Game 12: April 27, 2014, Angels at Yankees

I travelled thousands of miles and went to five ballparks in four days just to see the Angels, the team down the road, in my last stop. It left me wondering if I could hitch a ride with them after the game.

I wanted to do something that few people will ever do, see two games in different stadiums in the same day. It's not easy to schedule this. Major League Baseball doesn't schedule two teams in the same city at home on the same day very often. I'm not sure why, but it may be a remnant of the old days when they surmised that people decide to go to a game on a particular day and will go to any game that day. So they make sure that all days are covered and figure that if both are home in the same day, attendance will suffer. I don't know if that's the case, but neither venue was near full. This may have more to do with the cold weather than anything else. Regardless, I got on the 7 train around 4 PM and got off the 1 train a little after 5 PM in Washington Heights. So a genuine subway series in both parks is easily doable.

In Washington Heights I met Brad, another old college buddy I hadn't seen in years. I was happy to share the game, and my quest, with him. One thing that makes this special is that I've been able to go to many of the games with a bunch of old friends and family. Brad lives in Washington Heights, a hop, skip, and a big leap from Yankee Stadium. Very convenient.

After relaxing for an hour, we walked to Yankee Stadium. Brad showed me Polo Grounds Towers, the housing project that's on the site of the old Polo Grounds. I had no idea where the Polo Grounds were and that they were so close to Yankee Stadium. >

Brad suggested eating at an authentic New York diner he knew. After four days of stadium food, I decided this'd be a nice break. The food wasn't great, but this was a diner. It was what I expected. I did eat some New York Yankee ice cream and a Yankee pretzel. I didn't really look for beer but what I saw didn't strike me as much. So after that we walked into the stadium. While I was impressed with the atrium at Citi, Yankee attempts to outdo that.

It went beyond inviting and was just overdone. The entryway felt cold, maybe due to the white stone floor and wall. Then we went up to the seats. Yankee Stadium was certainly attractive, but like Citi they enclosed the entire outfield with seats and ads. Comerica, Great American, and Citizens Bank Park give you a nice view of the area beyond the ballpark. Yankee doesn't do that.

Seats at Yankee Stadium are expensive, even on Stubhub, so we were seated higher than I'd like. Tanaka was pitching and we were surrounded by people speaking Japanese. The game was a little slow. After three consecutive dominant pitching performances that resulted in shutouts, this one wasn't nearly as exciting, as the Yankees triumphed 3-2.