Goodnight

My Brother and I were at the last game at Yankee Stadium last Sunday. It was quite the spectacle, this time entirely unrelated to anything of my doing. We got to the stadium around 2pm or so because we had heard they were opening up Monument Park early and then letting people walk around the field. Awesome.

So after buying 3 programs- one for each of us and an extra for the old man-we tried to make our way to Monument Park. We passed another vendor selling programs and there were like 50 people going nuts taking pictures. What's so special about this hump? Oh I see, he's selling a program to a small, black man wearing funny glasses and a hat he appears to have designed himself . More on that later.

Anyway, Monument Park and the walking on the field was supposed to be open from 1-4 and then shut down so the teams could take BP. For reasons passing understanding, however, it was shut down at 2:30 and we did not get a chance to get on the field. Bummer.

Once in the stadium, we could not leave so we went to our seats: Section 33, Row U, seats 1 an 2. Translation: all the way the fuck up in right field. Things did not seem to be going well. Little did we know, our fortunes were about to change.

That's right MFers. None other than Mr. October himself, Reg-gie Jackson sauntered up to our section. (Full disclosure: our seats were about 10 rows up from where they wound up setting up shop. I told you we were way the fuck up there.)Following him, filming what I am assuming will be a documentary in re: Yankee Stadium, is non other than Spike Lee, noted overrated filmmaker and hat entrepreneur. Also pictured: overall nice guy and acting powerhouse Val Kilmer's back of head. Spike wanted to take Reggie up to where he hit some of his more memorable homerun. Reggie said, "I can't believe I actually hit a ball this high."

Oh Reggie, you modest SOB. I actually shook hands with Reggie and Kilmer, which was pretty cool. I told Kilmer that I loved Tombstone (which is totally true, he is fucking awesome in that film). I think I was the only one to realize it was actually Val which, to be fair, is not surprising at Yankee Stadium when you are rolling with Reggie and Spike. I met them, we are now on a first name basis. Deal with it.

So that was pretty cool. Instead of checking out monuments to Yankee Legends, we actually met one. Not bad. After that, we sat around for 4 hours. Seriously. We watched the Yanks work out and take BP. Again, we were so high up, not even the previously enhanced arms of Jason Giambi could provide us with a souvenir. Ah well.

Then the Yankee pomp and circumstance began. All the Yankee ghosts were out in full force that night. Portrayed by real people. Obviously.

That's Babe Ruth, waving to the fans. I think. So high up. Literally 3 rows from the top. But I digress. Babe! How bout showing a little love to the fans behind you, man?

So yeah, that was...interesting. Kind of cool I guess. Whatever. The only bummer was that we could not see the video screen from where we were sitting so we could not see some of the great moments and players featured. Like, say, Don Mattingly sending the stadium into hysterics with his playoff home run against Seattle in '95.
Don Mattingly homers for the Yankees Game 1 of the 1995 ALDS

I still get chills.

Back to the game. It was a good one. The Yankees won and Captain Jeter gave a pretty good speech at the end of the game. They then did a lap around the stadium, which was cool. The police were out on full force, horses and all.

No Wade Boggses were harmed in the filming of this scene. After running onto the field,

one dummy-o fan was, however.

So that was the day/night. It was a long one, but all in all, it was pretty solid.