me . . .
Tina Lewis: So when I was growing up, anyway, when I was little, my brother was a huge sports fan—he’d take me to horse racing, which I hated that.
Robby Incmikoski: Right.
Tina Lewis: And take me to roller derby, which I loved that.
Robby Incmikoski: Yep.
Tina Lewis: And we used to go to Tiger Stadium. So one day—and I’m gonna tell you, he said, trying to get . . . I was young. I was three. I don’t remember my childhood, but that part like it was yesterday, I remember a tiger, a big tiger was outside Tiger Stadium, because they had everything outside.
Robby Incmikoski: Yep.
Tina Lewis: And I remember that much. I went after that. That’s how I became a big Billy Martin fan and all that. That’s a long story. But anyway, he asked me, and I said, “No, Yankees,” and that was it. When I said to him, “Yankees,” he bought me Yankee stuff. But my dad . . . he was a lot older than me—I was the young, youngest of ten—so he was old, you know, like my older brother, he was like a father image to me.
Robby Incmikoski: Right? Okay.
Tina Lewis: He would take me everywhere. So I became a Yankee fan, and then, you know, we’d come to New York a couple of times, and that’s . . . But I’ll tell you my favorite—I love baseball, but I’m sixty-two right now. I was born in 1962, gonna be sixty-three soon in March.
Robby Incmikoski: Okay.
Tina Lewis: But 1968 is what really, really made me love baseball. It was the Tigers and the World . . . the Tigers. Not that I was rooting for the Tigers. I knew—I knew better, you know. I was six, I was very smart for six years old. I knew that the Yankees were not in it, and I wasn’t rooting, I’m an American League fan, so I wasn’t really rooting, I don’t remember. Is it San Diego, do you think?
Robby Incmikoski: What year are you talking about?
Tina Lewis: 1968 World Series.
Robby Incmikoski: 1968 it was the Tigers against the St. Louis Cardinals.
Tina Lewis: Cardinals, that’s who I was ro . . . My National League team—not that I’m a National League fan.
Robby Incmikoski: Right.
Tina Lewis: But I liked the Cardinals and Whitey Herzog and all that, because I like the way they are, just like the Yankees. I’ve been at the stadium, and they have the traditional, just like the, they have a tradition like the Yankees. They don’t have no rally monkeys or nothing of that. It’s just like—that’s why I like the St. Louis Cardinals. I remember that—that’s the St. Louis Cardinals.
Robby Incmikoski: Yep.
Tina Lewis: And that game put me over the top. Then, you know something, we’d go . . . I’d watch it all the time. I met Billy Martin a couple of times up in Detroit. But then I decided to go to California and did what I did, and then I came to . . . I commuted every summer, until 1990, and in 1990 I moved here. And I used to go to every game. This year I actually missed the whole season.
Robby Incmikoski: Oh wow.
Tina Lewis: I was a little tired.
Robby Incmikoski: Yeah.
Tina Lewis: I put forty-some years.
Robby Incmikoski: Yeah.
Tina Lewis: People forget that I sat forty years—well, 1983, right, it’s forty years in the bleachers? Forty-one years in the bleachers, is that right?
Robby Incmikoski: Yeah.
Tina Lewis: And then the rest—another five years, you know, in a box seat. So I’ve been around a long time. So people say, “Did you retire?” No, I’m still in charge. Then they gave me—go ahead, go ahead, go ahead . . .
Robby Incmikoski: Let me ask you this, Tina. So when you said you commuted back and forth, you mean, did you commute for the whole summer?
Tina Lewis: Yes.
Robby Incmikoski: Or did you just come back for periods of time?
Tina Lewis: I would come for the summer.
Robby Incmikoski: And you would just rent a room.
Tina Lewis: Um-hmm.
Robby Incmikoski: And you would just go to Yankee games?
Tina Lewis:
Uh-huh.
Robby Incmikoski:
And then you made the permanent move when, to New York?
Tina Lewis:
1990.
Robby Incmikoski: In 1990, okay. So while you were going to Tigers games with your family, you knew deep down inside you were a Yankee fan. Is that right?
Tina Lewis: Oh, yeah, and I was not—I didn’t hide it. I always had Yankee stuff on.
Robby Incmikoski: Right. Okay.
Tina Lewis: I was a big Yankee fan, and my brother did not take that away from me.
Robby Incmikoski: Okay.
Tina Lewis: He didn’t like it, but he didn’t take that away from me. He knew.
Robby Incmikoski: So your first game—1983, July 4, Dave Righetti’s no-hitter—that was the first time you sat in the bleachers? Is that correct?
Tina Lewis: I’d been there before to visit people, you know, people that I knew.
Robby Incmikoski: Right.
Tina Lewis: But yes, that was my first time I sat in the bleachers. I never left.
Robby Incmikoski: So how did you get from there to becoming the lead of the Bleacher Creatures? How did you take over?
Tina Lewis: The thing that, when I was younger . . . I was like a Mrs. T. I had all these Yankee charms. [? dn] Yankee charm, no [?dn]. And all of a sudden, I just had . . . like I said, I went the next day . . . It’s funny because I don’t remember who the no-hitter was against, but I remember I came on a Tuesday night, and it wasn’t that crowded. There was nobody out there. So I picked the section. Plenty of seats to sit. It was Section 39, LL 25. I sat, and I’m like, “Oh, right on top of the pitcher.” Then all the people there—Chico, the original Chico, and Ali, you know, Cowbell Guy . . . which has—’cause you see, he’s retired out there. So they all started talking to me, all the regulars that were there, and we all started sitting together. And I came all the time, and everybody came around me for some reason. I don know what it was. Maybe it was the chain, maybe the way I talked about baseball, and all that, and we started becoming a group. We all started sitting in a little section together, and then general admission, mind you, we created our little Section 39, and we sat together, and I would sit there, bring people’s bags in so I can save seats. You know how many fights I had with people?
Robby Incmikoski: How many?
Tina Lewis: Oh my God. People called me all kinds of names, because they would come and sit in that section, and I would say, “Excuse me, you can’t sit there.”
Robby Incmikoski: Wow.
Tina Lewis: Imagine you go to . . . imagine going at any stadium, and there’s some lady—I was younger then—some woman telling you, “Excuse me, you can’t sit there,” in general admission. They’re like, “Excuse me, this is general admission.” “Oh, well, yeah, but not—this section is not, this is for us.” So whatever. They were like, “Oh, well, I’m gonna go get security.” “Go ahead.” Security would say, “Sorry, it’s their section. Tthey’re saving it.” Security was always on our side then. But then they started getting smarter. I’m like, “You know what?” Then, for some reason, Steinbrenner took a liking to us, so he started giving us tickets. We had the little “hole” tickets. And people would come and say, “Sit there,” and I’m like, “Excuse me, you can’t sit there.” “No, we can—let me see your ticket. Who are you? If you don’t have a hole in your ticket, you can’t sit here.” All right, no problem. So we took care of that. Then we got smart enough to make laminated copies that said “This seat is taken.” We made about 30 of them.
Robby Incmikoski: Really?
Tina Lewis: I would come every day, put it in the seat, argue with people, whatever. But we became a group. And then, of course, there was a lady—I’m not going to name her, because she’s not very well—Molina . . . Molina named me the “Queen of the Bleacher Creatures,” and it just stuck with me.
Robby Incmikoski: Really? That’s amazing.
Tina Lewis: And we just . . . we just became a big group, started all the chants, and the cowbell, and everything else came. Everybody else came after that, and like we’re all “creatures of habit.” Everybody had a job out there. Somebody was doing a home-run pool, somebody’s doing roll call, somebody doing this, somebody’s ringing the bell. So me, personally, I’ve been bringing—I brought an American flag out there from the day that I stepped in Yankee Stadium.
Robby Incmikoski: That is amazing.
Tina Lewis: That American flag they hold now—that’s all because of me.
Robby Incmikoski: Really?
Tina Lewis: Yeah.
Robby Incmikoski: Now so let me get this straight.
Tina Lewis: They all copied, they all copied that from me, and all that you see—Chico, real men holding a flag—that’s because of me.
Robby Incmikoski: Now, let me ask you this. Let me make sure I have this story straight: So people would walk into your seats in general admission, you’re like, “No, no, no, this is our area,” and you held it aside by making laminated signs, by saying, “This seat is taken.”
Tina Lewis: Yes.
Robby Incmikoski: And that’s how the Bleacher Creatures were created?
Tina Lewis: Well, we made copies, so we could put it on the seat. Yeah, that’s how we became a group—everybody sitting together. We’d enjoy . . . and then you had to really be a big Yankee fan to become part of our group, and that’s how I became . . . And then I became—Ali and I, may he rest . . . we were very strict on who sat there, on who didn’t, you know what I mean? So definitely not . . . you were not—if you . . . and it’s not a great being . . . you cannot be a Yankee/Met fan if you were part of our group. That was just strictly Yankee fans.
Robby Incmikoski: Strictly Yankee.
Tina Lewis: On national TV
Robby Incmikoski: Right.
Tina Lewis: When we moved to the new stadium . . .
Robby Incmikoski: Right.
Tina Lewis: We played the Cubs.
Robby Incmikoski: Yep.
Tina Lewis: An exhibition game . . . they actually brought the . . . what about the plaque, when Ali . . . there’s so many good stories. When Ali died, they came and put the seat, and they retired the seats, and then when we moved over, a block [? dn] called me up and brought the plaque and put it in my seat in Yankee Stadium and all that. It’s his plaque, where he used to sit next to me.
Robby Incmikoski: So who is that?
Tina Lewis: Ali Ramirez, you know, the original cowbell guy.
Robby Incmikoski: Okay.
Tina Lewis: You heard about the plaque. There’s only one plaque outside the . . . what is it, the museum, Monument Park.
Robby Incmikoski: Yeah, Monument Park.
Tina Lewis: There’s only one plaque besides Monument Park, and that’s Ali’s. It says, “This seat taken from original Bleacher Creature.”
Robby Incmikoski: Wow.
Tina Lewis: I don’t know if you know it, but it’s all over Facebook. If you go friends on Facebook with me, you’ll see it. It’s in the bleachers. You ever been in the bleachers?
Robby Incmikoski : No, surprisingly . . .
Tina Lewis: Ali was . . . Ali was another one who, he was a leader out there, and we became—he was like a dad to me. So we never forget . . . we do his memorial, the Yankees put his name every year out there, do the memorial every year with these, and we, you know, save these seats. And they came and put the plaque over, and wondered if I could keep the plaque. They called me up. They said, “Do you want to keep the plaque, or do you want to take it to the new stadium?” I’m like, “No, because if he was alive, he would be going to the new stadium, so the plaque’s gonna come with me.” Anyway, that night that we played . . . when we moved to the new stadium in 2009, I want to say, yeah.
Robby Incmikoski: Okay.
Tina Lewis: We had an exhibition game with the Cubs, and World News Tonight was there for us. I said it on national TV and they told me this in Florida . . . I just want to tell you something about the Mets, not about the hate.
Robby Incmikoski: Right.
Tina Lewis: I said it on national TV. They said, “What is the requirement to become a Bleacher Creature?” I said, “Well, you come, you gotta be a diehard Yankee fan, that’s number one, you gotta come at least to sixty games a year, and you gotta love the Yankees and hate the Mets.” I said that on national TV. So I’m in Florida. “I heard you say you hate the Mets on national TV.” I said, “Yeah, I did, and I do.” “You mean you don’t hate the Red Sox, you hate the Mets?” “No, I rooted for the Red Sox in ’86. I can’t stand the Mets, no offense, I just can’t stand them. Listen, I don’t wish them any wrong, I don’t wish them anything, I don’t wish them any harm, I don’t wish them nothing. I just don’t wish them nothing, that’s it. I’ll never be a Met fan, that’s why I said it.” So yeah, it’s not a . . . I mean . . . and it became a group. The group came and became huge.
Robby Incmikoski: That’s amazing.
Tina Lewis: But it was Ali and I who started that whole thing. To be honest, it was me who . . . they all flocked to me, for some reason, I don’t know what it was, so that’s . . .
Robby Incmikoski: I could tell them. I could just have one conversation with you, I could understand. That is crazy.
Tina Lewis: There are so many, so many stories. I mean, Ali passed, and we had a funeral for him and everything, and I don’t, and I went to see . . . and the Yankees sent a big arrangement of flowers with the number . . . he was a big Billy Martin fan . . . with the number 1 on him. And then they . . . and just . . . and then, of course, he had the cowbell, the original cowbells, in Steinbrenner’s office. He gave it to him.
Robby Incmikoski: Right.
Tina Lewis: It’s in the archives. And he was buried in the Billy Martin . . . actual Billy, and he was buried in the Billy Martin uniform. That’s what he was wearing when he was . . . they honored him. So I come after he passed away in May 1996, and I think May 14 is when he was buried, they had the funeral, everything. So I come over, and I see the flags half-staff that year. Oh, let me tell you the story. That year, that particular week, Steinbrenner was in Tampa with his horse, so he was not around.
Robby Incmikoski: Okay.
Tina Lewis: Anyway, I come around, and I see the flags half-staff. And at that time, Gilbert Hyatt—Sonny Hyatt, I can say his name—he was in charge of operations. And all of a sudden, I looked, I came up, you know how the old Yankee Stadium was, I came up the bleachers, and I seen, as I’m coming up the dark, I seen the flags half-staff. So I said to myself, not to anybody in particular, “Oh, no, who died now?” Right? Who you think, you know, I didn’t hear anything in the news about any player dying, but when you see the flags half-staff in Yankee Stadium, you figure a player died, right?
Robby Incmikoski: Right.
Tina Lewis: So I said, “Who the heck died?” So I hear behind me, “Oh no, nobody died, Tina. I was waiting for you to come.” This is the guy in charge of operations. He’s waiting for me in the bleachers. Got so many stories about [? dn] gave me his jacket, oh my God. Anyway, he said, “No, nobody died. Tonight is a memorial for Ali Ramirez. We got the bleachers—only the Bleacher Creatures and the family are gonna be in right field. It’s closed for everybody else.”
Robby Incmikoski: Right.
Tina Lewis: We had a big, big . . . somebody made, his nephew made a sheet with his picture on it, a mural of him ringing the bell. We put it up on the wall by the [? dn] and put it up, and we all came in. And that night—this is an awesome story—that night, it was May 14, 1996.
Robby Incmikoski: Okay.
Tina Lewis: Doc Gooden is pitching.
Robby Incmikoski: All right.
Tina Lewis: There’s signs all over in the upper deck. Everybody knew Ali passed. There are signs all over. Oh, no, don’t even say nothin’. So before the game, Bob Sheppard—may he rest in peace—goes . . . we . . . he said, the flags are half-staff, he said, “We are . . .” whatever, “We want to honor blah-blah-blah.” He said Ali’s name. That’s what that was.
Robby Incmikoski: Really?
Tina Lewis: You know, I didn’t get . . . well, I forgot to tell you, but he goes, “No, nobody died . . .” I’m like, “Dude, who died?” He said, “No, nobody died, but we’re having a memorial, and George wanted us to put the flags half-staff.” I said, “Get out of here.” They did it for him. He’s, he’s, Bob Sheppard said his name. Bob Sheppard had a moment of . . .
Robby Incmikoski: A moment of silence, yeah.
Tina Lewis: You know, for freaking Ali Ramirez.
Robby Incmikoski: That’s really nice.
Tina Lewis: It was the coolest thing ever. Then all of a sudden, we’re going on, there was a lot of crying. His wife showed up. It’s funny how he passed away—he was going to a game, he was coming to a game. He had off, so probably came to a game. He said to me, “I got a problem, my stomach hurts today, I’m gonna go to the doctor, but I’ll . . . We have a day off. I’ll see you on Wednesday,” he said to me, or something like that. I said, “Okay.”
Robby Incmikoski: Okay.
Tina Lewis: It as Ali, and he only came for batting practice. He went to the doctor that night, and they told him, “No, just gas, you can go home,” so . . . “Are you sure? ’Cause my wife . . .” The daughter said, “My mom’s in the hospital, my dad’s gonna be by himself,” but he lived by Yankee Stadium, and he’s like, “Yeah, yeah, he’ll be fine.” No, he wasn’t. He came home. Next day, he took a shower to come to Yankee Stadium, and he died right there in the shower.
Robby Incmikoski: Really?
Tina Lewis: I couldn’t believe it, so I came . . . yeah, I’ll go back to the story about that day. So I come from Yankee Stadium. It was [? dn]. I worked in Champs on Wall Street, it’s called Champs Deli, I worked . . . I would come from work, go over to the diner, and get three coffees: one for me, one for Ali, and one . . . that day I come, the guy passed—I didn’t know he passed. So Angel was coming to meet him, one of the girls, and she said, “How you doing?” I’m like, “Why’s she asking me how I’m doing? This girl never asked me how I’m doing—how was your job? I’m like, “What’s the matter with you. Why are you asking me all this?” She said, “I just wanted to let you know that Ali . . . Ali’s gone.” I said, “What you mean he’s gone? What you mean he’s gone? He went to Puerto Rico again and didn’t tell me? He said he was gonna be at the game today. I got his coffee. How come he didn’t tell me?” “No,” she said, “that’s not what I mean.” I’m like, “What do you mean?” By the time I got to Gate 8, she said, “He’s gone.” I’m like, “Gone where?”
Robby Incmikoski: Right.
Tina Lewis: “He passed away.”
Robby Incmikoski: No way.
Tina Lewis: What? I got down on my knees. Coffee fell on the floor . . . that’s . . . so the funeral, Billy Martin and all that . . . that night . . . because I gotta tell you. So that night, everybody’s just . . . you know, into the game, and his family was there, his grown, fourteen-year-old grandson played the bell that night, and all that, and all of a sudden.
Robby Incmikoski: Yeah.
Tina Lewis: We’re looking—there’s a no-hitter going. But we didn’t even know until about the fifth. Me, I did, and I was crying. It was—CBS was out there filming, or . . . anyway, halfway there, I think, I’m looking . . . no, halfway there, maybe the fourth inning, I look and there’s mumbling that Doc Gooden got a no-hitter going. But you know, you’re not supposed to talk.
Robby Incmikoski: Right.
Tina Lewis: First of all, I went to five . . . five no-hitters, two perfect games. I was there for all of them.
Robby Incmikoski: David Wells.
Tina Lewis: Oh hell yeah, that was the most, weirdest thing ever, ’cause you don’t know what to do. So I look up—it was a clear, clear night. It was so weird, you know. It was a clear night. I swear on everything I believe in, and I told Doc Gooden this.
Robby Incmikoski: Right.
Tina Lewis: There was a star—the one single star above Doc Gooden the whole time that he pitched. That star never moved.
Robby Incmikoski: And that was the night . . .
Tina Lewis: Ali’s memorial.
Robby Incmikoski: Wow.
Tina Lewis: May 14. I swear, I was crying. There was—there was not . . . there was no stars, just one single star.
Robby Incmikoski: And what year was that?
Tina Lewis: 1996.
Robby Incmikoski: ’96. Wow.
Tina Lewis: A week after he died. He died on the 8th, and then the memorial was the 14th.
Robby Incmikoski: Yeah, I got that.
Tina Lewis: I swear, that was . . . yeah, you record anyway. That was a star above him the whole time.
Robby Incmikoski: That’s amazing.
Tina Lewis: And that’s . . . not just that—that star stayed with us a couple, you know, a little bit. I used to . . . this is crazy. Until, it was a big fight out there one day, and I never seen it again. He didn’t like fights.
Robby Incmikoski: Okay.
Tina Lewis: He was not a violent person. If some funny stuff, somebody would argue—he’d ring the bell like the “lunch bell.” Enough, enough, enough, right by their ear, like enough. No more fighting. So without him . . . ’cause he helped me a lot. So that’s one of these stories. We have so many of them.
Robby Incmikoski: That’s great. I can’t wait to hear more of them. I just want the basic ones now, because I want to tell your story as it relates to being the Queen of the Bleacher Creatures. You know how you have it with Milton, and with . . .
Tina Lewis: Oh, yeah, yeah. But that’s funny, because that’s . . . then all of a sudden, he passed, and the Yankees wanted a new building, they wanted a cowbell out there. So Milton is the only other person who’s sanctioned by the Yankees—no one else can bring an instrument out there. He’s the only one who’s allowed. I remember these people on the upper deck that would bring that giant flag. I don’t know if you ever heard about the Marlboro Guy that would sit up there. The Marlboro guy, every time.
Robby Incmikoski: I don’t remember that.
Tina Lewis: They had a big, giant flag out there. So one day, they brought the big, giant flag in the old stadium to the bleachers. And said, “Can we fly the American flag here?” I said, “No. What do you mean, you don’t . . . you don’t . . .” “No, no, sorry. We have our own flags here.” I have nothing against the American flag—I bring it all the time. Used to have flags all over for “God Bless America,” you know, always the national anthem. I never once . . . I’ve been bringing that flag out there for many years.
Robby Incmikoski: Right.
Tina Lewis: I said, “No.” And he said, “Oh, I love you guys, you guys, your cowbell. My son plays the cowbell.” I said, “Excuse me, your son does what?” He said, “Yeah, my son brings the cowbell, he brings it.” I’m like, “Your son brings a cowbell to the stadium, you can’t do that.” I’m like, “Do you know there’s only one cowbell sanctioned in this stadium, and that’s Ali’s—he was sanctioned by the Yankees. No one else is allowed to bring that.”
Robby Incmikoski: Right.
Tina Lewis: “Well, he does,” he said. Stupid idiot, this guy. He said, “Yeah, well, when we bring our flag in, we fold it inside the flag so they don’t see it.” I said, “Okay, oh, that’s cool.”
Robby Incmikoski: That’s amazing. That is awesome.
Tina Lewis: I called up right away, and I said, “Listen, this is happening,” and I said, “You know the Marlboro guy. He sits here.” He said, “Well, he start ring the bell . . .” [I don’t think previous sentence is right but not sure what it is. dn] “What? We can’t have a bell in here.” Half an hour they were up there. They were out, security—big chiefs, the suits, the suits—they went up there, they took his bell away . . .
Robby Incmikoski: Really? Oh, somebody else tried to do it after . . .
Tina Lewis: The same guy’s telling me, the one who came down and wanted to fly the flag in the bleachers. I said, “No, you fly it in your section. We have enough flags here.”
Robby Incmikoski: Wow.
Tina Lewis: But he said, “I love your cowbell. My son brings it sometimes and he plays it. I said, “What cowbell? You bring cowbell to the stadium? He said, “Yeah.” I’m like, “You can’t do that. You’re not allowed to do that. There’s only one cowbell sanctioned.” So when he told me how he does it, I called the Yankee security and told them, and they [? dn].
Robby Incmikoski: Oh my God.
Tina Lewis: They took it away from them.
Robby Incmikoski: That’s amazing. That’s amazing. Now let me ask you this: How do you describe just the friendships and the relationships that you all have because of the Yankees and the game of baseball?
Tina Lewis: Let me tell you something. It’s the greatest thing ever. I think, you know, I might be a little partial because, you know, it’s my group and our group, but I think . . .
Robby Incmikoski: That’s all right.
Tina Lewis: A lot of people don’t know who we are, and they think a lot of negative things about us. But we’re not, actually. We got our chants, all these years. I work with the Yankees; the Yankees respect me to the fullest. I could . . . I probably could get anything from them, because I listened, I listened to everything they wanted me. They wanted me to work on getting all the bad chants out of there, and I did—we did—I did everything they asked. So they have so much respect for me, it’s not even funny. They really do.
Robby Incmikoski: I love it. I love it.
Tina Lewis: They have a lot of respect. I’d do anything. I can go all the way to the top, and I’m not bragging, because they respect me, because I . . . everything they asked of us, we have done. So we have special memories that no other group, ever, not the Chicago bums, you know, not the Bleacher Bums in Chicago—no one can . . . no one can do. Let me give you an example how beautiful it is.
Robby Incmikoski: Okay.
Tina Lewis: You know all the chants that you hear out there.
Robby Incmikoski: Yeah.
Tina Lewis: Like, “You deserve it”? That all came from us.
Robby Incmikoski: Right.
Tina Lewis: Every little chant, you know, that you see. The roll call—well, not that… that came too, we all started that. I believe 100 percent that we started most of the chants that you see now, that all came positive from us. We . . . like Jeter [? dn] day was the most . . . I was devastated that day here—the last day that Jeter played in Yankee Stadium.
Robby Incmikoski: Yep, 2014, he had to walk-off single against the Orioles, right?
Tina Lewis: Yeah—you know what they were saying to him?
Robby Incmikoski: What’s that?
Tina Lewis: “Thank you, Jeter.”
Robby Incmikoski: Yeah.
Tina Lewis: Guess who started that?
Robby Incmikoski: That was you guys?
Tina Lewis: Yes, me.
Robby Incmikoski: Really?
Tina Lewis: That was my idea.
Robby Incmikoski: How cool is that?
Tina Lewis: I said to Milton, and to Marc, and to Vinnie—Vinnie, the old Vinnie, Vinnie who used to, you know, Vinnie that did roll call for many years.
Robby Incmikoski: Yep.
Tina Lewis: I said, well, Vinnie, Mark, the first one I reached to, I said to Mark, “We gotta do this,” and to Milton and to Vinnie, I’m like, “We gotta do this.” So that’s where it started.
Robby Incmikoski: That’s amazing, Tina!
Tina Lewis: That was my idea.
Robby Incmikoski: That’s a hell of a story.
Tina Lewis: And we started it in the bleachers, I swear to God—I will take that credit, because I didn’t hear it until we did it. We started. I told everybody—I was crying my eyes out—and it picked up.
Robby Incmikoski: Right.
Tina Lewis: It picked up not just there, but people were—even other stadiums were saying, “Thank you, Jeter.”
Robby Incmikoski: That’s amazing.
Tina Lewis: And I couldn’t believe the way they treated him, the Red Sox fans too. I couldn’t believe it, that man was something else.
Robby Incmikoski: That’s amazing.
Tina Lewis: Yeah.
Robby Incmikoski: What a story. I love these stories. I love ’em.
Tina Lewis: A lot of stories. So many of them.
Robby Incmikoski: Yep. Well, Tina, I can’t thank you enough. I love these—I love hearing these. I love hearing your stories.
Tina Lewis: Okay.