2004 Baseball

Red Sox 4 Yankees 2

Tuesday Night
Game 6 of the ALCS
Yankee Stadium
With Alex B.

Is Alex the luckiest boy in the world or what? Because of other people’s boycotts of Yankee Stadium, this British dude, who two years ago couldn’t have told you the difference between Bill Buckner and Bucky Dent, was invited to go to his first ever postseason game. And not just any postseason game, but Game 6 of the Yankees vs. the Red Sox. Or, the way I like to think about it, Game 3 of the most glorious choke ever.

Schilling warms up before making me very very happy.

Curt Schilling bled all night as he shut down the fucking Yankees. The Red Sox scored four runs in the top of the 4th inning, powered by Mark Bellhorn’s three run homer that was initially ruled a ground rule double.

The Red Sox bullpen waves for the correct call- a Bellhorn homerun.

The Yankees scored one in the 7th and one in the 8th, but it could have been more if Alex Rodriguez hadn’t cheated and tried to swat the glove off of Bronson Arroyo. Again, the umpires got the call right and all was right with the world.

The entire night, Alex and I bit our tongues. We saw Red Sox fans in our midst getting harassed (including the guy bringing it on himself by parading around with a Tom Brady jersey on and intentionally riling up the bleacher folk) and we didn’t want any part of it. In particular, there was one guy screaming the entire night at everything and everybody. He had snuck in some whiskey and it made him more obnoxious as the night went on, that is, until his team’s hopes were crushed and he didn’t have too much more to say.

He started the night by harassing Mike Timlin in his booming voice (we were easily 75 feet from Timlin) in the bullpen with a clever “Hey Timlin! Hey Timlin! Fuck You!” chant. This prompted Timlin to look back and give the heckler a polite “shush” signal. Of course, the brute started yelling even more. Unfortunately for him, this brought a security guy to come over and tell him to pipe down. In fact, they led him out of the stands for a couple of minutes to warn him that if he didn’t stop cursing, he would be kicked out. We heard a lot of mother jokes, sister jokes, and gay jokes after that.

He kept complaining all night about how Red Sox fans can get away with murder at Fenway, but at Yankee Stadium, Yankees’ fans are muzzled. He kept repeating that next year he was going to head to Fenway and then they’d see who was boss.

In the 8th, the classy Yankees fans showed their class by throwing bottles onto the field because their cheating didn’t work.

After the game, their cheating player deflected responsibility but let’s not forget that all Yankees are all class all the time. And it all starts with the classy manager who never takes responsibility for his players cheating because "Hey if you’re wearing pinstripes and Michael Kay says it enough times, then damnit, all Yankees are classy!"

Not so fast there, assholes!

Right before the final out of Game 6.

Favorite Yankees' fan excuse of the night which I heard from more than one fan: This series is fixed. MLB wants a game 7. It is so clearly fixed.

And Alex’s thoughts on the night?

I have to admit to a little trepidation about taking my place in the bleachers for this one. Not because of the rivalry (I’ve seen some horrible things in England) but because I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t stealing someone else’s seat. I remember asking Dan if he was 100%certain that Jamie wasn’t going to want to break his boycott and go in my place.
By Tuesday morning I was as fired up as any English Mets fan with a 3 year pedigree of following baseball could be. The bleachers gave much more of an impression of the size of Yankee stadium, you feel like a voyeur rather than a paying customer, sneaking a peek at the action that’s so far away.
The memorable aspects of that night? The outrageous vodka swilling loudmouth who just would not shut up. When hauled out by the stewards for cursing he talked his way back in and continued to curse, giggle and generally abuse anyone who fell into the trap but he was doing so in Spanish as he figured he could he away with it,
His easiest target was the preppy Boston fans a row or two in front They had the natural look of victims. This guy was venomous. There was also the Redsox fan with the patriots shirt who was, quite frankly, dead man walking. He kept strutting (yes, strutting) about in the bleachers waving at people. He took a fall in the 8th. We never saw him again. His antic prompted drunken rants of “J-E-T-S! JETS! JETS! JETS! And I’m a Giants fan” from vodka boy.
I was loving this. I shouldn’t have been, I was rooting for the Redsox in that passionate but oh so completely silent way that one does in the Bleachers at Yankees stadium. I was also a little nervous that vodka boy might turn on me. I’m glad he didn’t. For some reason a middle aged bearded fellow turned on vodka boy and accused him of ruining his evening. Fool. He was then christened “Van Dyke” and roundly abused “Hey Van Dyke, why I don’t even know who you’re rootin for?!” Some more classics from vodka boy.
“When we go to Fenway next year I’m takin guns”
“ I want hot chicks doing jumpin jacks instead of this dumb ‘Cotton Eye Joe’ for the 7th inning stretch!”
Lots of stuff in Spanish directed towards the Boston bullpen as well as lots of abuse directed at anyone in the employ of Yankee stadium but only when they couldn’t hear.

On the train back home, we sat near a couple- the boyfriend was wearing a Red Sox cap and his girlfriend was wearing a Yankees hat. They both looked miserable. It was obvious why she looked sad, but then I realized why he looked so downcast- she was going to make his life hell for the next few days.

It was a wonderful night to be a Yankees’ hater. And I owe it all to Mitch again. He scored me tickets to Game 6 of the Yankees’ World Series demise in 2003 and then to this Game 6 the following year.

How many more days until Opening Day?