Rant #1959: Take Me Out To the Ballgame

After an absolutely horrendous work week, my family and I took in a baseball game at Yankee Stadium.

It was a somewhat rare occurrence for us--not the game, but where we were sitting.

For the first time in ages, we sat just about all the way down in the Stadium, courtesy of a friend of mine, who got me these prime tickets for my 60th birthday.

To make a long story short, we were supposed to see another game, and there were just two tickets.

That game was rained out, and we had to switch our tickets.

My son and I wanted my wife to go, too, so what happened is that we switched the tickets, got a third one, and here we were, in the Stadium against the dreaded Boston Red Sox.

To get this out of the way, the Yankees got drubbed this game, 10-5, so in person this year, my son and I--my wife did not go to the previous game we attended due to sickness--are 1-1, having seen one win and one loss at the fabled ballpark in person.

The Yankees lost again last night, so they lost two of three to the Bosox, and right now, the Yankees are, quite frankly, a pretty bad team, but they are my team, so I have to stick with them.

Back to the ballpark ... we had padded seats, and there was ample leg room, so unlike the last game, my legs didn't hurt me after nine innings.

We had waitress service, so we didn't have to run around looking for food if we were hungry (I did anyway, but later on, we did use the service).

And yes, our tickets were checked even when we were seated and had occupied the seats for about an hour or an hour and a half. God forbid we had snuck down from somewhere else, but since the game was just about sold out, it would have been difficult to do that, anyway.

Now, while we were sitting in the pricey seats, we were not sitting in the real pricey seats.

Those were in front of us, the $1,000 seats bought by corporations.

And yes, there was a fence separating us from THEM, if you get my drift.

So no, we weren't all the way down, but we were all the way down enough rather than in God's country seats that we usually sit in.

Even though the game wasn't a good one, our vantage point was, and what a difference from where we normally see a game at the Stadium!

So I have to thank my friend, who did a good job in getting these seats for us, even though they were not the seats he originally got for us. (I called him yesterday afternoon, but he was not home, and I left a message on his machine thanking him for the tickets.)

Whatever the case, it was a nice day at the ballpark, not too hot but just warm enough.

In these times of such turmoil, it is nice to leave it all behind and go see a baseball game.

We can disagree on lots of things as a society, but go to a baseball game, and leave all the disagreements behind.

Play ball!