1/4/13 – Baseball Season Opening Game – Yankees v Red Sox

When we returned home last night after farewelling Bo and Kristie, we decided to cheer ourselves up by going online and getting some tickets to the Opening Day of the baseball season at Yankee Stadium - Yankees v Boston Red Sox. We had seen the new stadium from the river during our cruise with Hans and Sue, so we were keen to see it up close.

After a fun subway ride up to the Bronx with thousands of other Yankees fans, we finally found ourselves standing before one of NYC’s (if not the whole of the US) greatest sports stadia. The Yankees have a long and colourful history and all up have won 27 World Series Championships (by ‘World Series’ they mean US National League Championships) and wherever you look it is possible to see that proud record literally written into the walls of their home ground. 

The new stadium, which was built across the street from the old 1923 stadium, opened in 2009. In order to pay homage to Yankee history, its design incorporates many of the 1923 design features including the 11,000 pieces of Indiana limestone in the exterior façade and the stadium’s name in V cut gold leaf lettering. It faced many controversies during its construction including its location and the record breaking $1.5 billion price tag.

Today it is fondly referred to as ‘the house that George built’ – as owner of the franchise George Steinbrenner had to build it himself since the NYC government under Mayor Bloomberg pulled out of former Mayor Giuliani’s offer to publically fund the construction of new stadia for both the Mets and the Yankees.

The old Yankees stadium was often referred to as ‘The House That Babe Built’ and so, as baseball is filled with superstitions and ‘good luck’ rituals, the ground-breaking ceremony for the new stadium was arranged to take place on the 58^th anniversary of Babe Ruth’s death. 

Wikipedia tells us that during its construction, a worker (who was an avid Boston Red Sox fan) buried a replica jersey of the Red Sox player David Ortiz under the visitor’s dugout with the objective of placing a ‘hex’ on the Yankees, much like the ‘Curse of the Bambino’ that had plagued the Red Sox lever since they misguidedly traded a young Babe Ruth to the Yankees in 1920.  But the planned ‘hex’ obviously didn’t work, since the Yankees won the 2009 World Series, in their first year in the new stadium. 

 

Today the ground looked resplendent with the patterns of freshly mown grass cut and rolled from different directions contrasting with the recently wet skinned infield and flags from all of the teams in the league posted around the roof of the stadium flapping in the light breeze. The roof features a replica of the frieze that was a trademark of the old stadium and the wall beyond the bleachers is ‘cut out’ to reveal the subway trains as they pass by, just as was the case in the original Yankee Stadium.

The new electronic scoreboard (which was until recently the largest such scoreboard in the world) stands proudly in the centre of the outfield bleachers, but there is also a manually operated auxiliary scoreboard that is built into the left and right field fences, in the same locations as these had existed in the old stadium. 

 

The atmosphere inside the stadium was electric and it was kind of unnerving that everyone was happy – a very unusual for a crowd of new Yorkers. We marvelled at the ‘Great Hall’ – a concourse with a seven story high ceiling built between the exterior façade and the interior of the stadium between Gates 4-6 and in which hangs (in pride of place) the 20 banners of past and present Yankees legends. 

We walked on to our seats and on the way bought ourselves some Yankees caps, some beers and a hot dog with mustard and relish.

We could have had a bucket of sliders (bucket filled with mini hamburgers – and they looked good – but we went for the traditional fare instead), took our seats and waited for the game to begin. And then we saw Donald Trump.

The pre-game entertainment was quite emotional with first responders from Sandy Hook standing to attention in front of the Marines unfurling yet another huge US flag as the anthem was being sung. By the time these preliminaries were finally finished we were well and truly ready for the call ‘play ball’, as were the players and the more than 50,000 fans who sat all around us.       

In the sixth innings Peter decided to visit the Yankees Museum, which features a wonderful collection of memorabilia including the ‘ball wall’, tributes to the legends of the game including Don Larsen’s perfect game in the 1956 World Series and the Yankees retired numbers. Unfortunately he missed the seventh innings tradition of the game stopping and everyone standing to sing the words to ‘Take Me Out to the Ballgame’.

This song is a 1908 Tin Pan Alley classic written by Jack Norworth and Albert von Tilzer. It was a common feature of vaudeville acts back in the day. Surprisingly it wasn’t until 1934 that it was first played at a high school game in Los Angeles (and at a league game the year after). 

Today it is the unofficial 7th innings anthem of baseball everywhere in the US and was voted as one of the ‘American Songs of the 20th Century’. For many Americans the singing of this song is one of the ‘rituals of summer’.

I was intrigued to note that the song makes reference to the ubiquitous packets of caramel covered popcorn and peanuts (called ‘Crackerjacks’) that are traditionally sold and consumed at all ballgames. In the song the brand name is sung with a pause in the middle of the first word: ‘Cra…..cker Jack’ and that’s exactly how the vendors call it as they wander around the stadium selling the product today!

We knew baseball was popular in the US, but until this day we didn’t we realise how important this game is to the American way of life. This is a game whose influence extends well beyond the game itself. Indeed passionate involvement in the game and lifelong support of a [particular team appears to be fundamental to the formation of many people’s identity.

With ‘good ol’ traditional family values’ it has becomes a vehicle through which many men bond with their sons and boys learn what it means to be faithful to something for life.

It, more than any other game we’ve seen, crosses the boundaries of race and ethnicity and bonds America and its families.

The men sitting around us that we talked to all had happy memories of times with their fathers and stories of great plays they had seen when their dads had taken them to games. And many were repeating that cycle with their sons today. Sport in America is still very much a man’s game.

Final score Yankees 2 - Red Sox 8.

Also unbeknown to us was the fact that baseball season Opening Day also marks the time of the year when every ‘tradie’ in NYC (and I am willing to bet all of America) changes hats. This is but one example of a secret ritual in this wonderful city. It has taken us up until now to realise that there are certain days when an email must go out to all the locals indicating a change in the dress code. Today it was Yankee caps – obligatory for workmen and optional but highly recommended for anyone else, especially if you’re wearing jeans. The next part of this ritual involves giving sideways glances to those who obviously did not get ‘the email’.

This makes the ongoing game of spot the tourist (which is usually decided by which direction they are looking – New Yorkers are looking up and down to check what labels others have on whereas tourists are always looking from side to side or at maps or cameras) even more fun.

Note – for the first time in 30 years I didn’t play an April Fools trick on Peter today. In fact I had more fun watching him anticipate when the action might be happening!