Yankee Stadium Memories

Note to all readers: this is the first blog entry composed at 35,000 feet, compliments of American Airlines' new in-flight Wi-Fi service. If it makes no sense, blame it on the asshole behind me who keeps poking my seat.

Sunday marks the last ever baseball game to be played at baseball's greatest cathedral, Yankee Stadium. This momentous game will be preceded by some pomp and circumstance that the Yankees always do well. Of course, it's on ESPN which means that first pitch won't be till 9PM. Unless you have a TiVo or you're unemployed, few will be alert at home to see the final pitch.

Pour moi, the closing of Yankee Stadium doesn't have the same cache that the soon-to-be-auctioned-off Shea Stadium has. But there are some thoughts that are leaking out of my mental pores about the House That Ruth Ate A Lot of Hotdogs In.

Indeed, my first even baseball game was a Wednesday afternoon day game at Yankee Stadium. I had no clue about the sport at that time. All I knew was that the Yankee post game used to pre-empt Officer Joe Bolton and the Three Stooges and I absolutely hated the Yankees for that injustice. Back in those days, my father was a Yankee fan, prior to seeking and receiving redemption and salvation from God several years later. His cousin's oil burner company had season tickets, so off we went. I had been home all week from school with an ear infection, and I had enough cotton in my ear to keep Q-tips going for years. I also got my first ever baseball cap. I probably didn't wear it once again that day. The game was a blur and the sounds were muffled to boot. I know Astronaut Gordon Cooper was orbiting the Earth and they kept mentioning his progress underneath the Ballantine Beer logo. Years later, I tracked back to read what I saw that day. A Mickey Mantle homerun. But I was more intrigued by the megaphone I got. Once you finished the popcorn inside, you could shout through it. I used it frequently at home until it wound up being placed on a very high closet shelf by my mother.

Once I became officially married to the New York Mets a year later, my visits to Yankee Stadium were infrequent, usually when a Yankee fan friend had tickets and wanted impartial company. I recall taking the subway there in days when you didn't have to be armed to do so. One tme, we were making the change at 149th Street and Grand Concourse and I accidentally knocked my buddy's brown bag lunch onto the tracks. A 10-year-old Puerto Rican heroically jumped down as the train was coming to save the PB and J. This earned him fifty cents from me---officially little Jose was the first person I ever hired.

One hot summer day, my neighborhood chum Leo and I were sitting in the first row of the field level behind first base when an army of gnats flew in to catch the second half of the game. They were seated on our faces. When pitcher Joba Chamberlain suffered the same indignation during last year's playoffs in Cleveland, I had a rare moment of emphathy for a Yankee.

A bunch of my little friends and I went to the last game at Yankee Stadium before they closed it for that two year renovation. For the last three innings, the sounds of hammers and wood breaking drowned out all reality. Nobody left empty-handed. I have no idea what I did with that wood slat that used to be part of the seat behind me.

I was at the playoff game against Kansas City when Chris Chambliss hit a homerun in the ninth to win the series and the only way he could get off the field amid crazed fans was by punching several in the face. And, for some inexplicable reason, I was in Yankee land the night Reggie Jackson hit three homeruns against the Dodgers to win the World Series. I, of course, was wearing a Dodger cap and that was the first of many other times where they would make me feel terribly Blue.

It was all around this time that Yankee Stadium became my place of summer employment as a vendor which I did for parts of two baseball and football seasons. When you wore that little badge, you had amazing access to crevices of this old ballyard---places I never knew existed. I used to comp sodas to the pitchers in the bullpen, which was verboten. But I got my punishment when, one day, I tripped down about five stairs carrying a full tray. There was applause and even more laughter. The Clown Prince of Vendors. From then on, I think I got stuck selling those little containers of Sun Dew orange drink, which had much less spillage. Not a big seller amongst the baseball fans, but I loved selling that shit during football games. People were buying two and three at a time, asking me to pour them directly into their thermos which had been pre-filled with vodka. Get your screwdrivers, get your screwdrivers right here!

There were many, many years in my adulthood where I didn't go to Yankee Stadium. I think I was there for a few playoff games in the mid 90s, but the memories are fuzzy probably due to my denial of being there. Of course, there was one last hurrah for me there. Or, indeed, a last very-much-less-than-hurrah. Game One of the 2000 World Series versus the Mets.

I was seated in the bleachers amongst those animals in the Bronx not housed in the Zoo. I wore nondescript clothing. Not a speck of blue or orange to give away my allegience. And that was a good thing to do, given the treatment other Met fans got from the Amazons in right field. There was one poor little kid wearing a Met hat and he was so derided by this menagerie that I am convinced he has spent the last seven years in analysis. Or maybe he's simply locked up in a basement making some dirty bombs.

You may remember that this game went on and on and on as the Mets blew the game and ultimately the Series in extra innings. Within seconds of the Yankees' game winning hit, I was out of the park. Let the animals celebrate as if there was just crowned a new Lion King. I ran up to the Jerome Avenue El and there was an empty train waiting. I sat down and muttered back and forth as if I were an autistic child. "Close the door, close the door, close the door, close the door." And we waited.

I could hear the sea of humanity makes its waves down the street and up the stairs. "Close the door, close the door, close the door, close the door." I didn't want to be near any of them. I felt like the Beatles probably did when they were trying to sneak out the back of a hotel. Several cretins reached the top of the stairs.

The doors closed and I was headed north.

I never did go back to Yankee Stadium after that. And yet I hate to see it go.

Dinner last night: Eggplant parmagiana back in LA.