NEW YORK – Finally out of the house/hospital now that the ol’ girl was discharged after the appendectomy and a bout with pneumonia. Pretty fun week for her to say the least. Now all she has to do is sit tight and rest up for the next week or so, which should be no problem considering she has two boys under the age of five running around the joint as well as a guy like me chasing around a baseball team.
I followed one up to the South Bronx today and left her to fend for herself. Strangely, the drive to the Bronx moved like clockwork from the PA Turnpike to the NJ Turnpike over the GW Bridge and then past the old Yankee Stadium to the new one. Piece of cake. It seemed like it took just five minutes to get from the EZ-Pass lane at the GW to get to the ballpark.
It was such a snap that it makes one wonder why the Mets don’t move their little ballpark out of Queens and closer to civilization. There’s a spare ballpark just across the way from the new Yankee Stadium. Maybe they ought to look into it…
Oh, and speaking of the new Yankee Stadium, it’s nice. It’s just like the old one only bigger and more expensive. Everything about the joint is top of the line from the food in the press dining room to the wide concourses to the grass on the field.
Hell, the players say that the dining area in the visitors’ clubhouse is bigger than the one they have at Citizens Bank Park.
Basically, everything everyone else from the Philly media has written about the new Yankee Stadium is right on the money. It’s nice – really nice… but did they really need to build it? One billion dollars is a lot of money to go spending on a ballpark in the poorest Congressional district in the country even when times are flush.
Yes, it’s a fantastic ballpark. Maybe even one of the best… but I still like the old one better.
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Speaking of the Yankees and the old ballpark, Babe Ruth hit his last home runs on May 25, 1935 in Pittsburgh while playing for the Boston Braves. In that game Ruth famously clubbed homers Nos. 712, 713 and 714 in that game.
Five days later at the Baker Bowl against the Phillies, the Babe grounded out and walked off the field never to play again. Incidentally, the Baker Bowl was located on the corner of Broad and Lehigh in North Philly. There’s a gas station there now, but no plaque or reminder that Babe Ruth played his last game ever on the same spot you can gas up for $2.34 a gallon.