baseball

after speaking with many colleagues, neigbors and strangers, no other eight letter word in the english language can spark more debate, more emotion, more excitment in any new yorker when the subject of baseball comes up. yankees. dodgers. mets, giants, everyone has their loyalties. this past week, my buddies shawn and dave were visiting ny and we made our way up to the bronx to visit the hallowed grounds of where legends once stood. mickey mantle, joe dimaggio, the babe. all have donned the pin stripes.

my co-worker was heading to the game as well, with the first pitch set at 7.05 pm, we left our office at 5.30 and made it up to the bronx at about 6.15 where we hit 'stans' jam packed bar and grill after a couple of beverages, we met up with shawn and dave and made our way inside. then, we got our first glimplse of yankees stadium.

our seats were awesome, bottom tier about 15 rows up right behind 1st base, a perfect place to catch your first game here. it was an amazing site, yankees statium. the romance of yester year ozooing out of every seat. the atmosphere was almost electric. however, as the game wore on, the romance faded. these new york yankee fans weren't all that crazy. then i looked arond. seemingly there were more tourist taking pictures of themselves and businessmen on their blackberry's in the stands than real fans. maybe the real fans were at home, or just didn't care too much about a early august game against a so-so division rival. the yankees were battling the orioles of baltimore that night. however, it wasn't such a good night for the yankees, somehow the orioles were able to pull of an embarassing 10-0 win over the home team. in the end after one too many hot dogs, slices of pizza, bags of peanuts and frosty beverages, we just wanted to be there and despite the lopsided loss, the uninterested fan base, we all had fun that night, up in the bronx.

the great nyc subway disaster of 2007

the sky above opened up and unleashed a storm of rain, thunder and lighting of biblical proportions. it provided a great show for this weary new yorker, to lazy to do anything but watch the light show that mother nature provided. little did i know that mother nature's display of her awesome power would have such an inconvenience for me, and the other 8 million new yorkers.

the next morning, a lot of new yorkers woke up with sidewalks torn apart, tree branches on top of cars, water in their living room...
and a broken subway system. the storms apparently flooded the subway station at canal street making it impossible for commuters to go north south on the island. for about 7.5 million of new yorkers, that's a big thing. the subway is the life blood of the city. it shuttles the tourist from statue of liberty tours to times square to catch the latest broadway show. it shuttles the billion dollar mayor, mike bloomberg from his sprawling penthouse in the upper east side to his city hall office. and most importantly, it gets us new yorkers to work every morning. so with the subway out...

we had to walk...
cram onto buses...
for the most part, it was a disaster. commuting the 2.5 miles to work for me, which normally takes 25 minutes door to door, took a hour and a half. between walking to the station, walking from the 1,2,3 line to the a,c,e to the n,q,r,w, fighting my way through the crowds, trying to get on the bus, and mostly walking south to get to work, that's exactly what i did. i guess the most shocking thing for me, was the actual panic that i witnessed. not something i would've expected from the usually resilient city dwellers. one lady actually came up to me and expressed her dismay and utter confusion of the whole situation, "what am i suppose to do, where's the police to direct us, there's nobody here to help us, how am i suppose to get downtown". Considering that we were about 2 miles away, i pondered why she couldn't just walk, which is exactly what i did.