Yesterday, I completed an important rite of passage as a new New Yorker -- I made the pilgrimage on the D train out to the Bronx for my very first live Yankees game (the Tampa Bay Devil Rays were in town). Heidi, Mike and I met at Columbus Circle, hopped on the train and met up with Jake and Ron in front of Stan's, right across from Yankee Stadium. After loading up with hotdogs, pretzels, beer and sodas, we climbed up to our seats (top tier, along the first base line) and settled in for what turned out to be a pretty good game. The Yankees redeemed themselves from a 14 - 4 loss the night before and pulled out a 7 -3 win, including a pretty exciting home run from Shelley Duncan, a rookie in his second ever major league game.
Even though we didn't get there early enough to visit Monument Park, we could see it from our seats -- it's located behind the outfield fence and contains monuments of former Yankee greats (think Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio) and dedications to all the Yankee retired uniform numbers. Now that I know you can visit right before a game, I'll go earlier next time, armed with my trusty camera.
After the game, we decided to wait out the subway rush and we popped into the Ball Park Sports Bar & Grill -- it's a bar, souvenir shop and a bowling alley all wrapped into one. Yes, a bowling alley. For a fleeting moment, we considered going bowling, but with a scrunched nose, I declined since I didn't have any socks and there was NO way I was about to jam my bare feet into random bowling shoes with goodness knows WHAT having been in them previously. Ever the gentleman, Jake offered to loan me his socks, but for obvious reasons, that wasn't a much more appealing option.
We made lots of new friends in the Ball Park bar -- Yankee fans are a back-slapping, boisterous, friendly bunch (especially after a decisive win). With a good beer buzz going, Ron assigned us all alter egos, and before we knew it, people thought I was a Canadian TV news anchor, Mike was a professional fly fisherman, Heidi was retired gymnast and Jake was a professional surfer (and Ron, of course, was Jake's agent). We delicately extricated ourselves from the onslaught of questions we had no hope of answering (Mike has NEVER fly fished and was accosted by an avid fishing enthusiast from Wisconsin) when Ron announced to Jake that we were going to be late for his Quiksilver appearance and it was time to head back to the city. Whew.
Back in the city, we went to Stout's for some grub and darts -- and even after a couple of drinks, I managed to hit a bulls' eye! (Or maybe, more appropriately, it was BECAUSE of the drinks.)
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