Yankee Stadium...

      You would be hard pressed to script a better Yankees game than the one I got to see for my first Major League baseball game. After an 80 year rivalry between the Yankees and the Red Sox (probably the longest and bitterest in all of sport) they were meeting for one final battle in Yankee Stadium (they make their home in the new Yankee Stadium in 2009). 

      After catching the train in Grand Central Station for my first subway ride we made our way to Brooklyn...

     I'll spare you all the details but it was quite a spectacle, the sights, sounds and smells of a big league game. It was amazing to see how hard all the vendors worked and I had to keep reminding myself it was a a Thursday afternoon because it was a complete sellout. Many people like ourselves, making their pilgrimage to see Yankee Stadium for the first time and droves of Red Sox fans (which we were surrounded by) to see their team play in the Vatican of baseball one last time.

      The weather was unbelievable, hot but a summer breeze occasionally cooled things off. The game was a pitching battle with Boston leading 2-0 until the bottom of the seventh when veteran Jason Giambi was brought in to pinch hit with one man on and two out. With two strikes on him he cranks a bomb over the wall in left and the crowd totally erupts, everyone on their feet except the now quiet Boston fans. You could actually feel the electricity, I had chills and my eyes started to well up, it was hard to believe I was actually in Yankee Stadium with it's storied history- I wondered what it must have been like in a game seven of a World Series.

      Fast forward to the bottom of nine, three men on two out and Giambi at the plate again. With two strikes on him he smacks a single to left field, the crowd explodes again and the Yankees win the game... a perfect day at the ball yard. 

   Brace yourselves, as compelling as that bit of sports writing was, here come the pictures...

     Thanks to baseball because that was my original inspiration for going on this trip but it turned out to be so much more... sappy but true.