Yankees' Opening Day 2015

April 6, 2015

For Serena's birthday, Old Man Ed purchased us an Opening Day package to benefit a charity. For $200/each, we received transportation into the Bronx, unlimited food and beverage during a tailgate, a 2015 Opening Day long sleeved shirt and baseball hat, and tickets to the game. Who could possibly have guessed that we wouldn't get along with anyone at our tailgate party? We're so charming. The only people that loved us for who we are were Old Man Ed's cousins and they don't count because they're obligated to love us. We make fun of Old Man Ed all the time and so do they.

Anyway. Back to the day at hand. For a 1:00 pm game, we were required to meet at the rendezvous point at 7:35 am. This meant that we had to meet at 6:45 am in order for us to drive there together. That's a really early morning. We collected our hats, shirts, and tickets and boarded one of three coach buses waiting to take us to Yankee Stadium. Since we were left to our own devices, we boarded the bus we felt like: bus #1. While on the bus, we opened our envelope to check where our seats were and found four tickets. We were unaware who the other two tickets were for, so we debated selling the extra tickets at the game for a profit or inviting two other people to meet us at the game. As Lisa typed a Facebook status offering the tickets up for grabs, a man stepped onto our bus and shouted, "Are there two girls here with tickets for Old Man Ed?" Apparently, the extra tickets were for Old Man Ed's cousins. Ooops.

Once all of the buses were packed with Yankees fans, we realized that something had gone awry. That something was the fact that we boarded the wrong bus. Little did we know that each of the three buses had a purpose. Bus #3 was for the charity the event benefited. Bus #2 was for the people no one cared about. Bus #1 was for "The Family." We were supposed to be with the other people that no one cared about. Right off the bat, there we were. Pissing people off by unknowingly stealing Aunt Petunia's seats.

At the tailgate, we had to wait on line to make our way through the buffet tables. Naturally, forming lines is a good way to organize many people. Unfortunately, the parking lot attendant sandwiched the buses into the parking lot like the NYPD sandwiches drunk tourists into barricaded sections in Times Square on New Years Eve. It was a bit claustrophobic. Plus (and we have to stress this fact), no one liked us. So, imagine us stuck in a tight spot surrounded by people that hate us. Oh, wait. You don't have to imagine. We took pictures for you:

 

The food was pretty delicious, but it was so chilly that we didn't take advantage of the free beer. It would've been awesome if there was free hot chocolate. We ate a slice of hero, pasta with pesto sauce,  sweet and sour chicken, pulled pork, sausage and peppers, eggplant rollatini, and sliced beef. Each.

We wanted cookies, but we would've needed to crash another tailgate party and we were already skating on the thin ice of judgement. Since we were still hungry and we wanted to make sure we got into the Stadium with plenty of time before the Opening Day ceremony started, we ditched the party.

We tried at least ten times to take a Hervie outside the Stadium, something that we used to be very good at. Apparently, now we're photography failures because this is the best one and as you can see in the background, it looks like the heavens have opened and angels are smiling upon us. However, that's simply not true. Angels never smile upon us because we're a-holes. It's more likely that the pits of hell will open for us before an angel even picks their nose in our direction. What you're actually witnessing is an inexplicable blinding light present ONLY to ruin a photo of us with the Stadium. If you'll now look at the second photo, you'll see that a photo of JUST the Stadium came out perfectly fine. Every single photo of us made us look like ugly poltergeists.

We had plenty of time once inside the Stadium, so we checked out the Museum to see if they added anything new. There's now an exhibit on the 2014 Monument Park inductees where the old Lou Gehrig/Babe Ruth exhibit used to be and a Joe Torre exhibit where the George Steinbrenner exhibit used to be, but that's it. No big deal.

 

  

 

After the Museum, we didn't have enough time to see Monument Park, so we bought ourselves more food and went to our seats. Because we were starving and tired.

 $20.  That's it. $20 for a bucket of french fries, chicken (or burger) sliders, or chicken fingers. It's brilliant, especially considering the platter for one individual is $12 and it's less than half the amount of food. Also noteworthy: one of our neighbors purchased a pig trough of popcorn for $12. Included in this price is the ability to refill the trough as many times as you want for the duration of the game. The Yankees are probably banking on the fact that no one can finish the entire thing, let alone get refills. The Yankees are obviously stupid because now that we know about this, not only will we be taking advantage of this deal, but we'll make it our business to finish it and get at least two refills. We want to eat $40 worth of popcorn for $12. Just on principle.

 

Joe Torre threw out the ceremonial first pitch, despite Lisa being convinced that Derek Jeter's widow's peak would be throwing it out.  He was probably too busy driving his copper colored Ford Edge from his retirement gated community in Florida to his hair plug implant appointment.

 

The day turned out to be a beautiful one. We wish we could comment further on the game itself, but to quote the great Crash Davis, the Yankees "couldn't hit water if they fell out of a boat." Bunch of a$$ clowns. One couldn't tell if the Blue Jays were suddenly brilliant or if the Yankees are just that terrible. One shining moment from the game came during the national anthem. We started with the Canadian anthem and Lisa asked, "why are we playing Oh, Canada?"

The original plan for us to attend Mets' Opening Day together has been foiled because Serena will be in a continuing education program for her job. Sad day. Lisa is still going to the game, but will be going with Laurie The Jinx instead.Therefore, the Mets will lose. Lisa will post a blog on the loss next Sunday.