NEW YORK, N.Y., September 25, 2003 — Well, the Yankees and Mike Mussina were spanked pretty badly by the Chisox in the Windy City yesterday in a game that was going the Yanks’ way until everything fell apart in the sixth. I don’t know though. The loss doesn’t bother me too much.
I know what you’ll say. It’s easy. We have already clinched the division and appear on our way to attaining the AL’s best record, thereby assuring ourselves of home field advantage for as long as we play in October. But let me assure you, even for Yankee fans, winning may be job one, but it is still not the only thing.
As a matter of fact, one of my favorite days in the Bronx this year happened at our last home game, a 5-2 loss to the Devil Rays on Sunday, September 14. It had rained for days (the “everyday zone” in the New York area we appear to be approaching yet again). Work was an alligator-filled swamp, family matters were touch and go, and my car decided it had driven its last mile as well. I was stuck taking the train and subway to the game, something I usually do only on weeknights.
Walking the block from the 125th street Metro North station to the subway, I avoided eye contact like a good New Yorker for most of the way, but preoccupation with some nagging problems had put me off my game I guess. I was already reaching for some loose change as I struggled to make sense of the words emitting from the mouth of the tall black man with the beret who accosted me a few feet short of the subway entrance. But the words were all wrong and I stared stupidly into his eyes before realizing that he was not asking for money, but rather expressing concern, both with my less than stellar physical condition and with the slight limp in my walk. Truly moved that he had gone out of his way to offer me advice and solicitude, I grasped his shoulder and thanked him warmly for his thoughts.
The Yanks were ending a great homestand that day, having perhaps rescued their season behind David Wells and Bernie Williams a week earlier in salvaging the last of three with the Red Sox. Six wins in six days against the lowly but dangerous Detroit Tigers and Tampa Bay Devil Rays had followed, and the team and their fans were primed for the sweep of the Rays and an 8-2 homestand.
I arrived early as they were giving out Beanie Buddies, and I dislike the stress of wading through a big crowd to get to my seat before a game. I can only suggest to anyone arriving at Yankee Stadium for a ballgame via the elevated 4 train that they work their way back to the very last car. The view of the world-famous facade along the left field wall from behind and at that elevated height is mesmerizing. It was a comfort to scan the AL East team pennants to my right and see that the blue Yankees flag was still in the extreme left field corner, indicating the Bombers were in first place, right where they belonged.
I usually enter at Gate 2 in the left field corner when I come off the subway. Not all of the people I look forward to seeing in Yankee Stadium wear Pinstriped unis, and one person I like to greet is my new friend, Philippa, who works in security there and is a first cousin of a very famous ex-Yankee ball player. But the sun was shining, and the streets around the park were relatively empty, so I made my way down River Avenue past Gate 6 in the right field corner, greeted a few regulars on the plaza, and made for the big bat and Gate 4, right behind home plate.
Whipping my scorecard, pencil and sports section, safely ensconced in the de rigeur clear plastic Yankee bag all cool Yankee fans carry, past security, I handed my ticket to Al the usher as I entered. He doesn’t remember my name now but he recognizes me, as he was the elevator operator near the Yankee offices eight years ago when I was attending games in the Tier after I had broken my ankle.
When I arrived at the top of the last escalator, I immediately made for the concession stand where old friend Clara works. We made friends with Clara years ago when our Sunday seats were in Section 11 and she anchored the outfield side of the concession stand just above and behind us. Those were the lean years with Dallas Green, Bucky Dent, and Stump Merrill guiding the Yankee helm, and the concession lines were shorter back then. And there were no TVs and no radio broadcast of the games as one stood on line either. Our Sunday seats are behind home plate now, and during the week we watch from the left field side. Clara has been shifted often too, and each April I arrive at a game early enough to check all the stands until I find her. She has introduced us to family members, shown us her wedding pictures, and recently congratulated me on the upcoming nuptials for my niece. I can’t tell you how delighted and surprised I was a few years back when we bumped into one another on line at a lunch-time deli in midtown Manhattan.
I’ve known some of the guys who sell beer, soda, hot dogs, etc., to the patrons in their seats for a while, and some of them are big Yankee fans, but any Stadium employee who has been manning the stands behind the fan seating areas for a few years is there for the monetary benefits alone. These concession areas are cold in April, May, and October, and hot and airless in between. Customers are generally unpleasant, feeling robbed both of the time they wanted to spend watching the game outside on the one hand, and of their money by the ever-rising prices on the other. The profits from concessions add significantly to the team’s bottom line, but little of that makes it into the pockets of the vendors. There is little incentive to work faster, except perhaps the few and far between expressions of thanks and appreciation, a smile here and there from a satisfied customer, and the rare tip, usually from the leering couple who have probably had a few too many beers anyway.
Having purchased our necessities for the day, we were in our seats for a generally pleasant afternoon for Jose Contreras’s 1:10 first pitch. And he was masterful, but so was Tampa Bay rookie Doug Waechter. And neither guy particularly followed the high strikes-to-balls ratio we marvel about all the time with the Yankees’ veteran starters. Jose allowed at least one base runner per inning except the sixth, but surrendered only one run (Rocco Baldelli’s two-out homer to left in the fifth) until Tampa managed their only two-hit inning, and scored their second run, in the seventh. Contreras threw only 14 of 29 first pitches for strikes, and the 38 pitches he threw outside the zone (of the 107 he tossed through seven) was a bit high, but he retired the first man in every inning until the seventh, and the first two Rays in four of the first six frames.
Waechter, meanwhile, was just as effective, though it took him many more pitches to subdue the home-standing Yanks. His 11/12 first-strike ratio resembled Contreras’s, and the five walks, not surprising considering that more than 40 percent of his pitches were off the plate, took their toll. He amassed 105 pitches (two less than Jose) in only five innings, and one of the walks scored the first Yankee run in front of Derek Jeter’s two-run jack to the opposite field in the fifth. But he was stubborn and effective when he needed to be, keeping the Yanks off the board until Jeter’s tater despite Soriano, Flaherty and Sierra doubles, the first two with no outs no less.
The sun, meanwhile, wasn’t sure if it wanted to frame this day or to ruin it. On the one hand, fans had their trigger fingers poised to deploy umbrellas at a moment’s notice much of the day, particularly from the third through the fifth, but Sol beat down so relentlessly on the home plate and third-base side exposed seats early that I had drained my $4.50 “scorecard cocktail” (diet Coke with lots of ice) by the middle of the third. Good thing we have befriended Tonique too, as she was able to come up with some extra cubes on an ice-challenged day in the Tier when my brother bought us two more in the fifth.
But if a Stadium visit is not all about seeing the great players on today’s team, it’s not always about seeing old friends like Philippa, Al, Clara, and Tonique (or Frank the trumpet guy or David the funky guitar player down River Ave. after the games) either. I was privileged to bask in the wide-eyed wonder of my niece’s son Michael back in July at a win over Boston in his first game in Yankee Stadium, and we experienced some of that joy on the 14th too. Christopher, perhaps six, was enjoying his Yankee premier in the row in front of us, and he had a ball, so to speak. The game was competitive, the drinks and treats were tasty, and the Beanie Buddy was cool. (Although this may be a harbinger of things. Upwards of 50,000 fans packed the Stadium in ’98 to see the Twins on the first Beanie Baby Day when Boomer threw his perfecto; 10,000 fewer attended this day.) Christopher loved that we all were encouraged to (and did) make as much noise as we could, and when a foul ball off Derek Jeter’s bat in the third plopped into the hands of a fan one row in front of him and two seats to the right, another lifelong Yankee fan was born.
Unfortunately, things turned once Contreras left the game after the seventh. The Rays had grabbed the lead on Baldelli’s homer in the fifth, the Yanks had answered immediately with Derek’s two-run tracer in the same frame’s bottom half, and the Rays tied it on Lugo’s base hit through a drawn-in infield in the seventh. Heredia came on for the top of the eighth and disposed of the first two batters as storm clouds gathered from the Southwest. September 14 this year was the 38th anniversary of the debut of the classic TV comedy F Troop, and sometimes I refer to it as “E Troop” as it applies to baseball. The speedy Johnny Gomes, pinch-hitting for Al Martin with none on and two out, grounded to Enrique Wilson at third as the rains came, and even through the rising umbrellas I could see that our super infield backup rushed his throw, and that Jason couldn’t handle it. Before the raindrops would disappear, the Rays deposited three quickly on a walk, single, and double, the last by Toby Hall off Osuna. Antonio then walked Lugo but the inning closed as the sun returned to greet an outstanding play by Soriano in the second base hole, made that much better by the fact that he nipped the speedy Crawford digging for first.
The unaccustomed flub by Wilson came to mind yesterday when Karim Garcia let a harmless pop fall in front of him in what would turn out to be a disastrous sixth inning for the Moose. Who is to say whether or not the ensuing double, strike out, home run, double, single, single, double that followed would have occurred anyway? But how bad is it, after all? Despite the error and lightning loss to the Rays in the last home game, even Christopher seemed OK with the day he had had, and the White Sox that pounced on us yesterday beat the Red Sox that same day to shrink our magic number (which has since disappeared altogether) to eight.
And today the Yanks (and their fans) rest up for a four-game tune-up against the Orioles, starting with that all too rare single-entry (two for the price of one!) double dip tomorrow. In another case of going from the “ridiculous to the sublime,” September 14 is an anniversary for more than just the antics of Wilton Parmenter, Corporal Agarn, and the bumbling Hekawi’s. It was also the day in 1814 that Francis Scott Key was inspired to pen the immortal Star-Spangled Banner. One hundred and eighty-nine years later when I arrived at the Stadium and looked to my right from the subway platform, “Our flag (the Yankee pennant) was still there.” I have a feeling that tomorrow around 4:00 pm when I disembark from the northbound 4 train at 161st Street, it will be there too.
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!