Was sitting in the shaded lower deck today and took in a helluva game as a Father’s Day gift from the wife.

As a veteran of a lot of Yankee games in that stadium, today was like almost every other time. The Yankees are world wide and they fill the seats. I found myself boring the daylights out of the wife as I told her how much I like those Yankee road uniforms. They were described by Jim Bouton in Ball Four as “beautiful in their simplicity” and I agree.

Of course she didn’t understand at all so I continued to bore the crap out of her by repeating some of the best lines from the book. Especially the Joe Schultz “Let’s pound some Budweiser, boys”!

After she got sick of me, I continued to bore the 8/9 year old kids that were sitting next to us as I told them where I was sitting during playoff games in the 70’s and 80’s and showed them some great YouTube clips from playoffs past. As the game wore on I kept telling them to keep a close eye on the scoreboard as there was something pretty special happening. Both of them picked up on it in the 6th. Then the no hit bid was broken up and they put up with me as I told them about the the no hitter Jim Colborn threw in 77 vs the Rangers. After that we chatted about game situations.

Will he try to steal?
Do you let him hit 3-0 in this situation?
We came close to a few foul balls and in general had a great time. They got into it as Q got tossed and it was a blast, especially high fiving after that finish.

As I sat there reveling in victory I was reminded of the closing quote from Ball Four, and it was true today. “You spend a good portion of your life gripping a baseball when in the end it was the other way around”.

Great day.
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