A softball game was scheduled at six pm that night
between the Soap Opera All Star Team, and the local Radio
All Star Team, to be played at Hi Corbett field (Home of the
triple A Tucson Toros). Before the game the Soap Team made
an appearance at a local mall.
Things did not go terribly well at the Mall. Sheryl,
Cookie Boy, and the two of us, were standing up by the
stage. The autograph line wasn't very long so we had
decided not to get in it until later. Sheryl and Teresa
spotted Christian Taylor (as in Kurth/Taylor, Idle Rich) in
the crowd, next to the piano, but we didn't believe it was
really him... out in the crowd... not wearing a team shirt.
The others came in, Brian Dattilo (Lucas DOOL), Brent Jasmer
(Jeff B&B), Paul Kersey (Alan DOOL), William Christian,
(Derek AMC) and Timothy Stickney (R.J. OLTL) Christopher
Fuller (Sly ATWT), all dressed in their team jerseys and
Christian Taylor, in his blue denim jacket, came out of the
crowd and joined them on stage.
Disaster #1. The sound system did not work. Mall
personnel kept trying to get it to work throughout the
event.
Disaster #2. The team pitcher, and manager, Taylor
(NOT Christian) announced that they would not be signing any
autographs, until the game that night when they could
charge. This was not pleasing to the small crowd which
could have been accomodated without taking up more than an
hour.
Then the Q&A began. This was a bit difficult without
microphones. But it was established that none of the actors
except Timothy Stickney are married, and that Lucas (Brian
Dattilo) is very popular with small Tucson crowds. We
couldn't hear many other questions on that side of the
stage.
Christian went over to help with the sound system. Our
hopes soared. Surely a musical professional like himself
could fix the recalcitrant equipment. And the microphone
did show some signs of life so they handed it to Brian
Dattilo. It promptly stopped working. Brian jauntily began
to swing the mike in a circle. It flew off the cord, hit
the ground, and the resulting shrapnel hit a young lady in
the crowd. (That was disaster #3). Brian immediately leapt
off the stage and went into the crowd to see if the girl was
okay. Subsequently the young lady received hugs and kisses
from Brian and other team members, an autographed t-shirt,
and a dinner invitation. Other members of the crowd were
heard to mutter, "Hit me!"
Christian gave up on the malfunctioning microphones and
returned to his seat with a resigned shrug. The team
members now had down the trick of leaving their seats to
come to the front of the stage so that the fans could hear
them. Timothy Stickney was asked where he lived. New York
of course, and he loves living there. Teresa asked if R.J.
was really bad or just misunderstood. Just misunderstood,
he replied with a killer grin. Shortly afterwards he saw
someone he knew in the crowd and jumped down to engage her
and nearby fans in conversations for most of the rest of the
event.
Finally it was Christian's turn, and we had a question.
Our Kurth/Taylor tape was pulled out as a visual aid. Which
of the songs on the album had C.T. written? He asked to
have the tape handed up and read off the ones that were his.
And we asked if he had also written "Stay With Me", the song
the Idle Rich performed on GH that was not on the tape.
Yes, he and Wally wrote it. He said they'd be releasing
another soon, and that they were trying to arrange a gig in
Phoenix. He mentioned that they were considering releasing
"Lyin' King" as a country single.
Christian began, surreptiously, to sign some
autographs, as the manager (Fat Boy) Taylor (We really did
not like this guy. He really couldn't project, microphone
or no microphone. Also we knew he wouldn't let us get
autographs because he wanted to CHARGE for them at the game
that evening. But mostly we refer to him as Fat Boy to
differentiate between him and Christian, because we can't
recall Mr. Taylor's first name.) was occupied at the other
end of the stage trying to prevent Brian Dattilo from
surreptiously giving away his autograph. Brian did manage
to buy some raffle tickets from one of the young ladies in
the crowd.
Teresa and Cookie Boy had to leave at this point to
search for facilities.
Then they had a raffle (Disaster #4). They had a
couple autographed scripts and some autographed t-shirts.
(Fat Boy) Taylor decided that the best way to run a raffle
was to pick a number between one and ten and ask whoever was
nearest to him to guess the number. This did not work
tolerably well, because sans microphone, no one could hear
what numbers had been guessed and no one at the back of the
crowd could play. Not only that the actors couldn't hear
him and gave the wrong things away.
The entertaining disaster broke up. Christian Taylor
slipped into the crowd again and went his own way. (Team
bus? We don't think so!) The other's went to Hungry Hunter
for lunch.
Sheryl and I rejoined Teresa and Cookie Boy. We went
out to the car, which we had purposely parked close to the
exit that the Soap Team was using. They were still waiting
for their transportation. It was a toasty 107 degrees out,
with a fair amount of humidity. Chris Fuller and Brent
Jasmer had taken off their shirts. Understandably we slowed
down as we drove past. "Hey, guys, you need a lift?"
Teresa shouted.
Brian shouted back, "Do you have air-conditioning?"
"No," We had to admit. We must remember to get the
freon recharged.
"Move along," they chorused.
We took Cookie Boy home for a nap break and had a bite
to eat, before going to the game that evening. We were now
accompanied by Sheryl's significant other, Matt, who wasn't
letting her go out to meet soap hunks alone, any more often
than he could avoid. Cookie Boy was well rested and
repeated enthusiastically, "Ballgame, ballgame!".
When we got to Hi-Corbett field, we had to wait in
line, in 110 degree heat, where they kept us waiting until
fifteen minutes before the game started. We went and sat
over by the first base line, near the dugout and watched as
the soap all-stars practiced. Then the radio all-stars
practiced. (Not very exciting.)
The game began. The soap team was good. The radio
team was pathetic. Ladies, if you ever get a chance to see
Timothy Stickney (OLTL) catch, do not pass it up. They
played five innings. The radio team scored one run in the
first inning and then it was all soap scoring. The
scorching hot day was cooled off by a sudden cloudburst,
that lasted about ten minutes and made a lovely rainbow over
the left field bleachers. This was pointed out to the crowd
by the sensitive William Christian (AMC).
When the score was seventeen to one (despite the
scoreboard keeper's tendency to disregard a soap run every
once in a while) the game was pretty much conceded. The
Soap Stars took pity on the Radio folks and let them get a
few runs in the bottom half of the inning.
We went over to the tent behind the third base
bleachers, where we had sent Matt to hold us a place in
line. But there wasn't a line, just a large group of people
wondering where they should stand. Eventually they began to
form themselves into a line. We had ended up a little
behind Matt and Sheryl and Cookie Boy happily ran between
the two points.
A former co-employee of Teresa's joined us in line,
with her teenage daughter. Her daughter was a DOOL fan who
was now tuning into GH because there are so many Days people
there. They'd been at the Mall, so we laughed about the
microphone incident. We played a little of the Kurth/Taylor
tape for her. The Toro's employees set out the photos and
t-shirts. The deal was this, one autograph free, one dollar
for each autograph after that, unless you buy a photo of the
star, which includes an autograph (B&W $5) or a t-shirt
($15) which included the autographs of all the stars.
The Soap Stars arrived and sat down at their tables.
The line finally began to move. Before we got up to the
front Matt, Sheryl and Cookie Boy were already through the
line. They'd gotten Brian Dattilo's autograph. Sheryl had
given Brian a big hug, and he said that he had really needed
that. Matt offered to let Brian sign Cookie Boy's forehead.
Somebody thought better of it. Cookie Boy and family didn't
want to stay for the real game (Toros vs Edmonton Trappers),
so they asked for the car keys and split. (Matt was going to
come back when they had regained their own transportation.)
We got to the front of the line. We did not buy
pictures, t-shirts or additional autographs. We just wanted
one each. Teresa was going to get Christian's on our
Kurth/Taylor cassette tape and I was going to get Timothy
Stickney's for Linda. (Fat Boy) Taylor immediately passed
Teresa to Christian's table. "This lady's for you,
Christian." C.T. recognized her and asked her how she had
enjoyed the weekend events in Los Angeles. She gave him his
top ten list (Top Ten Things The Idle Rich Are Going To Do
With The Proceeds From Their First CD), and he said he'd
seen this one. (Hmm... is there a leak here on RATSA?
Wendy, maybe? She said she reads it all.) Teresa got in an
extra autograph on the 5x7 of her and C.T. at the Phoenix
gig. Christopher Fuller, unoccupied at the moment, looked
over at the photo. "Geeze, look at that hair!" Referring to
C.T.'s longer hairstyle in those days. C.T. looked up at
Teresa. "Your hair was longer too. Oh, this was taken at
the same time." [As the photo on the button.]
In the meantime (Fat Boy) Taylor, led me over to
Timothy Stickney, with his usual "This girl's for you,
Timothy." I asked him if he couldn't rephrase that.
Timothy laughed and when I came up for the autograph, said
"Yeah, this is the one for me." I had him sign the SOD for
Linda, but did not disabuse him of the notion that the
autograph was for me. (Sorry, Linda, I couldn't help it.)
We went down to the end of the autograph tables, where
Tuffy the Toro (mascot) was giving a Birthday party. We
hung out there for awhile, which gave us a good view of
Brian Dattilo signing autographs. A little drama ensued as
two of the sheriffs caught five kids trying to sneak into
the ballpark (from the fenced area right behind the soap
stars). The Sheriff asked them, authoritatively, "Have you
kids got tickets? How did you get in here? Did you climb
over the fence?" The second Sheriff walked a little
distance away so he could laugh where the kids couldn't see
him.
Then the Toros general manager (and Radio All Star's
pitcher) Mike Feder. Joined the sheriff in interrogating
the children. "You, kids ever been in trouble before?"
They shook their heads no. "Do you know how much it costs
for all of you to get in here?" The sheriff deadpanned.
"Six hundred and thirty-seven dollars."
They brought them in to the park. "Do your parent's
know where you are?" After a while the authorities
relented. "Okay, we'll let you off this time." Then they
sat them all down and wrote down their names.
This excitement was interrupted by Cathy and her
daughter finally making their way to the end of the line.
(They had gotten a t-shirt, so everyone had to sign it.)
I took a picture of Cathy's daughter with Brian who gladly
accepted a hug from her, too. "I'll take what I can get," he
said.
We stopped and got a beer and then went up to the third
base bleachers so we could watch the real game and still
keep an eye on Christian directly below us. It was the
bottom of the fourth when Trapper, Mike Macsudian popped a
foul over the third base bleachers. A fan raced over and
picked it up. Christian, not signing at the time, stood up
and looked around to see who had gotten the ball.
Teresa handed me her beer. Our attention went back to
the field as the batter hit another foul to the third base
bleachers. I didn't see it until it was about two feet away
from my face, by which time it was too late to prevent it
from hitting my hand and bouncing into my beer. I dropped
the beer and grabbed the ball. No doubt the soap stars at
the table directly below us wondered if it had started
raining again. Our fellow fans were a great help. One of
them offered us a can of beer to replace the lost one.
Another had a look at my hand and went off to get me some
ice to put on it. (In the meantime, I put the beer on it.)
The announcement came over the P.A. system. "Teresa
Murray report to the guest relations window." Did they want
the ball back? No, it was just Matt coming back with the
car keys. When Teresa got back I went back down to the Soap
area, to have C.T. sign my foul ball. He had apparently
noticed me catching it, and writhing in agony afterwards.
He was concerned and listened attentively as I described the
"catch" in detail. He signed it, "OUCH! Sorry about your
hand! Hope you feel better. Love C.T."
By now there was no line left, just one or two people
behind me. So, I took the opportunity to ask C.T. if he
would do an interview with us. He asked what it was for,
and I told him we'd be putting it on the internet. He said
sure. I gesticulated wildly to Teresa up in the stands
(because she had the tape recorder) and she came down. (With
my ice bag, thank goodness.) We waited for C.T. to sign the
last t-shirt. The party broke up and the other soap stars
started to leave. One of the Toro's girl's asked C.T. if he
wasn't coming. He told her, no, he wsn't going with the
group, he'd already made other arrangements. Then we sat
down at the table and did the interview. [We'll be posting
that separately.]
After that Christian gave us both warm hugs, good-bye,
and asked us to mail him a copy of the interview. The rest
of the game was uneventful, except for getting Tuffy the
Toro (A large red bull) to sign my foul ball. He signed it
"Nice catch, Tuffy Toro". Oh, and the Toros lost, 7 to 4.
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