Notes from 161st and River: A Perfect Day at Yankee Stadium

Hello all,

Foreward: To those of you who don't care about baseball, I apologize.  This post will be long, squeeful, and entirely about baseball.  Run while you still can.

Going to New York to see the Yankees, I had several things in mind which would make the outing absolutely perfect:

• Nice weather.
• A win.
• A well-pitched win on the part of the Yankees.
• Good games from my "favorites."
• Appearances from the epic-fierce back end of the bullpen, Phil Hughes and Mariano Rivera.

The last week has been rather eventful in Yankee-land, what with Derek Jeter breaking Lou Gehrig's 70-year-old team record for career base hits, and the team (playing at 40-15 since the All-Star Break in July, a .727 clip) losing (*gasp*) two games in a row to the last place Baltimore Orioles.  Minimal bleeding though it may have been, getting swept by any last-place team is something of a humiliation, and, fortunately, the job of prevention fell to the ever-reliable staff ace, CC Sabathia.

By 9:30 AM my brother and I were on a train to New York, and at noon we hit the Bronx and met up with my dad and younger brother.    I love the Old Yankee Stadium (RIP, 1923-2008) ... so many good memories there ... but the new one is, in a word, "WOW."  I was legitimately in awe.  As far as sports stadiums go, it's freakin' beautiful.  Heck, as far as any buildings go, it's freakin' beautiful.  I won't even put a picture here, because cameras don't do it justice.   The weather remained at approximately 75 degrees all afternoon, with neither too much sun nor too close to rain.  And we got free knit hats at the door.  Yay.

The game itself was somewhere close to perfect.  

• A win: the final score was 13-3 in favor of New York, although the nature of the game belies the blowout total.
• Good pitching: Sabathia, despite not having electric "stuff," limited the Orioles to 5 hits and 3 runs (only two of which should have been earned ... elaboration to come) over 7 innings.  
• Good games from the "favorites":  Derek Jeter (i.e. Captain Legend) finished the day with three hits and a rather dazzling beginning on a key double play; Mark Teixeira (i.e. Ana's Yankee love, version 2009), despite going 0-for-3 with two strikeouts over the first 7 innings, finished 2-for-5 with two runs batted in and a pretty play on a sharp grounder to first base; Robinson Cano (don't ya know?) recorded 3 hits on 5 at-bats.
  
• Back-end bullpen: With the score 5-3, Phil Hughes pitched a scoreless eighth, including a strikeout.  We were all set for Mariano to pitch the ninth, until the Yankees scored 8 runs and eliminated the need for a good pitcher.   Although I will never complain about a 13-3 victory, the lack of Mariano was the one flaw in an otherwise "perfect" game.
  

It wasn't always clean; Alex Rodriguez got ejected in the fifth for arguing a strike call on the previous inning, and manager Joe Girardi got ejected soon afterwards for taking up A-Rod's argument (note: I love Joe Torre and part of me wishes he were still managing the Yanks, but it's a lot more fun to watch Girardi fight.  A lot more fun). Johnny Damon inexplicably held onto a fly ball to left field with one out as opposed to throwing it back to the infield, allowing the runner on second to score (yes, a two-base sacrifice fly... never seen that before) and adding a run to Sabathia's record that really shouldn't have been there.  We left a lot of runners on base, struggling mightily for a two-out RBI until an eight-run rally in the bottom of the eighth inning (much of which came with two outs).  Brian Bruney, who began pitching the ninth inning, was so ineffective even with a ten-run lead that he wasn't allowed to finish the ballgame. 

However many hits or errors or missed opportunities there were, though, the game was pretty much perfect to me.  I suppose it might have had something to do with a day off after two weeks of college classes and homework piling up so as I can't see over it.  Maybe it was my first visit to the brand new stadium, or maybe it was just the magic of baseball.  My throat is now absolutely raw from a combination of a chest cold I've had all week and 3 1/2 hours of maniacal cheering.  I can barely speak, I have lots of homework to finish tonight, and math class in the morning.  And I'd do it again tomorrow, if I could.

Until later,

Ana