Hosive

i did not get world series tickets but i did get one game in the bronx for the alcs…game 2! my final game of the year.

not a bad run in 2009….a preseason game with the cubs, opening day, the first win at the stadium, a red sox game, some wins, a lot of rainy losses and a brawl. grateful theresa encouraged me to get these seats.

for the playoffs, i got bleachers in the same general area for $11 each! there are cheap seats at stadium!

the game was in doubt the whole day and night…even throughout the game. it was brutally cold with the threat of torrential rains. kenny and i dressed in multiple layers with rain and cold gear. i had on long underwear, sweaters, my winter jacket, a neck warmer, gloves and hats. note…hat plural.

they were gouging at the stadium with $10 hot chocolate in the stands. and they were selling out. however when we went to the restroom, we found a stand with a more reasonable $4 chocolate. it was a handwarmer and later, a body warmer.

it was a great, tight game throughout….but looked bleak late when the angels took the lead. but it was arod’s night as he blasted a tying run to send the game into extra innings. it got colder and rainier. back and forth threats….great playoff baseball.

finally jerry hairston and angel errors sent the fans into delirium. including us!

we were sitting in different parts of the stadium but met up to celebrate one of the best games ever at the new stadium. certainly my best game.

looking forward to some more great baseball!

the last of my pre-playoff reports of the regular season yankee stadium…and food reviews…..

here mike and i are minding our own business enjoying an interdivisional tussle with the blue jays…a pretty vanilla, going through the motions game…but being at the ballpark is still magical….and a privilege. i never forget that.

mike tries something i have yet to try….he has an urge for some cheesesteaks….and he is impressed with the yankees version.  i took a bite and determined that this would be my next meal at the stadium! it was tasty. expensive for what you got….but good, satisfying ball park food.

this was not the size of the sandwich….the other half is in mike’s mouth.

but then all nuttiness broke out….not once but twice….players running onto the field, fighting, drawing blood, yelling….and the fans in the stadium started to get scary…at least in the bleachers….

security made fans sit down…they threw out drunks threatening our canadian friends…people inched toward the field….

too bad, this was the most exciting part of the game….i had never seen a brawl at the park before.

this is what wrapped up my year at the stadium unless the yankees win the alds and send me to my second round tickets. i hope i get to go!

as promised….as we build up to the playoffs, more yankee action and stadium food tour. josh was nice enough to join me for a sunny day game! yeah! no more rainy mini-plan!

again, a great part of the stadium is that you can move around and plant yourself in another location-even behind the plate!-and watch the game from the lower deck, behind the rich people seats! you can stand all game if you’d like. this is why i got bleachers for the alcs…i’ll have the nuttiness of the bleachers and the option of crazy good views if i take a stroll.

the other great feature of the park is pretty good ballpark food with a nice diversity around the promenade. so different perspectives and getting good eats go hand in hand.

josh went for something that theresa asked for but wasn’t able to get when we came for the pre-season cubs matchup: cheese garlic fries! maybe they got the idea from her denied request?

josh also tried out the buffalo chicken sliders, a personal favorite.

and the game…..two magical words: enter sandman.

as the playoffs finally approach, i’ll be documenting the last few games i got to go to as part of my mini plan to the first season at the new yankee stadium before they become entirely irrelevant(the games not the yankees).  but no worries to non sports fans! i will likely focus more on ballpark food than the games.

i bought josiah to his first new yankee stadium game in an obvious attempt to usurp his father’s authority. after a few disappointing innings with joba, we went to get some nachos and get some different views around the ballpark. josiah knew exactly what he wanted in terms of grub.

he was disappointed to learn that the meat only came with the deluxe nachos and decided not to upgrade. when the lady was making his order, the manager came over….and i think he thought josiah was younger than he was….and asked if he wanted the topping on the house! josiah politely accepted but the lady looked over to double check if she heard correctly. the manager winked and nodded the go ahead….so josiah got a bonus on his cheese nachos.

he declined on free jalapenos.

the game was a laugher but josiah wanted to stay until the bitter end. i complied. who can say no to a kid in the summertime?

then the yankees started coming back and cut the lead to 1 in the bottom of the ninth with the tying run and winning run on base with nobody out. but a botched bunt and a line drive, bang bang double play left us with unexpected heartache.

or maybe that was from the “meat” in the nachos.

good news! my rainy and losing plan seems to have turned! clearly here are me and justin enjoying a sunny day at the ballpark watching the yankees beat up on theresa’s orioles. i ain’t bringing her to these games! the bleacher creatures will respond to her hoots and cheers by beating up on….me! instead, justin represented the yanks well and i represented…..underarmour.

and we got to see this magical sight…which i have not gotten to witness too often because i am on the rainy, losing mini-plan!

this is one of the best experiences in the current yankee era….the music rumbles…then the crowd rumbles….he darts out and the energy escalates….leading to another familiar, sweet sight…..

the yankees kill, the yankees kill….

if we go .500 the rest of the way, we’ll win 100 games. winning the division looks like a lock…but the playoffs have become a mystery for a past decade….

i seem to have been assigned to the rainy and losing mini-plan for the yankees…(almost)all the games i’ve gone to have had the threat of rain with some of them rained out and others heavily delayed. on top of that, after enduring the weather, i stay to watch the yankees lose.

they are the best team in baseball and have not lost that much at home! but i’ve gone to many of those losses. a-booo!

it was looking like another soaking night. but they refused to cancel or reschedule with the threat of rain all week. so jeremy and i waited around for the announced 9p start time.

we took advantage of the thinner crowds and checked out monument park! usually, the line is pretty long and the venue packed making it not worth it. but with so much time on our hands, automatic entrance and a group so small that they let you linger, it was a great way to make the evening special. it was my first time ever at the new monument park….and i never went at the old stadium.

finally, the game started and we stayed for a few innings as jeremy had work the next day. gratefully, the yankees were pounding the a’s.

i watched the final few inning or two at home.

not me. i cheer for the yanks. but before he headed out west for weddings and his usual teaching gig in stanford, nyc’s asian american jazz dude(but originally from seattle), victor lin and i sat in the bleachers for some lessons in swearing and cheering. except the crowd was unusually subdied tonite….except for the occasional- ichiro, you suck! to which victor passively agressively responded to, under his breath….”yes! ichiro sucks! only batting .380!” victor quietly savored the beating to avoid having his sexuality questioned by the bleacher creatures….and to forego the verbal garbage directed at opposing teams fans.

the game was a see saw, back and forth joust until the 9nth. and with a baby at home, we decided to beat the crowds to the trains once the mariners had it well in hand.

before the game, we toured the new facility which victor found to be pretty magnificient. amazing what 1.5 billion can buy you.

i showed him all the different kiosks and food options available to mortals but he passed on them, having feasted on theresa’s delicious cheezy chicken pot pie a mere 40 minutes ago. he did fold to some soft serve ice cream.

vic is saving his dough up to buy his own baseball diamond….only 1.5 billion to go!

i got to go to the rangers game with my funny cousin, daniel. we have many mutual friends mostly from u of i and nyc chinese church circles and people are stunned to find out that we are related. the conversations go “you may know my cousin….” “no way!”

and we hear from each other that people think we’re funny. “did you know that you’re cousin is funny?”  it’s that tsang blood. we’re weird.

but i rarely got to see that side of my cousin. the age gap and the fact that i was away for 15 years from the city contributed to that. daniel probably was too respectful to be funny in front of me. i was part of the older guard of family cousins….the ones who are married and child bearing. but over the past few years, he’s loosened up in front of me…and he is hilarious! in kind, dan thinks its funny that every time he hears me speak, i mention iraq. now when i see him in an audience, i just say iraq for no reason.

after taking so many students to nba, mlb…even indoor soccer games, it was a joy to take my cousin. it was like i was making up for something….some strange unnamed family obligation that i should have done long time ago. but obligation is not the right word. it was like setting something right. and it did feel right.

we lost the game but tonite was not about the game.

we laughed at the fact that i got pick pocketed and this is the booby prize the booby who ripped me off got. thinking it was my wallet in my back pocket, it was actually the freebie gift they were handing out that night…a cheap looking and feeling passport holder that i was never going to use. nice to get have junk lifted off you…..enjoy it, sucker!

dan was nice enough to offer me his…but i declined.

after the game, we lingered a bit and when we turned around, we saw this all around us. and we laughed some more. it was such a pig sty! there were bottles everywhere and these pictures don’t fully capture how wasteful yankee fans were that night and i suspect every night.

we laughed a lot. we should get together more often and combine our humor powers for good.

looked like a rainout but at 8:47p, they started taking the tarp off. no doubt espn braodcasting the game was a factor…there’s too much money at stake with a yanks/sox match up. good thing for me, i have literally gone from home to stadium in 20 min in the past making it possible for me to wait out the rain in the comfort of our apt.  as soon as they announced the game would be played, i hopped on a b/d to the stadium. i missed maybe one or two outs.

my groomsman steve didn’t make the ride up from his home in brooklyn figuring a makeup game was likely. i may have stayed home too if it was not the sox…this was the only boston game in my season package.

it was wet and sad as the yankees lost as they have all season to boston.

in the bleachers, i learned more homophobic slurs and uses of the f word. there were these “poor” red sox fans in the bleachers who decided to jaw with the creatures and they paid for it with impending threats and possible physical repercussions. i felt bad for this older father/son combo who got asked if the older gentleman was the priest who “touched” the younger man. things understandably intensified from there.

i had a pipe dream of keeping these bleacher seats and bringing my daughter to these games but do i want her saying either f word at home or in sunday school or anywhere….! and with the precision and sophistication that the bleacher dwellers wield those words.

the yankees did make it a game with a few homers including two from teixeira…this in hindsight is the game he turned it all around.

i sampled more of the ballpark food this time a burger from johnny rockets. it was huge with real beef but definitely overcooked and not enough flavor. but then again, still better than 95% of the burgers i’ve ever had at the ballpark. i will likely stick to the carved meat sandwiches and buffalo chicken sliders as they have been my favorites.

the game ended around 1a. dreary. especially for a yanks loss to the sox in the cold.

though i got to celebrate and enjoy the new stadium with jackie and larry on opening day, we did not get to enjoy a yankee victory. larry got jackie tickets to both opening day and the next day with the latter being the back up plan. but larry had no interest in going two days in a row so he drafted me to go with jackie, her sister and her sister’s friend. hungry for a win, i was eager to fill in.

for a few bucks more, i could upgrade from the bleachers to here. the upside is a more civilized crowd. less swearing, homophobia and sexual degradation.

less(that is).

but i feel further from the field. its a tough choice especially when i consider getting tickets for my daughter in the future.

the expensive seats continue to be empty. these are the luxury seats closest to the outfield still asking for $500 a pop. on both sides of the field, there were no takers. things will change as the season continues but clearly somebody made a mistake on pricing estimates.

i got to try some more yankee cuisine…these are the buffalo chicken sliders that we tried to get at the cubs exhibition but were sold out. they are real chicken and were pretty tasty. decent ballpark food choice! i think i may get this again.

my first yankee hot dog of the year. pretty standard but in a solid way. i usually only have a few hot dogs a year…with memorial day being the season. but with theresa pregnant this year, we will pass on that.

the is the view all around the stadium from the right field pole seats. pretty majestic. especially during the barrage of homers that many yankee fans have seen.

and a win! mariano was a bit shaky but we got the first win at the stadium!

i love being at the ballpark…sublime.