I Met Derek Jeter

In light of Derek Jeter's recent announcement of his intention to retire at the close of the 2014 season, we decided to bring you two special edition blog posts. Today's blog post, written by myself, and next week's, written by Lisa. I suggested that to Lisa that her blog post be entitled, "I Knew I Loved Derek Jeter When He Started Losing His Hair," but she didn't go for it. Sorry, guys. I tried. I felt that you would've really enjoyed that discussion.

I thought that I would share with you the story about the day I met Derek Jeter. Or otherwise known as "the heart-warming story about a girl in her pre-flatiron era fro on her quest to meet Bernie Williams."

You may have recalled that fun fact from this blog post last year. I think I was about 12 years old when Mamadukes won an auction that allowed me to be the honorary bat girl for a day for the Yankees. All I wanted was to get my picture taken with Bernie Williams. That is all. Before I continue with this story, I have to emphasize the fact that the Derek Jeter I met was not the Derek Jeter that sh*ts bricks of gold according the the media. He was just a newbie.

I didn't have my very own Yankees jersey until high school, so Mamadukes loaned me her Don Mattingly one. I spent batting practice sitting in the dugout with a Yankees' Suit and a photographer. I specifically stated that I wanted a picture with Bernie Williams. Multiple times. I was introduced to Joe Torre, Mariano Duncan, and Tino Martinez. I was appreciative of all of these moments, but continued asking for Bernie Williams (after the Yankee of the moment had already departed, of course).

Jeter had just taken the field to take a few warm up throws when the Suit asked, "Hey! Do you want to meet Derek Jeter?" I didn't even know who "Derek Jeter" was. Clearly, this man was either hard of hearing or a total d*ck.
"I guess." I looked to the outfield where I could see Bernie Williams shagging fly balls.
The Suit was seemed totally thrilled because he hopped off the bench, bounded up the steps, and trotted over to Jeter. "Derek? Do you mind taking a photo with one of our biggest fans?"
Jeter looked at me and smiled. "Sure."
The Suit eagerly waved me over as the photographer jumped to action. They positioned me next to Jeter and Jeter placed his hand on my back. I tried to smile. To the best of my ability. PS - I also had braces.

The photographer snapped several photos. "It looks like you'll need to get yourself a Jeter jersey now!" he declared cheerfully from behind his camera.
Jeter patted me lightly on the back. "No. She's got a good one on."
"Exactly," I blurted out. Which was super sweet of me.
He chuckled. The Suit and photographer chuckled as well, but I think theirs was more awkward and forced.

When we returned to the dugout, I checked the outfield again. Bernie Williams was gone! In the time we had wasted with the new Yankee, I'd missed the only man I wanted my picture taken with! I felt my stomach turn.

I turned to The Suit and said, "we missed Bernie."
He frowned. "So we did."
My heart sunk. I felt my shoulders sag.
"Why don't we see if we can grab him before he makes it to the clubhouse?" he suggested.
"Really?"
"Sure."
The photographer was now focused on photographing the action around the batting cages, so it was just me, clutching my little cheap camera, and The Suit hurrying through the halls to in an effort to reach the clubhouse in time.

At the double doors, The Suit turned to me and said, "wait here." He opened the door and disappeared. As the door slowly swung closed, I could hear him shout, "Bernie?"

It felt like I waited for hours. I thought that I'd been forgotten. Then the door swung open and The Suit emerged with Bernie. My face hurt from the smile that erupted on it.
"Nice to meet you," he said, shaking my hand. To me. He spoke to me.
I grinned. All I could do was grin.
"I know you don't have a lot of time here, but do you mind taking a photo with her, Bernie?" The Suit asked. "That's all she's been asking for."
"Of course, of course!" he said. He spotted my camera and took it. He put his arm around my shoulders and flipped the camera around to face us. He pressed the button to take a selfie of us before "selfies" even existed. I think my smile was so big that my eyes had squinted shut, but it didn't matter because the camera never went off. He frowned and examined the camera before trying again. Nothing. He fiddled with it some more. Nothing.
He frowned and handed the camera back to me with an apologetic frown. "I'm very sorry. It's not working."
What I would've given for a smart phone back then.

I've been asked by people who I told this story to, "why couldn't you just be a little nicer to Jeter?" I'm pretty simple and I'm pretty relaxed about most things, but I also want what I want and that's that. Once I decide that I want something, nothing is going to deter me from that task. I didn't want Jeter. I wanted Bernie.

Since that season, not a year has gone by when Mamadukes has suggested, "I don't know why you can't just marry Derek Jeter? What's your problem?" Because Derek Jeter has asked me on a date and I blew him off. Or something. Now he's retiring. I've single-handedly blew Mamadukes' chance at field level season tickets. I'm a life ruiner.

But Jeter would always be Mamadukes' favorite potential future son-in-law and to prove her love,
for my 16th birthday, she blew up what must be one of the Top 5 Most Heinous Photographs of me in existence, had Derek Jeter autograph it, and then framed it. Exhibit said photo below:

I mean...she didn't have to blow it up. Really. It was unnecessary. I think it's safe to say that when he saw this photo in its massive size, he didn't feel like he made a poor decision allowing me to walk away without getting my digits.

-Serena

Rays @ Yankees 9-21-10

Well…at least WE got to see the Yankees play well this week. That’s a bonus, we suppose. Rules are rules though. Before we can even talk about the amazing food we ate on Tuesday (oh…and the baseball game), we must relay the results of last week’s poll. Andy Pettitte returned to the Yankees’ rotation in fantastic form on Sunday, which prompted us to ask the question: would Andy Pettitte help the Yankees? A mere 6 people seemed to have an opinion on this subject. 2 people felt that their mother would be of assistance to the Yankees at this rate. 3 people firmly believed that he would, citing that they had heard “his crotch was feeling much better.” We just hate it when there are issues with the crotch area. 1 lone reed didn’t think he’d make any difference. However, we’re proud to report that no one voted for “ooooh, Andy Pettitte’s hot.” We’re sorry, but sometimes your decisions worry us and with each new poll that we post, we can never tell what direction you’re going to go in. It’s troublesome.

Every time we think that the subway is the easiest way to get around town, we’re brought back to reality by something as simple, yet inevitable like rush hour. The E and D trains that we took to get to Yankees Stadium were so congested that we’re confident that sardines have it better. We also had to listen to a man on the D insisting that the train was not stopping at Yankees Stadium. The more he rattled on, the more panicked the tourists on the subway became. To make matters worse, he spoke so loudly that we couldn’t hear anything the conductor announced over the PA system. We were forced to peer out the windows through the armpits of our surrounding passengers in order to see the signs on the subway platforms.

Thankfully, we arrived at Yankees Stadium relatively unscathed and on time to receive our free giveaways: a Metlife Snoopy doll!

Our first goal of the day was to go to Monument Park in order to see the new Steinbrenner monument. Unfortunately, this is what we found when we got there:

We apparently missed Monument Park by ten stupid minutes. We’re going to blame the subway ride on this one. Just because. However, all was not lost. We were at least able to take a picture of the wall of retired numbers outside of Monument Park.

We even made sure to take a picture of Don Mattingly for Mamadukes:

In the same area, we found a small souvenir store that we’d never noticed before so naturally, we HAD to check it out. God forbid we miss a chance to try anything on and behave like a-holes.

Long before that night’s game, we decided that we needed to branch out in terms of food intake at Citi Field and Yankees Stadium. We can’t keep buying the same items, no matter how much we love them. It’s not fair to you that we keep reporting on the same hot dog and sausage sandwich. It’s obvious by now that we think they’re yummy. Therefore, we went in search of a new food item to sample. We found a Holy Guacamole stand just outside the right field bleacher section and went to town. For $8.50, we got this delightful plate of sweet goodness: nachos covered in cheese, tasty spicy beef, salsa, and guacamole on the side. We purchased two Bud Lights for $9/each at another small stand in the area.

This is when things got interesting for us. We plopped down at a nearby bar table to eat the nachos, but were asked to leave because the seats were “reserved.” Okay. Fine. We DID happen to notice the “Reserved” sign resting on the table and had chosen to ignore it. So we moved on. We found another empty bar table without a sign and sat down. Not one nacho made it into our mouths before we were asked to leave AGAIN. Apparently, those seats were “reserved as well.” After being dismissed from two other tables, we finally found an empty table in the middle of the Yankees Stadium Food Court.

It turned out that we’d end up spending a lot of time in this section as the game wore on, but we’ll get into that a bit later. As we polished off our nachos, we noticed that the food court was decorated with blown up black and white photos of different people from the Yankees organization either eating or drinking. Our favorite was this one of Ron Guidry. He’s icing his arm and chowing down on a rib with his other hand like a mother f’n champion:

After disposing of our garbage, we climbed to the very top of Yankees Stadium where our seats were located.

If you think we’re joking about our seats being at the very top of the stadium, we assure you that we’re not. This is the view of outside the stadium from our seats:

We were literally able to communicate with God from up here. He said that he’s concerned about the Yankees bullpen holding up during the playoffs. We agreed. The pitching matchup was between Phil Hughes (again…Phil just seems to adore us) and James Shields.

The game started off rocky for Shields. Nick Swisher got things started with a solo homerun. Then Jorge Posada hit an RBI single that brought Mark Teixeira home.

As if the 2-run deficit wasn’t bad enough, Shields continued to put men on base and Lance Berkman made it hurt. His 2-run double made the score 4-0 and allowed the scoreboard to greet us with this priceless gem:

But wait. There’s more! Curtis Granderson hit a single that scored Berkman, making it 5-0. In the top of the 2nd, the Rays managed to scratch 1 run across with a Matt Joyce homerun. Around this time, we recalled a delightful little bakery that lived in the field level section near home plate at the “Old” Yankees Stadium. We remembered that during a Yankees/Rays game, similar to the one we were currently at, we purchased a Derek Jeter cookie and that it had been delicious. You might be asking yourself, what is a Derek Jeter cookie? Our friends, it is a cookie with Derek Jeter’s FACE on it. One could say that we ate Derek Jeter’s face…and enjoyed it. Surely something as innovative as a Yankees’ bakery HAD to have followed the team across the street to their new home. We wondered where it might be…

…then Phil Hughes gave up a two out RBI single to Evan Longoria in the top of the 3rd. We booed, but our hearts weren’t in it. All we could think about was when our next meal was and where the magical bakery could be. After a brief coaching visit to the mound, Hughes was able to coax Ben Zobrist to ground out to Teixeira at first. After the Yankees were retired in the bottom of the inning, we went in search of the closest hot dog stand. It had come to our realization that we hadn’t eaten a hot dog at the new stadium yet. The grilled foot long was $6.25. The stand offered sauerkraut and red onions, but the vendor loaded up the hot dog for you. Serena ordered onions in red sauce while Lisa got sauerkraut. At the nearby condiments table, Serena added spicy mustard and Lisa added ketchup and mustard. The dogs were quite the mouthful and much better than the dogs at the stadium’s predecessor. No jokes, please.

By the time we finished the hot dogs, it was the bottom of the 6th. We know this sounds ridiculous. It took us two whole innings to find a hot dog stand and eat. The good thing about the layout of the new stadium is that we were still able to watch the game while standing on line at the stand and eating the hot dogs at a nearby “unreserved” table.

With the Derek Jeter cookie still on our brains, we asked every single employee that we bumped into about the whereabouts of a bakery. Each person told us that there was no bakery. We refused to believe this. Why the hell wouldn’t they transport this bakery with them to the new stadium? It’s completely ludicrous to think that beneath the rubble of the old stadium lays a Derek Jeter cookie that will never be eaten! What is this world coming to? Undaunted, we decided to comb the stadium ourselves. We never found the bakery, but we DID find a Fried Dough stand in the food court that didn’t just sell your ordinary funnel cake. No. They sold something infinitely better than just funnel cake. Fried Twinkies and Oreos. Oh, yes. It will be done. Since both options were $6 and brilliant, the master plan was for Serena to buy the Oreos while Lisa bought the Twinkie (sadly, you only get one Twinkie, but we can admit that that’s probably best for your heart). We knew we were in for something special because the line was 30 people long. Figuring that fried food was always worth it, we jumped on the end of the line.

While we patiently waited and listened to a man behind us talking about how he runs every morning in order to make up for his terrible eating habits (oh, is that the key to not gaining weight? Huh. We’ve been going about this all wrong…), the Rays scored another run, making it 5-3. When we finally reached the counter of glory, Lisa was notified that they had run out of Twinkies. Devastation does not fully communicate the insurmountable feeling of despair that encompassed our bodies. The Runner behind us went buck wild when he heard the news. It was a bit frightening as he stormed off, muttering to himself. We couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like for the other passengers on his subway ride that night. At least we still had the fried Oreos.

It was glorious. It was everything we’ve ever dreamed of and more. It was proof that God loves us. It was probably a good thing that we didn’t get a Twinkie because we most likely would’ve barfed. Being as lazy as we are, we chose not to return to our seats and opted to watch the rest of the game from the field level main corridor instead.

We asked an employee to take our picture with the field behind us and were denied. We were a bit confused, but he explained that they were no longer allowed to take anyone’s picture because someone had dropped a camera and was sued. Wow. That is pathetic. People really need to find better things to do if they have the time to bring some poor usher to court over a broken camera. A fan standing close by took our picture instead.

The Yankees would go on to win 8-3. As we left to catch the subway, we snapped a few last minutes photos. Babe Ruth Plaza (which we’d never seen since the subway deposits you at the corner near the Gate 4 entrance):

...and of course, Yankees Stadium itself:

Baseball Notes: On Tuesday, the Twins became the first team to clinch a division title this season. Their 6-4 victory over the Indians combined with the White Sox 7-2 loss to the A’s means that there’ll be no need for an extra tie-breaker game for the AL Central like last year (though we doubted that the White Sox were going to stage some miracle comeback to prompt a tie-breaker anyway). While this is super awesome for the Twins and M&M boys, we feel slightly wistful as we recall that nail-biter game against the Tigers last season. Surrounded by all around lackluster Division Series where most of the winning teams swept their opponents, that 164th game was pure excitement.

After a lot of back and forth B.S., Joe Torre finally confirmed that he would NOT be managing the Mets next year. He even went so far as to apologize to Jerry Manuel for fanning the fire of those rumors. Torre has become so full of himself, that we find it hard to believe that he’s genuine about anything these days. As you may recall, late last week, the Dodgers announced that Don Mattingly would be assuming the helm of the SS Think Blue for 2011 (Mamadukes must be so proud!), leaving Torre unemployed. Torre claims to not anticipate managing another team in the future, but his vague word selections and recent arrogant behavior makes us skeptical. Of course, only time will tell if this is a true retirement or Brett Farve-inspired. Mattingly’s well-deserved opportunity to shine gets him TBB Super Hero of the Week status. It’s about time, Donnie!

In further Mets’ news, Tuesday night’s 5-2 loss to the Marlins “officially” eliminated them from playoff contention. Shocker.

Lastly, with the Yankees pitching staff behaving like a pack of NTAC’s last night, the Rays were able to pull within a ½ game of first in the AL East again. Nice job, guys. We can tell you’re REALLY trying to firmly grasp the division here.

Before we leave you with lines of moving and heartfelt poetry, we’ve got some fun stuff in store for you next week’s blog posting. Tomorrow afternoon, we and Papa L. will be at Citi Field for a guided tour of the stadium. This option is something new that the Mets introduced to fans this season, following the footsteps of many other stadiums around the league, including the Yankees (Serena did this tour last season. You can read her post regarding the trip here). Tours were not even offered at Shea Stadium, so this should be pretty cool. We’ll make sure to post as many pictures as possible for you. Another heads up regarding next week is that the blog will be posted sometime Thursday afternoon as opposed to Friday. The reason for this is that we’ll be on an overnight flight to Paris Thursday night and unable to blog during our usual Friday lunch break time. We’re sure that you can understand.

“Eating time. Open up your wallets and enjoy the stadium meals. Eating time. Dump that really good beef all over the nachos we want to eat. Eating time. One last call for alcohol so we will finish our beer before the 7th. Eating time. We have to go home now cos’ we can’t afford any more meals. We know what we want to eat next time. Oh, we know what we want to eat next time.”