Righetti Yankee Doodle Dandy no-hitter still special 25 years later

Crowd was buzzing

By PAUL GUTIERREZ
THE SACRAMENTO BEE

last updated: July 04, 2008 01:02:33 AM

You probably don't know Joe Beja, my old New York City roommate and lifelong Yankees fan who was born and raised in nearby Yonkers.

You think you know Dave Righetti, the San Francisco Giants' pitching coach who, as a New York Yankee, was one of the better starters and closers in the game a generation ago.

They definitely don't know each other.

But for two splendid hours and 33 memorable minutes of a gloriously muggy Bronx afternoon 25 years ago today, their lives intersected and they shared a historic moment as only the national pastime can provide.

Righetti endeared himself as a Yankee Doodle Dandy to fans for eternity with his Fourth of July no-hitter against the Boston Red Sox in the cathedral that is Yankee Stadium. Beja, then a 13-year-old lad obsessed with both the Bronx Bombers and box scores, reveled in it with his father, Joe Sr., from the nosebleed seats behind home plate and gleaned a life lesson.

"I just picked the right day -- the Red Sox, Yankee Stadium, Lou Gehrig's anniversary of his famous speech," Righetti said. "It was a lucky day."

Lucky indeed, because on this particular Independence Day, the Bejas had a few hours to kill before the family cookout that night -- so it was off to the yard.

It was hot, 94 degrees, and so was Righetti after being passed over for the upcoming All-Star Game. The Bejas were especially high on seeing "Rags" take the hill.

"I liked that he (matured) in the Yankee system," Beja recalled. "My dad and I both liked him. I don't know, maybe it was an Italian thing."

It was a momentous thing as the zeroes piled up on Beja's scorecard. The youngster took notice in "about the fifth or sixth inning" and pointed them out to his superstitious dad, who said nothing.

Righetti realized in the seventh, partly because, as baseball protocol insists, nobody talks to a pitcher flirting with a no-no. Except for Graig Nettles, who was out of the lineup with conjunctivitis.

"Hey, who's driving to Atlantic City," a goopy-eyed Nettles asked Righetti of their planned trip the next day.

"I guess he thought he was helping me, trying to lighten the mood," Righetti laughed.

Which is why Beja said a buzz enveloped the crowd of 41,077.

"You could see people pointing to the scoreboard, leaning over and talking to the person next to them," Beja said. "But nobody was yelling, 'Go for the no-hitter,' or anything like that. No one wanted to jinx it."

Dwight Evans led off the eighth for Boston and lofted a fly ball down the right-field line that drifted toward the seats. Steve Kemp dived into the stands and came out with the ball.

"That was the first time I said, 'You know what, maybe this is my day,' " Righetti said.

Righetti walked Jeff Newman to begin the ninth before Glenn Hoffman hit into a fielder's choice and Jerry Remy grounded out. Up stepped Wade Boggs.

"Everyone was standing," Beja said, "cheering and clapping."

Righetti's mind was reeling. Because the left-hander fell off the mound on the third-base side, Righetti feared the left-handed hitting Boggs "tapping a ball between me and Don Mattingly at first. I just thought, 'There's no way I can lose this on that.' "

Boggs' silly-looking swing and miss at a nasty slider down and away was strike three, and the celebration was on.

"We absorbed it all," said Beja, who still has his scorecard from that day. "No one was leaving. We waited for (the recording of) Frank Sinatra to finish singing, 'New York, New York,' before heading out. Usually you're halfway down the ramps before Frank finished."

Righetti and Nettles, meanwhile, got an early jump on their trip. And when they were pulled over on the New Jersey turnpike, they received a police escort the rest of the way.

The Bejas, meanwhile, had a whopper of a story to tell at the cookout. They were also on hand to see Jim Leyritz's 15th-inning walk-off shot against Seattle in the 1995 playoffs, the Jeffrey Maier catch in the ALCS a year later and Chad Curtis' heroics in the 1999 World Series.

But Rags' no-no holds a special place in their heart.

"To see something historic in baseball, to share a moment like that with your father and a team that has such a great history, there's nothing like it," said Beja, now assistant director of food and beverage at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Fla.

"If it's a holiday and you have no plans, why not take in a game? You never know what might happen."

You could pick up a lifelong memory.

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