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One of my favorite ways to spend the summer in New York City is at Yankee Stadium. Summer weather in New York can be brutal: the heat and humidity in Manhattan become still and oppressive. Nestled up in the Bronx, the Stadium provides relief from the claustrophobic density of Manhattan. Night games are nice, but day games are my favorite because they get me out of Manhattan on summer's brutal afternoons.
The last day game I attended was with my parents on Labor Day weekend. They specifically chose that weekend to come up from Miami just to witness baseball's most historic rivalry: the New York Yankees vs. the Boston Red Sox. It took no small amount of convincing to get my Dad onto a New York City subway, but even he finally had to agree that the train was the most efficient way to get to the game (and around New York City in general). Since I live on the East Side, we took the 4 train to the Stadium. This is one of my favorite subway rides in all of New York, if there can even be such a thing. The train itself goes above ground just before it gets to the Stadium and then passes within mere feet of those hallowed walls. Nearly every passenger gets off at this stop so if you've never taken the subway there it's easy to follow the crowd to the Stadium entrances across the street.
Once inside, the Stadium can be very crowded, especially for big games. The World Series, obviously, is always crowded, but so are days when the Yankees are honoring someone or putting a new stone in Memorial Park. Joe DiMaggio Tribute Day, back in 1999, was packed with fans even hours before game time, all there to pay their respects to the Yankee Clipper and to watch the unveiling of his stone. Team rivalries are also popular games, and so the Boston games that weekend were filled to the brim. Luckily we got there early enough that we could find our seats with no problems, and without getting stuck in the crowds that wait for an inning to be over to unclog the tunnels to the seating areas.
For that particular game we sat three sections up from the visiting dugout. I love to sit on that side because I love watching the Yankees inside the dugout between innings. In general there are no bad seats at the Stadium. Out in the bleachers (where alcohol is no longer allowed) you get a fantastic view of the entire field, and most of the home runs come directly to you. Even up in the very top sections of the third tier the seats don't seem quite as far away as they do when you're walking that long, long ramp to get there. Looking down on the game you realize that you are still close enough to feel like you're part of the game but far enough away not to fear for your life whenever a foul comes in your direction.
I always have to have a hot dog when I go to Yankee Stadium. It's just tradition, and anyway the Stadium has the best hot dogs in all of New York City. I try not to get sodas so that I don't have to miss any part of the game while I'm in the bathroom. If I do, though, I've never found there to be a line for the women's bathroom at the Stadium.
Other ballparks have their seventh-inning stretch, and so does the Stadium; more famous and more fun, though, is the sixth-inning "YMCA". Every single game for at least six years now, the groundskeepers come out to rake the infield clay to the tune of the Village People's "YMCA." They have a choreographed dance along with the song that they do while dragging their equipment behind them. The entire stadium gets into it, and when the groundskeepers go back inside, everyone cheers them just as loudly as if they were players making a game-saving double play. My dad thought it was silly, but my mom and I really got into the "YMCA" at the Red Sox game.
Every game concludes with "New York, New York" blasting over the Stadium's PA system. I used to find it cheesy, but as time went on and I attended more and more games, it somehow became authentic, like the best way to end the best kind of New York day.
Every single time I walk in to Yankee Stadium I get sentimental. It's hard not to at that place. Walking through the tunnel out into the seating area is like magic every time for me. Memorial Park stands out in left field with the plaques of so many Yankee - and baseball - greats: Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Roger Maris and, of course, Babe Ruth. It wouldn't be his house without at least a few tributes to the man himself, now would it? A game at Yankee Stadium is more than just a baseball game, it's part of American history. The Yankees have such a long, storied history full of so many record-breakers and headline-makers that the sense of connection to baseball's place in American culture can be felt in the air at any given game. For any baseball fan, whether you love or hate the Yankees, no trip to New York is complete without a scheduled stop at the Home of Champions on 161st Street, the Bronx.
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