While driving down River Ave I took a picture of what was once a parking lot, that has been turned into a park. The parking lot use to be right across from the old stadium, but now it would be considered a longer walk. Some may remember this lot because it was very small (possibly a private lot) and along the back wall was a mural that included Mantle,Ruth, Munson and many other Yankee greats.
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| What once was a parking lot is now a playground. |
After my friend and I parked we walked around River Ave a bit looking at the shops, I had been looking for a Paul O'Neill shirt. After looking at a poorly done knock off, I choose to buy a shirt from bleacher creature Bald Vinny.
It was almost 5pm and the gates to the stadium were soon going to be opening, the lines to get in were absolutely ridiculous, so long you have thought the playoffs had began already. But before we went in we went into the McDonald's across the street. I had never been inside, but it is one of , if not the cleanest McDonald's I had ever been in.
Eventually we went into the stadium, the entire season I have brought in a small drawstring backpack with water and a few snacks and security never even checked the bag. This time the guard went all out searching, maybe cause the Red Sox were in town.
As I wandered around to gate 2, I noticed they got rid of the clearance stand and the kiddie cart and speed pitch were back. My friend Jerry did the speed pitch and hit 62 MPH (while throwing his arm out, but in his defense I have hit against him before and I believe he could throw a bit harder). Apparently if you hit a certain MPH they give you a prize and he won a 2009 World Series lanyard and a poster that was out dated mentioning 26 rings. It should be noted that gate 2, was an absolute ghost town, even the employees looked really bored.
Before we hiked to our seats we walked around each level. After visiting the stadium so many times you see things and hear about them but never actually try/ visit them. In this case it was the team store on the main level. I never bother to go into the team stores cause they are often over crowded and over priced. The coolest thing was that I had never realized that the store looked above the entrance to gate 4.All the walking around worked up an appetite, so I purchased nachos from Wholly Guacamole for $8.50 (how warped am I that I consider that reasonable ?). The seats weren't that bad even though we were very far away from the action. Seemed like the crowd was going to be sparse since 10 minutes before game time, there were plenty of empty seats but when the game began they filled up.
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| Annoying Red Sox fan |
Just from walking around it didn't seem like many Red Sox fans were around, maybe because they realize that their team stinks ? That their season is over ? Or Mets fans realized that this season they couldn't turn into Red Sox fans. But of course where I was sitting I had to deal with two of the most Red Sox creatures alive (they don't deserve to be called people). One was an annoying woman behind me that screamed over everything that happened, and the other was a guy who was wearing a Ortiz jersey and had a red mohawk. More on them in a bit.
I had been excited to see Andy Pettitte face Josh Beckett but soon that excitement turned to anger once the Red Sox started to tee off on Andy, while the Yankees struggled to hit Beckett early. The Yankees were down, but after back to back homers by Tex and A-Rod the crowd began to get back into the game. Swisher would also add a two run shot to close the gap to 10-5. The worst part was that the fans attempted to do the wave at one point.
Once A-Rod hit his second homer of the night to pass Sammy Sosa on the all time list, it began to get a bit crazy in my section. The entire night the Red Sox fan with the mohawk had been obnoxious and yelling, some fans were yelling back at him but it never got too bad. Eventually one female Yankees fan had enough of him and decided to throw a soda in his face, the Sox fan threw his right back at her. She was kicked out, he got to stay. It should be known that security did have to call him over at least five times during the game to tell him to stop. He was eventually tossed in the ninth inning, but the annoying lady behind me was still around.
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| Mohawk Red Sox fan getting tossed |
The Yankees rally fell short in the ninth even with Tex hitting a solo shot to make it 10-8 and Cano coming up as the tying run.
Just a few quick things, Tex now comes up to "Good Vibration" by Marky Mark. I liked it better when he came up to "I wanna rock". Another thing is why in the world do they still have Nick Johnson in the match game and in the videos they play on the scoreboard. They show Rocky getting pumped and then Nick Johnson ? Talk about complete opposites.
The next time I will be at the stadium will be for the ALDS. Thanks for reading.
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