As we were waiting for our food, we did notice this guy wearing some pretty weird fashions sitting a couple tables from us. His hair looked like he had just rolled out of bed (which may have been true) and he was talking on the phone with someone the whole time we were there. Evidently, he was in a band that had performed the night before. One thing that immediately annoyed me was how ridiculously philosophic he was in everything he talked about. Deep thoughts are one thing. This guy's thoughts were so deep they were at the bottom of a canyon. He went through the full list of things that had gone wrong in his life: he hated being on the road all the time, felt stupid for marrying at 18 and having a kid, never thought he could love more than one women but now he does, thinking of switching bands..........the list went on and on. TW and I were pretty entertained by the whole deal, but I think we can both agree that we were pretty glad we were not him.
We headed out to go to Yankees Stadium. Thankfully, the wrong turn that we had took the previous night was actually the correct turn to get to the Bronx, so we knew roughly where we were going. I will say that the highway system in the Bronx is an absolute catastrophe. It was almost like an amusement park in that ramps to other roads were intertwined with other ramps. We took the George Washington Bridge across to the Bronx. It's a double decker bridge with the top level being an express highway with no off-ramps and the bottom being the local highway with all the exits. We took the local route and quickly got to the 161st Street Exit.
Yankees Stadium is an extremely large place. You see the stadium as soon as you get off the highway. It's very impressive from the outside, despite being a very old stadium (although it has been renovated several times). One of the neat things about the stadium is that there is a large park on the west side of the stadium that has lots of baseball/softball fields, tennis courts and basketball courts. It was kind of neat to walk towards the stadium and get to walk along the sidewalk while kids and adults were playing baseball and softball all around you.
We got very lucky in that we managed to somehow find a parking spot right along the road only a block from the stadium. Already, we were +$15 because we didn't have to park in a stadium parking lot. As soon as I got out of the car, I notice that there was some really neat architecture in the area immediately surrounding the park and the stadium. I took a picture of one of the buildings to give you a feel for some of the art deco in the area.
On the east side of the stadium, the subway trains ran immediately over the street. Lots and lots of souveneir and food shops were all along the streets arounds the stadium. I had tried to figure out a way to take the subway to the game, but it's really hard to get from the Jersey side over to the New York side without taking a lot of time to get there.
Once we got to the entrance, we were patted down to make sure we weren't carrying anything into the game. We quickly figured out that we happened to come to Yankees Stadium on Cap Day. So, against our beliefs but using our better judgement, we put on the Yankees hats and became Yankees fans for the day. We went inside and quickly found the line to see Monument Park. We only had to wait about 20-25 minutes, so it wasn't too bad. One thing that we did notice while waiting in line is that the concourses inside the stadium are extremely small. I understand that they are planning to build a new Yankees Stadium right next door to the current stadium and have it finished by 2009. It was pretty obvious that it is needed.
For the uninitiated, Monument Park is a place where the Yankees honor their all-time great players. It's actually a really neat place and has a lot of plaques and monuments honoring all sorts of things. Here's a taste of what you can see in Monument Park.....
The most recent addition to Monument Park is a memorial to the WTC attacks on 9/11....
After the trip through Monument Park, we went to our seats. I had managed to get lower deck tickets off eBay the previous week, so we were sitting on the third base side of the stands in the lower deck. I started to talk with a guy that was sitting next to us. I asked him if he was a season ticket holder and he said he was. I mentioned that I had got the tickets off eBay and he said that he had just sold those seats on eBay! He had 4 seats and wasn't going to use all of them so he sold the other two on eBay. Really nice guy and his wife who lived a little over an hour outside of NYC. They lived in a smaller town and he mentioned how they really liked living outside the city in a smaller community while being close enough that they could come to the city when they felt like it. They evidently bought a 'Saturday' season ticket where they have 4 tickets for every Saturday home game throughout the season. Pretty nice deal.
My new-found friend helped point out some of the stadium traditions which was really nice of him. The first thing we were introduced to was 'Roll Call'. Right after the first pitch of the game, the fans in the right field bleachers start chanting the name of a player on the field. That player had to tip his hat or waive to the bleachers and acknowledge their chants. They'd cheer the player after that. Then, after the next pitch, they'd move to the next player and do the same thing. They'd do it over and over until they covered all 9 players in the field.
Also, the box seats in the second level behind home plate all had fish nets in the box. Whenever a foul ball rolled up the net behind home plate, the people in the box seats would get out the fish nets and try to pick the ball off the net. If they missed it, the entire stadium would boo the guy who failed to get the ball. A couple of people were booed over the course of the game for their misses. Another neat feature was that you could see the subway pass by the stadium just behind the right field bleachers. You can actually see a subway train passing by if you look closely in the opening between the stands in the picture below.
In the end, the Yankees hit two homeruns and managed a win by the score of 4-2. It started really slowly, with the first inning and a half taking over an hour, but somehow, the game sped up and we managed to get the whole game done in just a shade over 3 hours. We had a really good time and headed out for the quick ride back down the NJ Turnpike back to Baltimore.
