Uncharacteristically, last week I attended a major league baseball game, and a day game, and a Yankees game at that, with my friends Bruce and Mike. Typically, my brother and I board the Flushing train from Grand Central once a summer to watch the Mets play at night. I hail from a Mets family. The tradition started with my father who found in the bumbling early-Sixties New York Mets the full flowering of his dyspeptic belief that “anything that can go wrong will go wrong.”
My memory was never very good. But I can say with confidence, abetted by my mother’s diary, that the only time I know for certain that I previously watched the Bronx Bombers in daylight occurred on June 20th, 1963. Bruce claims we attended at least one other day game together a couple of decades ago. I’m happy to defer to him. Bruce is a sports fanatic who can immediately call up the dates of birthdays, wedding and wars based on whether one of his teams had won or lost that day, made the playoffs or took the World Series.
Several friends and I traveled to Yankee Stadium that long ago June day to celebrate my 10th birthday, after lunching on a Cowboys and Indians themed birthday cake at our apartment. I know this is too much information but I think it’s pretty cool when, more than sixty years later, you have documentary proof not only of the cake decorations but also the party favors. So here they are, purchased at the Five and Ten by my mother the previous afternoon: pocket flashlights, key chains with change holders, chocolate cigarettes and chocolate umbrellas.
My mom turns out to be a more reliable narrator than A.I. because when I asked it for the Yankees lineup that afternoon they included Mickey Mantle. Artificial Intelligence — does anybody know what its preferred pronouns are? — claimed that the Yankees beat the Baltimore Orioles by a score of 4-1. My mother’s journal — she chaperoned us — contended that the home team played the Washington Senators and won 5-4. I’d tend to believe A.I. since my mother was no sports fan. While she and my father were bullfighting aficionados that Yankees game was likely the only baseball game she ever attended.
But she was correct. A.I. was wrong. If it’s going to surpass human intelligence it will need to start taking its education more seriously. The Baseball Almanac confirmed the opposing team and the score. Also, Mickey Mantle was sadly missing from the lineup that afternoon. Nonetheless, its All-Star cast included Tony Kubek, Bobby Richardson, Joe Pepitone, Roger Maris and Yogi Berra, who hit a 4th inning home run.
Since I have little memory of the event, apart from my mother’s diary and the Internet, there’s only two things that I can say for certain about the occasion apart from the fact that I undoubtedly had a good time. I was the birthday boy, after all. We surely had better seats than our nosebleed section view last week — my father would have bought or wrangled box seats from somebody — and every pause between pitches back in the Sixties wasn’t filled with earsplitting music, chants, games, and the Fan Cam on the Jumbotron.
Perhaps it’s a sign of age but my experience of baseball as a quasi-bucolic experience has been smashed by sports franchises in pursuit of spectator engagement. I suppose the thinking is that contemporary fans require constant stimulation. If their senses aren’t being bombarded every second they’ll retreat to the Pavlovian safety of their mobile phones.
It’s nothing short of tragic. I once enjoyed going to games because of all its ancillary attractions: the dazzling emerald green field under the lights, the conversation between pitches, the home team communion with perfect strangers, and the hot dogs, beer and crackajacks. The action on the field served as scenic backdrop until something seismic happened; men on base, the wind up, the pitch, the ball being launched into orbit that made you jump to your feet as one. Baseball used to be a social occasion, not a hurt locker.
I hardly flinched when I joined the line at the snack stand last week, knowing in advance that I was going to spend an unconscionable amount of time there and miss a large portion of the action. At least I’d escape the noise. I was reminded of the routine humiliation of flying economy these days. Whether it’s the Yankees or Delta or United the message seems to be that you ought to be ashamed of yourself because you can’t afford business class or field level concierge service box seats.
The proximate cause of the forced forty-five minute snack stand wait seemed to be too many fans; it was Juneteenth with a robust turnout of 45,671. The other problem was the $27.99 “Value Bucket” of chicken tenders with fries. The kitchen couldn’t keep up with demand and so weary staffers, in Yankees caps and pinstripes, stood idly by waiting for the troughs to be slid in their direction.
Frankly, I think that devouring anything other than franks at a ballpark is sacrilege. But I realize we live in a Top Chef age where everybody flatters himself a gourmet. I missed back-to-back second inning homers by Yankees Trent Grisham and Paul Goldschmidt but made it back to my seat in time for two rain delays. I was cool with that. The speed and efficiency the grounds crew displayed unrolling a tarp across the infield constituted a show unto itself.
Come to think of it, that may have been the only time all game that the blistering stadium sound system took a break. Also, our cheap seats turned out to be a blessing in disguise because we were located under an overhang. We got to watch the rich folks in the field boxes get soaked while we stayed dry.
Ralph Gardner Junior is a journalist who divides his time between New York City and Columbia County. More of his work can be found in the Berkshire Eagle and on Substack.
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.
