Baseball - The New York Yankees Way

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Tim had a sleep in this morning, which is good for him after a couple of late ones and busy days. So while he caught up on some zzzzz’s , I got us breaky from around the corner at the deli, food is noticeably cheaper, not sure if it will be for the whole of the US or just New York. Here was a NYFD fire truck across the road from the hotel, after having been to Ground Zero I can’t help but wonder how these guys may have been affected by that fateful day….

After Tim and I have breaky in our room we walk to the Rockefeller Centre to do a post home. This is the building that 30 Rock is based around, so me being a bit of a fan of all things TV now thinks that’s just cool! I know, I’m so lame!

FIFTH AVENUE

The Rockefeller Centre is also sitting on 5th Avenue - THE 5th Avenue!!! So many name brand shops with the most amazing store fronts, and these aren’t just small shops, these are huge kick ass 3 levels of Chanel type shops, oh to win lotto! Needless to say, Tim keeps me moving along at a pace slow enough for my ribs not to scream too loud but fast enough that I can’t stop and linger, and perhaps sneak my way into one! Thought this may be a good celebrity spotting street - if I only I could recognize them with a crowd of paparazzi following them or in a magazine with their name underneath.

As Tim lost his iPod (we think in Uganda), he has been on the search for one ever since, not a desperate search, but if we see an electrical store we will go and check out the prices. We’d prefer to buy it back home just for ease if something goes wrong that’s all. So we discover the proper Apple store is not far and figure if we can get a good price this must certainly be the place.

It would have to be one of the coolest (modern) buildings we have seen! It is literally a giant glass cube! The actual store is downstairs so you don’t have those pesky customers messing up the aesthetic appeal either, haha. So once we pass the security guard we head down the spiral staircase to wall to wall people. Each Apple item has its own area and there is not one area that looks like it would be a quick visit. Eventually we find the iPod counter and first up we get pretty excited at the price, then we add tax and convert it to Aussie dollars and suddenly it’s not so exciting anymore. So we leave empty handed but impressed to see what all our Apple dollars spent created.

HOOTERS NEW YORK, NEW YORK

Firstly, completely not Hooters related, amazing how cool does New York, New York sound? Absolutely! But why??? Perth, Perth just doesn’t have the same ring to it does it……

Anyhoo…

Not far past our hotel is our next Hooters Restaurant. It was still in busy part of town (town, get real - city!) but down a bit of a quieter street. The girls here were an absolute laugh, so funny, if we were home, I’d want to hang out with them! With baseball season now in full swing it really lives up to the sports themed restuarant, with baseball, gridiron and of all things, lawn bowls playing on the many TV’s. The meals were great (had my favourite, boneless wings) and the t-shirts were really well priced, 2 for $35 so Tim gets himself a firey Hooters shirt, it also had probably one of the best ranges as well.

TAKE ME TO THE BALL GAME

We head back to the hotel for a bit of lazy time and get ready for the baseball. I am soooo excited, tonight we going to see the New York Yankees play the Toronto Blue Jays at the new Yankee Stadium. It would have been neat to see them at the old stadium since we used to see it so much on Seinfeld. That’s okay, you can say it out loud - whacko!

Again we successfully negotiate the subway, perhaps more because we are going to the same place as 3,000 other people! Once we get there we find loads of ‘unofficial’ merchandise stands, so since we are the King and Queen of unofficial goods, we jump in with gusto! Have to go looking the part!

We buy a program and it’s more like the big end of season annual issue of the Eagle Eye (though I’m guessing from what we hear, this years end of season issue won’t need to be such a big magazine, uh oh). I’m not sure if it’s like this all the time or if it’s because the owner of the team, George Steinbrenner, passed away this week and there are a lot of tributes to him. The only reason we even know who he is, is because the writer of Seinfeld Larry David used to play him on the show as George Costanza’s boss. Again, I know we have watched too much Seinfeld.

The stadium is amazing, enormous and so well set up, they even have cup holders for each seat! It puts Telstra Stadium to shame (except though there is no roof; it would have to be a mighty high roof to ensure no balls were hit through it…) and even the MCG, although the MCG has history and that traditional feel to it. The stadium feels new, even though we have never been to the old stadium; it doesn’t have that old world charm that comes with old fittings etc. I know following along on the Major League Baseball website leading up to the holiday, many of the fans weren’t happy with the move, as I expect fans of the MCG wouldn’t be happy if they relocated. Meanwhile Subiaco Oval fans back home would leap and cheer if we got a new BIGGER oval - centrally located of course, we’re not completely simple!

We are sitting almost in line with first base one block up, great view and arrive in time to watch the setting up and warm up of both teams. They belt out home run after home run in training, I guess no pressure and nice hard pitching helps. Just like the Eagles get loads of goals when they are warming up too, ouch!

They have a lot of the pitch covered during warm up so it doesn’t get mussed up before the game and there are big nets along the spectator seating area. These get taken down before the game, and the best thing is, if you catch a ball in the crowd then it is YOURS! Wish they did this back home with the footy’s. We had one land a mere 15 metres or so from us, so exciting! We even had a row of Aussies sitting in front of us, such a small world!

Then it’s time to start and first thing they do is acknowledge all the military personal both past and present and then hats off to sing the National Anthem. There’s a huge screen opposite us with smaller screens on either side. There’s an organist (just like in the movies) and he’s actually live, no pre-recordings. They do a tribute to George Steinbrenner, showing lots of footage and some of the crowd gets pretty emotional.

First up batting is Toronto Blue Jays, no home runs, so far so good… And then it switches round and when Alex Rodriguez (A-Rod who was/is Madonna’s squeeze) comes out the stadium does wild, he is hoping to get his 600th home tonight, sadly this didn’t happen, perhaps nerves or just plain old not meant to be. But they Yankees did get 2 runs, so it’s looking good, but early days yet. A-Rod ended up getting the 600 on the 5th August against Toronto, becoming the seventh and youngest player to do so! (obviously I’m having to update my blog after we get home, as with broken ribs it hurts to sit for long, I know, I can hear your violins playing my sad song, so, as the saying goes ‘dry your tears Princess and harden the @#$% up!)

Fortunately for me, between living in Alice Springs where baseball was pretty big, the fact that Tim played baseball growing and we have baseball on the Wii Fit, I was able to keep up pretty well with the game. Ironically, I probably did better understanding baseball than I do watching Aussie Rules Football (or maybe I do know Aussie Rules like the back of my hand, but I like to make my Husband feel special and knowledgable…).

During one of the change of innings the grounds-keepers come out with these big broom type things to smooth out the sand between the bases and as they are doing it Village People’s YMCA plays, which I love, and they dance along to it.

They also have loads of Happy Birthdays and Anniversary wishes on the big screen and even one ‘Will you marry me???’ Everyone was looking around for the happy couple, but with 47,034 passionate fans in attendance they were hard to spot. There are also lots of competitions using your seat number for seat upgrades so you end up right behind home base, that would have been awesome, but I don’t know if it’s just that seat that wins or if you can take your loved one too…

Everybody sings ‘Take me to the Ball Game’ and it sounds great. All up it was a fantastic night, even though the Yankees lost 8 to 6, but since we have just come from Toronto we can have a quiet cheer for them! Even the food choices are immense; I could come the whole season and never run out of food to eat!

I absolutely loved the baseball and if we lived here, I for one would want to be a member. They play a lot more games here than they do football back home, sometimes playing 5-6 games in a week, although I guess it’s not as physically demanding as football (says she watching from the comfort of her chair!).

After the game it’s just like the football and its full steam to the subway, we don’t have to wait too long and then it’s homeward bound.


SURPRISE!

In the middle of the night we were sound asleep when all of a sudden our door opens, our lights go on and there’s the bellman and another couple walking into our room. After all the horror stories you hear about, Tim completely flips out, it takes me a bit longer to wake up from my pain killer induced sleep and realise what’s going on. I guess it was because we switched rooms and perhaps the computer system wasn’t updated properly. The bellman was very apologetic and looking back as I write this sometime later it was pretty funny, but at the time, not so much!

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Comments

[Kylie]

haha
i love you blogs sammie! i too am a lame tv watchin' fool. I want to go to New York JUST to see 30 Rockerfeller centre, so don't feel too lame! Mwa. kylie xx