Paul Simon has some memories of Yankee Stadium. (Thanks, Instaputz.)
I have a lot, too, although none nearly as glamorous as his. I haven't followed baseball in years, and haven't much enjoyed my last few trips to any major league ballparks, but Simon's piece reminds me: tomorrow night is the last game at Yankee Stadium. Ever. It hurts a little to think of it going away. Erasing another piece of childhood, I guess.
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I usually sat in the cheap seats, but one time, my father got the tickets to his company's box, right behind home plate, just a little to the third base side. I guess it was considered a nothing game by whichever executive had passed them along to my dad -- a weeknight against the Angels, who weren't much that year. Still, I was rabid for the Yankees back then, and even better, Ron Guidry was pitching.
Don Baylor led off by doubling down the left field line. I had a chill of premonition -- was I somehow offending the baseball gods by seating in seats above my station? Would the nearly unhittable Guidry have an off night because I was sitting in the box seats instead of the upper grandstand?
As it happened, not many other Angels made contact that night. Guidry ended up striking out 18, which was then a new American League record.
You've probably heard the baseball cliché, describing a pitcher's breaking ball as "falling off the table." I'm here to tell you, from where I sat that night, Guidry's slider did exactly that. It would come in around thigh-high, and starting a few feet from in front of the plate, it would dart sharply down and in on a right-handed batter. Joe Rudi, known as a good contact hitter, struck out four times on that pitch. The last two at-bats, he actually hit his bat against the ground while swiping at it. He looked like a man trying to kill a fish with a paddle. Guidry pwned him, as we didn't say back then.
I came the closest I've ever come to catching a foul ball at a major league game that night. We were just out from under the steel net that protects the fans right behind the plate, and midway through the game, someone lofted a towering pop that seemed destined to come right into my hands. I dropped my scorecard and pencil, stood up, looked up, hands sweaty but at the ready. I can remember every sensation about that moment, thinking don'tdropitdon'tdropitdon'tdropit, heart going a mile a minute, glad that I had no soda to worry about kicking over. Coming down, coming down …
The guy next to me elbowed me in the temple, I staggered, the ball bounced off of his hands, and disappeared into a scrum.
My mom chewed that guy out but good.
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Another time, I was in one of our regular spots, upper deck in left field, with my friend, David. Yankee Stadium was our place. It represented the first big step in leaving the nest -- going to the city unaccompanied. We spent pretty much every penny we made off our paper routes there, which is to say, we could go to a game or two every few weeks if we didn't buy snacks. Needless to say, we did not ever leave a game early.
This game, the Yanks were down 8-0. It was the bottom of the ninth, one out, no one on. No question but we still had faith, and this time it was rewarded. A walk or a single or two, an extra base hit or something (it's the details that sell your story, right?), before anyone realized it, the Yanks had a few runs in, men on base, still one out, and all the people who had stuck it out were going absolutely crazy.
For some reason, David and I had taken a special dislike to the left fielder, Bruce Bochte, most likely because he was the only one who might be able to hear our catcalls. For good luck, to keep the rally going, we heaped abuse on him before every pitch. At one point, he looked in our general direction, mystified. Victory!
There were pitching changes galore, but no one could get anybody out. Soon enough, a single by I've-forgotten-who drove in the runners from second and third, tying the game, 8-8. Pandemonium. More opprobrium hurled at Bochte. Another pitching change. Still only one out. Yanks called time and sent in a pinch-runner for the man on first. This was getting beyond melodrama now -- it was Mickey Rivers, fresh off the DL. Everyone in the ballpark was standing, screaming. We knew he could steal second, and one more single would win the game. Greatest comeback ever, coming up!
Somehow, the new relief pitcher got wind of our secret plan and promptly picked Rivers off of first. He retired the batter, too. Twenty or forty thousand people said, "Ohhhhhhhhhhhh." Took us all a moment to realize, hey, we hadn't lost! Extra innings!
Well, the Yanks ended up losing in 11. No biggie, at least in fuzzy memory, and I'm pretty sure that even at the time, that was way more fun than losing 8-0.
I've never left a game early since, either.
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1978 World Series. It had already been a season beyond belief, what with the comeback from being about fourteen games down in July or maybe even August, culminating in the special one-game playoff, when the Yanks and Red Sox finished the season tied for first. I was away at school by then, but I did catch that game on TV. David had somehow managed not only to get himself to Boston, but had scored a ticket to the game. He told me later he missed Bucky Dent's home run -- by then, he was so superstitious, he had taken to going for walks where he couldn't see the field when he wanted something good to happen.
After the Yanks got through the playoffs, they met the Dodgers in the Series. The Dodgers at that time were even more hated by David and me than the Red Sox, partly because we knew their fans left in the seventh inning, mostly because of Steve Garvey. Ugh. I still wrinkle my nose when I think of him. Phonier than George Bush cuttin' brush, he was.
Anyway, David badgered me into leaving school and coming down for a game when the Series, which had opened in L.A., returned to New York. I was a little hesitant -- I'd done that the year before, only to get stranded on a broken-down bus for four hours no more than fifteen miles from Yankee Stadium. Missed the game, of course. Plus, this time, David didn't have tickets. The plan was to get them from scalpers.
Uh, okay. Any excuse to leave school was a good one. This time, I took the bus down the night before, just to be sure. Of course it didn't break down this time. Next day (yeah, they played baseball during the day back then. Go figure.), David and I took the usual train to the usual subway, caught that great glimpse of green as the subway came above ground pulling into 161st Street, jumped off, and started walking around the ballpark. David's younger brother, Marc, was with us.
It was a madhouse outside. The Yanks had lost two, badly, in L.A., but had come back to New York and won two themselves. This was Game 5, the last game of the year in Yankee Stadium, no matter what. There were scalpers, or those pretending to be scalpers, all over the place. We started negotiations with a few, but they all wanted big money. Marc started drifting away from us, as was his wont. This irritated his big brother, who kept snapping at him to stick with us.
Eventually, David and I got into it with one guy who had two bleacher seat tickets. Marc had vanished, again. We decided to grab these, figuring we could find Marc and another bleacher ticket. We settled on thirty bucks apiece (face value was $4 or $6, IIRC). Then we went looking for Marc.
We never did find him, after an hour or so of circling the ballpark. David finally said, "He does this all the time. He probably found a ticket on his own and just went to his seat. Let's go in."
It was a great game, for Yankee fans. Close for a while, and then when the Yankees put together a bit of a rally, Steve Garvey made a key throwing error trying to nab the runner at home, and the Yanks blew the game open from there. It ended ended up being a laugher -- 12-2, or something like that. (--ed. Yup.)
Oddly enough, this was the first time David and I had ever sat in the bleacher seats at Yankee Stadium. In those days, General Admission tickets were only a buck or two more, and with them, you could sit almost anywhere you wanted in the upper deck, except for the first few rows behind home plate. I still remember how different it felt seeing the game from behind the center fielder. Probably the October sunset light helped enhance the new mood.
When the game ended, pretty much everyone in the stands jumped onto the field. The cops made a few half-hearted gestures, but they basically let anyone come who didn't make eye contact with them. David and I just stood at third base for ten or fifteen minutes, marveling at how far a throw it seemed to first in this big ballpark. We spun in place a few times, trying to drink it all in, not wanting to let that fabulous season end. The organ music wound down, and they started dimming the ballpark lights. The air seemed filled with mist. Finally, we tore up a hunk of sod each and left.
When we got back home, there was Marc (oh, yeah, Marc), curled up in an armchair, eating a bowl of ice cream. "Great game, huh?" he said.
Turned out he'd found a single ticket, just as David and I had guessed. However, after he finished dealing with his scalper and was about to start looking for us again, he met up with a guy who was a Dodger fan, who had flown into town for the game, and had to had to had to have that ticket. Marc said, "It was a good seat. Almost a box seat. I had paid $50 for it and the guy offered me $100. So I took it. Then I decided I didn't really care that much about finding another ticket. I figured you guys would give me shit, so I didn't come looking for you. I just got on the train and came home and watched the game on TV."
He patted his pocket, waggled his eyebrows, and nodded a couple of times, that little smile that he always had stretching just a little farther.
