Last weekend Daughter and I got a treat when one of my Brooklyn Girls called with two extra tickets to Yankee Stadium. Her husband couldn’t make it which meant my husband wouldn’t make it so she was bringing her son which meant Daughter lucked out. The boys in pinstripes were playing the 5th game in a six game series with the Red Sox and the only problem I could foresee aside from the obvious troubles the Yankees are drowning in was that Daughter is currently a Red Sox fan. She went to undergrad in Boston and even though she came back to the Yankees when she graduated and returned to the city a few years ago, I wasn’t aware the wind had changed again until she walked out of her apartment building and onto the avenue in a Red Sox shirt.
My friend, her son and I were sitting in her SUV parked by the hydrant and we all rolled down the windows when we saw Daughter approach so there could be no mistake about our feelings. My friend is a non-profit administrator, mother of four and just a total betty. Her son is likewise a sweetheart and I myself have been known to give to charity but all three of us nonetheless yelled that Daughter had to put on her sweatshirt and zip it before we would allow her in the car with us in that Red Sox shirt. She yelled back to basically get a life but she knew without being reminded that it is one very crowded train to the Bronx on game day so she zipped up.
I’ll tell you what I love about going to baseball games: It’s the only thing you can do while you’re there. Multitasking is not an option. It’s too noisy to talk on the phone. There is nothing to read except what’s on the big screens and the painted chests of rabid fans. No backpacks are allowed so you cannot eat anything you don’t buy from a vendor who then aims it at your head after you’ve passed $20 through the hands of two dozen strangers. You can’t even cross your legs. When I’m at home watching the game I do some homework, catch up on my New York Magazines, go online, even watch parts of a movie on another channel. But being live at a game is all you can do while you’re doing it and I don’t know of many other situations you can say that about. Employers would like to say ‘work’ and teachers would like to say ‘school’ but all us workers and students know otherwise.
Look away from the field and you could miss the play of a lifetime. Unless your attention has been rightfully diverted by the shenanigans in the stands. The House that Ruth Built seats over 50,000 and this Red Sox game was near capacity. Directly in front of us was a young Asian family with a gorgeous little boy about seven who sat on his knees in the seat between his parents with an arm around each and a huge smile the entire game. It reminded betty and me of that MasterCard commercial, “Tickets to the game: $120. Snacks: $180. Being surrounded by beer-soaked cretins shouting BOSTON SUCKS: education in America.”
This season you have to weave your way around the construction site to get in and out of the parking areas. It’s anyone’s guess when the new stadium they’re building across the street will be completed. I know they’re saying it’ll be better than this house; they always tell you new is better. Bigger. Improved. But when Posada blasts one out and the Sox are sinking and Mariano Rivera strides onto the field with Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” filling every molecule of space in the air, you just can’t convince me.
