I was not molested by Rick Cerone

...despite photographic evidence that suggests I tried my best.

My man Roger Bennett, author of Bar Mitzvah Disco, is hard at work on a not-so-top-secret Summer Camp project. I contributed a shot from my time at Lee Mazzilli All-American Baseball Camp. That's me circa '81-'82, top row, far left right next to Cerone.

With the benefits of hindsight, I'd like to make a few points:

• The young I-Berg's epicurean uni predelictions are already fully formed. While these other little douchebirds trot out the usual suspects--Mets, Red Sox and, horror of horrors, USA--I have to give retroprops to myself for going with not just one but both kandy koated NL delights. You think fatboy top row fourth from left has any idea where Montreal is?

• Slightly more worrying is the acutely Lamarish plunge to the neck-line I have going on the Astros shirt. If you look closely you can see that I have achieved this with a complex side-knotting system. I'd like to claim this was entirely utilitarian (perhaps I was missing a belt), but it does seem more likely I was trying to elbow out the kid in the v-neck with some kind of precocious jailyard power move for Cerone's attentions. I'll show you V-Neck, bitch!

• Kudos to Cerone on the Tron-influenced Adidas jump off, but retrosnaps to Left Coach for the camelcock hot pants. I hope there was a coaches' bet to see who could show more nutsack in the group picture, but something tells me this was simply the era before they did police background checks. Scary. This dude definitely invited someone over for ice cream.

• An interesting historical footnote to this image was that Cerone's visit to Mazzilli's camp came right in the middle of their alleged battle for the title of "The Real Italian Stallion". Twenty-five years later, it's still a great topic for debate, but oh to have been either one of them in the last window of decadence before AIDS. You know that when they get together all they talk about is all the studio-54-natural-breast-squeezing they did from '77-'82. My second grade teacher Amy Shudlock Rainbow was so hot for Maz she would give you fifty cards for a Mazzilli, which of course made finding Mazzilli in a wax pack a greater cause for celebration than it might have been otherwise.

Separated at Birth:
Cerone vs. Gabe Kaplan.



Mazzilli vs. Tony D'Anunzio.