Immediately following the final out, in a moping mood my friend Steve, his girlfriend Bri and myself all searched approximately six different websites in search of at least three tickets for a reasonable price. We settled on Ticket Palace and Grandstand seats for $104. I knew with the Metro North Yankees Clipper train ticket (the train goes directly to Yankee Stadium) and the inevitable two hot dog meal I'd get in the stadium, I was around 150 dollars already, and that was my limit. I was working Sunday which would cut into that number anyway. It's easy to justify things in my mind when a potential Yankees' ALCS clinching game is on the line.
So we pulled the trigger on four tickets (they didn't seem to have sets of odd numbers, so we pulled in an additional friend to come along). I had just bought my first ever playoff tickets, and it was in a game which could end a series.
If you have heart problems, don't try doing something like that.
The stage was set; It was Thursday night and on Saturday I would be watching the game live from the stadium and despite probably getting back to Connecticut by 3AM, I'd be OK for work at 10AM. Friday came and gone and nothing had hit me yet. I really felt like I was preparing to be sent to a Fantasy World but I couldn't quite grasp the situation. On Saturday all of our moods were dampened with the rain. Everywhere we turned people were telling us the game would be canceled. I would normally have been OK with it except I already had to wait one off day and I had work on Sunday. Since Sunday Night Football was also in New York that night AND I knew MLB wouldn't want to compete with the ratings, there was a good chance in my mind the game would be moved up and I'd be screwed out of working. I couldn't have this happen.
Everything was slowly falling apart, but I maintained hope the game would be played Saturday night. After all, Game One and then Game Two were threatened and both of those games played with no interruption or delay. By 5:25PM we boarded a train out of Milford to take us to the stadium. No announcement had been made yet so the show had to go on. By 6PM I was checking my Blackberry every five minutes, looking to the Artist Formerly known as Pete Abe blog for an update. By around 6PM I had received it, and it wasn't good. We were in Stamford and had to leave the train to go back home. By 6:15PM my life was saved with the announcement the game would stay in Prime Time Out of anything else, this was the best news of all. Now I could go to work until 4PM and still make the same train the next night. I told as many people in my car (all Yankees fans) the game was canceled. A few believed me immediately and asked details of the rescheduling and some decided I was lying. One guy told me how ESPN.com said there wouldn't be a decision until 7PM. Another girl told me her friend was on the ground's crew and he hadn't told her anything yet.
I wanted to tell them they were both morons and I had the website up on my phone right now, but the best punishment was to leave them on the train to further ruin their night. Of course ESPN.com wasn't going to report it before a beat writer with a blog, there's more red tape and a process for a major corporation to get it on its website, but I wasn't about to explain that now. As far as the girl was concerned, you can name drop Barack Obama and I wouldn't care, perhaps her grounds' crew friend didn't let her know the second it happened because well, he worked on the grounds' crew and probably had a job to do during monsoon conditions in the Bronx.
By 6:51 we were back on a train to Milford, stopping to talk to Yankees fans in the same boat on the way. I proceeded with my night as originally planned and we were back at it on Sunday.
I couldn't sleep at all that night and work was slow and boring. It felt like an eternity before I was literally changing out of dress clothes and into a Teixeira shirt while driving. I arrived at "The House", our scheduled meeting place by 4:30 and dressed in my proper attire. A long sleeve Quinnipiac shirt with a Trenton Thunder sweatshirt over that and my Tex shirt over that. It was going to be cold and I was going to be ready. Everything leading up to the game broke perfectly in our favor. Now we didn't have freezing and rainy conditions, the night was clear and perfect except for a slight nip in the air. Most of all, the Angels and Yankees both stuck to the same starting pitchers which I knew favored New York. Once again we caught the 5:25 and the conductor was nice enough to honor our tickets from the night before despite the fact we made it to Stamford with them. The train ride, like everything else you have to wait for before you witness something truly extraordinary, was a lifetime of a wait.
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