Yankee
Stadium Memories
By
Jonah Keri
My first
trip to Yankee Stadium was supposed to be my second trip. A last-
minute bailout
the first time delayed the inaugural expedition for 12 years.
The day
was
Elan, Eric and
I set out on a four-day baseball road trip down the East Coast,
with the first
stop in the
It took a
while. The drive from
at Crabtree
& Evelyn to buy this girl we were staying with a
gift for her
hospitality. (Sales
clerk at the store, inquiring about our gift choice: “Is
she…earthy?).
When we finally arrived at the ballpark (one of the scam-job
parking lots
around the park, to be precise), we were zonked. Stepping out of
the car, we
felt the blast out of a muggy
the smells
you come to expect from a quality borough on a hot summer night.
We
were expecting a shrine, a living monument commemorating Ruth, Gehrig,
DiMaggio,
Mantle, Meacham, all the Yankees greats. Instead, we
got a zoo.
Swarms
of people everywhere, flitting around the periphery of this monstrous
structure. We were told to pick up our
tickets at Gate…something, we couldn’t
remember. After 30 minutes of darting
through the throng, shoving people
aside and getting piss-off responses
from fans and stadium workers alike, we
finally found our ticket window. Made
it to our seats in the bleachers just in
time for first pitch.
Once
again, it smelled. Awful. We were told that trash
sometimes piled up
under the bleachers, but we figured
that was just an exaggeration. Um…no, it
was not. Combined with the
sweltering heat (89 degrees at game time), we
were doing everything in our power
to focus on the game, or beers…anything
other than the sticky, stinky,
squashed-in mess that was left field that night.
Food,
that’ll do it. We trudged to the hot dog stand. Line was a mile long.
Pretzels
weren’t going to cut it after sitting in the car all day. What’s left?
Arby’s. Arby’s?! Should we? Dare we? The line was reasonable, our stomachs
howled, and we were missing the game
we drove nearly 400 miles to see. Roast
beef it is. We’ll take four.
I
knew Arby’s was a bad idea before I ever took a bite.
The substance that
claimed to be roast beef looked like a
stack of gray fiberglass insulation, all of
it piled high on a halved, off-white hockey puck. Didn’t smell good either. But
screw it, I’m 20 years old, it’s a
road trip, we’re at Yankee Freaking
Stadium…how
bad could it be? Four bites later, we were back to watching Jack
McDowell
and former Expo Dennis Martinez wage what turned to be
a pretty
good pitcher’s duel.
At
least that’s what the guys told me. Ten minutes after polishing off the
Arby’s delight, my stomach started
churning. Ten minutes after that, I had a
splitting headache and was sweating
profusely. The game, I was told, got
exciting after a while, the Yankees
giving up two in the 6th,
then retaking the
lead with single runs in bottom of
the 6th and 7th. McDowell, I was told, was
frustrating Indians batters all night. He
would eventually go the distance, using
a PAP-exploding 142
pitches to do it.
I
never saw any of it. From the 4th inning
on, I was doubled over on the
bleacher bench, sweating and shaking,
dizzy and in pain. My buddies kept
asking me if I was all right, that
they could leave and take me to a doctor. I
refused. I wasn’t going to screw up
our big road trip, the one we’d talked
about for years, planned for months.
When McDowell got Manny Ramirez to fly
out deep to right to end it, we
shuffled our way back to the car, me all but
carried there.
I’d
like to say it went better. I didn’t die of food poisoning. I also witnessed
one of the funniest moments of my
life. Brian, after two hours of driving down
the basket toll-ridden
pocketful of change and flipped the
coins…right at the unsuspecting toll
attendant.
Generally
speaking, I’m an optimistic, perpetually cheerful type. I love
baseball. I love baseball games. I
even, after several more outings, grew to like
Yankee Stadium. I even made a point of seeking
out bleacher tickets on future
visits, enjoying the banter of the
creatures and finding better food choices as
the years went on.
But
that first time at the Stadium, the one you never forget as a fan…was a
disaster. If only I’d made it there 12
years earlier.
--
So
what happened that first time that made me miss my first trip, you might
ask.
It
was the summer of 1983. I was eight years old, traveling with my
grandparents to visit my ultra-religious
relatives in
shock, especially sitting there on a
Saturday—no TV, no activity, nothing to do
but stare at the walls. The next
day would be better, though. Field trip to the
Statue of
Stadium!
THE Yankee Stadium! I could hardly wait.
When
we got back from our day of sightseeing Sunday, I peppered my
grandfather with questions. How would we
be getting to the game? (By subway,
cool!) Where were we sitting? (We
didn’t have tickets yet, but there were
plenty available…hopefully upper
deck, where foul balls glided in softly.) Who
were they playing again? (The Red
Sox, sweet!)
I
woke up early the next day. I could barely sleep with all the excitement of
the game ahead. We’d hop on the train
around
the
Then
the morning started getting hotter. And hotter. By 11
the temperature
had spiked above 90 degrees, with
stifling humidity. Not that it bothered me.
All
I could think about was going to the stadium to see the game. My
grandfather had other ideas.
Me:
“So when are we going?”
Papa:
“I don’t think we can go, it’s too hot.”
Me:
“What?! I thought you said we were going!”
Papa:
“I’m sorry Jonah, it’s just too hot outside. You can
listen to the game
here, on the radio.”
My
little heart was broken. Deep down, I knew my Papa would’ve done
anything for me. He always did. But at
that moment, I wanted to cry. With no
TV
around, I settled in on the couch of that
game I so badly wanted to see in
person.
Both
teams stayed scoreless through the first four innings. Then the Yankees
scored once each in the 5th and 6th,
the second run coming on a long home run
by Don Baylor (I was a precocious fan, I knew Baylor
was the big guy with the
straight-up batting stance). The Red Sox
still couldn’t push across a run.
Something
odd was going on, though. I noticed, about four innings in, that they
also didn’t have a hit. They still
didn’t after six innings, the likes of Wade
Boggs,
Jim Rice and Dwight Evans all shut down by the Yankee pitcher.
The
game moved along, and still no hits for
the 8th, it dawned on me: Is it possible that I may end up
missing a no-hitter?!
One-two-three
went Evans, Nichols and Stapleton. The Yankees scored two
more in the bottom of the 8th, bringing their flawless lefty back to the mound
for the 9th.
I
didn’t want this to happen. Even at eight years old, I knew how awful it would
be if I came that close to seeing a no-hitter—against
the Red Sox!—at Yankee
Stadium!!!—only to miss it.
Newman
drew a leadoff walk. OK good, the pitcher’s getting tired, the Sox are
going to rally. I didn’t much care
who won, just please, no no-hitter. But then
Hoffman
grounded out. So did Remy. One batter remained.
That
batter was Boggs. In just his second season, he was at the height of his
powers, destined to hit .361 that
year. He’d gone 0-for-3 to that point in the
game. He was due.
Or
so I thought. The pitcher got two strikes on him. PLEASE WADE, GET A HIT!
The
pitcher rocked back, fired…and struck him out. I had just missed a no-
hitter. Yankees-Red
Sox. Yankee Stadium. ON
THE 4TH OF JULY!
To
this day, 25 years later, I still make sure never to break plans to go to the
ballpark. To this day, I cringe
whenever I see a game on July 4th,
knowing that
on the scoreboard they’ll flash a graphic for “This
Day In History”, reminding
me of the masterpiece I missed.
To
this day, I curse the name of Dave Righetti.