Opportunities Missed, Opportunities Gained

            I have a long history of missed opportunities at Yankee Stadium. There was that game against the Royals that my brother and I decided to skip back in 1996, only to miss a walk-off, two-run homer by Darryl Strawberry. There was the playoff game against the Mariners in 2001, when I landed tickets only to fall ill the day of the game and miss it entirely, including a home run by my favorite player, Bernie Williams.

There was the game against the Red Sox back in 1993, when my friend Stew and I drove to Yankee Stadium to see then-Red Sox stars Roger Clemens and Wade Boggs take on the Yankees only to realize when we got there that Stew’s automatic car window wouldn’t close on the driver’s side. He said there was no way he was leaving his car window open in a city parking lot, so we drove home.             And, to top it all, there was that Billy Joel concert at the Stadium back in 1990, when Amy and I had field-level seats but got caught in so much traffic that we arrived in time for the second encore. We stood on the field and sang along to the final three songs.

            When you go to events, you’re bound to miss some things. I obviously have. But I don’t get to Yankee Stadium as much anymore, so there’s not much room for any regrets. If I go to a game, I stay until the end and enjoy every minute. That was the plan last weekend, when I went to the big ballpark in the Bronx with my family.

            My mother had a tough summer health-wise, and we’re all thrilled that she’s feeling much better. So we decided to celebrate her birthday with a game at the Stadium. We arrived in our upper-deck seats behind home plate in time for the Saturday matinee, with six of us excited to watch the game together – my mom, my brother, my wife, our two girls, and myself.

            By the time the first inning had ended, the game was one hour old. The Yankees held a 3-2 lead in this sloppy contest, and our younger daughter was already wondering when the game would be over. But the girls settled down and started to enjoy the details of this ballpark, from the foul poles to the flags atop the stadium to the groundskeepers dancing to the Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.” Unfortunately, the Yankees and their opponent, the Oakland A’s, had not come ready to play their best baseball, and they dragged a 5-5 tie into extra innings.

            Our oldest daughter got caught up in the excitement of the late-innings drama, and we hung in there through 12 innings. When the 13^th inning began, we’d been in Yankee Stadium for five and a half hours. Everyone was hungry, and the girls were restless. By the time we’d made our way down to the lower level, the A’s had started the 13^th inning with three home runs, taking a 9-5 lead and sending us out of the park with no regrets. True, the Yankees would have last licks in the bottom of the 13^th, but we had seen enough for one day.

            We took the D train downtown, and got off on West 4^th Street to stop for dinner before driving home. As we walked toward the Italian restaurant we’d chosen for dinner, I passed another restaurant that had its windows wide open on this beautiful evening. As I glanced at the tables and diners to my left, I noticed a wide-screen TV behind them. And on that TV, I saw a live shot of Yankee Stadium. Atop that image was a score: A’s 9, Yankees 9.

            Say what? My mouth dropped. I turned to my mom and told her what I’d seen. She called out to the others, who found another restaurant window in time to stand on the sidewalk and watch the Yankees score yet another run in the 14^th inning to win by a score of 10-9. We stood beside a man who’d left the game himself, back in the eighth inning, and he shared high-fives with us after the winning run crossed home plate.

            Sigh.

So yes, the Yankees did execute the ultimate comeback while we were cruising along an underground tunnel in Manhattan. And yes, we missed it all. Add it to the list, right?

            But I have to say, I have a different spin on those missed opportunities at age 41. Sure, I wasn’t there to see the end of the game, and it was chaotic and dramatic and wonderful for the home fans. But remember, this day was never really about a baseball game. It was about a family celebrating a birthday, a mother, and good health. The only missed opportunity would have been to not go at all.

            And that’s how it’s always been. The day my brother and I missed the Strawberry home run? We actually spent that afternoon hanging out together at the Jersey Shore. The time I missed that playoff game because I was ill? I got to relax at home with my wife, and she pampered her sick husband. The day that Stew and I missed a game because of his window malfunction? We ended up taking another car to enjoy a nice dinner together that night.

            The Billy Joel concert? Well, that just stunk however you look at it. No silver linings there.

            But last weekend, as the Yankees gathered around home plate to celebrate their win, my family stepped into a fabulous restaurant on Houston Street to cap our day together. The girls had perked up, they were hanging out with their uncle and grandmother, and my mom was telling stories. The pizza arrived at our table, and we dug in hungrily.

            It was a success, however you look at it. There are no regrets about quality time with the people you love. And hey – somehow in the midst of it all, our baseball team had won a ballgame. Go Yankees. Go Mom.

Angels Too Early

I can remember the sudden horror I felt when I learned that Bob was dead. We had lived on the same dorm floor during our first two years of college, and had both traveled hundreds of miles to attend school in North Carolina. Some days, we’d run into each other in the fifth-floor lounge of Hinton James Dorm, especially if there was a ballgame on the TV. We’d talk about our places on opposite sides of the rivalry – he was a Red Sox fan from Massachusetts, while I was a Yankees fan from New York. Other days, we might see each other while cramming for a final, and share a quick conversation to distract us from the task at hand. I can recall him stopping by my room with some other friends to sing happy birthday to me during my freshman year, before we all walked across the street to watch North Carolina play Duke in a men’s basketball game.

Bob was truly a terrific guy. He was a scholar, an athlete, a friend, and a caring individual. And then, one Saturday afternoon in September, a drunken driver crossed over the yellow line on Highway 54, slammed into Bob’s Honda Accord, and ended his life. At the age of 20.

I remember the beautiful church ceremony in Chapel Hill a few days after Bob’s death. They played Billy Joel’s “Only the Good Die Young,” and we thought about the incredibly vibrancy that Bob had carried with him. We thought about the promise his life had held, and how it had all disappeared in a second. A van had swerved into his path, and that was it. I wrote a column for the school newspaper, sharing my own memories of Bob with the larger school community.

Bob was on my mind Thursday, when I learned that Los Angeles Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart and two others had been killed in a car accident, allegedly by a drunken driver. Police have arrested a 22-year-old and charged him with three counts of murder, stating that he had nearly triple the legal blood-alcohol level. Adenhart was 22 years old, and his death has stunned his family and friends, the Angels organization, and the world of baseball. The young man was tossing shutout baseball on a major-league diamond Thursday evening, only to see his life end in a flash just a few hours later. It is nearly impossible to believe. And yet, it happens dozens of times every day.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, an estimated 12,998 people were killed in alcohol-impaired driving crashes during 2007. This adds up to 36 people per day. Some, like Adenhart, are famous. Others, like Bob, are not. All of them are loved, and none can be replaced.

My wife and I have been car-shopping lately, and we’ve been debating the merits of the cars we’ve test-driven. She’d like a minivan; I’d prefer something more fuel-efficient. Whatever. We’ll eventually agree, then we’ll buy something and drive it off the lot. As we do, we can only hope that Bob, Nick, and the thousands of other drunk-driving victims are looking out for all of us.

The Angels and Red Sox have played against each other this Easter weekend. If there’s a fifth-floor lounge in heaven with a TV running, maybe Bob and Nick have had the chance to catch a game together. I’ll bet they had a lot in common, and plenty to talk about.

Ballparks and Brothers

I’ve been to Yankee Stadium dozens of times over the past 31 years. Ever since my first game – Bat Day in 1977, when I was handed a wooden Adirondack with the name “Thurman Munson” engraved on the barrel – I have felt so alive every time I’ve visited this ballpark. It is, without question, the greatest arena for sports that I have ever experienced. I have stood in the upper deck during playoff games and felt the electric pulse of 55,000 trying to will the Yankees to victory, the entire level shaking beneath our feet. I’ve sat in the lower deck during the lean years, watching Dave Winfield, Don Mattingly and Mike Pagliarulo lace frozen ropes into the gap before 20,000 intensely faithful fans. I’ve walked reverently through Monument Park, roared blissfully with the bleacher creatures, and stood on the field singing along with Billy Joel.

Wrigley Field, Fenway Park and Camden Yards are more aesthetically beautiful than Yankee Stadium ever was. But the beauty of this ballpark in the Bronx goes beyond anything the eye can see. The magic of Yankee Stadium rests in the way this place feels, and the passion its fans provide. It’s the kind of atmosphere that gives you 50,000 people roaring deliriously for a former Yankee who’s just lost his job with another team, as took place a few days ago during Old-Timer’s Day. As Willie Randolph jogged onto the field to wave his cap, he watched an entire stadium stand to its feet to welcome him home and nearly bring him to tears. Yankee fans often realize what a player needs before the player knows it himself, and that is where the mystique and aura lie. When the playoffs begin, Yankee fans know that they need to take their job of cheering to another level, and they do; it is for this reason that they love players like Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera and Andy Pettitte so much, for these three have also known how to find that extra level of intensity come October.

It’s difficult to imagine this place closing for business in a few weeks. But it will, and it is with this in mind that I checked out the prices on StubHub recently, to see if there was a chance I could say goodbye myself. I found ticket prices well into the hundreds, even thousands of dollars, for the remaining games played in the stadium this year. I guess the old place has earned this kind of price tag. I hope this isn’t a sign of things to come next year in the new park.

For now, though, I’ve got plenty of memories of my own moments in the big park: Ken Griffey Sr. soaring over the seats in left field to take a home run away from the Red Sox; Jerry Mumphrey smashing an upper-deck, walk-off home run against the Angels before those things were ever called “walk-offs”; Mattingly roping a double into the right-field corner to wrest the league batting title away from Winfield on the season’s last day; Ron Guidry striking out a dozen or so on Old-Timers’ Day, shortly before he himself became a retiree; Paul O’Neill drilling home runs on his way to a batting title; David Wells baffling the Rangers, then Indians, in the playoffs en route to the 125-win season of 1998; and the home crowd standing for Cal Ripken on one of his last games in the Bronx.

Much more than the players, though, I will remember the people I sat with at these games. My mom, my dad, my grandparents, best friends, college friends, teaching colleagues, fellow journalists. I’ll remember the games with my wife, the two of us holding hands as she let me fill her ears with useless stats. I’ll remember the game with my oldest daughter, her eyes opening wide as she looked down on the vast field of green. And most of all, I’ll remember the games I attended with my brother. My passion for this game leads me always to him, to our days playing, watching, and talking about this game. We have laughed, debated, high-fived and, yes, even argued in this ballpark. We’ve talked about nearly every aspect of our lives in the hours spent watching ballgames here. Add it all up and we’ve lived several days in this park, eating pretzels and hot dogs side by side in the upper deck. As we’ve grown older, the stadium has helped provide a place and time for making each other a priority, even when work and family demands are intense.

We’ll meet up for games in the new park, I’m sure. But just as the beautiful home our parents retired to doesn’t feel like the little ranch we grew up in, the new Yankee Stadium won’t feel quite like home, either. But we’ll have to adjust. Life is like that. In the end, it’ll be fine – so long as we’re there together.