Sunday, September 21, 2008

"Soon Gone, But Never Forgotten"

There must be lots of crying in New York, because tonight is the last game to be played in the old Yankee Stadium. I was lucky to get to see a couple Yankee games while I lived in NY. My own first stadium experience was right out of a Ken Burns PBS documentary. A coworker in my lab had extra tickets, and I won the lottery after all the guys that he asked first couldn't go. Sometimes a gal gets lucky that way. After we went through the less-than-memorable ticket area getting searched, we headed for the nosebleed section. But first Jim said that we had to go into the stadium through a tunnel in the lower deck, since it was my first time there. As we walked through the tunnel at almost ground level, the shiny yellow sunlight poured through the other end. Outside the hole, unveiled as we walked to the opening, my eyes were saturated with the bright green, orange, and turquoise, of the checker-mowed grass, pristine dirt, and clear sky. You could almost hear the angel chorale singing a heavenly falsetto, "Awhhhhhhhhhh!" as we breached the tunnel into the sunshine. It was an amazing sight -- a historic small piece of land framed by the stadium seats and what was left of the Yankee picket fence along the top -- you could almost see the ghosts of Yankees players and fans long gone. I was very grateful to Jim for taking the effort to color my first pro-game with that kind of philosophical experience. The second game I saw at the Stadium was on an IBM Club trip. It was an Old-Timers' game on a sweltering day in July. I got to see all the old guys in miniature out on the field, and I have the famous ant-sized figures on film for posterity. That was a great day too. Good-bye Yankee Stadium. :-(