The Bambino in the Bronx - 266
Hal Wastes His Wages
September 22, 2008
"We're relying on you
to take the memories from this stadium and add them to the new memories that
come to the new Yankee Stadium, and continue to pass them on from generation to
generation."
Yankee Shortstop Derek Jeter--September 21, 2008
Nah, I wasn’t there for the last game at Yankee Stadium. Despite whatever
misconceptions people may have about the glamorous life of a Hudson Current
columnist, this job doesn’t quite open doors like that. But luckily schlepping
pints at a local hole-in-the-wall got me tickets to last Wednesday’s game
(thanks Joe!) and I was able to make the most of it, taking the wife and our
5-month-old son along with me.
I hadn’t been all season,
what with the wee one and all, but when he was born back in April I knew I
wanted to get him there this year. After all, it was any good father’s
obligation to take his infant child to the South Bronx in an open-air arena with
55,000 other mouth-breathers--most of them drinking beer and screaming
obscenities while one man recklessly hurls bags of Cracker Jacks into the crowd
as another precariously balances a tureen full of steamy franks on his knee
inches away from the baby’s head. Never mind the fact that large men are
constantly launching leather-bound projectiles into the stands. Hell, that’s
just good parenting…
Despite the potential risks, this was a pilgrimage that had to be carried out.
And upon receiving his share of immunizations against whatever the South Bronx
might have to offer, I got the boy in under the wire--waiting until the last
week of Yankee Stadium’s baseball operations to welcome him into the fold.
Normally a drive to Yankee Stadium is a masochistic endeavor, but the thought of
putting the kid on the D train still gave me the willies. So we left early
enough and got there just after the park opened, crossing the threshold around
5:15. Here’s a little known fact about The Stadium, and I quote, “Children who
are less than 30 inches tall do not require a ticket to enter,” so I strapped
him into the Baby Bjorn and we churned through the turnstile together for the
first and final time.
The boy was visibly excited, and while I’d like to think he knew the
significance of the hallowed grounds in which he found himself, more likely he
was simply overcome by the abundance of stimuli. Either way, he had a grin on
his face rivaled only by mine as we worked our way past a gracious usher for a
priceless photo op on the Yankee dugout. Eventually we found our way to our
seats up in Tier, posing for posterity and providing our son with the evidence
he’ll need years from now when it might actually mean something to him. About 10
minutes before the first pitch, a distinct aroma made itself known among all the
rest. Believe me, baseball fans--you haven’t lived the full experience until
you’ve changed a diaper in the ladies room at Yankee Stadium.
We stayed through the YMCA and up to the 7th inning stretch, realizing we had
stretched our own luck as far as we should. It was well past the boy’s bedtime
and the Beer Man kept waking him up every time he barked through our section, so
we made our move. From the parking lot we heard the roar of the crowd as the
Yanks sluggish offense got into gear, but I had already gotten all the
highlights I needed.
The following Sunday as the final game was to be played at The Stadium, I
thought it might be nice to head down to the bar and soak in the pomp and
circumstance. But after a few innings of the Stadler and Waldorf barroom
antagonists incessantly droning on about who sucks and why, I opted to head home
for the duration. Whatever opinion you may have of the 2008 Yankees, any
self-respecting sports fan would have recognized the significance of the moment
and exhibited a modicum of reverence.
But in looking back I’m grateful for having been driven from my barstool because
in the end it gave me the opportunity to share one last moment Yankee Stadium
moment with my boy. As Mariano Rivera took the mound I felt compelled to wake
him up, put his cap on and watch the end of an era. As Jeter made his impromptu
speech, I realized I was right where I needed to be at that moment.
Sure, he’s 5-months-old. Those memories have likely since been replaced by his
most recent meal of pureed carrots or the fact that I left him to cry himself to
sleep last night. But someday he’ll be able to say he saw it all, someday he’ll
be able to say he saw it there, and someday he’ll be able to say he saw it with
me.
*******************************************************
Christopher M. Halleron, freelance writer/bitter bartender, writes a biweekly
humor column for The Hudson Current and websites in the New York Metro area. He
spends a lot of his time either in front of or behind the bar in Hoboken, New
Jersey where his tolerance for liquor grows stronger as his tolerance for
society is eroded on a daily basis. Feel free to drop him a line at
c_halleron@yahoo.com
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