The Futility Infielder

I haven't had much luck on my trips to the ballpark the past two weeks. My trek to last Wendesday's Mets-Giants game was cut short by a rain delay-induced exodus, though I did get to see an historic Mike Piazza home run before departing in the fifth. Tuesday night's trip to Yankee Stadium was even shorter and more rain-soaked, and I wasn't around to see the Yanks rally back from a 3-0 defecit to beat the Angels in ten innings.

Originally, I'd planned to go to the game with Alex Belth, who joined my ticket group this past winter. Alex had been single-minded in his pursuit of a ticket to an early-season Angels game, primarily because he wanted to see Vladimir Guerrero in his new halo, or something. But the day before the game Alex had to bail; it seems I'm not the only one who's been burning the candle at both ends. So I substituted my old college friend Ben, who took my girlfriend to Game Seven last year (it's at the point where Yankee fans don't even need to detail which Game Seven they're tallking about anymore).

When I left work from Brooklyn, I figured that the edge would come off of the muggy mid-80s temperatures which had kept my brow damp all day long. The A/C at the place I'm currently freelancing has been decidedly below the Mendoza Line, and all day long I'd stolen glances at the cement floor, yearning for a cool nap underneath my desk. I imagined the warm day would make for a pleasant night at the ballpark. But I was a little unnerved when a pair of guys in obviously rain-drenched t-shirts got on the 4 train at Grand Central, hoping it was just a brief cloudburst. By the time I got to Yankee Stadium, things appeared to have righted themselves, though Ben confirmed the shower, which struck just before he boarded the same 4 train in midtown.

We settled into our seats in the tier box section of the upper deck, just to the third-base side of home plate, buzzing about the night's Yankee starter, Kevin Brown. We found our seats next to a father with two kids, an eight-year-old on the aisle and a six-year-old immediately on my left. This stressed me out a bit, as I'm not the most kid-friendly gentleman with whom to watch a ballgame. "What's the over/under on which inning I piss this kid's dad off by shouting 'fuck'?" I asked Ben. "No shit, he said, shaking his head. "I've got the mouth of a fuckin' sailor." We had a good laugh over that one as he spotted the Beck's beer man and procured us a round.

We soon needed it. Brown struck out Eckstein, a difficult thing to do, to lead off. Chone Figgins then hit a blooper which must have landed about six inches in front of centerfielder Kenny Lofton, who refused to dive. I was about to yell at Lofton to take up his oft-threatened career as a valet, but thinking of my surroundings, ended up muttering "Go park some fucking cars, man," into my beer. Vlad the Impaler then roped Brown's first pitch into the left-center gap, which not only scored the speedy Figgins but could probably have sent him around home and back to first on the play. Two pitches later, Troy Glaus golfed a shot into the rightfield bleachers, his league-leading 11th of the year, and suddenly the Yanks were down 3-0.

The father to my left had sent his elder son on a mission to buy a program with a scorecard for the younger one. "He'll help us catch up," he told the younger one, nodding to me. "You'll help me catch up," lisped the six-year-old through missing front teeth s he looked up at me. I gazed down at my beer, puzzled, imagingn the kid drinking one as well -- until I remembered that it was my scorekeeping he was talking about. "Sure, sure, kid."

As the dad reminded the kid of the nuances of of a relatively simple scoring method, I though back to the first time I tried to score a game -- Game One of the 1978 World Series between the Dodgers and the Yanks. I was eight years old, and my parents left my brother and me alone for the evening, parking us in front of the TV. "Do you know how to keep a box score?" my dad had asked. "It's a way of writing down what happened in the game." Rushed for time, he didn't get to explain further, so I dutifully wrote down event by event for a few innings ("Dusty Baker homered!") before my attention span got the better of me. When he got home later, he looked over my work, then showed me a system of lines, dots, shading and numbered fielders that I still take to the ballpark every time.

The Anaheim third had a couple of adventurous plays for novice scorers. Figgins squirted a double down the leftfield line and then took third on Vlad's fly to centerfield (8, but no SF, kid). Glaus grounded to second, but Miguel Cairo threw home, nailing Figgins at the plate (FC 4-2). On what might have been a busted hit-and-run, Glaus then tried to steal and Posada gunned him down (CS 2-6). Just as he had for every other half-inning, the kid turned to me and asked, "How many hits in that inning? How many runs?" I tried to explain that he could just look at the scoreboard, but after about the third time I realized that concept still eluded the tyke.

The Yanks got two back in the third. With one out, Anaheim starter Kelvim Escobar walked Cairo. "Walking the number nine hitter is a bad idea in this lineup," I declared to everyone within earshot, and soon enough I was proven right. Lofton drew a walk and then Derek Jeter doubled to the base of the centerfield wall, scoring Cairo. Alex Rodriguez slapped a sharp single through the left side, and Lofton came home, cutting the score to 3-2.

In the top of the fourth, the rain began pelting us. Ben was in shorts and a t-shirt and didn't seem to mind, while I had a jacket -- the wrong jacket, a custom-made corduroy and leather badass jacket that I didn't want to see soaked. Neither did I wish to douse my iPod or my scorebook, so we trekked down and around to take cover in the Loge level. At that point Ben went on a tirade about the covered environment. "If I had to watch games from the loge, I don't even think I'd come to the ballpark," he said, "Upper deck is where it's at." I nodded in agreement. We settled near the rightfield foul pole and talked NBA playoffs during the delay; with my Utah Jazz having missed the postseason for the first time in nearly 20 years, I haven't even seen a whole game, but the local angle with Pistons coach Larry Brown's feeble attempts to browbeat the New Jersey Nets young coach, Lawrence Frank, had piqued my interest.

Within a half-hour, play had resumed. The Angels had put a man on third as the rain had started via a Jeff DaVanon double and a fly ball. Bengie Molina lofted a long fly to right-center which Lofton ran down, but the ball was deep enough to score DaVanon, 4-2. Shane Halter struck out to end the inning, and before the next frame could start, the rain retuned. Ben and I wandered out to the concourse and stood around for about 20 minutes as I explained that if the game went less than five innings, none of it counted. "None of it? Wow. The homers?" Washed away. The idea seemed to blow his mind. "I did not know that." Finally, we pulled the plug and piled onto a crowded 4 train full of wet fans.

As it turned out, play resumed after a 1 hour, 48 minute delay and the game, the remainder of which I caught on TV, turned into a classic. The Yanks tied the score 4-4 in the fifth on a Cairo single, a Lofton triple, and an A-Rod single. The Angels retook the lead in the next half-inning when Vlad crushed a pitch to right-center off of Brown, who had strangely waited out both rain delays to stay on the mound. The Bombers took a 6-5 lead in the eighth off of their nemesis from the 2002 postseason, Francisco "K-Rod" Rodriguez, as Derek Jeter stroked an RBI single and then A-Rod reached on a two-out error, scoring Lofton.

Mariano Rivera came on in the ninth for the Yanks and you could just see it all wrapped up in a neat little package, another great comeback topped off by Mo dropping the hammer. But not on this night. With one out, Rivera yielded a hit to rookie Angel first baseman Casey Kotchman, his first in the bigs. Kotchman went off for a pinch-runner as the Yanks retrieved the ball, Jorge Posada flipping it to him as he crossed the foul line. Molina, the light-hitting catcher, was the next hitter, and he shocked everybody by slamming a two-run homer over the rightfield wall. Rivera could be seen mouthing, "Oh my God!" as he watched the ball and the Yankee lead disappear -- his first blown save since last August, a 27-save streak.

But the Yanks would not die. With one out, Jorge Posada singled off of Troy Percival and then yielded to pinch-runner Homer Bush, who promptly stole second. Hideki Matsui walked and then Ruben Sierra, a man with more than his share of clutch hits in this young season, drove Bush home by lining a single up the middle. The Yanks won it in the tenth as Gary Sheffield doubled home A-Rod, topping off a wet, wild, and wacky night of baseball which ended nearly six-and-a-half hours after it began.

Am I sorry I left in the face of this classic? Hell no. Call me jaded, but after being hot and sweaty all day long and then soaked at the park, curling up on the couch wearing dry clothes, beer in hand and A/C on full blast in front of this epic was exactly where I wanted to be last night. Since the Yankees are going to let us exchange our tickets for another (lesser) game, it's a really a no-lose situation. Just like the Yanks themselves these days.