A lot of life hasn’t broken Fred Schuman’s way. As a nine year old in the Bronx, a stray bat in a stickball game destroyed his right eye. The injury relegated him to the sidelines in the schoolyard and for World War II when he was declared 4F,unsuited for military service. Freddy’s first marriage was a disaster. He started a jewelry business that went bust, followed by a bicycle business that went bust. He lost contact with his only son. He lost the building that his family owned in the Bronx. As Freddy will be the first to tell you, he was the quintessential loser, a failure at everything he tried. At his lowest point he was out on the street.

And yet in a highly improbable turn of events, Fred Schulman has become a highly recognizable symbol of the winningest franchise in American sports, the New York Yankees. Since 1988, Freddy has been a fixture at Yankee stadium during home games, inciting fans to cheer using decidedly old school, even weird school tools: hand lettered signs (‘FREDDY SEZ: YANKEES CAN IMPROVE!”), an old frying pan and a metal spoon.

That the Yankees answer to the San Diego chicken would turn out be a once homeless, one-eyed octagenarian stretches the limits of credulity, but Freddy’s association with the most recent Yankee dynasty (1996 , 2000) has conferred on him certified good luck charm status. Mayor Giuliani famously flew him to Phoenix for Game 7 of the 2001 World Series,a mission that was unsuccessful but only solidified Freddy’s celebrity.

I talked to Freddy a week before 2008 opening day as he prepared himself for another season in the Bronx, the last before the Yankees demolish the House That Ruth Built and set up shop in a billion dollar reinterpretation next door.

CI: What was the first reaction to you at the Stadium, when you started going in 1988.

FS: In the very beginning I couldn’t use the language of how they told me to, ‘Get the f–…Get lost”. They were interested in the ball game. Here is this guy coming up with a sign, with a spoon. And he wants me to hit the spoon and everything. It was pretty much, ‘Get lost.” Well fight, I can’t fight. I’m not a fighter. I’m a blind guy I don’t know karate, black belt and so forth. If I knew that I would probably have taken them on. Read the rest of this entry »