NY: Part I

Numerous American things took place last night. First off, a couple friends and I went to Yankee Stadium (1). For those of you who do not know, Yankee Stadium is in its last year of existence as they are ferociously building a new stadium for next season across the street. Right off the bat, I was doing American stuff in an American ballpark.


I went to the game with 2 very good friends of mine from back in the day, like we are talking Mohave Middle School in Scottsdale, AZ, circa 1998-2000. Ashely Ebbert, Nolan Ticer, and I were sitting in the bleachers (2). The bleachers are where the "Bleacher Creatures" reside. They are a loud, obnoxious contingency of people who bleed Yankee blue. Considering it is the last year of the stadium, more commonly known as the House that Ruth Built, they have a large billboard countdown in center field. Once the game is official, they have some person pull this lever and the number of games to be played in the stadium for the rest of the year goes down by one. We were at the 40th to last game in the stadium. After the completion of the 5th inning, this guy from a local Boys and Girls Club comes on the screen to pull the lever. This is what I hear:


Yankee fan in Giambi jersey shirt: "Pull the fuckin' lever already"
Yankee fan with backwards hat: "Go back to Belleville, you fuckin' bum" (3)

Great American things.

Turns out, the Yankees lose 3-2 to the Texas Rangers (UnAmerican). We decided we should drink some beers and wait to catch a later train back to Manhattan to avoid a crammed ride with a bunch of depressed fans. We end up at a place called Yankee Tavern a block from the stadium. As a side not, I bought a shirt on the way to the bar that said on the front in Boston font "Bahston Sawks Cacks" and on the back "And DICE K Swallows" (4). We enter the bar and sit down at the only three empty seats at the bar and buy a round (about $20). We meet Patrick, a 33-year old Bronx cop who tends bar a couple nights a week for his buddy, the manager. We get to talking about the Yanks and move onto Wrigley Field and then the University of Iowa. Pat loves Iowa people after meeting them at the Iowa-Northern Illinois game last year. I drop a little Hawks knowledge (thanks Chad) and more about Grinnell and Pat hits us with a free round of drinks.

We move on to talk about Notre Dame, as I tell Pat I was in South Bend for the miraculous Notre Dame win over Duke last year (both teams were 1-9 at the time). Pat also loves Scottsdale, AZ and would love nothing more than to buy a condo there, retire, and golf all the time. Eventually the manager comes over and starts talking baseball with us. He was a minor league pitcher and knew about Cedar Rapids, Burlington, and Clinton, Iowa from his stint in the Midwest League.

As the manager states: "I prolly got three kids over there in Clinton. It's a shithole, but I fuckin' love that place. I had some great times there." (5)

Soon after I meet their friend Johnnie. We start talking about the Giants Super Bowl victory this past February (6) and I find out that Pat is a Jets fan. A fucking Jets fan. Here is what Pat says:

"So my father is a Giants fan and he owned a bar when I was younger. In 1998, the Jets are playing the Broncos for the AFC Championship. The Jets go up 10-0 and all the Jets fans in the place start calling people asking if they can get off work to go to the Super Bowl and who wants tickets and whatnot. The place goes mad. My father, who is die-hard Giants fan, writes on the mirror behind the bar 'Let's Go Giants.' The Broncos come back and win. Fucking Jinx!" (7)

Johnnie works for the Yanks. He confirms A-Rod is a dickhead and that Derek Jeter is God's gift to everyone.

We become such great friends with the manager, Pat, and Johnnie that not only do we get free shirts, but Pat tossed back Nolan's credit card after about our 5th drink and said "I don't need your fuckin' money;" then proceeded to give us about 7 more drinks. They locked the doors about 2:30 and we just hung out till around 3:30 with these guys. We got about 12 drinks and only paid for our first round. A damn American night (8).



Pat is also working on getting us some Yanks-Red Sox tickets for this coming weekend. Keep your fingers crossed.

We got on the train, hit up McDonalds, and passed out at Ashley's apartment. It was awesome. I counted 8 American things in this blog, although we all well know that over 100 American things took place. Keep checking for more and more updates as the week continues.