Yankees v Indians 9-18-21

Well, it's the middle of September already. Not that you'd know that from the sweaty gym balls-style weather that we've been having. We were looking forward to a pleasant outdoor experience during a late season baseball game. Instead, we've left the game with sun burns and suffering from dehydration. Probably didn't help that we started our afternoon off with wine instead of water, but that is not our fault. It should have been mid-70's at most and the Yankees shouldn't be selling souvenir carafes and wine glasses. It just spells trouble. 

Also, as you can see in this photo, we totally crushed the Don Mattingly bobblehead giveaway. This is largely thanks to Clear. That line was super quick compared to the rest of the security lines around the stadium AND due to an unwarranted amount of traffic for a mid-Saturday, we were totally late getting to the ballpark. So, anyone that tells you that the annual fee for Clear isn't worth it is a big, fat liar. They're lying to you and to themselves. Clear, we're ready for our paid sponsorship/advertising contract. Hit us up. 

We actually watched 4 innings of the game from this view because it was shaded and the temperature was much cooler here. Then we got hungry and foolishly decided to head up to our seats, thinking that the upper deck "always gets such a nice breeze." We got no such nice breeze, but we did go old school with our food selection - a nice, reliable spicy sausage and peppers sandwich. We've learned a few things over the years and the number 1, most important thing we learned is to not photograph yourself eating a sausage or a hot dog. Ever. It's horrifying. 

The Yankees took a giant sh*t on the field and called it a baseball game. They chose not to play today. Unfortunately, they didn't give us the option to not pay for our tickets. At least we got our bobbleheads. We received several offers from people requesting to buy it from us, but Serena felt that since it was Don Mattingly, it was a priceless artifact and Lisa's asking price was too high. The highest offer we got was $10, but Lisa held out for a Louis Vuitton bag. 

We decided that we needed ice cream, so we went in search of a Ben & Jerry's. The line at the stand in our section was personally offensive, so we decided to go downstairs to the main concourse, thinking we'd have more stands to choose from. We did not. The line in the food court was even worse, so we ended up on the Grand Slam Shake stand because no one was there. 

While tasty, it wasn't what we wanted, so it didn't really satisfy our cravings. Lisa got the cereal one and Serena got the celebration one. It was too hot to go back to our seats, so we ended up watching the rest of the sh*t show standing around the main concourse. Bunch of clowns. 

Yankees Opening Day 2021

 April 8, 2021

We hit hardly any traffic and parking was ample when we arrived for opening day at "Yankee Stadium."  When was the last time you heard anyone say that there was hardly any traffic in the Bronx? Never. There'll be an apocalypse before that actually happens. 

New York State has limited sports' venues to 20% capacity. Tickets to both opening days went to season ticket holders first and then it became a "Welcome to the First Annual Hunger Games" type of event in order to get your hands on tickets. As if getting tickets to opening day wasn't hard enough in past years. A quick check on StubHub put standing room only tickets at roughly $1,500/each. We have to emphasize this fact too: this price does not include a seat for your ass to sit in. And that's without taxes and service fees and all that junk. We tried. We really did. We tried and tried and tried to think of something that we loved enough to pay $2,000 for and it turns out, there's nothing. That's more than the cost of our 5-day vacation to San Francisco and Sonoma in June and that's including airfare, accommodations, and a private driver. Unless we're sitting in the dugout during the game and then going home with one of the players to have a slumber party afterwards, $2,000/each for one game is too much. Go to hell. And have a lovely day. 

This is the first opening day that we've missed in over 10 years. Again, why is there no bronze statue dedicated to us somewhere?

So, here we are. Faux-Yankee Stadium. Truthfully, we didn't hate it. Serena made ribs for the first time ever and she f*cking crushed it. She also prepared grass-fed burgers and grass-fed beef hot dogs. There was quite the spread and truthfully, we probably spent less on food and alcohol and we got way more than we typically do out of it. Unfortunately, we tried to eat all of it, but that's a different issue entirely. 

Another bonus was there were no bathroom lines or concession lines to deal with. Which also led to more drinking than usual. 

The view from our seats were unobstructed for the most part and ideal because we could see the field and the Yankees lose from every angle. 

Baby Emma was charming fellow fan. She kept to herself, remained quiet, and required cuddles occasionally, which we were happy to give her because look at her. She's the f*cking cutest. 

Unfortunately, there were a few rowdy fans in the "audience" and we had to put them in their place. 

Anyhoo, the Yankees lost  their home opener as usual. They did it in extra innings, so we're thankful that they wasted more of our time like that. The Mets didn't play because the Nationals decided they wanted to be a pack of COVID babies. 

And so brings us to the end of our baseball pandemic home opening week story. Stay tuned next week for the Mets' home opener. 

NYY Star Wars Day 2019

May 4, 2019

May the Fourth be with you. The game started at 1pm, so Serena limited her work day to only three clients so that we could be on the road by 10am. The CC Sabathia Jedi bobblehead was a must have for our collection. At this stage, we feel like we're bobblehead connoisseurs. In turns out that we were way too proactive about getting to the game early because we flew through the line and got our free giveaway without breaking a sweat. Though we did manage to miss getting our bobblehead from a Yoda-dressed CC.

It is also noteworthy that it was rainy and cold AF. In the month of May.

 

During Star Wars games, our first priority is always the free giveaway. Our second priority is getting photos taken with the characters. According to sources, the characters would not be available until after the pre-game parade and ceremonial first pitch, so we had time. Therefore, we searched for food. Since Opening Day, Lisa has had a hankering for the bacon cheeseburger fried dumplings. We found them at the Noodle Bowl (not exactly the most logical location, but it doesn't matter since we found it) stand in the food court. They were three for $11.99 and served topped with a pickle.  We also ordered the General Tso Crispy Chicken sandwich for $11.99. As we type these numbers out, we're realizing that this seems very lopsided and it's quite possible that the Yankees have pulled one over on us. 

 

The dumplings tasted like Hamburger Helper, which is totally fine, but not really worth writing home about. Or paying $12 for. The G.T. Crispy Chicken tasted more like sweet n sour chicken and came topped with coleslaw, which we found extremely baffling because not a single Asian restaurant that we've been to has ever served us coleslaw. Serena scraped hers off and struggled not to dry heave because mayo is revolting.

After food, we watched the parade celebrating Star Wars and all of its galactic wonder and then headed off to stand on line to meet the characters. Like at Disney World. Only there's no fast pass available.

 

Notice Serena's stance in the photo with Lord Vader below. Upon jumping into this photo, Serena immediately grabbed the point position by his side and asked him if he would be willing to take a prom photo with her. How he knew what she was talking about will forever be a mystery, but he obliged and offered her his arm. Hence, Lisa looks like she is the third wheel on this extremely bizarre date. 

 

 

We finally made it to our seats and apparently entered the Twilight Zone because it was suddenly very sunny without a single cloud in the sky and 4 billion degrees. Lisa had about five layers of clothing on that needed to come off. All of our layers were shoved between us on the seats and between our feet. We also rolled our sleeves up to really complete this charming vision of trailer park trash.

 

Our neighbors had bladder control issues or something because they had to get up to leave our row every 10 minutes, which means we kept having to gather all of our sweat inducing shit in order to stand up over and over again.

As usual, the Star Wars details were adorable, but for some god forsaken reason, they replayed the video from last year where they asked the players who their favorite Star Wars character is. This was such a disaster, why on earth would they replay this stupid thing? Why wouldn't they reshoot this video and make it less embarrassing for all of us? For starters, one asshole (if memory serves us correctly, it was that tits on a bull, Greg Bird) claimed that he was more of a Star Trek fan. Countless infants on that team have apparently never seen the movies and actually admitted this fact on camera like a bunch of buffoons. Why wasn't there someone feeding them lines? Or editing these idiots out of the video entirely? Furthermore, where is the common sense that dictates that on Star Wars Day, you're clearly supposed to lie about this shit? No one cares that you like Star Trek, Greg!

The Yankees played like ass hats, so in the 7th inning, we decided that it was finally hot enough to try one of those specialty milkshakes. Unfortunately, we weren't the only ones to have this genius idea. The line was so long that we basically got our shakes as the final Yankees' hitter stepped into the batter's box. The shakes were $15.99 each. Lisa ordered the Celebration and Serena got the All Star.

The shakes were worth the wait and the price. Our photo also briefly made us Insta-famous when @major_league_chefs reposted it to their account. They post a lot of fun food pictures from around the league, so if you're interested in stadium touring, we'd highly recommend checking them out so that you can get some inspiration while you're road tripping.

Nothing else to report regarding the game because the Yankees were terrible. We had breast and armpit sweat and our stomachs were distended from all of the disgusting food that we inhaled. That is all.

Bernie Williams Bobblehead Night

April 12, 2019

Apparently the Yankees chose to release only a limited quantity of this spectacular piece of art so we had to make sure that we left Long Island by 3pm in order to get to the Stadium as close to gate opening as possible. Acquiring this bobblehead was a matter of life and death. We know that we say that a lot of these giveaways are imperative and "must haves," so you probably think that by this point, we're crying wolf. Rest assured, we are not. This is legitimate. One half of the TBB has his number tattooed on her rib cage. We promise you that there is no bigger Bernie fan than she. In fact, if he's interested, she'll absolutely accept an invitation to get her picture taken with him and receive his autograph. Especially now that she has a phone with a camera on it and no longer wears braces (that's another story for another day). She's available. Whenever he is.

Unfortunately, we allowed Wayze to dictate our course instead of just going the way we normally go. She's a giant buffoon and no one should listen to her because she took us through the backstreets of the Bronx, which is never something you should feel compelled to do. It's totally unnecessary and you're a better person for not having done it. By the time we reached Yankee Stadium, the police had started to close many of the roads in order to accommodate foot traffic. Wayze didn't know that, so she basically directed us right into a police barricade like a gigantic ass clown. Thankfully, we're not 100% stupid, so Serena was able to figure out how to circle around the entire stadium to get to a parking lot.

Serena borderline shoved Lisa out of the passenger door at a street corner so that Lisa could at least jump on line while she parked. The line was already getting out of control.

We got stuck parking in a garage that cost us $40. Naturally, this garage was on the opposite side of the stadium of where she dropped Lisa off, so Serena literally ran from her car to Lisa's spot on line. By the time she reached Lisa, she was sweating and breathless. If these stupid jack wagon teams would just make enough giveaways for everyone to enjoy, this kind of shit would not be necessary. How many times do we need to point this out before the teams get it?

Thankfully, we did manage to get our bobbleheads without any further difficulty, but that's hardly the point.

We were so early that we had nothing better to do than eat and eat we did. First, we stopped at the Buffalo Wild Wings stand on the main concourse and ordered the boneless chicken wings with french fries basket for only $20! It's so reasonable, how do you not get it?

Naturally, we had to stop by the City Winery stand again to grab a table and buy two glasses of rose. While Serena ordered our wine, Lisa examined our tickets more carefully and discovered that we had access to the Pepsi Lounge and Audi Club. Serena didn't think that was right because she was pretty sure that she bought us bleacher seats, but nevertheless, it couldn't hurt to try. Plus, we had nothing better to do and it had just started to rain. Turns out, Serena bought tickets in the 200 level (and thank goodness for that because she had thought she'd been robbed on Stub Hub for mere bleacher seats) The Pepi Lounge is located in the batter's eye. It used to be known as the 1893 Club and had ticketed assigned seats. It now operates on a first come, first serve basis and since it was raining, all of the seats were taken. Therefore, we decided to head to the Audi Club because it sounded douchey and no one ever lets us into douchey places because we're borderline trash.

 

The Audi Club has two sides to it. One is a bar and has first come, first serve seating. You pay as you order like a typical bar. This side was already swarming with people. The other side has a full all you can eat buffet for $65 and includes table seating as long as there are tables available. The $65 does not include alcohol, but in terms of food, there's pretty much everything under the sun.

For some reason, we decided to go for it. Maybe because we know it would be the only time we ever stepped foot into this club and we happened to have the spare cash. The view of the field from our table overlooked left field.

 

We ate our weight in sushi, ice cream, and cookies. We ate until we made ourselves sick. Like puppies.

 

 

 

Outside it rained harder. We're actually surprised that the game never saw a delay, but considered ourselves fortunate to have scored tickets (even if it was unintentional) with access to an indoor club that had a decent view of the game. Inside the club, we had the audio of the YES Network's in game commentary.

Bernie Williams threw out the ceremonial first pitch of the game. Paul O'Neill claimed that Bernie must have shoulder issues because his throw wasn't up to snuff. We're not really sure Paul had to point that out. It's been like, 100 years since either he or Bernie played. We'd like to see him throw a ball. ANYWAY, Bernie's adorable and the only decent moment of the game. The rest of the Yankees were god awful and stupid. We'd look up the final score for you, but there's really no point. It was embarrassing.

We took a couple of ridiculous photos exiting the stadium, which we're sure you'll find delightful.

 

 

You're welcome.

Yankees' Opening Day 2019

March 28, 2019

Fearing the crowds that caused delays entering our ballparks last season, we decided to leave for Yankee Stadium by 10:30 for a 1:05 start. We arrived at 11:30. Parking cost $30, which is relatively cheap for a New York special event parking rate. Gates opened at 11 and arriving so close to the opening time may have been the game changer for us in terms of getting into the stadium relatively quickly. The lines were still extremely long, but unlike last season, we moved through the line within minutes (as opposed to an hour or longer). Our first stop (as usual) was food. Every year, Lisa checks out the new food offerings from Yankee Stadium and Citi Field in advance and this year was no exception. For Yankee Stadium, she set her eyes on the following new items:
Big Mozz
Tater Kegs
Bacon Cheeseburger Crispy Dumplings
Buffalo Wild Wings
Avocado Bites
Chorizo loaded fries

She never got a chance to have the new shakes that were introduced last season, so now she's double obsessed with getting one this year.

The Big Mozz can be found in the food court of Yankee Stadium for $12.49. They're essentially ginormous mozzarella sticks and DELICIOUS.

We briefly met up with our friends, Mike and Sam, before deciding that we needed to get tater tots. Unfortunately, we noticed that the pre-game ceremony had started, so we stopped and stood in the concourse to watch it alongside other a-holes that either didn't find their seats yet or purchased cheap SRO "seats." We'll be discussing this topic in a later blog post, but whoever came up with this concept to introduce standing room only tickets at sporting events is a giant ass clown.

 

 

 

 

Mariano Rivera threw out the ceremonial first pitch. For those of you unaware, in the off season, Mariano was the first player to receive a unanimous vote into the Hall of Fame, surpassing the previous 99.32% vote received by Ken Griffey Jr. in 2016.

After seeing the first pitch, we picked up our Tater Kegs from the garlic fries stand nearby. Tater Kegs are giant tater tots served on a skewer and topped with shredded cheese and sour cream (GROSS). Baked inside the tater tots is cheese and bacon bits. We apparently couldn't order the tots without sour cream, so we had to scrape it off. Serena also spied a giant Yankees' helmet filled with french fries, so she decided that we needed that as well. The taters cost $8.09 and the helmet fries cost $11.09.

On the way to our seats, we found the new City Winery stand and decided to check it out. They had little tables to rest our food plate on, so we chose to eat the food there and Lisa ordered two glasses of rose for us. Each glass was $12.99. The bartender tried to convince Lisa to get the carafe for $48 because it would've given us each an extra glass, but $50 gets us five whole bottles of Dr. L from the liquor store, so really, is that a deal? The stand also offers cabernet, sauvignon blanc, and chardonnay by the glass.

A security guard approached us and mentioned that we needed to leave some room for wings. We replied that it was still early in the game. He said, "Just don't get fat." Wow. Okay. The truth hurts. Way to be up front about that sh*t.

FINALLY, we headed to ours seats. We arrived at our section just as Luke Voit crushed a three-run home run.

 

Greg Bird also hit a home run, but no one was on base, the Yankees were already winning, and prior to that at bat, he'd struck out three times. So, who cares?

A drunk man sauntered up the steps asking if we'd seen his big foot friend. Lisa had visions of vomit. He sat behind us for three innings before leaving and asking us to tell his friend that he was going to search for him in the dugout. A tall man with big feet eventually did show up, but didn't seem to know anything about the drunk man searching for his big foot friend in the dugout.

Mike's friend happened to have extra tickets to field level seats, so Mike texted us and we upgraded our situation. We arrived just in time for Giancarlo Stanton's at bat. Lisa took many photos of his butt.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Yankees won 7-2.

 

 

 

After the game, we went to Michael's Craft Store, which takes place post-baseball games more often than you'd think. We also left hungry because we didn't eat nearly as much as we'd intended. We had to stop at Taco Bell on the way home.