Tom was able to switch his day off from Monday to Wednesday and we headed for his mom's house in CT on Tues night. Due to the late night and the upcoming later night, we slept in and then met his mom for lunch at a Greenwich diner. At 5:13pm we were boarding the Metro North train in Harrison with Kristine heading for Yankee Stadium (I must say that my favorite thing about the new stadium is having the Metro North station right there - driving and parking is no fun...). We began seeing interesting people even there on the train - several had begun their "beverage preparations" and two others were joking that they predicted the game would go so long that Nick Swisher was going to be pitching! They did have a cute guide dog with them... more on that later.
We met Mike on the platform who came straight from work and we walked toward the stadium. The new stadium was awesome to look at (although we did miss the big bat outside). Thankfully we were early enough to take a tour of the whole place (thanks Mike) and then head to see Monument Park. I took Tom's picture with "the Babe" and then we headed to our seats in the bleachers. Tom and Mike took the seats down toward the front and Kristine and I took the obstructed view seats up above (had to let the guys have the better view). As you can imagine the bleachers were full of even more interesting people - they don't call them "bleacher creatures" for no reason! At least no one was yelling at us like the lone Philly fan!
We watched the team take the field and the game was wonderful. I finally got to see my favorite Yankee, Andy Pettitte, pitch which was the best part! And unlike many around me, I had no doubt that he would do wonderfully on short rest and was not worried when he got behind in the counts. The crowd definitely had much more fun watching the Philly's pitcher, Pedro, pitch. I can't repeat here what was chanted, but it was quite the experience... And magic happened every time Hideki Matsui came to bat. We couldn't believe the hit after hit! Soon the whole stadium was chanting "MVP" and wouldn't stop!
After Andy's performance, the next part to look forward to was the closer, Mariano Rivera - Enter Sandman. When that song began to play with one out in the 8th inning the whole place went crazy. We all knew it was only a matter of time.And so went the 8th inning and then came the ninth. And at the call of the third out - ground ball to Cano, flipped to first - the entire place went unglued! We were getting high-fives and hugs from everyone all around us and the noise was unbelievable. One big family - and as we watched the field we saw the Yankees all come out and go nuts on the field.
No one left their seats for quite some time. First came the noise, then they played "We are the Champions" and of course, Frank's "New York, New York". Soon the stage was built on the field and the awards and speeches started. What a sight - to have that trophy back in the Bronx and to have Andy get the win - the most winningest Post Season pitcher!
And then it was time to go home - or at least head in that direction...as you can imagine the party left the stadium and was on the streets - only with many, many more people. Again - all were best friends and we were dealing with more hugs and more high-fives. The only danger we felt was the fear of getting separated! At one point we saw a car trying to make it through the crowd - it was Pataki - giving high-fives from his car!
Eventually we made it to the train and at that point we were so awake that we thought perhaps we should just try to drive home... at least until we got going on the train home. The whole train was flooded with elated fans - but 5 minutes later we were all almost passed out, including the guide dog with our friends from the first train.
Soon we were at our stop and after a goodbye to Mike and Kristine we were driving back to Tom's mom for a short 3 hour nap. By 5am we were back up and out the door at 6am. The drive home was long, but lovely, especially getting the New York radio stations for some of the way home - getting to hear -
BALL GAME OVER - WORLD SERIES OVER - YANKEES WIN -
THE-E-E-E-E YANKEES WIN!
Wow! Sounds like you guys had a wonderful time!
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