84-year-old retired firefighter watches Yankees win after World Series ticket surprise
Joe Baal, a retired firefighter, went to his first Yankees game at age 8.
Joe Baal was 8 years old when he went to his first New York Yankees game in 1948.
On Tuesday night, 76 years after that game, Baal attended his first World Series game with his daughter to watch his beloved Yankees take on the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 4 of the 2024 World Series.
Baal, now 84, brought good luck to the Yankees, who won 11-4 against the Dodgers at home, keeping their hopes alive as the World Series continues into Game 5.
The Dodgers currently lead the series 3-1.
"The Yankees win," Baal said after the game in a video shared on TikTok by his daughter, Jaymie DePalo.
DePalo, 36, who lives near her dad in Tampa, Florida, surprised Baal with World Series tickets last week after friends, family and complete strangers stepped up to make his dream come true.
"It's miraculous to me," Baal, now 84, told "Good Morning America" on Monday of attending a World Series game featuring the Yankees. "[My daughter] brought me to tears ... I don't cry much but I just that it's wonderful to get this opportunity."
DePalo told "GMA" that she and her three siblings grew up following the Yankees because of Baal, a native New Yorker who worked as a firefighter with the New York City Fire Department for nearly 30 years before retiring to Florida in 1991.
This year, DePalo watched the game that clinched the Yankees' ticket to the World Series while on FaceTime with her dad, and knew she had to get her dad to the World Series too.
"When I hung up with him, I immediately texted my sister and said, 'We have to get Pop up to a game,'" DePalo told "GMA," adding that she went online and quickly saw the high price of tickets. "I was like, what credit card can I put this on and get him there? I wanted to make sure he saw it in person. At 84 years old, you don't know how many more he's going to see."
DePalo said that while she and her sister were brainstorming over the next few days of how to afford tickets and travel, she thought of all the ways her dad had helped people over the years.
After retiring as a firefighter, Baal continued to help counsel fellow firefighters, according to DePalo. When the Sept. 11, 2001, attack occurred, Baal returned to New York for several months to help with recovery.
Over the next nearly 20 years, he stayed involved with the FDNY, helping to counsel firefighters, according to both Baal and DePalo.
DePalo said given how many people love and rely on her dad, she decided to post on social media about her wish to send him to a World Series game. She said she hoped a few people would donate to at least somewhat help defray the expense.
Instead, DePalo said more donations than she could have imagined started pouring in for her dad.
"Within two hours, we had enough money to send him, for a ticket to the game, and then it just kept going and going," DePalo said. "We had enough for a flight to get him here."
Last week, DePalo surprised her dad with a letter revealing that the two of them would be going to game four of the World Series together.
DePalo signed the letter not only from herself, but from each person who donated money to help make her dad's dream come true.
"I'm not a crybaby, but you got me," Baal said of his reaction. "It's a wonderful gift at this point in my life ... I don't even know half the people that put money in there, and it's just wonderful that they would think enough of me or Jayme or the family and do something like that for somebody."
He continued, "There's a lot of good people out there today. That's what we have to keep looking for."
DePalo said that she too has seen the power of good in people, which she said she also sees daily in her dad.
"I think for me personally, I just wanted to share with the world what a great man my dad is," she said. "And hopefully uplift some people in hard times and see him living his dream, and to show that dreams don't have an expiration date. You can be 84-years-old and still have dreams come true."
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