My last visit to the old Yankee Stadium

This was a note I wrote after my last visit to the old Yankee Stadium on 6/8/06.  It really happened.

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Tonight, Drew Millhon (an ABC producer) and I went to Yankee Stadium to see the Red Sox play the Yankees. We saw 7 innings of really good baseball, then we left. Actually we had to leave, because we were thrown out.

Drew and I were thrown out of Yankee Stadium.

This is what happened. In the 7th inning, Red Sox captain Jason Varitek hit a 3-run home run to put the Red Sox ahead 7-3. The ball landed about 20 feet from where we were sitting in right field (in seats given to us by ABC’s Ron Claiborne for a reasonable price.). The home run made us happy.

Then, 2 batters later, the Yankees pitcher hit Kevin Youkilis, my favorite player. This made us sad, or actually a little angry. After the brave Mr. Youkilis was so savagely targeted, I exclaimed something to the effect of, "unbelievable, he should charge the mound!"

It was then that we noticed a very large man sitting across the aisle from us. He wasn’t just large, he was inebriated, wearing a Yankees jersey, and had no excess of teeth.

This man disagreed with my assessment of the blatant attack on young Kevin. He said, if Youkilis charged the mound, "he would get his ‘blank’ kicked.". He also said the Red Sox played in a town called, "Hooterville.". Both Drew and I have been to a lot of places, but neither of us are familiar with "Hooterville.".

He went on to say that the, "Red Sox suck."  This was not friendly. Nice people don’t talk this way.

Trying to reason with the man, Drew gently reminded him of a time in 2004 when the Yankees were leading the Red Sox 3-0 in a 7 game series, but did not actually prevail. It is a matter of historical record…you can look it up.

But this man was not impressed with Drew’s logic, the man said, "yeah, well the Yankees have won 26 World Series."

That is also part of the historical record. The Yankees have, in fact, won a great many World Series. So my response to the large, inebriated, toothless man in the Yankees jersey was, “and it was all because of you.”

In retrospect, perhaps I should have taken a different approach, because the large, inebriated, toothless man in the Yankees jersey then got up out of his seat, approached us and said, “yeah, well it is gonna be all because of me when I kick your ass.”

This was the best point the gentleman made all night. And despite the fact that I have been working out, and despite the fact that Drew is quite powerful, we decided that engaging this man physically would not be wise. So we stayed in our seats, silent, and tried to watch more baseball.

It was then that the valiant security guards at Yankee Stadium swooped in. But did they approach the large, inebriated, toothless man in the Yankees jersey who was using profanity and threatening physical violence? No. They came to us, asked to see our tickets, and demanded we leave (they escorted us out) while leaving the the large, inebriated, toothless man in the Yankees jersey in his seat. They told us they have a zero tolerance policy. Zero tolerance of what? Can it be at Yankee stadium, it is against the rules to be threatened by large drunk people? If that is the case we were guilty.

Drew pointed out that the other man was the only one using profanity. This only confused the Yankee Stadium staff, because profanity is a word with a lot of letters.

It was clear the only thing we were guilty of was being Red Sox fans. (Drew actually argued that he is an Indians fan, but that did not win him clemency.)

So we were thrown out of Yankee Stadium for liking the Red Sox and for almost getting beaten up.  New York, New York!

By the way, Boston won.