Bronx, N.Y., June 6, 2002 — What follows is a tale of one of my many favorite days at the Ballpark, one I’ll share with you in the absence of the scheduled Yankee game tonight. First however, even though I believe I have a true tale to tell regarding this tale’s title, I in no way mean to belittle the very serious discussions on both sides about that practice.
And also, in passing, I want to thank the New York Yankees for saving me the cost of the trips to and from the Bronx on Metro North Railroad ($5 per, off-peak, if you buy the 10-trip tickets, and I do), not to mention the two $1.50 subway rides, by calling the game just before I was about to mount the platform for the 6:05 express. I was willing to bypass the home-cooked hot meal, but the transit expenses add up; thank you, George and Brian.
My girlfriend and life partner Sue became an aunt to two (one of each) through adoption a few years back, and Matt, the sports-crazed nephew, was benefitting greatly by his affiliation with a baseball-loving aunt and her companion, so much so that his older sister Julia was beginning to feel a little left out, and asked if she, too, could attend a game. (They live in Philadelphia, but I can’t take credit for adding Yankee worship to the strong attraction Matt already had for the Phillies; Darryl Strawberry had already done all the prep work.) Julia is not a baseball fan, and admitted to only being into it for the fun and the spectacle, and she spent much of the week leading up to the game shopping with her girlfriend for just the right outfit.
Friday night, September 24, 1999 was the appointed day, and Sue and I drove to Philly to pick the two girls up in the early afternoon. Even though it would turn into a fairly long evening — the bane of all baseball enthusiasts who bring nonbelievers to a game — we were lucky that on this evening. Chuck Knoblauch (about to have a great night) led off the bottom of the first by hitting one out to left off Tampa Bay’s Bobby Witt. 1-0 Yankees, and a lot of loud and prolonged yelling and screaming. Maybe this baseball thing wasn’t so bad after all.
El duque was Witt’s mound opponent that night, and even though he ended up having very much a quality start, it didn’t look that way in the third. A walk, a triple to left by Tony Grafannino (currently with the White Sox), Miguel Cairo’s sac fly, a Dave Martinez double and a Jose Canseco single, and it took a 4-6-3 (Chuck again) to escape only down 3-1. I was thinking that Bobby Witt would collapse any minute; Sue seemed concerned as the teams started trading long uneventful nonscoring innings; Julia and friend somehow survived the hours by focussing on the people (44,932), the various foodstuffs, overhearing crowd whispers I never would have picked up, and sharing secrets and giggles about I don’t know what, though the clothing choices around us were certainly conversational grist.
The innings dragged by. Witt was masterful. (Who did he think he was anyway, Travis Driskill?) Derek, Paul and Jorge went hitless, while Bernie, Tino and Ricky Ledee notched lonely singles. Chuck, however, was on fire, and after pinning the right fielder to the wall with his long drive in the second, he came up with three consecutive singles, to left, then right, then left again. The Rays were dormant as they only added a lone single and double to the five hits in the third. And though Witt left after Chuck’s two-out single in the seventh, Albie Lopez came on to put down four straight, to hand over the two-run lead with three outs still needed to closer Roberto Hernandez.
We had been trying to get some good, loud cheers going in the last few innings, and it all hit a crescendo in the bottom of the ninth. Here, Julia and friend really came into their own. I can bellow with the best of them, but their teenage screams pierced the night air and carried into the Stadium sky. Sue can hit a note or two when it’s necessary as well (I’m sure Neil Young could pick her out by sound in a crowd, btw).
We were aided in our work by Chili Davis’s lead-off five-pitch walk, but our efforts began to flag, as Ledee removed the pinch-running September callup Alfonso Soriano on a force and Jorge took call strike three after fouling off four pitches. Two outs, two down, Ledee on first, and Darryl Strawberry came out to pinch hit for Brosius. (Matt would have been so thrilled!) Darryl smacked a 1-1 pitch off the right center field wall, scoring Ledee, and we went wild. And then Chuck, wasting no time, delivered pinch runner Clay Bellinger on a first-pitch single to left.
The girls (all three of them) were all aglow as we started the tenth tied 3-3. El duque had managed to throw 134 pitches through eight, and Ramiro was on. He and Norm Charlton looked automatic in the tenth, and I could sense the alarm in our group who, after all, had already been through a six-inning scoring drought that looked to be replicating itself. Ramiro coaxed five grounders; Norm struck out his first two. In the 11th Ramiro hit Jose Canseco, and Stanton came on and walked McGriff, but he got two K’s and a grounder to quell the uprising. The DH spot led off the bottom of the 11th, but Chili was gone, and a beanpole-like Alfonso Soriano strode to the plate. Ironically I had seen him pinch run twice that week, and in each case he got one plate appearance — and walked both times! A walk sounded good to me, until Norm tried to blow a first-pitch fastball by him, and the resulting shot had Giambi height and distance, only to left field. It was Alfonso’s first major-league hit. The walks may have been an aberration; the homer obviously wasn’t.
But we still had a trip to Philly ahead of us, though I felt I could run there at that moment. We fought our way over the George Washington Bridge, as we so often had had to do, and I steered us toward the Turnpike. And then it happened. As odiferous a stench as I have ever experienced emanated from something in the car. I’m very heavy, I love to eat, and I’m not particularly as careful with my diet as one would hope, but I am aware, and I knew that I was not the source. Lowering the windows, oblivious to the cool night air and the high speed of the car, I tried to envision the scene from the point of view of all the car’s occupants, when I realized it. Barring very reliable lie detection analysis, anyone scanning the four occupants of the car would have come to the same conclusion. I was busted. The heavy, aging and balding driver was the only logical source. I was guilty because of the way I looked.
BTW,TYW
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!