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When I'm in New York City, my top priority is to not look like a tourist.
Whatever it is I do, it must work. Twice during my trip to the five boroughs this week, food delivery guys stopped their bicycles next to me and asked directions.
I had to confess that I had no idea where I was either. So if you're not a New York native, my main piece of advice for visiting the Big Apple is this:
If you order takeout food delivered to your hotel, do not expect it to arrive anytime before Rudy Giuliani is elected president.
Here's my second piece of advice: There is one specific part of the New York City tacky tourist experience where the tables are turned.
I have learned that whenever I take the D Train to Yankee Stadium, I never have to pay attention to when it is I'll arrive at the 161st Street exit. All I have to do is follow the lead of the dozens of people on my subway car who are dressed head-to-toe in every imaginable pinstripe of Yankee gear, licensed or otherwise. And them natives think we look silly in black socks and sandals.
With Yankee Stadium set to be shut down after this season, my dad and I promised we would take a few days' vacation this summer and visit the House that Bambino Built one final time.
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| Jeter and A-Rod share a friendly fist-bump, neither man aware of the places that hand has been. (Getty Images) |
So while I brought my reporter's notebook up from South Carolina to record our brush with history, he brought his "YANKEES SUCK" T-shirt to sneak into the game under a Hawaiian shirt just to screw with the baseball gods.
Subway series
Finding our way around Manhattan and into the Bronx would not be a problem. In the '60s and '70s, my dad was a cop in the New York subway system. Let's just say he knows way more people from his line of work who have found sliced-up bodies on train tracks than you do.
I don't know what this says about the New Yankee Stadium, but coming out of the subway station and looking at the two facilities across the street from each other, I wouldn't have been able to tell which was old or new from the outside if it weren't for some cranes and construction equipment. Though I'm sure on the inside, the new stadium will make Derek Jeter's apartment look like your college freshman dorm room.
Of the bars and souvenir shops that line River Street across from old Yankee Stadium, did you know there's a bowling alley there? But where 99 percent of bowling alleys have a small lounge attached where you can get a beer or a shot, at Ball Park Lanes (810 River Ave.) there's a big bar area and attached are two levels of bowling alley stacked atop each other. It's a marvel of engineering.
Inside game
Our first priority upon getting inside the stadium was to see the famed Monument Park. I knew that policy states the area would be closed to visitors a half hour before the start of any game. That's why we got inside at 5:30 for a 7:05 start. But when we got to the Monument Park entrance at 5:50, an usher got on the P.A. to say the area was closed for the evening. Oh, well. Maybe I'll have better luck with getting up close to Yankees lore at the next stadium.
Weeks earlier I had enlisted StubHub to land us seats for a Tuesday evening game against the Orioles in late July. We were in Section 10, Box 432, Row D, Seats 5 and 6. It's what they call Loge Championship level. The Yankees seating chart price guidelines tells us the season-ticket price per game is $130. But it's $250 if you buy them through the Yankee ticket office in advance. They're $350 if you buy them the day of the game. I nabbed them for $151 each through the Stubbery.
I won't even get into a discussion about the sliding supply and demand scale of what Yankees tickets cost. But I will point out that a 24-ounce beer costs $9.50. And it didn't even come in a souvenir cup. You tell me which pricing practice should be made criminal.
So crowded everybody goes there anymore
The people who sat in the rows directly in front of us and behind us proved that Yankee Stadium is the place to see and be seen. And I don't mean that as a compliment. They were too annoying beyond belief. They all showed up well after the first inning had been played, I'll first point out.
The foursome in front of us consisted of three upward-aspiring pals in their 20s who were sitting with an older gentleman who must have been their boss. They all wore long-sleeved oxford shirts and khakis. The boss bore a striking resemblance to Mandy Patinkin for some reason. They were all complaining about how it was too warm up here.
Whatever the relationship was, the three young guys were all in full brown-nose mode, hanging on their boss' every word. The boss sat on the aisle, so I felt most sorry for the young man all the way in the fourth seat; he had to keep leaning over the whole time to make out what the boss was saying. But I had little sympathy for the fact that he had difficulty opening the cap off his bottles of Bud Light each time without applying some extra elbow grease for two or three twists in a row.
Not that they ever got up to get more food or beer. We had food service workers on hand to take our orders throughout the game. At one point when a girl was delivering sandwiches and chips in the fourth inning, she would not sit down when I was trying to watch Melky Cabrera ground to shortstop for the third out. So I would put her as the one and only obnoxious New Yorker we met. Because she ignored all my sarcastic remarks to get her to crouch down so I can see. Dad told me two of the Junior Masters of the Universe had turned around and shot me dirty looks. So in their book, I was the obnoxious New Yorker. Well, as someone often sought to give directions in the Big Apple, let me be the first to tell them where the hell to go.
So while in front of us we had representatives of the New York Corporate Culture where (I'm guessing) you get free tickets on the boss' dime, behind us were the infinitely more freakazoidal members of the New York Sports Fanatic Culture.
These were three twenty-something guys and one gal who I will forever refer to as the off-off-Broadway company of "The King of Queens." They talked nonstop throughout the game, but never once about the game.
For two solid innings, their main matter of concern was using their cell phones to get their friends on the other side of the stadium to wave to them where they were sitting.
The chick would not shut up on her cell phone: "Are you over or under the Bud Light sign? Which section? What sign? Bud Light? Bright blue shirt? Bud Light? Light blue, with the..."
It's the third inning, A-Rod comes on with two outs, down 1-0, men on first and second, they would not shut up. He draws a walk, which means Jason Giambi comes on with the bases loaded, two out. No, they're still holding their idiot conversations. Even when their food was delivered, it didn't slow them a beat.
I'm not saying you have to treat a baseball game like you're in church, but at least pretend to have a passing interest in the critical junctures of the game. But no, they're putting more effort into locating their idiot friends than NASA put into pulling off all the manned moon missions combined.
"Can you see me?" the chick chirps, getting more excited by the second. "Do the Guido Fist Pump. Do the Guido First Pump! I can't see you, do the Guido First Pump!"
I will leave it up to the Hardy Vision readership to determine for us if knowing how to do the Guido Fist Pump is required for emergency evacuation circumstances.
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| Wearing this in Boston is cool. Wearing this to Yankee Stadium means you're ready to throw down. (Provided to CBSSports.com) |
Rooting interest
My dad's two criteria for enjoying the game were: either the game is competitive to the end, or the Yankees get their butts kicked throughout. Well, the Orioles jumped to a 6-1 lead through seven, then the Yankees stage a two-run mini-rally, but then Aubrey Huff tagged Mariano Rivera for a solo homer in the ninth. So at a 7-3 disadvantage, bandwagon fans like the Office Boys and the Junior Kings of Queens had fled.
But guess what? The Yanks staged a three-run rally in the ninth. The mustachioed Jason Giambi drove in two runs on a single. The remaining fans were on their feet. Of the 54,000 fans, the true believers were left and the place was alive. I'm not saying I felt the ghosts, but there was a chance for either a walk-off homer or a tying score.
"This was the only baseball game in my life where I was rooting for extra innings," dad said afterward.
But it was not to be. Strike three on third baseman Wilson Betemit, Yankees lose 7-6, we all went home. My Old Yankee Stadium days were through (unless you want to buy me a plane ticket, hotel room and seats somewhere. I'm not picky).
My dad unbuttoned his Hawaiian shirt, and a girl next to us took a snapshot of me in my Bronx Bombers cap, dad in his "Yankees Suck" shirt. I know that doesn't exactly make us honorary New Yorkers for the night, but it was nice to see and be seen. Guido Fist Pump, everybody!
Other fist pumps
• The New York Post headline the next morning after the Yanks had dropped two in a row to the O's? "YANKS CONTINUE BIRD DROPPING." Hey, it's not like they could go with "YANKEES SUCK."
• At dinner in Chinatown the night before, we were in a restaurant that featured frog on the menu, as well as goose intestine. At one point during the meal, one of the kitchen workers came through the dining area hauling out a plastic bag filled with that night's garbage. If they offer goose intestine on the menu, what is it they throw out?
• As a public service message, I'd like to support the recruitment efforts of the Scottsdale (Az.) Police Department. I know they're hiring because there were signs in the men's room at Yankee Stadium directing people to ScottsdalePD.com to get a job. This is an actual nationwide advertising campaign that Arizona spends $35,000 a year on. Starting pay is in the $50,000s. Hmmm, NYPD or ScottsdalePD? One probably involves a lot less subway riding. Wherever you live, just make sure you know your way around well enough to help out the lost bicycle-riding delivery boys.
