After spending half a season in purgatory — dorm rooms at St. John’s University in Queens — a number of Cyclones have finally gotten roomier digs.
Pitchers Mike “Joy Buzzer” Cox, David “Birdman” Byard and Ross “The Preacher” Peeples are now bunking with catcher Brett Kay and first-baseman Jay Caligiuri in a deluxe house donated by a Cyclones booster who owns The Brooklyn Egg Cream soda shop.
“I don’t even know what an egg cream is!” a grateful Cox said.
Meanwhile, Forrest Lawson, John Toner, Wayne Lydon and Brian Walker have moved to a house on Ocean Parkway — although they don’t seem too satisfied with it.
“I’ve actually just been sleeping at the stadium,” said Toner. “It’s better.”
Unfortunately for him, Toner will be spending plenty of time in his new digs. The outfielder severely sprained his left ankle sliding into third base in Sunday night’s dreary 5-1 loss to the Hudson Valley Renegades.
Into the sunset
Before a game the other day, pitcher Mike Cox was furiously signing autographs when he struck up a conversation with a kid from Bensonhurst named Joe Misseri, who wanted to know where Cox was from.
“Houston, Texas,” Cox replied.
“Oh, yeah,” Misseri — all of 12 years old — wisecracked, “did you ride a horse to school every day?”
Cox was stunned. “No, I did NOT ride a horse to school every day,” he said. “What made you think that?”
“Because you’re from Texas,” Misseri said, displaying a Brooklynite’s sense of history and geography.
“That’s Brooklyn for ya,” Cox said, walking back to the dugout.
‘Cha Cha’ Peeples
During Sunday night’s 55-minute rain delay, some of the players remained on the top step of the dugout talking to the few fans who braved the weather rather than seeking shelter.
But pitcher Ross Peeples went one better, entertaining the diehards by dancing to his favorite song.
When the public address system started blaring “The Cha Cha Slide” by Mr. C and the Slide Men, Peeples knew what to do: He jumped onto the field and started strutting his stuff and following all the instructions in this Macarena-like dance.
“I just love that song,” Peeples said afterwards.
Blood on hands
During a road trip to Lowell, pitcher Mike Cox picked up some essential clubhouse supplies.
No, not jock straps or athlete’s foot powder, but a bunch of novelty gags, including a bar of soap that releases blood-red liquid upon use, a powder that solidifies liquids and a bunch of stink bombs.
The soap was intended for pitcher Luz Portobanco — a nice guy, but a man in desperate need of being on the receiving end of a practical joke — but ended up in the hands of reliever Blake McGinley.
Unfortunately, the soap trick didn’t work as hoped.
“It just made your hands red, but you never thought you were bleeding,” McGinley said.
And when Cox slipped the powder into catcher Brett Kay’s Gatorade, the catcher didn’t even notice that his drink had gotten all lumpy. “He just kept on drinking,” Cox said, disappointed.
The stink bombs, however, were a big hit.
“He’d throw them into a corner and they’d make it smell like someone farted,” said pitcher Lenny DiNardo.
“Of all the stuff he bought in Lowell, those were the only things that worked.”
Transactions
The Cyclones added another pitcher, Rylie Ogle, a native of Seal Beach, Calif., and a graduate of the University of California at Santa Barbara.
He was drafted by the Mets in the 28th round and was 2-2 at Kingsport.
