More on those crazy Bisons Awards
Check out this week’s Play Ball column in Artvoice, Time To Pass Out The Hardware.
This year, and for the past eight years, we have handed out our own very official sounding “awards” to Bisons players for some dubious distinctions. Yes, the “Pat Listach” award and the “Jimmy Hamilton” award are given to the two players that we deem the worst hitter and pitcher on the Bisons roster for that year.
But how did all this get started? And do these awards really have any significance or meaning in the larger realm of things?
Well the answer to this is that these awards are just a crazy fan concoction that just got on a bigger stage as our roles in the media evolved.
Back in the late 90s, Chris Mach, Pete and I went to a lot of Bisons games together, and Chris is the kind of fella who takes his sports teams very seriously. So while many other fans attending Bisons games come for cotton candy, promotions and fireworks, we were there to follow players and watch the balls and strikes.
Back in ’98, we watched in frustration as infielder Pat Listach bumbled his way around the field, and were very happy to see him released towards the end of the season. So by 1999 we were comparing shoddy play on the field to the marker that Pat Listach had become, and by mid season the three of us decided to create an award for the player who best emulated Pat Listach.
By 2000, we had so much fun with this that we decided to add a worst pitcher award, and the guy we decided to pick on was poor Jimmy Hamilton, a single-A callup during the 1997 AAA World Series, who was way overmatched and promptly blew up right before our very eyes.
Interestingly, Hamilton only played in a Bison uniform for a grand total of 24+ innings, went on to other teams, mostly at the AA level, and quit baseball after 2001. Somewhere, we know he’d be smiling knowing that an award is named after him.
Another side story from 2000 – there was a great deal of controversy among the three of us as to who should get the Listach. Pete correctly argued that the designation should go to Jeff Manto, who after stellar seasons had a sub par final season in uniform; in fact it was so embarrassing that they woudn’t even put his stats and average on the scoreboard.
Chris and I argued that you can’t give the Listach to a team icon and a swell guy. We won that argument in a heated debate and gave the award to Jeff Patzke, but in deference to Pete, we created “The Jeff Manto Award”, to be awarded to “the Old Fart who stuck around one season too long”. Well that award didn’t make it too far because there was never really another viable candidate after Manto.
By 2001 news of the awards were growing, and we started engaging fans in the front rows of sec 112 above the dugout for their viewpoints. Yes props to former fans of the year Bob Maisano and Kathy Trader, the megaphone maniacs Bob Maue and Bill Siska, and our two baseball girlfriends Kathy and Marilee who joined in on the voting. And yes, by then we were in the media, on shitty Sportsblast on public access, and we actually announced the awards on the show each year to the dozens (?) of viewers who actually tuned in.
A funny story from 2003 – we filmed the awards announcement on the field in Rochester’s Frontier Field, and managed to get Chris Mach a single game credential. The Listach winner that year was Luis Garcia, and while we were recording, Garcia was tossing baseballs about 20 feet away from us. At one point Pete gestured towards Garcia to come over, and Chris thought he was going to come trotting over and throw a pie in his face or something. Chris’ look of fright was just priceless…it’s too bad nobody watched the show.
Since 2004, the unofficial Bisons awards have made it to Artvoice, and obviously that meant a much higher profile. Former PR Director Tom Burns early on put us on notice with a chuckle in his voice “We know about your crazy awards!” And yes, the media corps at the Bisons games have also become very much engaged in the selections, offering advice and their picks. In 2004 Luther Hackman pitched so consistently horribly, there even became a plea to us to rename the award the “Hamilton/Hackman” or “HH”. We have rebuffed such suggestions, figuring that the purists would howl.
This year our beloved founder Chris Mach was nowhere to be seen at Bisons games, so we gave his vote over to a composite team of pressbox members. Buffalo News beat writer Mike Harrington, Metro Source and MLB.com writer Dave Ricci, and rookie media member Jon Splett from here at WNYMedia.net combined to cast their votes for the two awards, and their selections became an indelible part of this year’s process.
Do the Bisons get offended at all this negative attention? We don’t think so because it is publicity after all, and we really do this as fans and supporters of the team who like to engage in the whole thing in a special way. We sent Brad Bisbing an email requesting head shots of the two winners, Hector Luna and Bubby Buzachero, for this week’s Artvoice piece. Brad responded, obviously knowing what was up, and while he sent the photos, he replied that he disagreed with the selection of Buzachero, and offered stats in defense of his argument. So yeah, I’m sure they are good natured about all this silliness.
Just a final memo to Chris Mach — did you ever realize that when you attended games back in 1998, sat in the stands with us and heckled Pat Listach, that it would all become THIS?
