Confessions of a She-Fan (9 page)

After their warm-ups, they take refuge in the dugout while the rest of us swelter. The announcer welcomes us to tonight's game and reports that it is 94 degrees. The people sitting next to me are a sweet middle-aged couple who took a 3-hour bus ride from Easton, Pennsylvania. The young punks on Michael's side are drunk even before the national anthem begins.

In the top of the first, the flashbulbs go off when A-Rod is batting, but he doesn't hit the big one. In the bottom of the inning, Clemens serves up a double to Brian Roberts, and the Yankees are down 2–0 before I know it.

Two male Orioles fans behind me are debating Kevin Millar's role with the 2004 Red Sox.

“Wasn't he the one who wouldn't give the championship ball back?” one of them says.

I turn around and say, “No, that was Doug Mientkiewicz. He plays first base for the Yankees now, but he's on the DL. He had a cervical sprain, a slight concussion, and a broken bone in his wrist as the result of a collision with Mike Lowell.”

They look at me as if I have six heads.

A twentysomething woman in the section below us is wearing a white veil and carrying a sign that says “Bride to be would love to kiss Joe Torre.” Next to Michael, one of the punks—they are now stinking drunk—throws a cell phone at the girl with the sign. He escapes ejection by telling the security guard that the phone “just slipped.” When the coast is clear, he laughs and says to his friends, “
That's
how you're supposed to get a wife: Throw a cell phone at her and knock some sense into her.” I think longingly about my green chair in the living room. When I watch games at home, the only obnoxious person I have to deal with is me.

The Yankees look indifferent at the plate until the top of the ninth. With the O's ahead by 7–1, Abreu comes up as the potential tying run, with A-Rod on deck. He strikes out. Game over.

On Sunday we discover why Jorge does not catch day games after night games. Who wants to get up early after going to bed late?

There is a light drizzle as we ride up the escalator at Camden Yards at 12:15. The announcer comes over the speakers to tell us the game will be delayed until 2:05 and that in the meantime we are welcome to watch live coverage of Cal Ripken's induction into the Hall of Fame on the Jumbo-Tron. I am sure Cal is a terrific guy, but I am getting sick of him.

Eventually, the sky brightens, the tarp comes off, and we find our seats in section 332, row LL—still in the upper deck, but the best ones yet. We are in the midst of a “Wang section.” There are over a dozen Taiwanese fans waving Taiwanese flags.

“People in Taiwan idolize Wang the way Americans idolize Elvis,” one of them tells me.

In the first inning, A-Rod comes up with bases loaded and strikes out. He comes up again with bases loaded in the second and grounds out. He must be seriously constipated.

It is a seesaw battle the rest of the way. Farnsworth serves up a two-run homer in the bottom of the eighth,but the Yankees win10–6 and avoid the sweep. After the game, Kyle complains to the media that he has not been used enough and did not come to the Yankees to sit on the bench. He may have signed balls for those kids at the Renaissance on Friday, but he is a big stupid crybaby.

The good thing about a day game is you get to go to an actual restaurant and have dinner that night. Michael and I take a cab to Obrycki's, Baltimore's famous crab house. The waitress delivers the crabs on a tray and dumps them onto our table, which she has covered with brown paper. She covers us too—with bibs—and brings us wooden mallets and a garbage pail. We pound our crabs. Pieces of meat fly into our eyes, our hair, everywhere but our mouths.

We have survived the first stop on our long journey and are in the mood to celebrate.

Thunderstorms are forecast for Monday
, the Yankees' off day and our getaway day. We are supposed to take some claustrophobic little US Airways Express flight up to New York this morning, but I can't summon the courage. We rent a fire-engine-red Toyota Matrix from Hertz, drive north on I-95, and pull into my mother's driveway in Westchester by midafternoon. She has lived in the same house for more than 30 years. Most of her friends have either downsized or moved into assisted-living facilities, but she will not hear of leaving. That house is home to her. I am envious. I have lived in so many places—New York, Connecticut, Florida, California—that I have no real sense of “home” anymore.

“Hello!” I say as Mom waves to me from the front door. She looks adorable in her jeans and sweater and pink lipstick. She has shrunk another half inch since my last visit, but she is otherwise a miracle of nature.

She hugs me, then Michael. “I bought cold cuts and potato salad and an Entenmann's coffee cake.”

Later, she drives me into the village, where she drops me at her hair salon. I have a blow-dry with Katya. I could have washed and dried my own hair, but a
few years ago I came to the sobering conclusion that I have absolutely no command of a blow-dryer. So I seek out professionals.

I spend the rest of the afternoon doing laundry and talking to my mother while Michael naps. I tell her about all the cities we will be going to and all the teams we will be playing, and she gives me a look like she thinks I am crazy.

“What?” I say.

“I know you love the Yankees, dearie. I love them, too. But it sounds so exhausting.”

“I'll be fine.”

“Do they feed you at those baseball stadiums?”

“Yes, Mom.”

“How will you get enough sleep going from hotel to hotel?”

“I just will.”

“There are a lot of maniacs out there,” she says, wagging an arthritic finger at me. “You have to be so careful these days.”

“Mom!I'm excited about this trip! It's a good thing, okay?”

When Michael and I are alone in the guest room later, he tells me his cell phone is missing. “I must have dropped it at Camden Yards.”

“So it's sitting in the middle of a ballpark where any maniac can use it! You have to be so careful these days!”

Tuesday begins promisingly. I get an e-mail from Susan Tofias, who became my best friend in the sixth grade when we danced to “The Loco-Motion” in the gym. She moved to a Boston suburb after college and raised a family while I moved around the country and wrote books. But she is my Scarsdale friend and I am her Scarsdale friend,and we keep in touch via e-mail. She is one of the people I wrote to after Jason Zillo barred me from the press box. She has a large social circle in Boston, and I asked her if she knew anybody with Red Sox tickets. She writes back that her friends, Steven and Joan Belkin, are willing to part with their four field-box seats for the Sunday game at Fenway in September. This means there is an extra seat for Michael's brother Geoff, who lives in New Hampshire and is, of course, a diehard Red Sox fan.

“There is only one caveat,” writes Susan in her e-mail. “The game will
probably be nationally televised and the Belkins' seats are VERY VISIBLE ON TV. SO NO YANKEES CLOTHES! YOU MUST NOT EMBARRASS THEM!”

“They're being so generous. I wouldn't dream of embarrassing them,” I write back. “I will happily bury all evidence of my Yankee-ness.”

Michael and I leave at 3:30 for tonight's 7:05 game against the White Sox. He takes 684 to the Hutchinson River Parkway to the Cross County Parkway to the entrance to the Major Deegan—except it is not the entrance to the Deegan.

“I know you hate asking for directions,” I say to Michael, “but could you please ask for directions?”

“Okay,” he says grudgingly. “But I have to find the right person.”

He pulls into the parking lot of an Irish pub where three gray-haired men in black suits are standing around smoking unfiltered cigarettes. They look like undertakers or
Sopranos
cast members or both. Michael gets out of the car and speaks to them. He returns after a few minutes and off we go. I know we are nearing the Stadium because the black Jeep in front of us has a decal on its rear window with a man in a Yankees cap pissing on a Red Sox cap.

I turn on WFAN to find out if there is any trade news now that the 4:00 p.m. deadline has passed. There is. The Yankees have traded not Farnsworth but Proctor—to the Dodgers for infielder Wilson Betemit. I have never heard of Betemit, so I don't know what to make of this deal. The FAN also reports that the Red Sox traded a minor leaguer to the Rangers for Eric Gagne, who is more famous than Wilson Betemit.

We arrive at Yankee Stadium at 4:30 and can't find a parking lot that is open. They all have gates that are locked. As we wind our way through the narrow, serpentine streets—161st, 162nd, 163rd—it's clear we're not in Baltimore anymore. The streets are teeming with people who are serious about getting the most bass out of their boom boxes.

We park in Lot 16. It is about a mile from the Stadium, but it is open and it only costs $14 as opposed to the $28 they charge at the valet lots.

Michael takes a photo of me in front of the Stadium. We plan to document that I have actually gone to every ballpark.

Afterward I scan the crowd and recognize Freddy, the man who encourages people to bang a spoon on his pan to bring the Yankees luck. He has been around forever—a legendary character in the Bronx—and I have to meet him.

He is sitting on a bench in his pinstriped shirt and Yankees cap, pan in
hand, along with a sign that reads: “Freddy Sez Yankees Can Improve!” He is stooped over, and his face is covered with gray grizzle, and he looks 100 years old. But he smiles and lets Michael take his picture with me.

“How did you become the Pan Man?” I ask.

“I grew up in the Bronx,” he says with the accent to prove it. “I was always a Yankee fan. About 20 years ago I started bringing a pan to the games for luck. In the beginning I bought my own tickets, but now they let me in for free.”

“You've become a celebrity.”

He grins proudly. “Did you see me in
For Love of the Game
?”

“Of course I did.” I am lying, but I don't have the heart not to. Before I can find out more, another fawning woman sidles up to him, and I am history.

Michael and I enter the Stadium through Gate 6, where the snarling security guards check our bags and clothes and pat us down as if we were going through security at the Baghdad airport. Even the ticket takers bark at us. The people who work here are not touchy-feely like the employees at Camden Yards. They are like bouncers at a nightclub.

We forage for food before finding our seats. We find an outpost of Bronx's famous Mike's Deli on Arthur Avenue. I order a turkey sandwich known as the Sweet Bird, and Michael, who is determined to sample the hot dogs at every ballpark, gets his first Yankee Stadium dog, which he rates an F.

We take the escalator to Tier 17. Well, several escalators. It is one thing to be at the very top of Camden Yards. It is another to be at the very top of a stadium that holds over 55,000 people. I flash back to the night we went to the World Series with the Other Jane Heller and sat behind the on-deck circle. You can't even see the on-deck circle from up-up-up here. It is not for people with vertigo.

Tier 17 is between first base and the right-field foul pole. Our seats are in row C, on the aisle. I now understand why this ballpark is being torn down. It is butt ugly, except for the immaculately kept field and the distinctive facade. The seats up-up-up here are truly uncomfortable—hard and bare with no legroom—and their blue paint is faded and sad looking. And the aisles themselves are so narrow that you have no choice but to step on people to get anywhere. Still, this is Yankee Stadium—the cathedral in which I have worshipped since I was a child.

“Disorderly conduct will not be tolerated and will lead to immediate ejection,” intones Bob Sheppard, the longtime voice of the Yankees. This place has history, but it is not warm and fuzzy.

Sheppard announces the Yankees lineup accompanied by the theme from
Star Wars
. I get a kick out of how he lingers over each name,particularly “Der-ek Jeet-ah.” And he is funny with the names of the Latino players. He rolls his r's, but his dentures get in the way. A-Rod elicits a huge hand from the crowd. They have come to see him hit 500.

Tonight is the first of a three-game series against the White Sox. Mussina is on the mound. He has a nice, clean first inning and gets a loud “Moooose” call. In the bottom half, A-Rod steps in to chants of “MVP!” and the flashbulbs go off. It is an absolutely blinding spectacle, and I can only imagine how daunting it must be for him to try to hit a baseball with all those lights popping. He flies out. But Matsui homers, and the Yankees jump ahead 4–0. The Stadium may be dilapidated, but there is no place more electric. When the crowd rocks, the cathedral rocks, too.

Before the top of the seventh, we applaud the grounds crew and their “YMCA” dance routine. But we turn solemn during the seventh inning stretch and Kate Smith's “God Bless America.” When I watch the games at home, the song is my cue to disappear into my office to check phone messages and e-mails, but now that I am here, I am touched by it. I feel very patriotic singing along with 54,999 others.

In the bottom of the seventh, the Yankees are up 16–3 and here comes A-Rod. He flies out yet again, and there is a collective sigh of frustration. He is now in an 0-for-16 slump.

After the game, Michael and I are pushed and shoved and elbowed as we attempt to leave the ballpark. Even after we make it to the parking lot, it is pure madness—gridlock, horns honking, people telling each other to go fuck themselves.

We are back at my mother's by 11:30. She is still awake.

“I looked for you in the stands,” she says. “I don't understand why I couldn't see you.”

“We have to sit very high up.”

“You can't get seats right down in front?”

“Not yet,” I say. “I'm working on it.”

In the Wednesday
New York
Times
there is speculation that since the Red Sox got Gagne, the Yankees will call up a rookie from Scranton named Joba Chamberlain to be our setup man. Supposedly,this Joba person has a live arm and can strike batters out. I will believe it when I see it.

Joe Longo at Gersh e-mails that he has not heard back from Jean Afterman and suggests that I should just call Jean at her office. He gives me her number. “Tell her you're the one who's doing the book.”

I swallow hard and dial her number. A young woman answers.

“Is Jean there, please?”

“Who's calling her?”

“Jane Heller. Joe Longo suggested I call.”

“Oh. Joe. Sure. Please hold.”

I am on hold for several minutes when the assistant returns.

“Can I get a number where Jean can call you back?”

I give her my cell number and go on and on about how important it is for me to talk to Jean as soon as possible, but she has already hung up.

At 3:00 p.m. Michael and I leave my mother's for tonight's game against the White Sox. We don't get lost this time. We drive straight to parking lot number nine. It is easily 100 degrees.

Inside the Stadium we check out the food court, but I will not pollute my body with hot dogs or chicken fingers. We keep walking—until we see something called the Pinstripe Pub.

“Let's go in,” I say to Michael.

“It's a private club.”

“So?” I turn to the guard stationed outside the door. “Can you take two?”

“Sorry,” he says. “You need a special pass to get in.”

Michael gives me a look,but I am not budging. I am hot and I am hungry and I am determined.

“A special pass?” I say. “But we came all the way from California for tonight's game.”

“Don't tell anyone,” he says, then opens the door and whisks us inside.

I give Michael a look and find us a table. The restaurant is air-conditioned and has waiters and menus and, best of all, serves wine.

After dinner, we search for our seats. They are in Tier 18, row C—above third base and much better than last night's. At 6:58, right on schedule, Bob
Sheppard's voice booms with the lineups. He really gets a workout trying to maneuver around the White Sox's “A. J. Pierzynski.”