The Mayors Of New York
by Will
Tonight, I watched the Red Sox-Yankees game while sitting in the front row of Yankee Stadium, DIRECTLY BEHIND the stairs to the Sox dugout. Matt Pack had gotten these tickets very last-minute but had no idea how good they were. He called around to a bunch of people to see who could go. He finally got to me, and so at 7:15pm (yes, late) I was stepping out of the D train to meet Pack, James Eason and Aaron Bergeron (all rooting for the Sox) for the game.
When the usher sat us in the very front row, we were so dumbfounded we didn’t even realize at first that we were in fact behind the Sox dugout also. As if fate wanted to drive the point home, David “Big Papi” Ortiz emerged right in front of us and strode into the on-deck area. “Paul Bunyan,” exclaimed Bergeron. Pack was so excited he broke my cell phone while using it to call people, and I was so excited I didn’t mind. The Sox lost but our giddyness would not be daunted. We felt like the Mayors of New York. Mayors who root for the Red Sox.
Who cares, you ask? Well, see, I’m not the kind of guy to ever get free good tickets. I never find good parking spaces at the mall. My apartment is 8 blocks from the subway, with outrageous rent AND I paid a broker to find it. I got a ticket once for crossing between cars on a STOPPED SUBWAY TRAIN. Every movie I want to see is sold out unless I buy the ticket the year before on fandango.com. But then today, the world dropped a Perfect Baseball Ticket into my hands, so I’m celebrating.
Some observations:
- Baseball looks amazingly scary and difficult when seen up close. Every foul ball gave Eason and I heart attacks, which is also because we are feeble and weak.
- The Sox’ $50 million dollar pitcher Dice-K came up to the top of the dugout to watch Mariano Rivera pitch.
- In the 8th Inning, Josh Beckett and the pitching coach came up to watch. Ortiz stood up and stretched his arms around both of them and whispered things in confidence. No I couldn’t hear but I like to imagine he was whispering whatever magic words he uses to get home runs whenever he feels like it.
- Kevin Youklis swings his bat in strikingly fast near-vertical chops when warming up to hit. He also ran a ball in and tossed it into a kid’s glove standing in the aisle next to our seats. The kid was a jerk, but Youklis is nice.
- Jason Varitek ran from home plate to third base extremely fast when he had to cover it.
- Manny Ramirez is a giant of a human being.
- Alex Rodriguez looks like spoiled kid when he cheers for himself. Derek Jeter makes everything look like a highlight. Regardless of this and all other things they are both by definition Evil.
Separate baseball note: I don’t know anything about Curtis Granderson, except that he plays for the Detriot Tigers, and that today he used his blog on ESPN to congratulate kids in Detroit Public Schools who won an essay contest he ran. It’s so simple, unaffected and generous that I just feel like linking to it, so here I go:
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/blog/index?entryID=2880314&name=granderson_curtis
Comments
From playing a pickup basketball game with Ptolemy, Shelly, and Jessica I learned that I no longer know how to put a basketball into a hoop suspended 10 feet above the ground and I barely remember how to bounce it while walking quickly (let’s not call what I did dribbling nor running).
From seeing a baseball hit high into the air and at least fifty yards away I learned that I am every bit as afraid of a baseball as I was when I was eight years old.
Cat Pack.
“Alex Rodriguez looks like spoiled kid when he cheers for himself. ”
Turning into a normal sox fan…. hmmmm……
From,
Bitter 9.5 Game Back Yankee Fan
An Indians v. Red Sox ALCS would be sweet.
-Terry
I’m a huge Yankee fan and I envy you for sitting that close to the Red Sox dugout. Brendan McMullen was at the game on Tuesday, but at the bleacher section.
And Curtis Granderson is one of the good guys in baseball.
My first, and only, Yankee Stadium experience was Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS. Sat in the centerfield bleachers afraid to cheer for the Red Sox (ah, how times have changed). The best may actually have been the silence of the subway car after the game…
What a terrifying and amazing story! Matt Pack is the devil!!!
“Well, see, I’m not the kind of guy to ever get free good tickets.”
Except for this time AND the time I won Paul McCartney tickets and took you.
Ah yes! That was excellent!
Wasn’t the traffic down there so bad I had to jump out of the car and pee next to a highway divider?
That was me, and it was the Queens expressway I think.
I saw in those same seats for Sox-Yanks on 9-11-05!
We lost, but I was amazed at the size of baseball player butt.