Behind Enemy Lines

I'll let Young Sip and A.F.O.M.G. school you about yesterday's delightful home opener, which the dynamic duo attended. Quite a thrill. I expect Jimmy Rollins' name may come up.

On the other hand, I was at Yankee Stadium on Saturday afternoon to see this site's bete noire, the $250 million man, the "best player in baseball," the man who loves nothing more than making solid contact and picking out fabrics, Alex Rodriguez, hit a monstrous walkoff grand slam into center field and slay the stunned Orioles.

What. A. Shot.

[As I typed those words, A-Rod just hit a two-run shot off Fat Sidney Ponson in Minneapolis, his fifth dong of the season. ESPN was nonplussed. Hmm.]

First, a little background. I'm not the type of guy who can just drop a, "Oh, I was in the Bronx the other day, and it was great," into the blogosphere, and feel all right about it. Because I wouldn't. That's just me. That's even considering the natural and completely unavoidable excitement that would have accompanied a first-time visit to any ballpark.

I was there with journalism school pal and finance writer Blond Matt, gifted the tickets by his boss. He's from the Bay Area originally and a rather enthusiastic Giants fan, which made him a little too sympathetic to the Bombers for my taste but at least ostensibly neutral. We showed up about 90 minutes before the game and did a lap around the field to soak up the ambience of the neighborhood and get the lay of the land.

This was all perfectly clean and nice-looking, if not particularly impressive. I certainly appreciate how the park fits snugly along River Avenue, and the surrounding blocks along 161st Street and Gerrard were certainly worth a look. You can't be all that bothered by all the places selling Yankee gear, even if I did try to subtly spit on a t-shirt as I walked by. A lot of Red Sox taunting, a lot of trophy counting and the like. Understandably.

As I understand it, the neighborhood would have been a little bit different, say, 30 years ago. Again, as I understand it, Johnny Come Latelys such as myself have a difficult time appreciating just how crazy the area was back in the day, to the extent that books and television shows have been made to commemorate such madness. [More on the miniseries later in the summer.] I concede the point. I have no reference point. To me, the whole area was pleasant and nondescript. Not "burning."

Whatever. After a grilled sausage and a weak-ass Bud Light at a rather crowded Stan's Sports Bar, conveniently right across the street from the entrance gate, we hit our seats, which were under the overhang behind third base. The sight lines here along the lower bowl were simply outstanding. Of course, they were mostly ruined by the nauseating Yankee tribute video playing on the Jumbotron the whole time, a nasty little montage featuring a lot of Joe Girardi and Scott Brosius and John Wetteland. I may or may not have grabbed Blond Matt at this point and demanded to know why he brought me to this hellhole.

To my surprise, I really did enjoy hearing the Bob Sheppard introductions. I was certainly less a fan of the canned national anthem and annoying-ass introductory cheers coming out of the right field bleachers. I was certainly ready for it, but they sounded even more needy and pathetic than I'd anticipated. I also didn't realize that each Yankee acknowledges their cheer after only one round, which makes the bleacher morons stop before they repeat themselves. This was something of a gyp -- I can't really get incensed after only a single "Der-ek Jee-ter" chant. I'd need at least two or three "Der-ek Jee-ter" chants to really work myself into a froth, and this was sadly lacking.

• Before the first pitch, someone drove a fucking awesome Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorana around the field and stopped behind home plate. It was glowing in the cold April sun like a cherry-red dream. This was apparently part of a worldwide relay of nice Ferraris the company's running to celebrate its 60th anniversary. Traitor Johnny and Snoozy Abreu posed for photos with the fine vehicle. I was insanely jealous.
• Blond Matt dressed in, and I shit you not, jeans, a quarter-zip sweater, sunglasses and unlaced Converses. Damn California kids. I had on my North Face ski jacket, a ski hat, my thick ski gloves, jeans and Timbos. One of us was freezing for the whole game, such that extra beers had to be procured. We were in the shade, which didn't help.
  
• This has been addresseed elsewhere, including in Bill Simmons' blog today, but Kei Igawa was something of a joke. Awful command, flat fastball, no secondary pitches to speak of. The Orioles were making solid contact on every swing, even the outs. This guy's going to be out of the rotation faster than you can say "Irabu." Paging Phil Hughes!
• Welcome Steve Trashel! Got this text message from Sip at 2:18 p.m. -- "Would so love to be there. Dream pitchers duel." Haha. But the New Human Rain Delay was actually working pretty fast for him, no doubt because of the cold, and had himself a quality start, going almost seven innings on only 92 pitches and giving up only three hits (A-Rod's first homer, a nice turned shot into the left field corner, a smoking A-Rod double, a dinky Posada RBI single and a hit from Melky that chased him. Nice job, really.
• Going into the top of the ninth, when the organ music cut out and "Enter Sandman" came on, I immediately got chills running up to the top of my neck. I know, I know. But this was seriously cool. Plenty of Yankee fans had left after the bottom of the seventh with the O's up 7-3, which would have been a bitch move even if the magical moment hadn't happened, but everyone who was still there got stirred up as Mo came out to toss his warmup pitches. It was like when the Sandman used to come out during ECW Pay-Per-Views and smash his beer can against his head, but a little classier.

And then there was A-Rod's crowning moment. I'm going to wrap up pretty soon, because I've already wrote myself into feeling sick about liking a Yankees game so much, but there's really no describing how powerfully shocking the homer was, or how hard it seemed like he hit it in person, or the body language on Miguel Tejada afterwards. It was a devastating hit in every sense of the word, and I'm probably never going to forget seeing it.

But as my boy Scotty Ballgame texted me at 5:07 p.m., "He's still a gay." Word life, Scotty.