Bronx

On Seeing A Game with the Old Man

New Yankee Stadium, 2010

Saturday, June 19, 2010

New York Metropolitans vs. New York Yankees
New Yankee Stadium
Major League Baseball, Interleague
Bronx, New York
1:05 PM


Outside the Game:
This one did not bode well for me, karmically. My cousin was unable to use her season tickets for one of the Subway Series games at the new Yankee Stadium and offered them to my father and myself. So already I have strike one, using a Yankee fan's season tickets. Since my father's various surgeries, this was the first ballgame he would be attending in a number of years, so strike two was the elderly fan recovering from illness sitting next to me and rooting against me. And I was going to see who (at the time) was the hot Metropolitan pitcher at the moment, so that was strike three right there, because that never works out for me.

That said, I had face value tickets for a Subway Series game, so it wasn't as though I was going to pass up the opportunity, no matter the unlikelihood of victory. My father drove out to Hoboken, and I took him to Yankee Stadium via mass transit for the first time in what was nothing short of forty years for him. The man hadn't taken the train to the gave since before he was married. He found the mass transit process to be novel and amusing, which can only be the reaction of someone who does not commute anywhere via this process on any sort of regular basis.

There but for the grace of god

After the game, we took a brief detour to the site of the old stadium, where on the dilapidated remains of the old bat (as in "Meet me by the bat") remain, which was a little maudlin for him. I also managed to disabuse him of his affection for mess transit as he was treated to the cattle call that was trying to get on the orange line after a game. In the future, he plans on driving to the stadium exclusively.


The Stadium & Fans:

New Monument Park

I had visited the New Yankee Stadium when it opened last season, so I had done most of my poking around then. Since we got to the stadium early enough, we had the opportunity to take our pick and get on one of the lines for either the new Monument Park or the new Museum. You cannot possibly do both before the lines get out of control and you'd have to miss part of the game to see it, not to mention the officials closing the Monument Park line fairly soon after the park opens due to its incredible length. Dad chose to see the Museum, so in line we went, and we got there early enough that we only had a ten minute or so wait to get in.

I have to say that I finally found one area where Not Shea beats the New Yankee Stadium: the museum. While the Yankee's museum was nice enough (and opened with the park, as opposed to the year wait for Mets fans), it seemed a little small and dark (it is tucked into the superstructure of the building, so there are no windows for natural light), and frankly a little perfunctory. It was nice enough, but the Metropolitan museum at Not Shea was much more visually attractive and engaging, and the Mets have a metric ton less history worthy of a museum than the Yankees, so it suffers even more in comparison. My father found getting around the new stadium much easier, as it undoubtedly is, so that was an extra plus for him.

As was the case with Subway Series games, only the most expensive of expensive seats were not occupied (if that), and the crowd was big early. As the fate of the game went back and forth, both fans had their chances at cheering, though the Yankee fans were somehow smug even in their cheering. So damn smug...


At the Game with Oogie:

Never a good sign

My old man, obviously. For a Subway Series game at Yankee stadium, it was dangerously close to a fifty-fifty split of Metropolitan and Yankees fans, with the remainder obviously going to the Yankees. Even though we were sitting in a season ticket holder area, there were a number of Mets fans in close proximity, which is always good to have, in case things get... disagreeable.


The Game:

First pitch, Metroplotans vs. Yankees

This was a rematch of an early-season Pelfrey-Hughes match-up that looked to be a pitcher's duel (both hurlers' troubles lying in the future), and despite the score, it for the most part lived up to the billing. The game started out fortuitously for the Metropolitans, with Reyes leading off with a home run. This lasted to the bottom of the first, where Gardner lead off with a single, got moved over by a single by Swisher, and then scored on a Teixeira doule-play ball. That lasted to the third, when Reyes hit a second home run, scoring himself and Blanco, who had walked earlier in the inning. It stayed 3-1 until the bottom of the inning, when Teixeira answered with his own two-run home run, tying it up. The Mets went quietly in the forth, but the Yankees tacked on another two-run home run, this time off the bat of Granderson, in the bottom of the frame to put them up 5-3. Despite some mild chances by both teams in the subsequent innings, that was the story of the game, with the Yankees winning by that 5-3 score.


The Scorecard:

Metropolitans vs. Yankees, 06/19/10. Yankees win, 5-3.

The standard, expensive $10 Yankees program/scorecard. Besides a surfeit of double-plays, nothing interesting happened scoring-wise.


The Accommodations:
Hoboken, sweet, Hoboken

Click here to see all the photos from this trip.

2010 Stand-Alone Trip