In Enemy Territory

To repay my father-in-law for going to several Mets games at Shea Stadium with me including a game when The Concierge was drunk, screaming and almost knocked us all over; I went to August 17th's Yankees-Tigers game at Yankee Stadium.

The drive to the Stadium was much easier than the drive to Shea, and we pulled right into to garage and were in the spot about 30 minutes after we left.

It was raining so we sat in the car for about an hour, then took our seats in the bleachers...and it started to rain again. So we had to huddle under the stands with a bunch of other Yankees fans. The game started about an hour late.

Thankfully, the bleachers are alcohol free, so all the Yankee fans behaving like idiots were born that way, not drunk. But for the most part they were well behaved. The Yankee Stadium bleachers do have one cool tradition. In the bottom of the first they chant a player's name (Der-ek jee-TUH) until he acknowledges them. Problem is, they chant during pitches so you never know if the player is getting ready to field the ball or swatting a fly or waving to the crowd. Also one idiot kept doing it throughout the whole game even though Johnny Damon waved to him at least three times. Very annoying.

There were a few Tigers fans in our section which is fine, even commendable, but if you are going to root for the road team, you can wear your gear, but you shouldn't make a spectacle of yourself. Especially if your team isn't even in the game. Two guys (sitting separately) came to Yankee Stadium dressed in full Red Sox gear. When the Red Sox rallied to take a lead in their game these two fans went nuts. But then, Gagne blew the game and they got abused with chants of "Gagne sucks" and "Gagne blew it."

The best part of the Yankee Stadium experience was the YMCA. Everyone stood up and started pointing at the Red Sox fan. Instead of "young man" they sang "gay man" and instead of "Y-M-C-A" it was "Y-R-U-Gay." Clever, especially by Yankee fans' standards.

The Yankees won a crisp game and I got to see the major league debut of a future superstar (Cameron Maybin) and I also got to see the pitching version of Kevin Maas (Joba Chamberlain).

Getting home was a little more difficult than getting there. It took a while to get out of the parking garage and then when we did we found our way blocked off and we had to go all the way around to get to the GW Bridge. Even so, it took only about an hour to get home.

It would have been a great night, except for all the Yankee fans.