Today was finally the day I had been looking forward to for a whole three weeks, which to me, seemed like three months.
One of the other things on my secondary tourist list (along with the cab ride) was to take the Subway. I have an interest in some odd things that not many other people do. The CTA El system is one of them.
New York was always the comparison to this. Whenever I would be riding the El for a few days in a row, I would think how insane it would be to navigate the largest city in America from underground.
It's a pretty crazy system:
This would be a good time to tell you what Carl is exactly working on.
He's been working in New York for 5 years now. In another 18 months, he's done with his project. For that long of a project, I thought it would be an entire new line, or total overhaul of an existing one.
He's dealing with the 7 train in Southwest Manhattan. He pointed out to us on a pocket map where the new station will be. The entire project is just drilling 3500 feet to add one extra stop. ONE STOP...IN ALMOST 7 YEARS. That baffled me, but I guess that's how slow this whole process goes. Now look back at that map, knowing each stop took at least 5 years to make. That blows my mind.
Our first destination was Grand Central Station. Carl was leading the way, and knew the easiest, quickest and least crowded route. This was the closest subway entrance to the apartment:
The gates were a lot like the CTA's, besides you swipe the card rather than insert it. You can see some turnstiles below the signs here, which was my first view when we walked in:
Well....I knew the Bronx was farther North, and we did start heading to the left.
Everything was very colorful. Chicago has colors, but not this many all at once.
That S train is called the shuttle- it runs from the Port Authority (where we were) back and forth to Grand Central all day.
I saw something that sort of disappointed me while walking:
The 7 train is the one that takes you to Citi Field, home of the Mets. I would do anything to have one extra day and cross another park off my list. But I was going to the better stadium, and getting A+ treatment the whole time. I wasn't sad for long.
I was enjoying just looking at the signs. All the neighborhoods I had heard of were right here.
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| I already saw it for real, but Times Square is a big deal! |
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| Brooklyn! |
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| THE BRONX! |
And then hopped right on. I was riding the New York City Subway. *Check*
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| Notice all the room for standing. It gets pretty damn crowded at the right times. |
And kept heading to the less traveled 4 train.
We rode up to 161st Street...
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| We skipped half the stops, so it was a pretty short ride overall. |
...and were finally in the presence of greatness.
This was my first view, and has an odd contrast. That's 70 year old subway tracks right next to a billion dollar mega mall.
We crossed the street, and I tried to take it all in.
We kept going down that sidewalk, which ran parallel to right field. Like most new ballparks, they had banners with current players on them.
Most teams have a few scrubs on these posters, but this is the Yankees after all. Jeter, A-Rod, CC, and Rivera? That was almost an All Star team as their Opening Day Roster.
Old Yankee Stadium was built in 1923, so the neighborhood naturally evolved around it. When the new place went up, the Yankees decided they had a couple extra million dollars in their pocket, so they built a series of ball fields and a park where the old stadium used to stand.
I didn't know where exactly the old stadium used to be until right now. If I paid closer attention, I probably would have ventured around there to find some artifacts like the commemorative home plate.
There were numerous parking options. Tailgating was going strong, even 3 hours before the game.
If you had a few extra 50's in your pocket, you could also leave your car in the garage that's attached to left field.
I was surprised at how calm the walk was. Wrigley is always busy, and so are most other parks before the game. Plus, this was much bigger than Chicago, so I figured it would be just as bad. Not so much, really.
At some point around the outfield wall and across the street, there were a few playgrounds, also built by the Yankees. It's really a nice place to be if you get there early enough. Just like anything, 55,000 people ruin the experience if you're walking around after the game ends.
It was now that I got to see the tickets for the first time. Carl said they were in the DeltaSky360 Suite behind home plate. I was expecting great things from these beauties. I was hoping he would leave them on the table the first night in an envelope for Dad and I to look at. When I asked to see them, he pulled them out of his back pocket, no envelope (AHHHHH!!!), and unfolded them (NOOOO!!!!!).
Sorry about these formats, the scanner obviously wasn't cooperating.
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(The dark lines and signatures were metallic gold, which doesn't show too well).
As you can see, these were $125 a piece. And they were FREE. We had the extra ticket, but it went unused. Carl asked a scalper how much he could get for it, and he decided he would rather waste the ticket than given it up for $25.
Gate 6, the first one I showed you, wasn't even the main gate. They put the gold letters on the top of every one. A nice touch, but remember, it's things like that that made this place go into 10 figures. But here it is, the home plate entrance:
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Why Gate 4 and not 1? Who knows. The only difference this gate had was the eagle looking things next to the gold letters.
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Babe Ruth is my favorite Yankee, and the area next to the stadium from home plate back to right field was named after him.
Whew! We made it all the way around the park, with 20 minutes to spare before the gates opened.
About this time is when I got my heart broken. The plan Dad and Carl made without my opinion was that Carl would bring us to the seats, and he would chill out there while me and Dad went to Monument Park. I wanted to see that sometime this weekend, but I wanted to go trough a complete BP first. MY plan was I would get BP today, then we would skip half of it tomorrow to see Monument Park. But no, Sunday we had to go to the Yankee Museum. Damn, why did they have to have so much history?
I was stunned, but they were sort of right. There was too much to miss. If I could have picked, I would have done mostly all of BP out in the outfield seats. I wanted to get a ball from what Ballhawks argue as the toughest park in the MLB, but also snag one in the same physical spot Zack Hample does.
I brainstormed, and made an agreement with them. I had 10 minutes to run in, look for Easter Eggs, and maybe yell out to a few guys. I was still upset, but the line was longer now.
After my 10 minutes, all these people and then some would be doing the same thing I was. Plus, the disadvantage of not being familiar with my surroundings would be an issue. If I was going to catch a ball, 10 minutes was all I really needed.
With my old glove in hand, I thought about what was about to happen. I would be taking the same steps as some of the best Ballhawks do every day.
There was a slight hold up in getting my ticket scanned. They check bags, let you in a smaller gate, then you get your ticket scanned just a few feet further. Eventually I got through, and took off for the seats.
The first place I stopped was right field. That's my usual plan for any game, and really the best place for BP at Yankee Stadium. As I stood in the seats, I felt much more familiar than I intended . In fact, I was under surprised if anything. I had been reading New Yorker's blogs for so long, it almost felt like I had been there before.
While the mental images matched up with what I was seeing, it still felt weird to physically be standing there.
Unfortunately, I didn't take as many pictures as I wanted to. I was making damn sure I wouldn't miss a chance for a ball. But here's my view from the right field seats:
He was a surprisingly nice guy. At least 15 people called out to him, mostly just to say 'Hi'. Usually that's just out of excitement that the fan is seeing them, but Rodriguez took it seriously. He turned around and waved to every person that called out to him. Some were to the wrong people, but it's the thought that counts.
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| Clever, Yankees. |
Was it crowded? For how I approach BP, yes. This area required a lot of skill necessary to catch one on the fly. The front row was more crowded than I like, so I was basically out of luck.
My time as a Ballhawk was up. I knew I was out of chances. My heart was still slightly broken, but hey, there are bigger and better things to do.
One final thing I looked at was the large YANKEE STADIUM letters on the roof in left field.
Seeing that in person is what I kept envisioning in my head before this weekend came.
Dad and Carl were still waiting by the gate, and I headed back to where I came in. I was so quick to get out to the seats, that I didn't notice the grand foyer (that's the only way to describe it) on the concourse.
My God, it's a museum more than a ballpark.
Right after I met them, Carl took us to the Delta Club. I was happy just because it sounded fancy and expensive. And from the looks of the outside, I was right!
I liked the large logo carpet upon entrance:
After getting our tickets hole punched and stamped on the back (to prevent anyone else from using the same ticket to get in), we got our wristbands:
And walked into the club. It was nice and ritzy, which is just what I expected. I was thankful to be there, but I wasn't SUPER happy. It WAS one of the most exclusive places at Yankee Stadium, but I was all surprised-out from the last few days and seeing so much.
The thing that really made my day was the FREE water, popcorn, peanuts and pop for the entire game.
Honestly, getting dehydrated is my biggest fear at a game. With the air conditioning and water, this would be no problem whatsoever.
A couple minutes after looking around, we headed out to our nicely padded seats.
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| Now that's beautiful. |
(You can see Dad and Carl there checking out the view). I'm not sure how I felt about the "27-Time World Series Champions". I respected the glory, but spited them for bragging. Tis' the life of a Northsider, I suppose.
As soon as I took all my pictures, Dad and I took off for our own adventure while Carl rested from his long night on the plane to meet us. I was still determined to get one of these balls!
We went downstairs, and walked down the third base line to make sure we saw the whole lower level . Just around third base, I saw something that just made me be glad I don't live in New York.
See those nets? They say it's for safety, but I have never seen a ball hit with dangerous velocity in BP in those sections. The last one is the one on the left in the picture, so it goes a decent amount into the outfield. The pitches are 60 miles an hour, and have no movement. If anyone is that early or late swinging to fire a liner in there, they shouldn't be in the major leagues. It just makes it harder for toss ups.
We stopped for another second down the right field line, just because I wanted ONE MORE chance at a ball. I was desperate for any sort of opportunity.
Soon Dad caught up with me, and said we had to keep going to get to Monument Park...after a picture that is.
The entrance to Monument Park was in center field, but it was backed up to near the right field foul pole. This was very frustrating to me and Dad. For a minute, it seemed like we would both miss the Park, and I would personally have lost a lot of Ballawk time for nothing. As we got towards the end of the line, we asked an employee how long it was from where he was standing. We thought for sure he would say over an hour. We were very pleasantly surprised when he said it would be no more than 35 minutes. We didn't believe him, but before we even had time to think we wouldn't get in, we saw the door to the stairwell.
Leading up to the door, there were large displays of all the numbers:
They hyped this up too. I was pumped to get in there.
In such a large busy city, this really felt like a park. You can see some of the flowers they had between walkways, and it was a relaxing few minutes.
When you want to talk about Yankees history, it's all here. You can't get more prestigious than this.
That's a of numbers, eh? There's 17 of them actually, the most of any team. In the order in which the Yankees retired them:
*Big breath*
4- Lou Gherig (The first number retired in MLB history)
3- Babe Ruth
5- Joe DiMaggio
7- Mickey Mantle
37- Casey Stengel
8- Yogi Berra
8- Bill Dickey
16- Whitey Ford
15- Thurman Munson
32- Elston Howard
9- Roger Maris
10- Phil Rizzuto
1- Billy Martin
44- Reggie Jackson
23- Don Mattingly
49- Ron Guidry
42- Jackie Robinson
Hall of Fame style plaques were mounted on the back wall in addition to the numbers.
Loyal readers, be honest. How many of these names don't you recognize? Or at least not familiar with? Honestly, I think it should be 9 plus Robinson. (If you're not a big baseball fan, Jackie Robinson's number is retired throughout all of the MLB. The Yankee's Mariano Rivera is the lone player to still have been grandfathered in by wearing it prior to 1997. It's almost certain that Mo will have his 42 retired after he's done playing as well).
George Steinbrenner, and those lost in 9/11 were honored, too.
I could show 20 more pictures, but I'll leave you with two- the Monuments of my two favorite players in the Park ans all of baseball; Robinson and Babe Ruth.
To me, The Babe will always be the home run leader. He was the most pure baseball player you can get. He was fat, smoked, was incredibly unhealthy, yet still hit 714 homers in his career. He was the first superstar of the game and America; the one any other power hitter was compared to for years and years. He's also a part of my favorite quote of all time, from The Sandlot, my favorite movie of all time:
Remember kid, there's heroes and there's legends.
Heroes get remembered, but legends never die.
Follow your heart kid, and you'll never go wrong.
Robinson is also one of those special players that will never, ever, EVER be forgotten. Jackie had enormous courage, and the skills to match. He made a statement for all sports and African American athletes everywhere. It was his bravery that helped change our country in so many ways for the better.
Since this was a special game, and I loved this park, I funded the Yankees evil by buying a photo from their online store, which you'll see in my next entry.
The concourse was nice, but not one of the things that made this place look like it cost a billion dollars. It had history from important years past, and with 27 World Series titles, there's a lot of them.
There's no transition for this next picture; there is a straight up butcher's shop that sells full steaks and sliced steak sandwiches.
Finally, it was time for the actual game.
I had a free slurpee in my cup holder as I filled out my scorecard in this magazine:
As I watched the guys warm up, I thought again of the Yankees powerhouse roster. Granderson. Jeter. Cano. Teixeira. The newly added Ichiro. Wow.
And on the Mariners side, I got to see the only steady ray of hope in the whole organization, Felix Hernandez.
Here's the first pitch from Hiroki Kuroda to Dustin Ackley:
And Hernandez, because he's too good and important to not get a picture in here.
A solid second inning lead-off double by John Jaso and a two out single by Mike Carp gave the Mariners the 1-0. The next run was scored...never. Hernandez held the Yankees to just two hits in the complete game shutout. Dang. I was happy to see him, but seeing him at his best was something else entirely.
This sweet panoramic was taken at some point in the game:
We stuck around for just a little while, and I got one last picture in a prime spot.
Back outside, it was up to the subway tracks and back to the 4 train.
If I were to include the rest of what I did Saturday, you would be reading for another hour. That said, I'll break here, and pick up after we got back to the apartment for the next entry.
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