It was October 21, 2001, game 4 of the ALCS. With the game knotted at 1-1, Alfonso Soriano sent a shot to deep right-center. As the ball cleared the fence, giving the Yanks a 3-1 victory, I remember a sound come from the crowd I had never heard before, a deafening roar, and the Stadium felt as though it was shaking. In the euphoria I stood up, turned around, and just started hugging the guy behind me. I didn't know him, he didn't know me, and it wasn't even weird. He could have had leprosy and I still would have felt an overwhelming compulsion to throw my arms around him because we were all in that game together. It was one of my favorite moments at Yankee Stadium.

A few weeks ago I was interviewing Tommy John for a blog post while he killed time at an airport in Phoenix. Toward the end of our conversation I asked him what his favorite experience had been since retiring. In the middle of telling me about how much he enjoyed managing independent ball, he goes, "B-5... FUCK! I'm at the wrong gate. I'm supposed to be at B-15. There's no one even in this terminal." After a 40 minute conversation it was a hilarious way to end it.

OK, so this is as they a true story. First some background.

I grew up in upstate NY, and so I could only go to one or maybe two games year at Yankee Stadium. I used to go with father, whom I idolized. He was the son of Italian immigrants, dropped out of school at 16, worked hard his whole life. He would tell stories of hopping on freight trains and riding down to New York to see his idol Joe DiMaggio play at the old Stadium. To this shy, small town kid he my father was larger than life. He died too young, when I was only a teenage. After that, my older brother (who’s a good bit my senior) took over as the man of the family, and he would take me every year to see a game. It used to be annual pilgrimage for us---brother bonding time, and all that. As we got older, however, his fandom began to wane and by the time I got to college, also in upstate, our yearly tradition had fallen apart. But that was ok, because I was old enough to be the man.

When my brother was in university, back in the day (maybe 1979 or 1980, I don’t recall), he and a bunch of his buddies went to opening day. Well, now that I was in college, I wanted to do the same thing. So, in 1992, I phoned up the box office (you could do that back in those days) and bought tix for opening day (you could do that too). My buddies and I piled into my junky car and drove down to the city and caught the game. I don’t remember anything about it other than we froze our asses off, and I managed to get two speeding tickets (one on the way down, and one only a few miles from home on the way back).

But that’s not my funniest memory.

====

Fast forward one year to opening day 1993. By this time I had traded in my buddies for a serious girlfriend, whom I ended up marrying. I remember a story my father used to tell a story about taking his future wife, my mother, down to the big city to see a ball game in the big park. I wanted to impress my girlfriend the same way.

So, I phoned up the box office (you could still do that) and ordered two tix for the home opener. I called well in advance so that I had a chance at better tickets, and managed to land two: upper deck but well placed. Awesome. The tickets arrived in the mailbox at my apartment in college town and I promptly tacked the envelope to my bulletin board so nothing would happen to them.

And there they sat for weeks, until several days before the game, when I took the envelope down, caressed the tickets, and set them on my nightstand.

Now, I didn’t mention that I used be a bit of a model buff. So I had building some or other model car or plane, and I had some some model-building supplies here and there in the room. Including a small cup of paint thinner that I for some reason put on the nightstand. Well, the semester was on and, as a college student, I didn’t keep the neatest room, and I forgot about model-building stuff.

Until a day or two before the game, when I took my tickets out one more time to stare at them longingly.

And when I did, I nearly threw up. The tickets were almost entirely blank. Because I, in my infinite wisdom, had put the paint thinner in a paper cup. The stuff leeched through the cup and onto the envelope with the tickets, and managed to bleach out about 90% of what was printed. You could still see, sort of, that these were official tickets, and you could maybe make out part of the seat location, but that was it.

I was frantic. So I called the box office and tried to explain the situation and to see if I could get a new ticket issued. I mean, after all, I paid by credit card...surely they had some record of purchase, right? I can only imagine what the person in the box office thought, listening to some dorky upstater explain how he managed to erase opening day tickets. Needless to say, he shit me off: he told me to come to the box office the day of the game. OK.

That day comes, and we drive to NYC--no speeding tickets, this time. We left really early, so I could get to the Stadium and try to clear everything up. Well naturally I got caught in the absurd pre-game traffic and, worse, took the “wrong” Yankee Stadium parking exit and ended up in some horrible odyssey to find parking. I ended up at an “official Yankee Stadium” parking lot several blocks from stadium after burning nearly all of the extra time we had before the game was to start. By the time we hiked to the box office, the first pitch was about to be thrown. I was furious.

Of course there was a line, too. Impatiently I looked again and again at my watch, as the minutes melted away and I missed pitch after pitch. Finally we get to the front of line. I was sweaty, nervous, angry, exhausted already. I explain myself to the box office guy. He asks to see the tickets. I show him. He says I can’t use them. We go around and around. I say, surely there is a record of me having purchased these..I used a credit card, right. Now, once again, I can only imagine what the box office guy thought about this upstate yokel and his girlfriend comin’ on down to the big city to catch themselves a ballgame.

Finally, he tells me to wait a minute and he disappears into the back. Then he comes back with two hand-written press passes, and explains what to do: “OK, you two need to go to this entrance here (he points to the press entrance” and show these to the guard, then you’re good to go...”

Excellent. We’ve only missed maybe an inning or two, and that’s not too much to pay for being a dumbass. So, we do as the man says. I’m feeling pretty col strolling through the press entrance. Heck, there were still fans trying to get through the turnstiles. Suckers.

We get into the stadium and make the long tedious march to the upper deck. Of course it’s crowded, it takes time. I can here the game buzzing along outside.

Finally we get to the section: I don’t remember the exact section or seats, but the numbers were something like 17 and 18, or whatever. So politely I wait for the half inning to end, and then we start to search. OK, up the stairs: row A, B, C, ....ok got it. Now the seats: seat 1, 2, 3, 4,...all the way to the end of the row, the last seat is 16. Huh?

Must be the wrong section. Am I in tier reserved or tier box. Check again. Nope, correct seating area. Maybe wrong section? Go back down, into the tunnel, check the section number. Try the next tunnel just in case. Nope, wrong section. OK, back to the first tunnel we went through...

Now keep in mind, I am at this point beyond furious, since the game is flying by (and I was trying to be polite and holding off until half innings to look for the seat), and at the same time unwilling to ask for help because I am supposed to be the cool guy who’s been to the big park before. What’s my lady gonna think if I ask for directions. I search and search and search. Up the stairs, down the stairs. Check the row. Check the seats. Where the hell is row whatever seats 17 and 18? And the half-innings keep flying by.

I finally give up and ask one of the “ushers” for help. Now this kid is maybe 18 years old...nothing like when I was a kid. The Yankees still employed proper ushers, old guys in red suits who find your seat for you and even wipe it off if it had rained. Anyway, the kid was pleasant enough. I show him the passes. He looks at them: yeah, you’re in the right section, he says. It’s up there, Row whatever, seats whatever. I answer, we looked and didn’t see the seats..the row doesn’t go that high. He looks dubious. The half inning ends, and tells us to follow him. Up the narrow, steep upper deck stairs. Again. A, B, C, D,..., seat 1, 2, 3,...he gets to the end of the row, 15, 16.. Huh?

He looks back at the pass. Looks at the row. Looks back at the pass. Back at the row. He scratches the back of his neck. Hands me the passes back. “Man...they must have taken those seats out,” he explains.

Uh-huh. Then I realized exactly what had really happened---hey, I may from upstate but I’m not that slow. The dude back in the box office had shit me off too, in a way. Obviously, he wrote a pass with seats that didn’t exist to get me off his back. Well, at least I was in the stadium, right.

So I ask the young gentlemen what I was supposed to with passes for seats that have been “taken out.” His suggestion was that I could watch the game from the tunnel, if I wanted, and then maybe poach a seat when someone left. Keep in mind, it’s opening day. Attendance was 56,704. No one was fucking leaving. Newly signed big name free agent Jim Abbott, the one armed wonder was on the mound and hurling a gem.

Now I was truly seething. I mean, so angry that it hard to actually focus. And to make matters worse, the game was at least halfway over. I keep saying how the game was moving along, the half innings passing quickly. I’m not exaggerating. Again, it was opening day 1993, and Jim Abbott was starting against David Cone. I didn’t remember the opposing starter until looking up the box score, but I definitely remember that Jim Abbott was the Yankees’ starter. I remember being excited when the Yankees signed him, and being really excited to see him as the starter for the home opener. And I distinctly remember that he threw a complete game that day, April 12, 1993, in like 88 pitches. So I looked it up: http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYA/NYA199304120.shtml. It wasn’t a shutout, but he sure did throw a complete game in only 85 pitches. The Yankees won 4-1. The game took...2:16.

Two hours, sixteen minutes. The drive down, including the search for parking, took nearly five hours. For more than an hour I bickered with box office people, security guards, ushers, and walked up and down the stadium. Then we spent more time leaning against the wall of a tunnel in the upper deck, half watching the game while scanning for empty seats. Eventually something opened up, maybe with one or two innings left. By then I couldn’t have cared less. Stubbornness kept me there, but I just wanted the game to end and to go home.

Game over and 50,000+ fans pile into to the crowded concourses of the old stadium. After being pushed and pulled and prodded, we made our way out---on the wrong side of the stadium, of course. Hiked back to the car. And then I had to try to figure out how to get back on the highway, since I had parked farther away than usual when my brother and I went. You can imagine what followed: upstate hayseed takes wrong turn and ends up heading into the heart of the Bronx. I know I had to go the other direction, but couldn’t find a place to turn around, and didn’t want to get too far off the beaten path. Argument with girlfriend who had the map ensued. Finally, I said fuck this and jumped the curb, drove over the median of whatever boulevard I was on, and made a highly illegal u-turn. From that point, it was a series of traffic stalls, wrongs turns, poor decisions, and arguments the back to the GW and beyond, all the way back to upstate in the same day. I think the total car time on the return trip was six or seven hours. I was apoplectic.

So, to recap: 11-12 hours in the car another hour or so walking to and from the stadium and dickering to get in. All to watch 2 hours of baseball, of which I missed easily an hour. I was so angry I vowed never to go to Yankee Stadium again (a vow I of course broke, but it took a few years)

Oh, and my favorite player at the time, Don Mattingly, went 0-4.

====

My experience on opening day 1993, the God’s honest truth.

[3] And if you don't believe me, you can ask my wife. She's still married to me, despite having lived with a lot of years of that sort of silliness and stubbornness on my part.

Nice. Keep 'em coming.

It's early in the 2009 season and my 13 year-old daughter and I are excited to attend our first game at the new Stadium. Yanks are playing the Nationals, so it seemed like we were in for an easy win, especially since the Yanks were hitting the ball out of the park with amazing regularity thus far. But it's raining....and raining....and it's the last game of that series. The Nationals weren't scheduled to return that season, so the odds were good we were going to sit there for a while. And we did. It rained and rained and continued to rain until well after 6:00 PM, so that a game that was supposed to start at 1:00 actually started close to 7:00. By the time the game started, we had thoroughly checked out every corner of the new diggs, and the Stadium had pretty much cleared out. So much so that just before the start of play there was announcement telling the crowd that they could move down to the lower level. My daughter grabbed my hand, we ran for the elevator, and quickly landed aisle seats about twelve rows right behind the plate -- seat cushions! slips to order food from those cushioned seats! Nice! To our left was a family with two parents and a very bored teenage girl, constantly texting and ill-dressed for the damp and chilly weather. And so the game starts. Inbetween innings, a kid a couple of rows in front of us stands up, turns around, and looking up at the YES box starts to wave and shout: Michael Kay! MICHAEL KAY!! Finally Kay waves to the kid. The crowd is amused, and the kid sits down, very pleased with himself. An inning goes by and the kid is at it again, looking up and waving frantically: Michael Kay! MICHAEL KAYYYYY!!!!! No response from Michael Kay. Undeterred, the kid persists: Michael Kay!!! MICHAEL KAY!!!!!!! That was it for the teenager next to us. She looks away from her phone for what may have been the first time that day, and she stands up and screams at the kid: SHUT UPPPPP!!! MICHAEL KAY DOESN'T CARE ABOUT YOU!!!!! The kid sits down. The teenager sits down and goes back to her phone. Her parents look sheepish. And although we try, my daughter and I can't not stop laughing for at least five minutes. Oh, and the Yanks lost, failing for the first time to hit a home run at the new Stadium.

This didn't happen in NY, and it involved the Yankees only tangentially, as you'll see, but its the best I've got. I think monkeypants [3] has me beat anyway. ;)

*****************
Fall 1999, I move to Boston to go to law school. Fenway was just Fenway, the Monster was just a wall, beer was something crappy and didn't cost $10/cup, pink hats didn't exist, and Theo still worked for the Padres. You could call and buy tickets for a game a couple of days before the game and find tickets still available. The best seats in the bleachers were $16, a bargain even for grad school students.

A bunch of college friends and I decided, we have to go see a game at Fenway. So we picked a Sunday game because it was a day game, the weather was supposed to be nice, and Wakefield was starting. Everyone loves a knuckleballer, right? I called and got the tickets.

Our group was some Red Sox fans, a couple of people who didn't really follow baseball, the token Yankees fan (me), and my roommate/best friend, who was and is a Mets fan. I made the conscious choice to go incognito, so I wore a Yankees cap but no other gear. My best friend had a (who else) Piazza jersey, one of those awful in retrospect but at the time cool black Mets jerseys, and a corresponding mostly black Mets cap. He decides to wear both, because, as he said, "Its a Sox-Orioles game, who will care?"

We get to the game, get in, get drinks, hot dogs, etc, find our seats. It was a nice day, sunny, low 60s, slight breeze, perfect "Indian summer" weather. The bleachers - the entire stadium - was maybe 2/3rds full. Announced attendance was 32000+, but there were not that many people there. The playoff race was over, the Sox were the Wild Card, and the O's sucked.

We sit down, we start watching the game, talking, etc. A few minutes in, we hear some guys behind us drunkingly heckling: "Mikey, Mikey, Mikey . . . you suck!" At first we thought they were heckling Mike Bordick, who was playing shortstop for the O's that day. But then it continued, even when Bordick wasn't at bat, or in the field. Finally, around the 4th inning, one of the guys is walking past our seats (to go to the bathroom? I don't know), and as he passes, he says, "Hey Piazza, the Mets blow and so do you." Now we knew who Mikey was.

My best friend the Mets fan was harassed throughout the entire game - still remembered 1986 angst?, who can say? - to the point where he slouched down in his seat as much as possible (it didn't help). And me, the guy sitting in the right field bleachers at Fenway Park wearing a Yankees hat? I heard nothing. One older (mid 50s?) guy sitting in front of us struck up a nice conversation with me about Wade Boggs and Dave Righetti ("I hated Righetti, he used to kill the Sox, hell of a pitcher"), and that was all I heard.

To this day, my best friend insists that if we were to get bleacher tickets for a Sunday game at Fenway now and to wear the same attire we did that day, he'd hear nothing and I'd get shit all game. I have not taken him up on the offer.

To this day, we still needle him about somehow getting heckled at a meaningless Sox-Os game on a September Sunday for being a Mets fan, while he sat next to a Yankees fan in a Yankees cap who heard nothing.

*************
Epilogue (not exactly funny but I can't tell the above story without thinking about it):

While walking from Fenway back to the T in Kenmore Square, we passed a huge crowd gathered around guys hawking "Yankees Suck" paraphernalia: hats, t-shirts, bumper stickers, etc. One of my friends poked me and said, "Holy shit, look at that!" while pointing to a t-shirt that said "Jeter Sucks" on the front and "Posada swallows" on the back. We couldn't believe that they sold such things. MLB (and the Yankees) let them get away with that? They had the shirts in all sizes, including as onesies for infants. "No one buys those for little kids," a friend who was (and is) a Sox fan assured me. We then watched, in abject horror, as a guy in his early 30s, holding an infant boy (I presume his son) in his arms, with his wife smiling and looking on, bought one of the onesies. My intense dislike of the entire "Yankees suck" thing continues to this day.

[7] one of those awful in retrospect but at the time cool black Mets jerseys

Awesome!

Game 7 2003 ALCS. I got 4 tix through ticketmaster by just hitting refresh a lot on the day became they available online. I never looked at the tickets until the day of the game, and it turns out for whatever reason they have sent me two sets of the same tickets. So I have 8 tickets, but for only 4 seats.

I couldn't sell them, since I'd be sitting there. I gave them to friends, but sadly, a lot of those guys were Red Sox fans or Yankee haters. I felt I had to give them a shot to go to this game if I could. I told them to just get in the door and then they were on their own (I never thought I might be screwing myself w/ a bar code scan or whatever, but I guess in 2003 that wasn't a thing yet).

Luckily there were a few open seat near my section half way up on the thirdbase line, so we all sat together. My friends are rooting hard for the Sox, my family is rooting for the Yanks, and well, you know what happened.

My older brother, Mr. Sensitive in a family of over-sensitive people, feels so bad for my Sox fans freinds that he goes over and gives them a 10 minute speech about how great the Sox were and how the teams were truly even and all that shit. My friends bailed but we stayed behind wanting to see the whole celebration.

Chris leans over to me and he says, "I'm so sorry George and Peter have to deal with this loss." I turned to him and said, "Fuck those guys, they're Dodgers fans." His jaw dropped. Dodgers fans? He wasted all his pity.

This isn't funny so much as depressing - I went to see Frank Thomas (my favorite player) come through Yankee Stadium early in his White Sox career - must have been 1993 or so. My dad locked his keys in car, while running, in the parking lot. We had to wait it out until somebody could help and missed the first 1/3 of the game. In which time Frank Thomas was thrown out of the game for arguing a called third strike.

I knew this dude from a band called Wheatus (they had a big hit called "Teenage Dirtbag" many years ago). I had a shirt that just said "dirtbag" in the front and "wheatus" in the back. One play an ump made a bad (or anit-Yankee) and I jumped up and started yelling. A guy a section behind me did the same thing. He said, "Even Wheatus over here can tell you blew that call!" I turned around to agree and then he noticed he noticed the front of my shirt.

He got his whole section to lovingly serenade me with "Wheatus is a Dirtbag" chants for the rest of the game. Every time I went to get hot dog or use the bathroom, "Wheatus is a Dirtbag." I can still hear it in my dreams sometimes.

11) LOL. Ted Berg's old band was called The Moo Shoo Porkestra.

It was 1986 and the Yanks were playing 2nd fiddle to the Mets that year. It was almost October and my Mom worked for the Bowery Savings Bank and we always got great seats to the game about 5 or 6 times a year. We were in box seats on field level just between 3rd and home plate, and about 20 rows back and could see everything really well, and shout and be heard on the field.

The Yanks were getting blown out in the game, but we were staying until the bitter end.

Around the 8th inning some guy who had seats right behind home plate stands up and is wearing a Mets jacket. They had just flashed the scores on the screen and the Mets one. He is the only 1 in the stadium standing up and he starts applauding.

Everyone around him starts booing and shouting obscenities and where he can stick this and what his mother can do with various zoo animals, it was pandemonium. Then this fearless/foolish Met fan gives everyone behind him the finger. I am not sure if people were more incensed by his behavior or the fact that a Met fan had such great seats in our house, but it started raining ½ eaten $10 hot dogs, sodas, programs and ice creams.

After the storm passed and this guy realized everyone had thrown every item that was not nailed down save for their kids. He stands up turns his back to the crowd points to his Mets jacket on his back with his thumbs, and then drops his pants and moons everyone.

It was as quiet as the moment of silence for 3 seconds and the guy behind me shouts, “There is a Met fan for you, a real Asshole!!!”

Everyone was laughing and then somehow managed to find more items to toss at the guy. I felt sorry for all the fans around him who got hit by friendly fire, but what can you do?

Some great stories here!
I don't have one myself, just a brief sotry about my father. He was born and raised in HicksvilleNowheretown, upstate New York. 6 or 7 hour drive to the city and light years away culturally. Not wanting to work in the glass works factory (only job available in the area), he hopped a bus to NYC to look for a job. After a week of pounding the pavement and finding nothing, he decided to use some of his precious remaining cash and finally go to Yankee Stadium.

This was 1964 so the Mick was still playing, last season of the Yankees Dynasty. My pop heads up on the subway alone and gets out at 161st st but can't see the stadium anywhere. He's a bit late and doesn't even see any other fans, just a big concrete wall. He walks around a bit then asks a beat cop standing against the wall, in his best polite small town manner, "Excuse me sir, I'm trying to find Yankee Stadium.." The cop looks at him incredulously and says real slowly "You're leaning against it, Opie". Ya need help buying a ticket too?"

My favorite memory of going to the old Yankee Stadium was when I finally convinced my Father-in-law to go up to a game with me. We had been putting it off for years and I said, "Well, if we don't go this year we can forget it...they're tearing her down." While we were on the stadium tour the day after the game and we were walking around the warning track down to the dugout I eased over to him and said, "Man, I wished I had something to put a little of this dirt in..." He slipped his hand down into his pants pocket and slowly (almost like a drug dealer) showed me that he had brought two Ziplock bags just for that purpose. I had already asked the tour guide in the back if I would get in trouble for taking a little dirt. He said, "If I don't see you then I can't do anything about it..." So, I acted like I was tying my shoe and got a bag full of YS dirt. The following year my Father-in-law passed away from a massive heart attack so I'm so thankful we took that trip. Never put off something you plan to do with a family member, you never know how long you have with them...

As for meeting Yankee players, I "almost" met Andy Pettitte during his sabatical year. As we were waiting to be seated in an IHOP in Gulf Shores, AL Andy and his wife walked by us on their way out. I only got a glimpse of him, but I told my wife, "That's Andy Pettitte!" She said, "What would Andy Pettitte be doing in an IHOP in Gulf Shores?" I replied, "Eating breakfast?" (turns out it was Andy, he had been speaking at a Youth Conference that weekend. I still regret not going outside to meet him, oh well)

Colter Bean dropped by where I work last year (he works for a bank these days). My boss gave me his card and said, "Do you remember this guy?" I said, "Of course, Colter Bean had a couple of 'cups of coffee with the Yanks a few years back" (that joke never gets old...well, maybe it does). Colter was shocked to find a Yankee fan that remembered him down here in Alabama. He relayed a story about his last game as a Yankee against Seattle back in 20077: He had come in to stop the bleeding from a Kei Igawa implosion. Colter promptly gave up a few runs and didn't last long on the mound that night. He said when he was walking off the field a guy behind the dugout yelled, "COLTER BEAN YOU SUCK!!!". Colter said his first thought was to be upset at the guy and then he thought to himself, "Hey, the guy is right..." LOL

I was introduced to Karim Garcia once...when he said, "I'm Karim Garcia", I said, "Who is Karim Garcia?"... (Okay, I just made that one up, but how long has it been since we've had a Karim Garcia sighting on the Banter?)

Not a stadium experience, but appropos to the banner picture.
Some 45 years ago or so, I was watching THE Match Game with Gene Rayburn. It was Sport Day, and the teams were (I think) three Dodgers and (I know) three Yankees. Joe Pepitone, Tom Tresh (I think) and Mickey Mantle (for SURE!)

The Question:
Who is the handsomest man in the world?
The Dodgers team gave some good answers... something like Elvis, Rock Hudson and Elvis.

Now for the Yankees, first up was team Captain Joe Pepitone.
His answer to Q: Who is the handsomest man in the world?
His answer: Joe Pepitone.
Rayburn and the audience exploded with laughter.
Next up was Tom Tresh. When asked, he turned over his card....
It said: Joe Pepitone.
Again, Rayburn and the audience exploded with laughter.
Finally, while still laughing, Rayburn asked Mantle.
So Mickey, who do you say is the handsomest man in the world?
Mickey just gave that great little grin of his, and turned over his card.
It said: Joe Pepitone.

Rauburn all but fell over.