Was certainly a day to remember. Kasey and I planned to catch the 9:15 train to the city. Due to me, being me, we didn’t get there as early as she wanted, but we were still early enough. As she walked up after getting her ticket and the train was stopping I turned to her and said, “See? Plenty of time.” She hit me. Not the first time, won’t be the last. The conductor told us we would have to change trains twice, first in Croton-on-Hudson, then in Tarrytown. We would have to wait 17 minutes in Croton and 5 minutes in Tarrytown. He was wrong. We waited 35 minutes in Croton and the train was an express to Yankees-E. 153rd Street station getting us there at 11:04. Gates opened at 11:00 so that was perfect.
We walked past what was left of old Yankee Stadium, I actually took this picture as we were leaving. As soon as we walked through the gate, I sent a text to my former boss, the one who said I was never going to get tickets for opening day, “Guess where I am.” When he sent a reply naming a restaurant he and I used to frequent I sent him a two word text. “Yankee Stadium”. His response to that was “Holy sh*t! How did you get tickets!”
Simply Smoov had invited us to stop by his section to say hello. We did that and I stood looking out at home plate thinking how great would it be to sit in these seats, then we went up to our seats to watch the ring ceremony. On the way we stopped for food. Kasey went on to another stand trying to find some food that was ball park food. I stayed in the non-moving line I was in. Yes it wasn’t slow moving, it wasn’t moving at all. I switched to another line. When I finally got to the counter and ordered my Italian sausage and package of peanut M&M’s (for Kasey) she thanked me for having a simple order.
There was still plenty of time to get to the seats for the ring ceremony and it was moving. There is something truly special about seeing it in person. The last player to get his ring was Hideki Matsui, and he got a standing ovation and all the players ran up to give him a hug. He also got a trick played on him, Jeter switched his ring for a plastic ring that was given out the last day of spring training. Mariano Rivera did the same thing to Swisher. I don’t know what Hideki’s response was, but Swisher peeked in the box, saw something that looked like it came from a bubblegum machine and said, “What the (heck) is that?” After he got his real ring, he didn’t let it out of his sight, wearing it until he went to bed that night. Now he is plotting a revenge prank. Alex Rodriguez says he is going to wear it everyday for a year. He would have worn it to 3rd Base if they had let him.
Andy Pettitte pitched great, didn’t give up any runs, our boys played great too. A lot of hits, it was cold, I was cold I only had a sweat shirt, Kasey always likes the souvenir cups and things. So when a vendor came by with popcorn in a souvenir cup she had to buy it. The popcorn was pretty gross though. Almost forgot to say, I went to get a diet Pepsi, Nick Johnson was coming up to bat and I didn’t think anything would happen. As soon I got on the concourse where the vendors are, I heard the crowd I ran to the railing, it was too late, the home run was done. My man Derek also hit a home run. I got to see that, jump up and scream. There is a video of that on the MLB site.
After the game we caught the subway to go to dinner. Kasey had coupons for this place on 2nd Avenue. They had $5 dollar Cosmos, since they didn’t have a dessert menu, we each had two. Then we walked back to Grand Central Terminal making a quick detour to the Yankee store, Kasey wanted a mouse pad, I didn’t know what I wanted but ended up getting some temporary tattoos and a case for my new phone.
That’s pretty much it. I need to write a blog post about classless, pathetic idiots that boo their own players, but it is late and I have work tomorrow. Till then.
~~and that’s all~~ she wrote
