I take a trip to an afternoon game at Yankee Stadium.
I recently made the trip across the river to spend an afternoon at the source of all evil, Yankee Stadium. After those few hours, I'm more convinced than ever that the place needs to be introduced to a bulldozer. It would be a great service to humanity to send a giant wrecking ball into "House that Ruth Built". Of course, that would mean that the hideous brood who occupy it would have no place to gather and thereby spare the rest of society from their presence for three hours a day. So on second thought, we should probably let the place stay standing, if only for moments like these…
I had some amazing seats for the game. They were right down on the field behind first base. I was so close that if Jason Giambi had been playing, I would have been able to see the trackmarks from where he injected his steroids…
Derek Jeter was warming up right in front of me. Fans were screaming his name trying to get his attention. Jeter just kept on throwing the ball. Unless the guy hears as well as he was hitting at the start of the season, he was blatantly ignoring them. Cal Ripken Jr. used to spend hours signing autographs for the fans. Derek Jeter won't even look at them…
The New York Yankees took the field to a symphony from Star Wars. Do they not realize the whole concept of an "Evil Empire" sprung from this film? And if they do, are they embracing this label? Are they finally admitting that they are bunch of soulless mercenaries who are ruining the very fabric of sports in the name of the almighty dollar? As I was pondering these questions, I became startled by the fact that the sun had temporarily blacked out. I quickly relaxed when I realized that Hideki Matsui was passing by and it was his massive earlobes that had temporarily cause the eclipse…
Yankee fans must be inbred. I was shocked by the people sitting around me. I was sitting in the good seats. You would think I'd be surrounded by the New York elite. Instead it looked like the Yankees were hosting DMV employee day…
By far, the most entertaining part of the afternoon was listening to the people sitting next to me. It was this garbage man (I know by the shirt he was wearing) and what must've been his Russian mail-order bride. This bimbo in her pink Yankee hat knew absolutely nothing about baseball. He had to explain what the square white things on the ground were. Remember, this was a BASEball game. How do you not even know what a BASE is? Other amusing points of conversation were that if the ball goes over the wall it's a home run, and that the reason that there was a 2 by the Orioles and a 1 by the Yankees was because the score is 2 to 1. I'm guessing that the Yanks won't win the award for the most knowledgeable fans in baseball any time soon…
During the 7th inning stretch, they brought out that big-eared buffoon to sing "God Bless America". I guess they've decided that freezing the opposing pitcher is also a good strategy in the regular season too. After he sang, they kept going with "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" followed by "Cotton Eye Joe". I think they played the special extended version of "Titanic" on the Jumbotron in there somewhere too…
With a 5-2 lead in the ninth inning, Joe Torre decided bring in Mariano Rivera. Mariano had pitched in the last two games and the Orioles' 6-9 hitters were due up. You could've sent a little leaguer out there an he wouldn't have blown the lead. But instead of getting upset that Joe was unnecessarily wearing out his team's most valuable asset, the fans stood and cheered like the pope was going to take the mound. I was just hoping for another Game 7 of the 2001 World Series performance…
Mariano came through and sure enough, it was time for a stadium wide sing-a-long of "New York, New York". What is it about that song that makes garbage men, drunkards, fat girls with pit stains, and one-eyed Irishmen to spontaneously burst out singing? And since that song seems to elicit that type of response, why isn't there a law against playing it in a public place? As I was pondering those thoughts, the sun blacked out again. Matsui was heading for the locker room. The sun returned, and I headed out out of the stadium just in time to wait through an hour and a half of traffic – in the parking lot…
