Yankee Stadium

On Friday, David went with his Dad and his brother Steven to the "The Boogie Down Bronx" to visit Yankee Stadium and go to a Yankees game. It's the last year in the old stadium, as a new stadium is being built right next door and will open in time for the 2009 season. We drove to the area around the Port Authority, parked, and took the subway to the stadium. We had tickets for the stadium tour, and got to enter the press box, Monument Park, and then walk along the warning track on the side of the field all the way into the Yankees dugout. If we had come on a day without a game, the tour also includes a visit to the Yankees clubhouse. It was great fun to be there, the tour guide had plenty of interesting stories, and we got to pretend we were managing the game from the dugout bench.

We hung around the stadium in the afternoon, and got some food and drink and bought the kids some Yankees gear. We entered the stadium again right as the gates opened to make sure we got the giveaway for that game (a mini-replica of the Stadium). David and Steven went to the left field stands just by the foul pole during batting practice to try to grab a home run ball. After a few minutes, David started flipping through the game program, when Steven said "David - grab the ball". David looked down first and saw the ball squirming around the seats and grabbed it just before someone else did.

The game was close and entertaining, but the Yankees couldn't seem to get a hit with runners on base. We were sitting in the last row of the loge (middle) section in left field, with a great view of the bullpens and Monument Park. Of course, that didn't stop us from yelling at the umpire for every bad call against the Yankees! By the end of the game, it was a little chilly up in the wind. The Yankees tried to rally in the last couple of innings, but ended up losing 2-1 to the Royals.