Tuesday, October 05, 2004
Yankees Final Home Game, Part 2
By D. Robert
Game night was magical. Crisp, clear skies and 49,000 teaming fans falling into chorus to varied chants of, "MVP, MVP (meant for Gary Sheffield)", "Boston Sucks, Boston Sucks", and, well, you get the picture. It was a fall MLB classic: The Yankees v. Twins, final regular season home game in the Bronx.
My partner and I, with beer and hot dogs in hand, were thrilled just to be in Yankee stadium for the first time. We could care less about the actual game than for the experience. The Tier section has the cheapest seats in the house after the non-alcoholic bleachers (boring), so you can imagine the company we had that night -- a true cross-section of society. Everyone from the elderly to drunken teens, from well-dressed Dominicans to hardened Irish bullies, from BA-Yuppies (broke-ass young urban professionals) to housecleaners, were all in the Tiers enjoying each other's company and cheering on the home team.
To cap off eight and a half innings of girls swooning over hunky cops, teen boys swooning over said girls and belligerent older males yelling at said teen boys to "sit down and shut the hell up", the game actually became a game. A classic, in fact: Bottom of the 9th, one out, one man on, tied 4 to 4, crowd favorite, Bernie Williams, came to the plate and hit a walk-off homerun for the win. So exciting. In one felled swoop, the girls forgot about the cop, the boys forgot about the girls (both choosing Bernie worship instead), and the thugs decided that hating the Red Sox was much more important than anything else. The night was grandiose. The Yankees clinched their division and won their 100th game for a record three consecutive seasons while the fans simply felt stoked just to be included in the party.
Walking amongst the crowds and crowds of people to the subway station, my partner and I couldn't stop talking about what a great night it was. Yet somewhere in the back of my head was the image of those two hard-working, well-deserving people in the Jeanne soaked ticket line the other night. I thought to myself that those two deserved to witness the magic of that night. They, of all people, would have truly enjoyed it. But, honestly, I only thought about it for a second then turned my attention back to conversation with my partner and trying to navigate the sea of several thousand people trying to cram through the subway turnstiles.
That's when I saw them. I kid you not. Of the tens of thousands of people filing out of the stadium and into the subway I recognized in front of me the couple from the other night. Unbelievable. They were there, at the game. I tapped the woman on the shoulder and in passing said, "You made it. You must have given up and bought yourselves tickets," thinking that there was no way the zombies in the Yankee ticket booth would have given in to their demands.
"No," she said, "my husband complained to his bosses yesterday that it just wasn't fair for him to suffer just because it rained. The Yankees can't just not give him the tickets, you know. So, his bosses just bought him tonight's tickets. VIP!"
"That's great. Great game, huh?"
"Yeah. Yeah, we're so happy."
They hurried off one way to the uptown 4 train as we continued on to the downtown D. In that one instance our night of magic had been completed. Somehow, above Bernie's heroics and the Tier experience, knowing that that couple from the Bronx finally got their night of VIP treatment was truly the highlight for me. Steinbrenner can be as crazy and greedy as he wants to be, and, hell, I may even become a rabid Sox fan someday, but the mystique of the Bronx Bombers will live with me forever.
Game night was magical. Crisp, clear skies and 49,000 teaming fans falling into chorus to varied chants of, "MVP, MVP (meant for Gary Sheffield)", "Boston Sucks, Boston Sucks", and, well, you get the picture. It was a fall MLB classic: The Yankees v. Twins, final regular season home game in the Bronx.
My partner and I, with beer and hot dogs in hand, were thrilled just to be in Yankee stadium for the first time. We could care less about the actual game than for the experience. The Tier section has the cheapest seats in the house after the non-alcoholic bleachers (boring), so you can imagine the company we had that night -- a true cross-section of society. Everyone from the elderly to drunken teens, from well-dressed Dominicans to hardened Irish bullies, from BA-Yuppies (broke-ass young urban professionals) to housecleaners, were all in the Tiers enjoying each other's company and cheering on the home team.
To cap off eight and a half innings of girls swooning over hunky cops, teen boys swooning over said girls and belligerent older males yelling at said teen boys to "sit down and shut the hell up", the game actually became a game. A classic, in fact: Bottom of the 9th, one out, one man on, tied 4 to 4, crowd favorite, Bernie Williams, came to the plate and hit a walk-off homerun for the win. So exciting. In one felled swoop, the girls forgot about the cop, the boys forgot about the girls (both choosing Bernie worship instead), and the thugs decided that hating the Red Sox was much more important than anything else. The night was grandiose. The Yankees clinched their division and won their 100th game for a record three consecutive seasons while the fans simply felt stoked just to be included in the party.
Walking amongst the crowds and crowds of people to the subway station, my partner and I couldn't stop talking about what a great night it was. Yet somewhere in the back of my head was the image of those two hard-working, well-deserving people in the Jeanne soaked ticket line the other night. I thought to myself that those two deserved to witness the magic of that night. They, of all people, would have truly enjoyed it. But, honestly, I only thought about it for a second then turned my attention back to conversation with my partner and trying to navigate the sea of several thousand people trying to cram through the subway turnstiles.
That's when I saw them. I kid you not. Of the tens of thousands of people filing out of the stadium and into the subway I recognized in front of me the couple from the other night. Unbelievable. They were there, at the game. I tapped the woman on the shoulder and in passing said, "You made it. You must have given up and bought yourselves tickets," thinking that there was no way the zombies in the Yankee ticket booth would have given in to their demands.
"No," she said, "my husband complained to his bosses yesterday that it just wasn't fair for him to suffer just because it rained. The Yankees can't just not give him the tickets, you know. So, his bosses just bought him tonight's tickets. VIP!"
"That's great. Great game, huh?"
"Yeah. Yeah, we're so happy."
They hurried off one way to the uptown 4 train as we continued on to the downtown D. In that one instance our night of magic had been completed. Somehow, above Bernie's heroics and the Tier experience, knowing that that couple from the Bronx finally got their night of VIP treatment was truly the highlight for me. Steinbrenner can be as crazy and greedy as he wants to be, and, hell, I may even become a rabid Sox fan someday, but the mystique of the Bronx Bombers will live with me forever.
