Doubling Up To NYC For Yankees Games
Baseball has been part of my life since day one. Being a Yankees fan came right along with it. When we first learned about our move to Keansburg, I immediately noticed its proximity to New York City. It was only natural for me to look at this as an opportunity of a lifetime to finally make it to a home game at Yankee Stadium. In my quick research, I realized there were two important games we had to go to. First up, I found that the St. Louis Cardinals were going to be in town for Memorial Day weekend, and the Boston Red Sox were playing the Yanks only a couple weekends later. It didn’t take much to convince Amity we were going to these games; I mean she loves Cardinals baseball and fully understands the significant of being able to see a Yankees vs Red Sox game in Yankee Stadium. The plans were set, and the excitement is high!!! Let’s Go Yankees!
Mile: 47,982
Quote of the Blog: “I have never been an actor on Broadway, but it feels like you’re on a stage wen playing at Yankee Stadium. And that’s the feeling I have always had. - Derek Jeter
Song of the Blog: “Empire State of Mind” - Jay-Z ft. Alicia Keys
Prior to going in for the game against the Cardinals, I had never been to New York City. So the act of hoping on a train, heading into the city, catching a game and heading home felt all to nonchalant. Nonetheless, it was real and we are very excited to be making this happen. We started our trip into the city by heading down to the New Jersey Transit Station in Middletown, NJ. This station was only 90 minutes outside of Penn Station in New York City. What made the ride even better, was the fact that the state had made all public transportation free for the holiday weekend. Once we got into the city, we quickly met up with one of Amity’s friends, Kinsy, who just happened to be visiting with her family. We got a coffee and headed down to the infamous Brooklyn Bagels. We both went with the Trenton sandwich, which turned out to be the largest bagel sandwich I have ever been handed. It was so big, we both could only handle half of it, and tossed the second half in our bag for later. So good though! Walking around the city eating a bagel and having a coffee only got me more excited to go up to Yankee stadium. After some pointers from Kinsy and her family on traveling in the subway, we made our way down into the tunnels. Our first go at the subway was not the smoothest operation, but we did not miss a single train and hit all train changes needed to get from Manhattan up to the Bronx. Following other people in Yankees gear made it easier.
Walking up to Yankee Stadium for my first time did not feel real. It was everything I could expect out of an organization I have loved my entire life. What made the experience better was that the opposing fans were all wearing Cardinal’s gear and were classic Midwesterners; super nice! Amity fit right in with her baby blue Cardinals jersey! This is our second Yankees vs. Cardinals game that we have gone to together. Once we got into the stadium, we made a quick trip out to Monument Park. Walking into this area of Yankee Stadium was like walking into a fantasy. This is a place I have always known of, and now we are here getting to take in all the moments for some of the greatest baseball players to ever play the game! Only the Hall of Fame will top that experience! We got great views of the stadium while doing this too! Before we got to our seats, we had to do our standard “walk around”. This is where we walk around the stadium completely to check it all out. We ended up finding a great standing room only section in center field to hang out in.
Once we got down to our seats the game was just about to start. Chants of “Let’s go Yankees” were mixed with countering chants for the Cardinals. This was a great atmosphere for a game! The Cardinals jumped out into a quick lead, and held it for most of the game. The Yankees were given every opportunity to take the lead, but missed them all. Including missing a grand slam to tie the game by a matter of two feet. Amity could have not been happier! She rejoiced in her team’s success by quietly rubbing it in, and pointing out how many Cardinal’s fans had made the trek to the game. Even though the Yankees had lost, I will always remember this game as the first trip to Yankee stadium! Walking out of the stadium knowing that the next time we are here is for Yanks vs. Red Sox only gets us that much more excited to be here!
After leaving the game we had some time to kill before we had to head back to New Jersey. We started by finding a bar close to the stadium called, Billy’s Bar. Not kidding! Best name ever to be next to Yankee Stadium! While we were there, Amity connected with another group of her high school friends from Kirksville, Cassie and her husband Lance and Micheal, that were in the city. We quickly made plans with them to all meet up for dinner. We headed to a restaurant called, Tanner Smith’s. This was a cool little place that was chill and classy, but nothing too fancy that we couldn’t come in wearing our baseball jerseys. Amity and her friends caught up on everything old and new in their lives, which included the early discussions of their 20 Year High School Reunion. It will be quite the event to go to this reunion sometime next year! After dinner we had to quickly head out to the subway to make our way back home. Micheal lives in the city was nice enough to give us a quick tour of the area while showing us the fastest way back to Penn Station. It was great to meet these other Kirksvillians in such a different environment than Kirksville. Once we got back to the station it was a mad dash to get to the train. We were not expecting this, and barely made it onto a train car before it was too full and left the station. This meant 90 minutes of standing, but remember it was free and we were still energized from our first trip into New York City. We were zapped for days after this trip.
For the second adventure into New York City for the Yankees vs. Red Sox game, we made the decision to check out the ferry that goes into the city. This picks up and drops off only 20 minutes from our house in a town called Highlands, NJ. A couple days prior to this, we had stopped at a bagel spot close to Amity’s work for some breakfast. While we were there we got to talking with the owner, who ended up giving us a dozen bagels for free. All he asked as that we freeze them and only eat them one by one. This made breakfast for this trip a sinch! We headed down to the ferry with more time to spare than not. I think our experiences in Washington have conditioned us to be to the ferry as early as possible. The ride from Highlands into New York City was beautiful! We crossed under the GW Bridge, went past the Statue of Liberty, Elis Island and came up to the New York skyline in one of the more exciting ferry rides of my life.
We spent a little time walking around getting coffee and looking for some sunglasses to help finish Amity’s new “Basic New York Yankees Chick” look. She was able to dial it in and looks great!!! Who would have thought that I was going to be able to get her into a Yankees hat for a game not once in a year, but twice!!! She must truly love me, or baseball or both! Getting to the subway felt much easier this time around. We only had one train to take, so we could just get on and chill until we got to the Yankee Stadium stop. This ride would go down in our memories forever! We witnessed things on the train that no one should ever have to see. The guy sitting across from us was obviously having withdrawals from drugs, and was all but convulsing. An older couple accidently sat next to him and made things more comical with their response to him. They couldn’t wait to get off the train. They were lucky to have done so at the time the did, because just following their departure, we both happened to see more of this man’s body parts than we would have ever wanted to see in our lives. At this point, our stop could not come quick enough.
Getting to the stadium for this game had a much different feel than the Cardinals game. The Yankees fans were in much larger numbers and the energy was high! We had a drink at Billy’s Bar before the game to get into the vibe. By this point, we were both very excited for the game. Amity had scored us some great seats from a deal she gets from her work! Having Amity on the Yankees side for this game only made it that much more fun. The crowd was loud, the roll call chants were exciting and we loved taking part in it all. Another score from this game was the food we found. I got a Steak Sandwich that was probably the best ball park food I have ever had, and Amity got a Brisket Tater-Tots that were equally as amazing! One of the biggest highlights of the game was when I was able to spread some of my dad’s ashes in the stadium! My dad, Rad Jack, loved the Yankees. He spent some time living near the old stadium as a young kid, and had loved the Yankees organization his entire life. Putting some of him to rest there will be a highlight I remember forever! The only problem with this game was that the Yankees bats did not decide to show up. They let the Red Sox get an early lead and let them hold it for the entire game. How could this happen? How could the Yankees lose to the Red Sox. Mathematically it was bound to happen, but why on the day that we go, and then they win all the other games? Oh well! This means that in our two trips into the city to see the Yankees in Yankee Stadium we were 0-2. In the words of Rad Jack were were “Zero for two, and headed to the BBQ!”
After the game we hopped on the subway and headed to the south end of the city near Wall Street. There was a second pier there that had a later pick up time for our ferry back to Highlands, NJ. Bonus points in the fact that the pier next to it was hosting the NYC Oktoberfest! We had to partake in the fun! It was really cool to have some beers on the pier in the city. This is a beautiful area of the city, and watching all the boats come in and out was really fun. We enjoyed some thick German style beer, cheered on some Stine holding contests and ate some pretzel wrapped hot dogs! This was a great way to end a solid day of excitement in NYC. As the day turned to night, we had to head over to the adjacent pier to get onto our ferry to head home.
On the ride home, Amity quickly fell asleep. It was a long day, and we were both wiped out. I couldn’t sleep because the views of the New York City skyline lit up at night from the boat were breath taking! I really felt like I had to pinch myself to remind myself that today was real. We had gone to one of the biggest sports rivalry games in the world, and we are now sitting on a boat driving past the biggest skyline in the United States. This is what these adventures are all about! Moments like this where we are not sure how we got here, but we are 100% in love with the fact that we are here! We have many more adventures planned to come back into NYC. Next time, I will make sure that when we take the ferry out of the city, Amity is awake for the ride home!