Baseball rivalry keeps longtime pals in touch across the miles

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Eddie Pinstripes finally called Saturday night. I had been expecting him to call since the end of the World Series when his precious Yankees lost to the Diamondbacks.

I began to become a little concerned when he didn’t call right away. But it turns out that everything is OK. He was just getting over a hangover. When he called Saturday night Eddie sounded like he might be working on a new one.

Eddie Pinstripes is an old Navy buddy of mine. We met when Eddie was a Navy recruiter working out of the old armed forces recruiting center at the In-Town Plaza in Bangor. I was a public affairs officer in Uncle Sam’s canoe club and was up from Boston to make an affair public. Or something.

His real name is Eddie Parent. I call him Pinstripes because at some point in his youth Eddie fell on his head and when he came to, he was a Yankees fan.

Eddie is from Willimantic, Conn. He was a catcher and good enough at it to play at Eastern Connecticut State. His claim to fame is that he was invited to a Yankees tryout camp where he caught Mel Stottlemyre. Personally, I told him, I would rather have caught the flu.

We hit it off immediately, primarily because we could argue baseball until dawn and also because we both had an affinity for el grande glasses of Cuba Libre.

Eddie is now retired from the Navy and lives on one of those islands off the coast of Seattle. He comes back East from time to time for a visit. He still loves the Yankees. Cuba Libre is a close third. His wife, Terry, fits into that equation somewhere.

Eddie picks the lowest toll rate hours to call, although he probably doesn’t realize it. So when the phone rang at 2:30 Sunday morning, I had an idea it might be him.

“DONNIE BALLGAME,” the voice screamed.

Calling me Donnie Ballgame is Eddie’s way of sticking the knife in and twisting it before I have a chance to say anything. It is, of course, my first name. But more importantly, it is also former Yankees great Don Mattingly’s nickname.

In his twisted, Cuba Libre-infested mind, Eddie had won the first battle in a psychological war. He was dropping Yankees leaflets in my mind. He was the Roadrunner offering Donnie Coyote an Acme glass of water that was going to explode.

But before I could respond, Eddie moved into Phase II. Eddie has carefully calculated his plan of attack. Before I could throw out my John Sterling imitation of “Yankees lose. Thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Yankees lose!” Eddie jumped me with –

“GEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAMBEEEEEEEEEE!”

This, in the Pinstripes-Perryman War, is known as First Strike. Eddie had attempted to cut off any possible derogatory comment I could make about his beloved Pinstripers by attempting a quantum leap into the future. Eddie was attempting an end run on the World Series and taking the argument into next season.

“GEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAMBEEEEEEEEEEE!”

He did it again. He had taken any comments I could have made concerning Luis Gonzalez, Randy Johnson or Curt Schilling and made them irrelevant. If not sober, Eddie was sly enough to know the path my argument would take and had circumvented it.

He also knew that I had no solid ground to argue Red Sox vs. Yankees in the free agent signings category. While the Red Sox have made some good additions to the team – Tony Clark, Johnny Damon, John Burkett and Michael Coleman – they individually, or maybe even collectively, do not add up to Jason Giambi.

He had me. I was toast. Thus, I did the only thing I could do to salvage some face in this call. I asked him about his wife.

“How’s Terry?” I asked.

Silence.

I’m sure Eddie was sitting in a nice leather chair. He probably had some Herman’s Hermits playing background music. In his right hand was a glass full of liquid refreshment, in his left, the telephone. He was likely staring at the phone. He had planned out the whole thing. It was a perfect plan and now I was running, denying him complete victory.

“Planning a trip back this way this summer?” I politely asked.

He screamed Giambi’s name again but I didn’t bite.

“Take care, Ed, and call again soon,” I said.

“JEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEETEEEEEEEEEEEER!” he shouted.

It was one last plea. He was attempting to engage me in one of his favorite arguments – Jeter vs. Garciaparra. But I also could see right through it. It would start there but eventually end up back at Giambi. Yeah, I could see right through him.

“You’re pathetic,” I said hanging up the phone, no longer Donnie Coyote. Now just plain chicken.

Don Perryman can be reached at 990-8045, 1-800-310-8600 or dperryman@bangordailynews.net