Living in coronavirus world 119: opening day

7/23

Harlem Mural

The optometrist offcies are now open. It’s been  too long since I’ve had an eye exam. That’s enough to get me out of the house.

Magic Johnson Theatre

.....changing the things I cannot accept...

Hand shake no, Harlem Shake Yes.

the latest from Atlah

I notice all the plywood is gone from the 125th Street shops. Except for the Magic Johnson Theatre whose protective plywood has become a community message/graffiti board.I love the flow of life up and down 125th. The ubiquitous Black Lives Matter shirt vendors, the phrase of the summer. I stop at my bank and then to the storied  Harlem Shake for a hot dog to celebrate the opening of baseball season. I choose a Snoop Dogg, smothered with chili and cheese. Halfway down Lenox, I realize that I left my kinte cloth mask at the Shake. I go back, but too late. I stop to see the latest wisdom from Atlah then decide against ice cream and head home.

It’s the opening (at last ) of baseball season. I last saw a game on my way out of Florida March 7th. Everything shut down week later. 

In the Yankees-Nationals game from DC,  Dr. Anthony Fauci is invited to throw the first pitch. His throw is wild as a virus. Someone will later say he didn’t want anyone to catch anything. Both teams took a knee holding a long black ribbon, then rose together for the National Anthem. I was impressed that in the later game, Giants manager Gabe Kapler and several player remained kneeling.  New Dodger Mookie Betts remained kneeling, teammates hands on his shoulder. The initials BLM on the mound in Washington. Players are wearing either Black Lives Matter or United for Change patches or both. I love the market penetration of Black Lives Matter, but please don’t let it be too easy.

Sometimes I feel I am ordering things online just to have the pleasure of waiting for things to be delivered and surprised on any day. Like the little boy waiting for the Wells Fargo Wagon in theMusic Man. “….or it could be something special  just for me…”

I am upset to see Mariani Rivera as a special  White House guest  of the President. Having a catch with him. Mariano was the quintessence of all that can be good about a ballplayer. Quiet. Focused. Determined. A good teammate. The perfect closer. The last player to wear Jackie’s number, 42. A true Yankee, as they say. Like the essence of decency. I was gifted  a photo of Mariano’s farewell. Behind him I can see my regular seats. It’s a beautiful photo of one of those players who meant a lot to me like Clemente, Jeter, McCutchen. But I haven’t had the heart to put it on my wall. It remains on the floor behind a table and lamp. Because of his inexplicable friendship with the President. Or all too explicable. Somewhere along the line he became a born again evangelical and has-been probably convinced by a beloved pastor that  the he owes allegiance  to this President who is the opposite of everything  I hold holy. 

I don’t understand why Mario can’t see what this President has done to people of his color. To people who speak his language. To immigrants just like him. I don’t believe there is a mean bone in Mariano Rivera’s body I believe he wants to be a good, decent and faithful man. But playing ball with Trump feels like a betrayal of all that. The picture stays on the floor, out of sight. 

I’m shocked when my son texts me to let me know the President has been invited to throw out a first pitch on August 15 against the Red Sox at Yankee Stadium. He wants to go to the stadium to protest. So Yankee’s President Randy Levine is “friends” with the President. What is he thinking? Can anyone still imagine  this is a normal President? One where even if we had widely divergent understandings of political directions,  there was a basic respect for the office because the office holder respected the office. Where standard courtesies would still be extended  because the officeholder is courteous? That the President truly IS the President of all of us and somehow represents all of us? Can anyone still believe that? He doesn't even care.

I thought the final death knell of any semblance of democracy was the day I realized we put children into cages. We do that. And how much more there was to come. Today federal military personnel under the aegis of Homeland Security are patrolling the streets of our cities with no ids and unmarked vans pulling people out at random. Ponder that into you believe it. That’s where we are.  I don’t know what world Levine thinks we’re living in. I’ve spent much too many dollars on the Yankees in my 25 years here.  I'm actually a "partial season ticket holder." This all feels so disrespectful of all of us who sat through years of the gritty democracy of the old Yankee Stadium though sun and snow. We tolerate the Taj Mahal Las Vegas style “Yankee Experience” that seeks to mimic the old stadium while creating a new temple of income inequality across the street from where Mantle, Ruth, Berra and Bernie played the field.  If you’re calling out a rally, I’ll be there. 

End of the season

10/23

One last game

My baseball season began on a sunny March day in Tampa, Florida with my favorite two teams, the Pittsburgh Pirates playing the New York Yankees. The Pirates teased us for awhile with hope, hung tough through multiple disasters, then vanished as summer turned into fall,  gone by the end of September. My season ended when the Yankees, unexpectedly,  hung on until game seven of the American League Championship season. And then lost.

Up 3-2 on the Astros, ( and I’m still not sure why they’re in the American League, 1962 expansion sibling of the Met sand all), the World Series seemed near. But when you’re up 3-2, you have to finish it in game 6, because as the sage Yogi Berra observed, “No one ever wins game seven.” The Pirates taught me that in the ’90’s. And  sure enough, it’s still true.

I know there are many Yankee haters out there among my friends, especially Bucco buddies. So a word or two about how I came to be a Yankees fan. When we moved here from Pittsburgh 22 years ago, we had to pick a team. Given my affinity for underdogs and  certain family connections, the Mets seemed a logical choice. But as a National League team, there was an inherent conflict with the Pirates. Besides it took a good hour on the 7 train to get to Shea. And in my neighborhood, Mets fans were lawyers with cars, Yankee fans were Dominican doormen and bodega workers who rode the subway. A short 20 minute ride.

Well there was also this. The most magical ,moment of my life was Mazeroski’s miracle home run in the bottom of the 9th in the seventh game of  the 1960 World Series. The Yankees were the team on the other side of that miracle, the mighty dynasty the scrappy Buccos defeated..I knew their lineup as well as the Pirates. And had some affection for them. That was there when we moved here.

Shea Stadium was the prototype  for cookie cutter multi-purpose stadiums. Surrounded by parking lots and Korean auto shops. I loved the Bronxness of Yankee Stadium. That street under the train tracks filled with bars and souvenir shops, what the new retro stadiums try to create was already there.  Though its former grandeur had been changed to a 1970’s functionality, you could still look down and see where Babe Ruth or Mickey Mantle stood. And there was a rowdy democratic feel about the place, especially in the stand alone bleachers, their own wonderful world of the bleacher creatures and their roll call of players to begin every game. The connection was sealed one afternoon when at the end of warm ups, the great Bernie Williams, a Puerto Rican player in the tradition of my childhood hero, Roberto Clemente, turned and tossed a ball to my boys.

In 1996 I finally saw a World Series game. I had tickets twice before in the early '90's when the Pirates got within one game, even one out, from the Series only to have the accursed, tomahawk chopping, Braves snatch it away.  So it gave me great pleasure to see the Yankees, back after a decades long absence, take out the Braves. There’s been a lot of good moments since then. 

Though the new stadium struts and swaggers, this Yankee team was absent the arrogance of the Evil Empire days of Boss Steinbrenner who always tried to win with an open check book that teams  like the Pirates could never match. But this team was one you could feel good about. Young guys. Rookies. A home grown core of bright shiny hustling kids. ( So to speak) Led by Aaron Judge, that gentle giant with the Derek Jeter sincerity and dedication.  He spent half a season playing like a combination of a real life Joe Hardy and Roy Hobbs, playing at an otherworldly level with towering majestic home runs. Only to spend the better part of the second  half looking completely lost flailing helplessly at just out of the zone pitches only to rediscover himself in September. Judge alone made for an engaging roller coaster ride of a season. 

So I came back from South America in time for one last mid October game with my son Dan. And the Yankees won. And then they lost. Twice. But the pleasure of an unexpected deep post season run will remain until spring comes again.