Ready for a quick blog entry about a lame day? Good, here goes…
Yankee Stadium opened at 4pm, and for the first half-hour, there was NO action:
Then the sky got dark, and it started drizzling, and the grounds crew began to clear the field. In the photo below, you can see one guy actually rolling the L-screen away:
Just as I was contemplating how to announce my permanent retirement from ballhawking, the sky cleared and the grounds crew rolled the screens back into place.
The Yankees eventually came out and started throwing. Batting practice was still 10 minutes away and the place was packed:
I got completely shut out during the Yankees’ portion of BP.
Then the Mariners came out, so I changed into my Mariners gear and got Jason Vargas to throw me a ball in right field:
I was six rows back when he threw it. It sailed over everyone else’s head and came right to me. It was my 4,100th ball. Yay.
I headed back to left field, caught a homer on the fly, got Garrett Olsen to toss one to me, and then caught another home run ball which I later gave away.
It was impossible to use the glove trick because the stadium was crawling with security guards. I saw one other kid attempt to use the trick, and he was stopped within 10 seconds.
I had some close calls on other homers, but luck simply wasn’t on my side, and to make matters worse, I had to deal with a startlingly hostile fan. I deserve the Nobel Peace Prize for preventing an “incident” from arising. Let’s leave it at that.
I ran into a fellow ballhawk named Alex who’d already been to Yankee Stadium more than a dozen times this season. We had some time to kill so we wandered into the bleachers, and since it was my first time in that area of the stadium, I took a bunch of pics. (At the new stadium, anyone with any ticket can go in or out of the bleachers.)
I started at the back of the bleachers next to the batter’s eye in left-center field…
…and walked down to the front row. This was the view (of the visitors’ bullpen) to the right…
…and this was the view (of Monument Park) to the left:
Ever wonder what’s behind those shiny black windows? There’s a restaurant, and when I pressed my camera against the glass, I was able to get a peek inside:
Here’s the concourse that runs behind the bleachers:
Left field…right field…it’s all connected.
There’s a “cafe” on top of the batter’s eye. Here’s one side of it…
…and here’s the front:
Anyone can go there at anytime, and on the right field side, there’s a nice view of the Yankee bullpen. Here’s Andy Pettitte warming up:
The new Yankee Stadium is a glorious facility. There’s no doubt about that. It’s the team and the employees and the fans that ruin it.
As for the game…yawn. The Yankees won, 4-2, and five of the six runs scored on homers. I’m sorry but that’s just not interesting baseball. I don’t care that Griffey and A-Roid went deep. I was nowhere near either of those longballs so it didn’t matter. At least it was a quick game and I got the hell out fast.
• 4 balls at this game (ball No. 4,100 pictured here on the right)
• 283 balls in 32 games this season = 8.84 balls per game.
• 601 consecutive games with at least one ball
• 475 consecutive games in New York with at least one ball
• 132 consecutive Yankee games with at least one ball
• 4,103 total balls
CHARITY STATS:
• 111 donors (It’s not too late to make a pledge. Click here to learn more.)
• $24.34 pledged per ball
• $97.36 raised at this game
• $6,888.22 raised this season for Pitch In For Baseball
