Reds at Yankees 5-19-12

May 19, 2012

We met up with Herv and his son, Aidan and headed into the Bronx early. Last year, the Yankees donated two tickets to a game during the 2012 season to Fred K’s Cancer to be used as a raffle prize. Herv happened to win these tickets. Upon arriving at Yankees Stadium, we found a fake mascot. Literally. A creeper dressed like something that could be considered “Mr. Yankees,” the new Muppet. It was imperative that we take a picture with him. We were charged $5 to take a picture with “our” camera. $7 if creeper’s sidekick took the picture with his snazzy, old school Polaroid camera. Naturally, since this was imperative, Serena handed him $5 without question. Notice how the a-hole mascot isn’t even looking at the camera. We paid $5 for him to look off in la-la land.

After we picked up Herv’s tickets from the Yankees’ Executive Offices (where Serena will one day work), we parted ways. It was Aidan’s first visit to Yankees Stadium and Herv wanted to take him exploring. We, as promised, attended Guido Fest 2012. For those of you unfamiliar with Guido Fest, it’s actually a sports bar near Yankees Stadium called Billy’s. Sadly, unlike on Opening Day, there were less guidos, but Lisa still had a good time. We had a few beers, sang along with 80’s and 90’s rock music, and Lisa admired the chandeliers.

Of course, drinking beer on empty stomach tends to mess with your head and soon enough, Lisa was leaning in and shouting over the music, “I think I’m starting to feel buzzed!” Shortly after, we made friends…cos’ we’re super fine. A guy in a Derek Jeter approached Serena and asked, “Do you like calf muscles?” Serena actually does in fact like calf muscles (hellooo, soccer players?), so he ran off to fetch two of his friends who were trying to figure out who had nicer calf muscles. At a glance, they looked exactly the same, so Serena asked if she could grab them. The boys allowed it and she determined that one boy’s muscle was bigger than the other’s. It caused outrage. Apparently, the boys wanted Serena to declare them the same. “Calf Twins,” if you will. In the midst of this, the rest of the gang (and the gang turned out to be quite numerous) surrounded us and shouted, “Impromptu Dance Party!” We had no other choice but to participate and dance we did.

By this point, it became quite clear that we were going to miss first pitch. By the time we got through security, the first inning was well underway. We decided that we were drunk enough to eat so we stopped in at the food court. Lisa had never had a burger from Yankees Stadium so she got a single patty and a side of fries for $15 at the Johnny Rockets stand.

Serena ordered chicken fingers, never having had them, for $10.50.

After our feeding frenzy, we climbed the steps of Yankees Stadium to the very last row of the arena behind home plate. By the time we reached our seats, it was the bottom of the 2^nd and the Reds were winning 2-0.

Ivan Nova was pitching for the Yankees and Homer Bailey went for the Reds. The jumbotron in center field actually referred to Nova on one occasion as “Super Nova.” This is upsetting because the Yankees stole this from us. It’s true. Serena’s been calling him the Champagne Super Nova since Day 1. You’ve probably seen it sprinkled throughout the blog. We feel strongly that the Yankees owe us something for this insult. Money works. We’ll take tickets. A free meal. A piece of Derek Jeter that we can sell on the black market.

Oh! We totally forgot to mention our free giveaways! It was Hat Day. You like? Yet another navy blue Yankees hat in our closet. Serena’s Yankees hat count is rapidly approaching 20. 

Russell Martin hit a solo shot in the bottom of the 3^rd to make it 2-1. The annoying Reds fan sitting next to Lisa loudly announced that like Martin, Joey Votto is a Canadian. Now we have no idea if this is true because we didn’t bother looking it up, but this man seemed to have a plethora of baseball information in his brain, so it’s totally plausible. Lisa felt incredibly deceived. She’d been in love with Votto since the moment she laid eyes on him because to her, he oozed with guidoness. How can he be a Canadian guido? Do those exist?

In the bottom of the 4^th, Raul Inbanez tied the game with a double that brought Robinson Cano home.

Remember that Reds fan? He spent the entire game educating his son on the sport of baseball on every single pitch, play, nose pick. EVERYTHING. The man never shut up. He was also loud enough for Serena to hear him clearly from her seat on the other side of Lisa. Bad enough to spit out trivia about every single player that was involved in this game, he actually started quizzing his son on situational stuff. Mind you, the boy was only around 8 years old. “Now, if you were the shortstop, with this batter at the plate, where are you going to position yourself?” Well, sir, what’s the pitch the catcher is calling? A-hole. This man also claimed, “American League hitters don’t know how to bunt. They only know how to hit home runs.” This statement is false. Bunting is indeed a dying art. Pitchers like Tom Glavine who could handle a bat are simply not in abundance any longer. However, Alex Rodriguez executed a perfect bunt only a few weeks ago and he’s not only an American League player, but a “heart-of-the-order” type of hitter. On the flips side, have you seen Barry Zito in the batter’s box? It’s truly terrifying. He looks like he doesn’t know what a bat is, let alone being physically capable of getting the bunt down. And hello? Do we need to remind you of AJ Burnett getting the “bunt down” on his face during spring training?

By the 5^th, the Reds had extended their lead to 5-3 and we had another annoying fan in our midst. This couple arrived to their seats extremely late. The girl wasn’t so nad, but her man was. For starters, his pants were hanging around his a-hole. Serena was very close to leaning forward and pulling his pants down.

The Pantless Wonder also decided to light up a cigarette in the middle of the stands. In our notebook where we write our notes about the game, Lisa actually wrote about his cigarette smoking, “who does that????” After his cigarette, he took a nap on his girlfriend. He literally slept through 3 innings.

In the middle of the 8^th, we decided we needed ice cream. By this point, the Reds were winning 6-3. We quickly snapped a photo with the field behind us, knowing that by the time we got downstairs, found an ice cream stand, and ordered our ice cream, there was no way we’d get back to our seats before the end of the game. As Lisa describes this photo, “Oh, I am going to print this one, we actually look really good. You even have a sexy pose. Like, heyyyyy.” We’ll refrain from reporting the raunchy joke Serena made in response.

We met Herv and Aidan at the Carvel stand in the food court and got our vanilla cones for $5.50/each.

We wandered over to the stands to watch the rest of the game as we gobbled up our afternoon delight. Aidan performed some epic dance moves that we regret we didn’t video. All of the ladies loved him. Meanwhile, on the field, the Yankees were making a comeback. It was hard to figure out what we were more excited about. Ice cream or a 9^th inning rally. This could’ve potentially been a YES Yankees Classic. Unfortunately, the Yankees just couldn’t muster the might of Thor and ended up losing the game 6-5. We were happy that we weren’t still sitting with the Reds fan and we’re pretty sure that The Pantless Wonder had slept through the entire thing.

We’re channeling old school Sheryl Crow today. “We like a good beer buzz early in the morning and Billy knows how to have an impromptu dance party...all we wanna do is have some fun until the sun comes up over River Avenue.”