America 2015: Day Six (4 August 2015)

Take me out to the ball game, Take me out with the crowd
Just buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack, I don't care if I never get back
Let me root, root, root for the home team, if they don't win, it's a shame
For it's one, two, three strikes, you're out, at the old ball game

                                                                                  - Jack Norworth & Albert Von Tizer

Tuesday 4 August

Nine hours of sleep later, I woke up feeling the best that I have since getting here. I think the craziness of the red-eye flights and miniscule sleeps of the Kansas City weekend are finally behind me. It’s easy getting up when the weather is so fantastic, and we’ve had no reason to complain so far – and long-range forecasts suggest we won’t have any complaints for some time to come, either.

After breakfast, we caught a train south to the World Trade Centre site where, of course, the attacks that brought down the twin towers and devastated New York City happened on September 11, 2001. It’s a very sombre and moving place, one for quiet reflection, and most of the people

Just recently, the One World Observatory tower has opened, sitting next to one of the original towers, and the views from 103 floors up – the distance covered by an elevator in less than thirty seconds, whilst you watch a media presentation on the four walls of the elevator car detailing the evolution of this great city – are nothing short of breathtaking.

The view from One World is a completely different point-of-view to what you get from The Top of the Rock or the Empire State Building in Midtown, and arguably better. It was cool knowing we were amongst the first tourists to come through, and there’ll doubtless be many millions more. It’s a fitting tribute to the thousands who lost their lives that terrible day.

 

Heading back uptown for lunch, the plan was to eat at the iconic Carnegie’s Deli, but the store was closed for some sort of maintenance, which drove us across the street to the Park Café, attached to the Wellington Hotel, which was the first place I ever stayed in here in this city, a decade ago, in 2006. I managed to eat what has to be the world’s biggest ham steak, and, man, it was good!

After lunch, we visited the Apple Store opposite the Plaza Hotel on the edge of Central Park, and then to the massive Niketown store near Tiffany’s and the garish Trump Tower on the iconic 5^th Avenue shopping strip, where I finally managed to grab some predominantly black joggers. Just as well, too, because my old pair of Mizuno’s were well and truly on their last legs.

We had a chance this afternoon to enjoy a nice refreshing nap before picking up our suits, and heading uptown into The Bronx to Yankee Stadium. The new venue, opened less than a decade ago, doesn’t have as much history as the old one – where Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle and Joe DIMaggio all played – but it’s still a fun place to watch baseball, especially when the Yankees most hated rivals, the Boston Red Sox, are in town, as they were last night. The best thing of all was that we were at the game with our great friends Erol and Arbena, and their friend Tray, a really great guy who comes originally from Perth. It’s great to hear more Australian accents, and it was a relief to know that he’s a Dockers fan rather than an Eagles fan!

 

I’ve been very lucky over the years to have seen some great American sporting rivalries – Michigan vs. Ohio State, the Lakers and Celtics, Rangers and Islanders – but few of those match-ups can lay claim to the same sort of full-on hate that’s attached to Major League Baseball games between Boston and the Yankees.

Boston and New York have a sort of Sydney-Melbourne sporting rivalry, and whenever the Yankees and Red Sox take the field together, you can almost guarantee the game will be broadcast right across America, and often internationally. It’s one of those big-time rivalries that’ll still be raging decades after you and I are dead and gone, and still dividing fans.

First pitch of the game!

There’ve been so many epic moments over the years, and one of the most famous is Boston selling an emerging player called George Herman Ruth to the Yankees in December 1919. It might be the biggest howler of all time in American sport, because ‘Babe’ Ruth went on to lead the Yankees to seven American League championships, and four World Series rings. He was one of the first five players inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, and is regarded as one of the greatest players of all time – particularly in New York. 

We had awesome seats right above home plate, and after a fairly even game through six innings, the Yankees absolutely exploded in the seventh, driving in nine runs and provoking lusty “Boston Sucks!” chants from the capacity crowd of nearly fifty thousand on a beautiful night in The Bronx. The game was basically over then, and the Yankees triumphed 13-3 to keep an incredible offensive streak going. It was a good night to be a Yankee fan!

 

It was a shame that the game ended, and a shame that we’re leaving New York City tomorrow. Admittedly, it’s been a whirlwind stop, but a really great one, and I’m already anticipating coming back to this amazing place! Chicago tomorrow!