Blog Your Blessings: Yankee Baseball

I had the opportunity Monday night to catch some Yankee baseball with my three favorite people--daughter Adella and nephews Alex and Adam. With their fathers, we took the train into New York and took in the scenery along the way. The train was full of similarly relaxed and happy people bent on the same purpose and similarly dressed in their blue-and-white team-related regalia; the journey felt like a gigantic school field trip.

The kids thought it was cool and neat and awesome when trains flew by in the opposite direction, when the elevated train roared over their heads, when our conductor said, though he was a Red Sox fan, he would be on the "Yankee train" back to Connecticut. Sure enough, he was, and it was a cool thing to know that we and hundreds upon hundreds of others had gotten on the right train that late at night.

It was an evening full of keeper moments.

Adella, Alex, and Adam were as fascinated by the new ball park as they were by the trains. Adam borrowed my camera to snag shots of Joe DiMaggio's plaque in Monument Park and then to get a few more of Derek Jeter and A-Rod. I love when the kid uses my camera. It seems to me then he is seeing what is memorable and beautiful. He knows what he likes. Lately he has been framing his shots or, if he has had to get them off quickly, realizing how he could have framed them. He's loving his world.

I was especially thrilled that Andy Pettitte was on the hill Monday night. He is pure art. The kids saw I was happy and thought it was funny I could be so happy--and engrossed--and giggled. It's good to be understood.

The new stadium is a beautiful thing, too. There are plenty of restrooms, plenty of places to eat, plenty of leg room wide walkways. No matter where you stand, you can see the field. Genius. The banners paying tribute to the greats that stretched the length of the arched windows along the exterior concourse and MonumentPark with its tributes to the team's legendary players spoke to the fine art of doing something well, even if you're just playing a game.

In a corner of MonumentPark is a memorial to 9/11. Adam asked me why that was there. The joy of the hour shifted gears just then. "Some terrible people did a terrible thing in New York City that caused thousands of people to die and to suffer. This monument honors their memory."

"But why is it here?" Fair point. They weren't Yankees.

"Because the Yankees put it here. This is New York. It happened here. They care, and they want us to remember."

At the heart of our fun and games is a heart. A big heart.

(Some more views of the new stadium and my favorite player are here.)

Blog Your Blessings