Barry Bremen – An All-Star Salute to Shenanigans

Cody: With Major League’s All-Star Game taking place this past Tuesday and all sports eyes tentatively tuning in (partly due to default), I began researching about the history of exhibition and All-Star games and quirky happenings within them. One of the best stories is known as The Mystery of the 1977 American League All-Star Team Photo. Every All-Star team takes a photo documenting the team. (Here and here as a bonus, is anything you ever wanted to know about the 1977 All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium. Don’t say I never gave you nothin’.) The All-Star photo was taken much like any other that had been done with one exception: there was a mystery person who snuck into the photo posing as a player who has yet to be identified thirty-two years later. ESPN writer Paul Lukas recently tried to nail down an explanation (including pictures) of the mystery here. How perfectly if fits the formula that an event that happens in the middle of the summer is coupled with shenanigans. What formula you ask? The Summer Shenanigan Occurrence Formula (the SNNOF) goes as this:

Mid-summer + abundance of unsupervised free time = outrageous ideas (probable outcome of trouble/lack of logical thinking)

Q: When does school start in the fall?
A: When kids start getting into trouble because they have run out of other things to do. It moves up further every year. The most trouble I ever got into was ALWAYS in the summer – because I simply ran out of things to do.

Allow me to introduce to you to the King of Shenanigans and the first (and only, so far) member into The Rebuilding Project Hall of Fame, ladies and gentleman, Barry Bremen. Why would an insurance salesman and marketing executive from West Bloomfield, Michigan get a nod into the Hall of Fame you ask? Well sir, this master of disguise swindled his way into the World Series as an umpire, an MLB and NBA All-Star Game as a player, the Dallas Cowboys sideline as a cheerleader, Super Bowl XV as a referee, and the 1985 Emmy Awards as the Best Supporting Actress. That’s why he’s in – he’s legit.

The 1979 All-Star Game in Seattle is where legend first took place. With the help of George Brett, took the field and managed to get into the All-Star Team photograph before he got the boot. That same year he wore a Kansas City Kings uniform and was on the floor for pregame warm-ups for the NBA All-Star game. Two years later he donned Houston Rockets duds and was again ushered out. In a 1980 issue of People, he was profiled and his wife Margo reasoning for why stating he was “fulfilling a grand fantasy to be in the limelight. He feels if you have no guts you have no glory in your life". In 1980 he got together a complete umpire’s outfit and football referee’s uniform and walked out onto the field with the other officials DURING THE WORLD SERIES AND THE SUPER BOWL and was given the boot when he was discovered. As if this wasn’t enough he decided in 1985 to go to the Emmy’s and when the Best Supporting Actress was named (Betty Thomas for her role in Hill Street Blues), he got up and accepted the award for her. Not a big deal right? The icing on the cake of all of his shenanigans came when he dropped 23 pounds, shaved his legs, and practiced drag dancing routines with his wife in order to land the role of his life. He spent $1,200 to get a replica Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders uniform made and get everything just right. Barrynita made it onto the field and yelled “Go Dallas!” before he was sacked by the Cowboys security team. They then nailed him with a $5,000 lawsuit for trespassing and creating a nuisance. Can you really put a price tag on pretending to be a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader when YOU’RE A DUDE? Yes, yes you can actually. In 1980, it cost $6,200.

Barry retired from gate-crashing in 2005. The terrorist attacks of September 11 have made security nearly impossible and have made it a serious offense to do such impostering. The Rebuilding Project does not endorse activities such as this (legally) but does recognize the amount of work Barry went through to make shenanigans fun for everyone. Barry was unable to make it to our Hall of Fame ceremony but we didn’t realize it until we gave his son, who has followed in his father’s footsteps, the acceptance plaque. Okay, I made that up but that would have been sweet. Congrats Barry, or whoever you are pretending to be today.