by Dan McLaughlin
Baseball has a subtle way of drawing you in, of playing with your mind, of making you think perhaps more about things that should, on the surface, be so simple but forces you to second guess even the obvious. Then there’s the beer, soda, hot dogs and ice cream, of course.
Even with the recent advent of pitch time limits and the extra inning ghost runners, we hearken ourselves back to the time when baseball was still “timeless”. On June 20th, 2010, one Father’s Day, I was treated by my family to a Yankees-Mets, Father’s Day “battle royal” in the Bronx.
Having purchased the tickets a day or two earlier, my bride Patty, and 4 children; Meredith (12), Will (10), Frankie (8) and Sarah Anne (4) found ourselves on the 3rd from top row, “nose-bleed” seats to watch a classic pitching duel: pitcher CC Sabathia, Derek Jeter (SS), Alex Rodriguez (3rd) and the NY Yankees take on pitcher Johan Santana, Jose Reyes (SS) and David Wright (3rd) of the NY “Mutts” (not a type-o, but said affectionately).
While weather services indicate it was in the high 80s, memory serves to recall the low 90’s in the sun, about 120 degrees on the field and 110 degrees on the 3rd row from the top at the stadium. Hot, hazy, humid with little or no breeze, I’m reminded of Phil Rizzuto’s quoted clip from the Meatloaf song “Paradise By The Dashboard Light” — “We’ve got a real pressure cooker going here.”
Now, fortunately for me, the first 3 kids are more like my wife’s side of the family in both looks and demeanor. Translation: good looking, smart and mostly easy going. (At one point I was thinking Frankie was an outlier and might find prison in lieu of college, but he straightened out alright.) And, really fortunate for me, there’s Sarah Anne – the apple that fell on the root of my gene-tree, translation: good looking, smart and squirrelly as the Appalachia woods in springtime. Me in pig tales. This could get interesting.
We toughed it out with water and soda’s through the 3rd inning, where we were treated to a Mark Tixeira (Yankees 3rd baseman) Grand Slam home run for the Yanks to take and keep the lead for the game winning 4-0 score. So in the 4th inning, sweat drenched but happy with our team it was time for mom to take the kids for ice cream – yay!
By the time Patty made it back to our row, the four children parading in order to their seats, the ice cream was 3/4 melted “ice soup”. That’s when I barked to Sarah, “Watch the ice cream!” And when she looked up at me, it was as if a scientist with a beaker, working on a Nobel Prize worthy experiment, tipped that cup of sugary liquid perfectly down the back and the shirt of the gentleman pictured wearing the “Tixeira” T-Shirt.
“Noooooooooooooo!”
There was a vague recollection of wiping his back and neck with Yankee-logo napkins that merely stuck to his skin and, I must say, for a brief fleeting moment, the coolness of the vanilla-chocolate swirl was welcomed in the oppressive heat before the heat and adhesive effect of the spillage kicked in. We begged the gentleman that we buy him whatever he wanted, he refused and without any hint of anger at all in his voice, matter-of-factly stated: “This is what I get for buying these seats.”
And so, all was right with the world again.
Mark Tixeira had a grand slam that Father’s Day but even that paled in comparison to Sarah Anne’s grand ice cream slam. Happy Father’s Day all you dads out there, Met fans included, and Happy Father’s Day to the greatest Father of all – our Creator.
— Dan McLaughlin, New Suffolk
