Right, Nick? Yankee away uniforms rule! :) I wanted to get some pictures up last night, as long as I was looking through them all on my computer anyway. And now that I've done that, I can write a recap of my weekend (because, in keeping with the baseball theme, I’m sure everyone would like a play-by-play of how I spent my time). Remember when you were a kid, and your teacher would make you write an essay entitled “How I Spent My Summer Vacation”? And everybody in the class would always groan and roll their eyes and dread having to write out two or three paragraphs about their trip to Disneyworld. Remember that? Yeah, now I write stuff like that for fun… and I kinda miss the grades… :)
Anyway, so here’s the most interesting observation about Ameriquest Field, where the Rangers play – it’s actually easier to get to, and park near, Yankee Stadium in the middle of the BRONX than to get to the Rangers’ stadium. But after wending our way through insane traffic and settling on valet parking (we’d already missed the first inning of the game, and the line for “general parking” seemed to stretch to infinity…) the stadium itself was very nice. I was a little worried that our Yankee shirts and caps would stand out in the crowd, but for no need – I’d say at least a third of the people in the stadium were Yankee fans, if not more. It might’ve been closer to half – the crowd noise seemed about even, no matter what was going on. If a Ranger got a hit, the crowd would cheer… if a Yankee scored, the crowd would cheer… if a section would start up a “let’s go Rangers” chant, it was met with an equal number of “let’s go Yankees” shouts, until the whole stadium was ringing with a resounding “let’s go Rankerees.”
The first eight innings went by pretty quickly, with the Yankees scoring 8 runs and the Rangers down by seven. Mussina was pitching a great game, but when he allowed ONE little run in the eighth inning, Torre decided to pull him out and replaced him with Aaron Small. And suddenly three more runs scored. Out goes Small, in comes Farnsworth, and in come two more runs. At this point, every Yankee fan in the stadium just wanted the carnage to stop. The Rangers fans were getting much too loud and obnoxious, and needed to be stopped (Yankee fans are NEVER loud and obnoxious…). There was an ancient-looking Rangers fan sitting in front of me, next to his equally-ancient-looking companion, and he managed to rasp out an emphatic “go home Yankees” in the middle of an enthusiastic Yankee chant. I curbed the urge to toss him down the stairs toward the dugout, knowing that nature would eventually take its course anyway. And finally, FINALLY, with Rivera pitching, the seemingly never-ending eighth inning DID come to an end, but the Yankees’ comfortable seven-run lead was whittled down to one. The ninth inning was tense, but the final out elicited a victorious – if not completely smug, arrogant and Yankee proud – cheer from the crowd. And for the millionth time in my life, I wondered – why would anyone want to be a fan of any other baseball team??
Rick and I, fortunately, stayed in Dallas for the weekend – but my mom and dad left in the seventh inning to get a head start on the traffic heading back to Austin (they missed the nail-biting eighth inning) and our friends Tim and Ed drove back after the game and hit some serious thunderstorms on I-35. We’d been worried all week about the possibility of storms raining out the game in Dallas, and strangely enough, Dallas never got more than a nice light show from the storms in the distance. It was the people driving back to Austin who had to deal with the storms. (You guys shoulda stayed in Dallas! :)) So all in all, the game was a great experience. We’re hoping to go back again in July, when the Yankees come back for another series against the Rangers. And hopefully, we can get seats directly above the Yankee dugout. Because I want to be able to just crawl over the top, poke my head in, and say hi to Jeter. I’m sure he won’t mind…
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