People in New York look at me funny when I tell them I'm from Indiana.
I don't know if it's because they think I'm the son of an illiterate farmer or if they're busy trying to figure out where "Indiana" is in New Jersey. Nevertheless, I've always been envious of New York's embarrassment of baseball riches.
When I found out I'd be interning this summer in the Big Apple, I made a Bucket List of things I wanted to do before returning to tend to the corn.
Atop my list: Shea and Yankee Stadium. I wanted to see these baseball monuments in person before their respective teams bounced for shiny replacements across the street.
My first taste of Shea Stadium came last month during the Subway Series. It was the first sporting event I'd attended where I felt obligated to tell someone they sucked. Sports fans everywhere could learn a thing or two about dedication from New Yorkers. These people would have booed their own mothers if she muffed a groundball.
My pilgrimage to Yankee Stadiuma couple of weeks later was even more memorable, and it had nothing to do with Richie Sexson's debut. From my seats, you could actually see The House That Steinbrenner Built peaking around the leftfield foul pole, as if it were asking, "Are you guys done over there yet?"
Even if you despise the Yankees, you can't help but feel a little nostalgic when inside Yankee Stadium. I felt honored to be sitting in the upper deck. I can't imagine what the guys in the outfield felt like.
In the ninth inning my friend and I snuck down to the lower level to get a better lasting image of the greatest baseball stadium in history. Forget camera phones, I wanted to smell, taste and feel Yankee Stadium for the first and last time.
We got down there just in time… to see A-Rod strikeout. Now I knew what it felt like to be a Yankee fan. A half-inning later, the announcer serenaded the crowd with those three precious words: "The Yankees win!" Exiting the stadium, Frank Sinatra came over the loudspeakers crooning his New York anthem. It was perfect.
I looked around me and wondered if the die-hard Yankee fans were ready to leave this ballpark for good. Sure, the concourses are grimy and the seats rickety, but what could be better than history? It's like trying to replace the Grand Canyon with a newer, bigger hole.
But I've realized something even a Hoosier can comprehend. New Yorkers might be losing their stadiums, but the tradition isn't going anywhere. The Mets will still have their relentless fan base, who gush over the days of Darryl Strawberry and Dwight Gooden, but can't stand the current bums on the field.
The Yankees will still wear pinstripes and have the deepest pockets. The legend of Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle won't come to an end with Yankee Stadium's closing.
So thanks for sharing a little bit of baseball history with me, New York.
Now stop looking at me.
Janipher Choi
Tori Praver
Mavs Dancers
College Football, Top 25 Review
Comments (100) Add A Comment
Now, a bacon martini, I'm having some trouble getting my mind wrapped around that one...
Marshall K. - Top Cat
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No, no, no. You're supposed to wrap bacon around it, not your mind. There's not much left of that anyway.
DOC - Major Medical
Total Comments (1732)
(I spent like a month typing this post about tomatoes...so brought it forward)
Will you bring them in for everyone?
Just Ten Duke |
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sure...I thought I could corner the market on fresh tomatoes after that salmon scare (what does a fish have to do with tomatoes anyway??) a couple weeks ago...so I tried to get that Beaks guy to get me the Tomato Crop report before it's official release, but Beaks was out studying ape behavior or something. Thus ended my push for market domination, and I again have the usual run up in tomato supply...
gill | 07/24/08, 01:57 PM
gill_
Total Comments (9374)
Matt, is your SI nickname "Cutter"?
Martel - Moopsbane
Total Comments (3940)
Well done Matt.
Did you ride the 9 train into Shea?
Jim from Milwaukee
Milwaukee , WI
Total Comments (790)
Will you bring them in for everyone?
Just Ten Duke |
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sure...I thought I could corner the market on fresh tomatoes after that salmon scare (what does a fish have to do with tomatoes anyway??) a couple weeks ago...so I tried to get that Beaks guy to get me the Tomato Crop report before it's official release, but Beaks was out studying ape behavior or something. Thus ended my push for market domination, and I again have the usual run up in tomato supply...
gill
gill,
You should prolly stagger your planting schedule so your garden will provide you with a plethora of tomatoes throughout the summer, not all in one big bunch on July 24th.
Ten Duke
St Catharines, ON
Total Comments (2391)
Where is Indiana, anyway? Does Harrison Ford live there?
gill_
Total Comments (9374)
Where is Indiana, anyway?
gill
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It must be somewhere in Canada. It's the Hoser State.
Martel - Moopsbane
Total Comments (3940)
Where is Indiana, anyway?
gill
I looked it up on Wiki and apparantly it's where Larry Bird runs 500 miles every May and then nothing else happens the rest of the year.
Ten Duke
St Catharines, ON
Total Comments (2391)
gill,
You should prolly stagger your planting schedule so your garden will provide you with a plethora of tomatoes throughout the summer, not all in one big bunch on July 24th.
Ten Duke
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will try to remember that for next year, to celebrate the 25th year I've had a garden...*sarcasm alert*
of course you stagger them...the early ones are fabulously fresh tasting. then you get the majority of them ripe so you can process large quantity. then a few stragglers to keep you in fresh until fall. But when you plant 30 tomato plants, you will end up with plenty for some friends...
gill_
Total Comments (9374)
This kid is good. Hire him one day.]
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If he's that good, shouldn't he be hired for more than a day?
Marshall K. - Top…
Total Comments (6216)
Now stop looking at me.
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I wonder what part of NY he is in . . . I thought NYers were under strict orders to avoid eye contact.
Tom, ALRanger
Richardson , TX
Total Comments (1953)
gill,
You should prolly stagger your planting schedule so your garden will provide you with a plethora of tomatoes throughout the summer, not all in one big bunch on July 24th.
Ten Duke
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will try to remember that for next year, to celebrate the 25th year I've had a garden...*sarcasm alert*
of course you stagger them...the early ones are fabulously fresh tasting. then you get the majority of them ripe so you can process large quantity. then a few stragglers to keep you in fresh until fall. But when you plant 30 tomato plants, you will end up with plenty for some friends...
gill
glad I could help.
Ten Duke
St Catharines, ON
Total Comments (2391)
so I tried to get that Beaks guy to get me the Tomato Crop report before it's official release, but Beaks was out studying ape behavior or something.
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Yeah, where is Beaks?
Marshall K. - Top…
Total Comments (6216)
Aw, you guys, give Matt a break. Indiana isn't all corn fields.
They have lots of pig farms, too.
Kari - DaPrez
Geneva , IL
Total Comments (7424)
. . . I wanted to smell, taste and feel Yankee Stadium . . .
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Is this an Indiana thing, too?
Tom, ALRanger
Richardson , TX
Total Comments (1953)
They have lots of pig farms, too.
Kari - President of Pagination
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It all comes right back to bacon, doesn't it.
Martel - Moopsbane
Total Comments (3940)
glad I could help.
Ten Duke
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will say that when I lived at the end of the earth (ie just on the Canadian border, and it's great up there) that the season was just barely long enough to get tomatoes before frost killed 'em...then you had no choice but to get deluged with tomatoes...thus my love for homemade tomato juice, stewed tomatoes, etc
gill_
Total Comments (9374)
...and Matt, nice post. Great job!
Kari - DaPrez
Geneva , IL
Total Comments (7424)
Oh, something else about Indiana--I've had some really, really good times there.
Really good times.
Kari - DaPrez
Geneva , IL
Total Comments (7424)
Or you could just plant one zucchini and one squash and have plenty for everyone. When I was growing up, everyone had a huge garden, and put up vegetables for the winter. It was almost funny sometimes how everyone would be trying to give away their extra squash and zucchine.
Marshall K. - Top…
Total Comments (6216)
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