Erin & The Favorite Take Yankee Stadium!

Special edition blog post today. Holy shit! Can you even handle the excitement?

May 5, 2013
Erin and The Favorite (aka: Matt) came to town this weekend from Boston and like any good hostess, I acquired tickets to both the Yankees and Mets games that were scheduled to take place during their time here in New York. Before getting into their first experience at the new Yankee Stadium, a little background is in order. I met Erin my sophomore year in college playing softball. Matt is Erin's boyfriend. Erin originally hails from the DC area and is an Orioles fan whereas Matt is from the Seattle area and his loyalties belong to the Mariners. Including now retired ballparks, prior to this date, Erin had traveled to 17 ballparks (including the old Yankee Stadium with yours truly back when Barry Zito was still the ace for the A's and Carl Pavano was still effective for the Yankees) whereas Matt had traveled to 9. Of those stadiums, Erin and Matt have joined the Traveling Baseball Babes on tour for 5 of them (Angels, Dodgers, Padres, White Sox, and Cubs). Now that you've got a better handling on our guests, I can proceed with the day at hand.

At the start, I failed them. We arrived at the stadium around 12:30 for a 1:00 start time. Because of this, I had (unbeknownst to them) eliminated the opportunity for Erin and Matt to check out Monument Park and the museum.

Before heading inside to feed, I snapped a photo of them outside:

At each stadium she visits, Erin buys a hot dog and Matt tries to find the park's "signature dish." In this case, Matt went for the Lobel's steak sandwich (at my eager recommendation). I got my typical sausage sandwich and to her hot dog, Erin added yellow mustard (very specific) and ketchup. Remember, prior to this stadium, Erin had experienced 17 different hot dogs, which sounds more perverted than it should. On a scale of 1-10, the Yankee Stadium hot dog earned an 8.5/9, Erin wishing that the dog itself was a bit thicker or beefier ("that's what she said").

Matt rocked his sandwich properly, adding gravy and horseradish. His assessment? "This sandwich is f*cking stupid" and "it's legit." His only negative feedback on it? Too expensive. Totally understood. This is Matt having a food "O" over his sandwich:

The pitching matchup we got was my Big Texan and Oakland's Dan Straily. Erin couldn't have asked for a better Yankee.

As you can see, our seats had a pretty stellar view of all of the on-field action. The downside was the fact that they were exposed to an approximate hot second of sunlight/warmth. Once the sun began to move across the sky, our section became enveloped in shade. Add the strong breeze and we were unseasonably chilled...more like frozen. And under-dressed. Poor Erin wore flip flops. Her toes were borderline purpled from the cold. The unexpected cold definitely took a toll on the crowd as the game progressed. We noticed that gradually, but consistently, the shaded sections of the stadium emptied and the sunnier areas of the stadium (basically the outfield and the roof deck bar) became more congested.

Unfortunately, luck was not on Pettitte's side that afternoon. In the top of the 3rd, Cano overthrew first on a double play ball, causing the run to score and giving the A's a 1-0 lead. In the top of the 4th, Pettitte served up a solo shot to Luke Montz, who had had the pleasure of being called up from the Triple-A on Wednesday, making the score 2-1. Awesome. Talk about something to call home to the folks about. "Hey, ma! Guess what?! I hit my first major league homer off of ANDY PETTITTE! I'm AMAZE-balls!" However, the 4th inning was not all lost. We did learn something very important in that inning: Lyle Overbay has fantastic taste in music, coming to the plate to Nirvana's Breed (whereas Brett Gardiner's taste in music makes me want to shove a screwdriver through my ear drums). Pettitte was removed in the 5th after giving up a 2-run shot to Yoenis Cespedes, making the score 4-1. :(

The Yankees would not go gently into that good night, however. In the bottom of the 6th, Ichiro Suzuki scored Vernon Wells and advanced Travis Hafner to third on a double hit off of Jerry Blevins. With Ichiro's wheels at second, Overbay's (who this time came to the plate to Led Zeppelin's Moby Dick...the man may slowly be becoming my hero) single easily scored Ichiro and Hafner, FINALLY tying up the game!

It was all very exciting until Boone Logan entered the game and gave up another solo home run to Josh Donaldson like a real a-hole. Here's the play by play of the bottom of the 9th as performed by the New York Yankees:

• Grant Balfour - Pitching.
• Chris Nelson & Brennan Boesch - pathetic display of athletic prowess at the plate - 2 outs.
• Gardiner - single! There's still life in the team yet! Best part? The scoreboard flashed Brett "The Hitman" Gardiner. It basically featured Gardy's head Photoshopped onto the WWF wrestler's body. It was amazing. It was reminiscent of my kick ass Photoshopping skills as demonstrated on Tim Lincecum Appreciation Day.
• Speedy Gardy Gonzalez takes second on a pass ball.
• Robinson Cano intentionally walked because Balfour and Derek Norris are a pair of vaginas.
• Balfour and Norris take 40 billion chit-chat breaks to talk about the weather, Miley Cyrus' hair, and the meaning of life.
• We shout curse words and other assorted atrocities down at them on the field for being pansy bitches.
• Wells strikes out swinging. The equivalent of forgetting to tie off a helium-filled balloon and accidentally releasing it. Well, done. Good, sir.

Before leaving the stadium, a lovely A's fan took our photo with the field behind us:

Since this is the Traveling Baseball Babes and we're SUPPOSED to be "assessing" the different MLB stadiums, I felt compelled to survey my guests. Much to my relief, both Erin and Matt gave the stadium a thumbs up. Erin referred to it as a "Hollywood-ized" or more polished version of the original, which makes me happy because to be quite frank, I hate change and would not have been able to emotionally or mentally handle a vastly different ballpark from what I was accustomed to growing up with (Matt, having never been to the original, could not offer a comparison). Erin enjoyed the respectful, friendly fan atmosphere (in our section in particular, we had the pleasure of witnessing Yankees fan/A's fan bro-mances) the most. Matt's favorite part of the day was the sandwich, which is completely understandable as it is pretty damn awesome. Erin agreed that the stadium's food did make it into her to top 10 percentile, but did mention that it wasn't the BEST she'd ever had.

Erin didn't have a "least favorite" part of the stadium per say, but Matt felt that the crowd seemed low key. He also wasn't sure if the subdued atmosphere was the result of the chill in the air (WE were awfully lethargic ourselves) or if the fans just blew chunks.

It was during this discussion that I mentioned the fact that we hadn't arrived at the game early enough to check out Monument Park or the museum (two somewhat vital pit stops for folks visiting for the first time). I asked the two to rate Yankee Stadium in comparison to the other stadiums they'd visited on a scale of 1-10. Matt explained a 1 as being "a piece of shit aka: Oakland" and a 10 as being "hand jobs for everyone." Discovering that they'd missed major pieces of what Yankee Stadium had to offer effected Erin's overall rating of it. She gave it a 6 or 7, but wasn't confident in the rating knowing that she missed stuff. I promised I'd take her to another game in order to make up for this mishap. Matt rated the Stadium at a 7, citing the lack of "electricity" in the crowd being the reason for not giving it a higher score.

Later this week, Lisa and I will post Erin and The Favorite's Citi Field experience together as per our usual posting schedule. Try not to get too excited. I'd hate for you to have to change your shorts as a result of your over-eagerness.

-Serena