Personal Statement: A home plate away from home
Roger SauerhaftJanuary 28th, 2009
I sat before my television on Election Day and tried to hold my emotions in check as I witnessed one of the most symbolic moments of American history. In my head, I thought of the first image that came to my mind when I heard the word “America.”
It wasn’t the Statue of Liberty or the American flag.
It was an upper-deck view of Yankee Stadium from behind home plate during the playing of Kate Smith’s rendition of “God Bless America.” I could feel the crowd roaring on this windy night in the Bronx. This was America to me. Watching the last game to be played in Yankee Stadium on television, my eyes really started to tear up after it finally hit me what a special place the “House that Ruth Built” really was and the impression that 16 years going to games there had left on me.
I attended my first game wearing a Michigan T-shirt at age four, on May 15, 1992 against the Oakland Athletics. I sat in the upper deck, just to the right of home plate with my father, and my friend Jasper, who also was with his father.
The pitchers that night were both familiar names in my family. My father graduated from Michigan and chose the game because former Wolverine Scott Kamieniecki was starting for the Yankees. His opponent was Bob Welch, who attended Eastern Michigan while my father was in Ann Arbor.
My father says he knew Welch through a mutual friend and often drank with him. He also claims that he barely recognized Welch on the scoreboard that night because his eyes weren’t bloodshot. Incidentally, Welch had authored a book in 1991 chronicling his fight against alcoholism.
The two pitchers threw strong games, and my father probably hummed “Hail to the Victors” as we walked to the car after Kamieniecki grinded out a 3-2 victory. My only vivid memory of the game was watching a middle-aged man throw paper airplanes around empty seating sections and being mesmerized at how well they flew. The action on the field was slow and I never thought baseball would click for me.
I only returned once between then and July 22, 1999, when I had finally had my sports-fan awakening. As I settled into my seat with my fellow day campers, a bit of déjà vu came to me. I was in those same seats. It was almost surreal ¬— the forgotten memory of my real first game returned. At 11 years old, I witnessed the first play I can fully recall as as the Yankees’ Bernie Williams crushed a first-inning homer that made the crowd roar.
The loudest I ever heard the stadium get was June 10, 2002 in a grudge match from the previous World Series against the Arizona Diamondbacks. Before a packed house in a scoreless game against the unhittable Randy Johnson, Yankees rookie Marcus Thames stepped in to face baseball’s top pitcher for his first career at-bat. On just the second pitch he saw, Thames swung and connected for a two-run homer to left — fans got so loud that it shook the stadium for minutes on end.
Yankee Stadium was more than just a place where great plays were made and records were broken. The place was made up of personal memories, the kind of anecdotes that are never as good in the retelling because the listener could never feel that rush of excitement you get when you recall them.
On Sept. 17, 2000, the infamous Jose Canseco dropped two fly balls in a 15-4 loss. On the highway after the game, Canseco was in the car next to my family’s as we sat in traffic. I asked my mother if I could toss Canseco my baseball to sign, but she told me not to. She said he would drop the ball.
I only left one game early. For Cal Ripken Jr.’s last game in the Bronx on Sept. 30, 2001, the music from “The Natural” played each time he came to bat. Ripken went hitless with four strikeouts in seven at-bats. With the score tied in the 15th inning, the game was called due to rain. I had pneumonia and had missed a few days of school the week before, so my mom made me leave in the fourteenth inning.
By 2004, after years of picking random games to attend, my parents decided it was finally time to buy a ticket package. Naturally, I picked three seats in my traditional spot: tier reserve nine, behind home plate. That year, Alex Rodriguez, Kevin Brown and Javier Vazquez were the team’s new additions. The Yankees were stacked, and our tickets cost just $12 each per game.
That fall, I went to a few playoff games, one of which remains the most memorable (and despised) of my life: Game 6 of the 2004 ALCS against Boston.
Up 3-2 in the series, my Yankees faced a nearly one-legged Curt Schilling, whose tendons were stuck together by medical pins. Each time he had to make a play, it took him minutes to return to the mound. Many fans yelled for the Yankees to bunt to no avail. Schilling’s heroic performance that led to the Game 6 win and the eventual series victory for the Red Sox will go down in history as “The Bloody Sock Game”.
Even as our ticket prices rose to $27 per game in 2008, my parents kept the seats. I can safely say their decision to purchase those tickets was the best investment they could have ever made for me as a kid growing up in New York. I really can’t think of many other things, besides death, that have ever made me cry — Yankee Stadium has been the source of most of those tears.
Thinking back on the stadium’s history, there were so many events that made it such a hallowed place: Lou Gehrig’s famous “Luckiest Man Alive” speech, the dying Babe Ruth using a bat as a cane months before he died to wave goodbye, Bobby Murcer’s tribute to Thurman Munson, George Bush showing a thumbs-up to the world before firing a perfect strike in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks and the Paul O’Neill sendoff from fans in 2001. When I think of America’s game, I think of those nights in the Bronx.
Twenty-six World Championships and 17 retired numbers don’t hurt its image, either. Oh yeah, and the visits from the Pope, the Super Bowls, including the Colts vs. Giants in 1958, the championship boxing matches — the list goes on and on. And after Sept. 11, although all baseball stadiums spent the next year playing “God Bless America” during the seventh inning, Yankee Stadium stood alone in continuing the tradition until its closing day.
By Aug. 15, 2008, my last game at the stadium, I was able to navigate the ballpark without even looking at seat or row numbers. I knew the names of many other fans in my section, along with those of a number of vendors and even a few security guards. Yankee Stadium felt like home to me. At the end of the game, I turned to my parents and thanked them for the experience.
I’m immensely sad to see it brought down. As the stadium’s planned “gradual demolition” continues throughout 2009, we’re saying goodbye to so many memories and so much history. Driving through the South Bronx will never be the same. The good news is that I’m just 21 and the new Yankee Stadium looks gorgeous. But for now, so long Babe, Lou, Joe D and Mick. Hope to see you some day across 161st Street.
Printed from www.michigandaily.com on Fri, 10 Feb 2012 13:57:46 -0500