I was almost a Yankees fan...

  

      As a kid,  New York City fascinated me.  Maybe it was the big buildings and the endless streets.  Perhaps it was the crowded sidewalks, the subways, or the chess players in Washington Square Park.  Whatever it was, I loved going there.  My mom navigates "The City" with extreme ease and finesse.  It's like the city knows she's there and slows down ever so slightly when she visits.  I'm convinced she could charge a hefty sum for her tours. New York City has cleaned up quite a bit since the 80s, but we lovingly referred to it as "New Yuck Stinky," with stops at the "Empire Stink Building" and my favorite, "F.A.O Dirty Shorts."

     Similar to only a few other cities in the country, a visit to the baseball stadium is mandatory when visiting New York, and a lifetime of trips to The Big Apple are meaningless without seeing a Yankees baseball game.  Love them or hate them, they are a sports club with a ton of history.  New York isn't really New York without baseball.

     I wasn't particularly a Yankees fan when I lived in New Jersey.  Actually, I was more of a Mets fan, with the likes of Dwight Gooden, Greg Jefferies, and the always-exciting Darryl Strawberry, just to name a few.  As kids in the late 80s, my brother and I  were drawn to collecting baseball cards, since going to an actual game was out of the question.  We were quite the collectors.  How do 7 and 10 year old boys support a baseball card collection hobby/habit, you say?  Well, we were self-proclaimed entrepreneurs, selling anything we could get our hands on.  We also stole quarters from our sister (Shelly, if you are reading this, we probably owe you like $10 if you don't charge us 25 years worth of interest).  Baseball cards and Bazooka Joe Bubble Gum living 45 minutes from The Big Apple; life was good.

     You can imagine my elation when my mom came home one day and said that her work was giving its employees tickets and chartering a bus to an upcoming Yankees game.  My mom received 3 tickets and I won out over my brother and sister; just mom, dad and me. A bus ride to Yankee's stadium for a baseball game is nearly too much for a 10 year old kid to handle.  "Just buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack. I don't care if I never get back." I don't remember too much about the bus ride, other than sitting on the right side of the bus, starring out the window, and praying like mad that the dark clouds that were forming didn't turn to rain.  Had someone been looking into the bus at me, they would have seen the saddest little face ever on the other side of a rain-soaked window.  The rain came and didn't stop, and the game was called before we even got to the stadium.   Rather than heading straight home, the bus was diverted to Liberty Park.  Rain or shine, it's always a good day to visit the Statue of Liberty.  I never did get to a Yankees game.  In fact, I didn't attend my first professional baseball game until I was an 18 year old Marine Recruit watching the Padres play in San Diego, but I remember very clearly my trip to Liberty Park.

      9/11 nearly made a Yankees fan out of me.  The emotions of that day and the weeks that followed were that of uncertainty, fear, vulnerability, and anger.  The healing began on different days for everyone, but for me, it was watching President Bush throw out the first pitch in game 3 of the World Series on October 30, 2001.  That moment elicited emotions of patriotism, resolve, unity, and endurance.

 

       Prior to the pitch, Derek Jeter warned President Bush that if he didn't throw a strike, the crowd would boo him. Perhaps in any other game at any other time this might have been true, but he wasn't interested in testing them.  The stadium erupted with chants of "U.S.A" as President Bush threw a perfect strike from the pitcher's rubber.  Had I been more invested in baseball at this time, this moment would have certainly created a new Yankees fan in me.  But alas, I deployed with the Marines shortly after for the next 18 months.  In that 18 months, I did a lot of things, including learning to surf, meeting my wife, and fighting in a war, but I didn't spend anytime thinking about baseball.

      I was almost a Yankees fan. Things could have been a lot different, but it just didn't work out.  There is NO WAY that I could have attended a Yankees game at the age of 10 and not have been converted to a lifetime fan.  To this day, I don't have a baseball team that I'm drawn to.  Don Mattingly was a cool baseball card, but if I would have seen him play live, it would have cemented a love for a team that once housed Ruth, DiMaggio, Gehrig, Mantle, Maris, and Jeter.  Given the chance, I will certainly attend a game at Yankees stadium;  not necessarily to root for the home team, but to celebrate a team that I almost spent a lifetime cheering for.

Have a catch with your kid, for crying out loud!!

So, I was never really any good at sports growing up.  My exposure to sports didn't start until I was 13 years old and getting hit on the football field.  No, not on the real field in a game;  the practice field.  The only time I made it onto the real field was during the 5th quarter of our middle school football games.  Did everyone else have a 5th quarter?  I feel like maybe Idaho just made it up so all the crappy players like me could get some playing time after the game was over when we couldn't do any damage to our team's stats.  Even in the 5th quarter, I was the worst player.

Despite the talent void in my life, I really enjoyed being around sports.  

As a kid, I remember throwing around the nerf football with friends, getting picked last for basketball, and I even have a single faint memory having a catch with my dad, though it's entirely possible that this memory never happened. 

I tried to hang out with kids that were good at sports.  They inspired me they way they shot that basketball or drove my head into the dirt during a football drill.  It never really caught on though.  I was just too late to the game.

There was one fleeting moment of brilliance in my juvenile sports career; a little league game-winning RBI.  I'll spare you the details mostly because my mom was unable to make the game, and reliving the experience always brings tears to her eyes (assuming she reads my blog).

Anyway, even this moment of brilliance was just luck.

Recently, Harrison started playing soccer.  I'm not even entirely sure that he REALLY likes playing soccer.  He's good at it and seems to enjoy it ok, but certainly not as much as I want him to.  Making up for a lost childhood, you say?  ABSOLUTELY.  And I'm totally ok with this.  I'll live vicariously through Harrison's 5 year old soccer games without an ounce of shame.

Here's a video of Harrison's 2nd goal of the year (his first goal failed to make it to video).  

Notice that he just scores and stands there.  Shouldn't he be more excited?

The below is my first attempt at producing a .gif.  Harrison's coach sent these sequential photos and I nearly fell out of my chair laughing.  I don't remember seeing this in the game last Saturday?!?  I almost feel bad for Harrison's "victim," but hey, soccer is a contact sport according to the Roseville Soccer League.

In any case, he certainly learned this blocking move from me.  When we are practicing, I make sure he eats some turf every once in a while.  It's good for the soul.