Spiderman at Fenway Park

[Kutcher55]

Although the events of this story took place in 1988, I'm putting it here since it's a vintage tale. Leon, please allow me this indulgence...

I was a vendor at Fenway Park for nine years spanning the great 1990s. In my life I have been to over 500 Red Sox games. I was at Yaz Day in '83. I have been to ALCS games, including The Steal in '04, World Series games including the clincher in '13. But for sheer drama and absolute craziness, nothing tops the game I attended on July 20th, 1988.

Let's set the stage. It was shortly after the All Star break. The Sox had just fired Johnny McNamara and replaced him with the venerable Joe Morgan, he of the "six, two and even" fame. This was right in the middle of "Morgan Magic," when the Sox ripped off 19 of 20 wins before limping the rest of the way to the postseason and getting their asses handed to them by Dave Stewart and the Bash Brothers in the ALCS, but I digress...

The Sox played the Twins at Fenway that night. The place was packed. Roger Clemens was on the hill. It was hot. The 15-year-old me was unable to get tickets so I loitered outside with some friends before finally entering the park in the 8th inning, when people were leaving. Back then they allowed this.

Clemens didn't have it. The Sox blew a 5-0 lead. The Twins tied it in the 9th and pushed two across in the 10th to take a 7-5 lead. Things looked bleak as the Sox prepared for the bottom of the 10th. And that's when the most incredible thing happened...

If you've been to Fenway you're aware of the screen behind home plate that extends up to the press box area. It's an old school screen and it's held up in part by thick steel cables on each side that extend from the edges of each side of the screen all the way down the left & right field box seats and up into the grandstand rafters adjacent to the outfield. The cables must be 250-300 feet long. On this night, the left field cable took center stage because some absolute maniac -- if I recall, the guy's name was Joseph Cullen -- climbed up into those rafters in the upper recesses of the left field corner and began to shimmy his way like a Navy Seal down the steel cable. This cable had to be 20 feet above the seats below, where me and my buddies had settled. A fall may very well have been fatal. The crowd started going berserk looking up at this guy as he slowly made his way toward the screen behind home plate. The players and umpires noticed, but they played on, and the Sox began to rally. Gator Greenwell got on base as did Spike Owen. Jody Reed hit a double off the green monster to cut it to 7-6. Meanwhile, "Spiderman" continued to shimmy along. People in seats below him moved out of his path for fear that he would fall. Several times along his journey he had to stop and rest one arm and then the other, while his feet were clamped over the wire in front of him. Looking back, it was a marvelous athletic feat. The guy must have been trained, I dunno. I imagine he did it on a drunken dare, but it was just a sick move on his part, the stuff of legend.

The thing about it was that this guy actually impacted the game. Jeff Reardon was pitching for Minnesota. He was clearly rattled. Juan Berenguer came in and he was rattled. This went on for 15 minutes! Everyone in attendance watched to see if the guy would make it. And remarkably he did just that! He then climbed up onto the screen behind home plate and began jumping up in down in celebration as the whole park gave him a standing ovation. The screen was shaking like crazy as this guy enjoyed his moment of glory. To this day it remains one of the damdest things I have ever seen.

Security climbed down from the 600 club and he gave himself up peacefully. It was but a footnote in the Boston Globe the next day. If anyone has more info on this person and the story I would love to hear about it.

Almost immediately after his arrest, Tood Benzinger strode to the plate against new pitcher Keith Atherton and promptly mashed an absolute laser that curled safely inside Pesky's Pole delivering the home team a 9-7 win. And because every thread needs a card, I present to you this sort-of-not-really vintage 1989 Topps Tiffany Todd Benzinger.