PART OF HISTORY

Listening to all the hoopla about the history of Yankee Stadium as it closes, I can claim to have witnessed some of it.

At 16, I rode in a car with my friend Anthony Moran, an avid Yankee fan. We were heading up to the Bronx and the chance to watch Roger Maris connect on his 61st home run, and break the Babe’s record. We were excited to be able to witness history, although we weren’t quite sure it would happen.

Sitting high up in the third tier behind home plate, we watched, as the Baltimore Orioles would throw a future Met, Tracey Stallard out on the mound to do the pitching. Stallard went into his windup, and pitched, and Maris connected! The rose on an arc toward the right field stands. The fans erupted and history was made!

The curtain call was my first time I ever witnessed that in baseball! The Yankees had to push Maris out of the dugout, as he doffed his cap, amid a million flashing bulbs from the press photographers and fans!

When Maris connected, I did something I never did in my life, stood up and cheered with Yankee fans! The man had set a major league mark for 162 games! It was a tainted record, because the Babe never got to play 162 games in a season. He hit his homers in 154 games. The dreaded word, a curse if you will was applied to the Yankee Great’s record, ‘ASTERISK!’

Most people in their right mind would consider babe Ruth a former Yankee. I consider him a former coach of the Brooklyn Dodgers! I was suffering from the fact that I didn’t have a New York team to root for, just one to root against. God I tried to root for them, but the Yankees instilled in me a dislike for their swagger, and dominance. They had it all, and I knew it. The Dodgers were in LA now, they were fading from my baseball heart. But hope was springing eternal. Yes, the Mets were on the horizon! A New York team I could root for! It would be the return of National League Baseball to New York!

Remember my buddies Joan and Anita.

Thanks