The Rivalry

Most would say that the best rivalry in baseball belongs to the Red Sox and Yankees. I am not going to accept or reject this claim, but I will say these were the two most anticipated games of the road trip.

To get things started, we arrived in New York City a couple of hours before my Uncle Brian was expected to arrive at JFK airport. So Geoff and I, in an attempt to avoid the Lincoln Tunnel (see the first NYC post) went through Stanton Island. Believe it or not, we stopped to hang out. On the North tip of the island is the stadium belonging to the Stanton Island Yankees, a single-A team for the, well, yeah you guessed it, the Yankees. The field brags the best view in all of professional baseball. Its outfield is opened up to the entire Manhattan skyline and if you have a pair of binoculars with 500x zoom you might be able to see the Statue of Liberty. And get this, while we were walking around their stadium taking pictures one of their staffers came up and started talking to Geoff, who told him what we are doing and he took us into his office and chatted with us for several minutes and gave us a few souvenirs. If you are in Manhattan during baseball season I highly recommend taking the Stanton Island Ferry (which is free by the way! You pay about $48 to cross bridges there but you can ride the ferry for free) and see a S.I. Yankees game.

So we took off and drove over through Brooklyn to get my uncle at the airport. Quick background on my uncle: Uncle Brian is my dad’s little brother. He is a baseball nut. I think I casually mentioned our trip to him when I saw him over Christmas and he was already planning on when he could join us. This guy flew out to Baltimore to see Cal Ripken’s record breaking game – he was gone from his home for only 26 hours. He flew out to see my sister play in the College Softball World Series. Whenever he is on a business trip he finds the nearest team, major or minor league, to catch a game. And … he rocks. So we got him a little before 4 pm and drove straight to the Yankees game in the Bronx.

We got to the game a little before 5 and went to Stan’s, this dive bar across the street from Yankee Stadium. Time to get something clear; I don’t like the Yankees. I’m a Dodger fan. The Yankees have beaten the Dodgers far too many times in the World Series. That, and their big business baseball mentality, is the reason I hate them and everything associated with them. So we were at this bar, a Yankee bar, nobody liked anybody else there. Everyone wearing Yankee gear. Everyone with a bottle of beer in their hand. Standing room only. It was two hours until game time. Amazing. I suppose people in New York don’t work on Fridays, they just spend all day waiting for the Yankee game. By the time we left, at about 6, the place resembled a frat party. My butt was grabbed a good 20 times, and lets be honest, I’m not that cute. Already the Yankees have gone up a notch in my book and I hadn’t even set foot in the stadium.

Geoff and I got right field bleacher seats because they are the cheapest and, well, we are on a budget. My uncle, however, had seats somewhere else and Yankee Stadium, like my home Dodger Stadium, does not connect the outfield bleachers with the rest of the park. So we were separated. I don’t think he minded because he seat-hopped and had a superb seat. We certainly didn’t mind because the right field bleachers are the place to be. As the first pitch was being thrown, the real first pitch not the stupid ceremonial first pitch where some half-wit CEO bounces a pitch to the back-up catcher from 40 feet out, the entire section was on their feet clapping. Then they remained clapping, but their started to become rhythmic. Next they started chanting the name of each player. And they did this until the player acknowledged them. Yeah, true story. The player would turn to the right field bleacher and wave. Every single player. A-Rod, all the way from third base, gave us, two idiots from Southern California, a wave out in right field. They ended the roll call by yell to the fans to their left, ‘Box seats suck’. Those fans replied, ‘We got beer’ (they don’t sell alcohol in the bleacher, for good reason). Touché. Suddenly the Yankees went up another notch.

The game was great. Randy Johnson threw a gem, Bernie Williams (who I don’t know why, but he is practically the most beloved man on that team) hit two homeruns, the right field fans got rowdy, it was great. It was a baseball game in the most storied stadium in the game’s history.

The only problem with the game was that Marino Rivera came in for save. A four run save opportunity against the Kansas City Royals is like cheating. It would be like Bonds injecting steroids in the batter box – it is just ridiculous. This sparked a conversation with Geoff about Rivera’s ability as a closer. He is, no doubt about it, the most successful closer of all time. However, Geoff made the mistake of saying he is the best post season closer of all time. For those who don’t follow baseball that much let me fill in the blanks for you. Rivera was on the mound when Luis Gonzales hit a walk-off single to win the World Series in 2001. He was also the losing pitcher of both game 4 and 5 of the 2004 ALCS, the series where the Red Sox mounted the biggest comeback in playoff history (no other team has won a series after being down 3 games). Not only did he blow saves in the playoffs, he didn’t just lose the games, no, he lost the series! Sure, I may be biased so lets put things on my terms. Say Eric Gagne is pitching in the ninth inning of game 7 of the World Series against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and he puts some runners on and then gives up the tying run, and then the winning run (or I guess losing run for him). Say that a few years after that Gagne is facing the Giants in the playoffs. And the Dodgers are winning the series 3-0. And Gagne blew the game and got the loss. Well, the next night, Gagne is out there again with a chance to take the Dodgers to the World Series, and then he blows it again. And the Dodgers lose. The Giants go on to win the World Series and record the most bandwagon fans in the history of athletic competitions. I would go on being a Dodger fan. But the next season when the Dodgers were up 5-1 against the Rockies I would not cheer for Gagne. I would boo him. I would boo him until I was horse. And then after I lost my voice I would begin booing him in sign language. But I guess the Yankee fans are a little more forgiving.

I am not going to lie though, there is something special about seeing a game in Yankee Stadium. I don’t think I’m going to go out and begin wearing pin stripes, but it was a rockin’ experience.

After the game I had the privilege of driving to Tyler’s apartment in the Financial District of Manhattan. Which means we drove through all five boroughs in one afternoon. I don’t know if that means anything. This time we actually met up with my boy Tyler. He was more than pumped to see us but not nearly as excited as we were to have a place to stay in New York City. The next morning Tyler hit the gym and we took showers. We then grabbed some breakfast in midtown, paid about $4 for a shot glass of orange juice, walked the park for a few minutes, and hit the road.

The first state we drove through once we left the city was Connecticut, the sunshine state, gorgeous. Actually this was the most uneventful state we past through, except there was an inordinate amount of traffic on the highway all because some guy in a corvette decided to run out of gas on a bridge that was under construction. But he probably runs a company, so he is more important than us, he is more than entitled to stop his car in the middle of the interstate. I bet he uses his cell phone a lot.

We managed to roll into Boston just a few minutes after my dad made it to the curb. It was great because after we picked him up we had nothing to do for the next 22 hours. So we walked a little of the Freedom Trial and drove around Boston until we found Fenway Park, our Sunday afternoon destination. This is one of those cities, like Whittier, CA, that really makes you proud to be an American.

The next morning Geoff and I suffered the curse of time zones as my dad and uncle got up at some ungodly hour. I don’t think they realized that rocking means sleeping in – that is to say, sleeping in rocks. Oh well. We drove about 3 miles to the train station, had a few beers in the parking lot, and then took the green line to the stadium. It was 9 AM. But by the time we got to the stadium there was already a significant crowd. After taking a quick lap around the ballpark we grabbed some microbrews at the nearby bar. If you go Beer Works don’t order the Boston Tea Party Ale, it sounds so cool but it is just not worth it, trust me.

The ticket taker heard Geoff say how excited he was to go to the game. She asked if this was his first game at Fenway, and he told her we drove to Boston from California to see this. She then asked, without batting a eye, zero hesitation, ‘You guys in a band?’. My dad, uncle, Geoff, and I. In a band. Together. Are you high?! How was that her first question? She might as well as asked, ‘You guys in the circus?’ at least that makes sense seeing as I’m a hairy freak. I’ll tell you one thing; a band with the four of us would definitely not rock.

We got into the game about an hour early which gave us plenty of time to walk around the interior of the stadium and eat some Fenway Franks. Want to know what heaven is like? Imagine eating a Fenway Frank with your dad, uncle, and best friend on a Sunday afternoon in Boston. This is my life. Who needs a home or a job, I got the road, I got buddies, and I got baseball.

Fenway Park is the most historic park we have been to thus far. When we walked through the turnstiles it was has if we went through a time portal and came out the other side sometime in the 1920s. The skeleton of the stadium is completely exposed, the walls are made of brick, some of the seats are still made out of wood. I know this may sound like blasphemy to say, but Fenway Park is not a good place to watch a baseball game. Do not get me wrong, the experience was unbelievable, my words could never do it justice. But this place is horribly designed, it is just awful. There are entire rows of seats that cannot see homeplate because there are pillars in the way. The rows are about 9.3 inches apart. I’m not joking here. I just saw the Apollo 11 capsule in the Smithsonian and those three astronauts had twice the leg room any fan in Boston gets to enjoy. They really wedge you into those seats, the ushers actually walk around with shoe horns to help get you in. I’m serious. Here at Fenway the 7^th inning stretch is mandatory. A few years ago a group of unruly college kids decided to boycott the age old tradition and remain in their seats for the entire game. Well the game went into extra innings and they couldn’t move when it finally ended. The Red Sox had to call in a team of physical therapists to help them regain strength in their legs.

The team makes up for it though by playing great baseball – we even saw a homerun over the green monster. Plus, in between the 8^th inning, the entire stadium sings a long to Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline, complete with the ‘So good, so good, so good’ chant. Only the hard core fans know about that. Nothing rocks quite as much as Neil Diamond at a Red Sox game.

We had incredibly high expectations of both games and neither team disappointed. The key to this rivalry is that both teams have psychotic fans and they both play great baseball. This weekend might possibly have been the pinnacle of this trip. But I shouldn’t make such a ridiculous claim; we have so much more rocking to do. Much more.