First Game ’08

  One game down, 13 to go. Last Friday I got to the Stadium just in time for the beginning of the game after totally giving up on caring about personal space on the subway with the other late fans. I mean, I’ve been on the subway 2349520958 times, but wow. I didn’t even have to hold on to anything to stand still.

  Of course, last Friday wasn’t the best time to be at the Stadium. The Yanks pulled off a miraculous 13-4 loss to the Rays. The pitching was actually pretty good, aside from the whole Kennedy, Hawkins, and Farnsworth thing. Someone remind me why we got Hawkins? Because he’s doing pretty crappy even for a crappy pitcher. (Or, as the Stadium’s security people say, “He’s a fuckin’ bum!”)

  I did get to move down to practically right down by home plate, right behind the chained-off front section and a little to the left of the plate, since the only people left were basically me, my dad, and a bunch of guys who were too drunk to know the Yankees were losing and seemed to have a lot of faith in Morgan Ensberg to save the day. I honestly did not know you could get that close. I mean, I knew those seats were there, obviously. But I’ve never ever sat that close before. I could see the players’ faces in the dugout. That was just weird. And awesome. I am sooo gonna get rich and blow all my money on those seats some day.

  I did get to see the new stadium too. It looks really really nice. I’m warming up to it a little, even if it is made for rich people and makes it even more less likely I’ll ever get good season tickets. Oh well. It’s pretty. And it’s closer than I thought. That thing is literally right across the street. Like a 12-second walk away. The last time I saw it was last July and it looked a lot farther away then. Probably because it was just a big pile of stuff in the middle of that block.

A (40-mph) Pitcher’s Story

  So, in my neverending quest to become a somewhat decent pitcher for no particular reason, I have discovered that I have absolutely no upper-body strength. Which might also be part of the reason why I got a D in swimming this semester. But whatever.

  Besides this, I found a mysterious cruddy old baseball in the park by my house yesterday while I was playing catch with my dad. If it’s still there today I’ll take some pictures of it and put them up here, because it was autographed in a bunch of places but I didn’t recognize any of the signatures. It could have just been a bunch of people with really nice signatures who decided to sign it. Or a bunch of Newark Bears or something.

  I realized I have just about no idea how to actually make pitches move. I mean, my pitches move on their own. But the whole grip thing is still a mystery to me. All I’ve really got is speed change. Which means 40 mph fastball and 25 or 30 mph change, I’d say. Which is fabulous if you’re playing in a middle school slowpitch softball league. So any pitching tips would be nice, good people of Baseball (might post a vid).

  Hughesy is pitching today against the Sox. Turns out he’s been a Sox fan his whole life. Which is kind of weird. But that’s okay, he’s with us now. According to his bio on yankees.com, he’s the youngest Yankee pitcher to debut since Jose Rijo in ’84, who was 18 in his first game. He’s the youngest Yankee to debut as a starter since Gene Nelson in ’81, who was 20. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, his 6.1 inning no-hitter was the furthest into a game a Yankees starter had been removed since David Cone in ’96 (7 innings). He’s also a huge Office fan and seems to like a lot of hard rock and heavy metal and whatnot (so he says on his blog- www.philhughes.wordpress.com). His bio (http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com/team/player_career.jsp?player_id=461833) says about a gajillion other awesome things about him and a bit about Joba too.

And don’t even get me started on the eyebrows.

Good luck to Phil. I’ll be watching the game, working, and out back trying to pitch.  

 

 

 

 

Mail Time

Today I came home to find one of the most important packages a person can get waiting for me. It was a big-arse UPS box whose return address started with “N.Y.Y.” I don’t think I can describe how close I came to actual DEATH from awesome-overload right there. Or lockjaw or something.

 So I opened the box and voila! 138 tickets for 46 games. They were all on a little pad with a photo of the Stadium on the cover and came with a little pamphlet filled with pages and pages of wonderfully sentimental babbling about the last year there. 

This is exciting enough alone, but this is also the first year I’ve had any kind of season tickets, half or otherwise, and I feel all special with all these games. I’m trying not to picture myself sitting on a pile of tickets, tossing them up and having a big group of them swirl around me…not really working.

Countdown to first game (for me this season): 16 days

I Smell Spring

Today the Yanks played their first Spring Training game against the University of South Florida and won (shocking!) 11-4. The Yankees will be playing the Phillies tomorrow and again on Sunday on YES, thank god. It has been a long four-ish months without baseball and I for one am sick of this uh…football season…thing…or whatever they call it.

 I have Lady Marmalade stuck in my head (not that this is a bad thing, ever- except maybe when visiting the Pope or whatever) and am keeping a careful watch on the countdown on the Yankees site (just 12 more hours, 12 more hours) to the first Spring Training game against an actual major league team.

 People who aren’t baseball fans seem to have trouble grasping the idea of Spring Training. When Spring Training finally began on the 14th and I announced it to everyone visible the rest of the day, I was asked more than once, “Oh…are you gonna go home and watch it then?” Yes. I am going to go home and watch a bunch of men run around doing drills and getting all tired for hours and hours. They often put this on TV because it is fascinating to everyone and because it’s fun to confuse people looking for their exercise programs.

 No, poor non-baseball souls. Spring Training is not on TV. Games, yes. The running back and forth and silly-looking workouts? Don’t think so.

Still, no matter how silly these workouts may be to those not directly involved with the team, we baseball fans are desparate for an inkling of a sign of spring, and this one is more than welcome. And now, with actual games approaching and some already done, spring is even closer. Soon enough, winter will be over, and our beloved boys of summer will be back for another season.