New York, New York

No sports team exemplifies New York quite like the Yankees. The storied history of players, managers, owners and winning. 27 banners is more than a fifth of all MLB World Series. That’s crazy to think about. When I started this four stadium journey I wanted to hate both Boston and New York because of my general distain for their teams. Boston was fantastic. Would I feel the same way about New York?

My Monday started in upper Manhattan where I took a train to the IFC Center to catch a Film, The Endless, which was great. Then a walked down Canal street to ring shop a bit before heading to Katz’s Deli for maybe the best, certainly the biggest and definitely the most expensive pastrami sandwich I’ve ever had.

Afterwards, I journeyed up to the Bronx to see the new monstrosity. I was joined this time by childhood friend and world renowned CRISPR scientist, Dr. Sam Sternberg. The stadium at first glance was incredibly big and once we entered, it was even bigger with two different massive concourses. It was impressive but it had some quirks.

It’s seemed there were as many employees as fans and they were extremely strict with their rules. It was odd and negatively affected the experience. The hot dog was once again a Nathan’s dog and they didn’t really have a local brew. All corporate mass beers from that end, and maybe that’s to be expected from the Yankees. They only had ketchup and mustard at the fixings station too. On to the game.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times for these two franchises heading in opposite directions. The Yankees had a “rebuilding year” which still consisted of 84 wins before reaching the ALCS last year while the Marlins new owner and former Yankee Derek Jeter blew up the Marlins team selling everyone as salary dumps and not getting much back in return. It’s a sad state of affairs in Miami.

The game was pretty much over before it began. The return of Jeter was a short lived headline as he didn’t show his face in NYC. Stanton was facing his old team but it was Didi Gregorious with 2 home runs and Aaron Judge adding another that stole the night. The Yankees scored in six of the first seven innings and when it became 12-0 at one point, the crowd began to look into what was the largest shutout ever. The Marlins manages to get a run across the plate in the 8th but the game was never in doubt as the Yankees won 12-1 easily.

All in all, it was a great trip with Fenway being my favorite of the bunch. I’ve now seen 19 of 30 stadiums and maybe just maybe with your upvotes and contributions I can see a few more. Thanks for reading while I traveled through the northeast. I’ll post this week about my updated stadium rankings.

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