CHICAGO — Let’s kick things off with this week’s Pop Quiz question, from Gary Mintz of South Huntington:
In a 1963 episode of “Car 54, Where Are You?” a Yankees player is said to get his tonsils removed. Name the player.
After the Yankees’ marathon win over the Cubs Wednesday, the team went through much of its usual getaway-day drill. That involves the clubhouse attendants gathering players’ equipment and pushing around trunks. Players packing up their bags (Jacoby Ellsbury was slightly distressed because he couldn’t find his deodorant) and tipping the Cubs employees who help them out during their stay.
And, usually, a group of well-dressed team members — about 40, once you add up the players, Joe Girardi, coaches and all the service staff — heading for a bus to the nearest airport. And reporters like me nodding and offering a “Safe travel” to the team members.
But Wednesday was different. In a scheduling oddity, the Yankees finished their two-game series at Wrigley Field, returned to their downtown Chicago hotel and will simply switch ballparks Thursday night, when they kick off a four-game series with the White Sox at U.S. Cellular Field.
“It’s cool,” Brett Gardner said. “It saves us some packing and unpacking. You definitely get tired of that over the course of a season. So we’re only halfway through it right now. Chicago’s a great city. I love coming to Chicago. I wish we did more stuff like that. It makes sense.”
Yankees first-base coach Mick Kelleher, in the game since 1969, said he had never experienced a one-hotel, two-series stay like this one.
“I kind of like it,” he said, “especially in this town.”
Kelleher played for the Cubs from 1976 through 1980, during which time he hit zero home runs in 792 at-bats. Apparently, the wind blew in a lot. (Kelleher is actually very good-humored and good-natured about his lack of pop at the plate.)
So in short, this is an awesome scheduling development. Unfortunately for the Yankees, and all teams, it’s also a rare one.
“You do as much as possible try to minimize as possible, because all teams have a long, tough schedule, and this is one way to do it,” said Katy Feeney, Major League Baseball’s senior vice president for club relation and scheduling. “But you need a couple of things to be working.”
First of all, there are only three places where this can occur: Chicago, New York and San Francisco/Oakland, as most clubs usually stay in San Francisco when they’re playing the A’s and take a bus across the Bay Bridge for the games in Oakland. If you play the Dodgers and Angels back-to-back in Southern California, as the White Sox do June 2-8, you would switch hotels. The two ballparks aren’t close enough to justify the one-hotel trick.
Second of all, interleague play obviously is involved. The Yankees play the National League Central this year, and the Cubs were their one home-and-home NL Central opponent. I guess the Yankees would not go to Wrigley Field in three years, because they have done so the last two times they had the NL Central.
Third of all, and this is the broadest one, comes the realities of scheduling. MLB works diligently to avoid having its two-team market occupants home or away at the same time; it worked this week as the Cubs left Wednesday for San Diego while the White Sox made a quick trip to Kansas City. Teams put in myriad requests to have certain dates home or away. And of course it’s all a big jigsaw puzzle, as every scheduling move impacts 29 other teams. For instance, the weekend split needs to be even so every team has the same balance of weekend series home and away.
I can recall just one other team enjoying this sort of extended stay: The 2012 Reds played a three-game series with the Mets at Citi Field and then a three-game series with the Yankees at Yankee Stadium.
“Sometimes, it just sort of happens,” Feeney said. “There are a lot of things that have to come together.”
Most of the Yankees with whom I spoke didn’t have any amazing plans; Alfonso Soriano sold his Chicago condominium, so he’s staying at the team hotel. But there was nevertheless a sense of excitement, a breakup from the standard, three-days-and-leave rhythm to which players are accustomed. Here’s hoping it can happen more often while realizing it probably won’t.
The 2014 Big East Baseball Championship begins Thursday night at MCU Park, home of the Brooklyn Cyclones. Here’s a little known fact: St. John’s Head Coach Ed Blankmeyer and Seton Hall Head Coach Rob Sheppard are brothers-in-law. Blankmeyer is married to Sheppard’s sister Susan.
In addition, St. John’s sophomore pitcher Mike Sheppard plays for his Uncle (Ed Blankmeyer) at St. John’s. Blankmeyer’s son Ty, a sophomore second baseman, also plays at St. John’s.
The Pop Quiz answer is Yogi Berra. If you have a tidbit that correlates baseball with popular culture, please send it to me at kdavidoff@nypost.com.