A FIRST TIMER & THE OLD TIMERS

Last Sunday wasn’t a great day for the current Yankee Team. They were offensively flat, and quietly took it on the chin to the Motown Cats. Was it disheartening? Sure, but for me June 12, 2016 was my favorite day at The Stadium to date. It was the 70th Annual Old Timer’s Day, and the 1st time my son visited “The Big Ballpark in the Bronx”.

I’m a new dad. My little guy is much too young to know what he was seeing or even where he was, but that didn’t diminish the moment for me at all. Sure, as he gets older the games will be much more fun for us both, but for me this was a day that I’ve been waiting for my whole life. A time I’ve thought about since my Dad took me to the Old Stadium when I was 4. And how fitting that it was a day the Yankees celebrated their past.

I sat in section 108, Right field near Paulie, with my son and spoke to him about the heroes from my life and my Dad’s. There they were. 

We saw Paulie, Reggie, Goose, Sweet Lou, Coney, Dr. Brown, Whitey, The Gator and Matsui! 

It was truly magical. Yankee Baseball is a constant in my life. It is the thing that has always been there. Good years and bad, The Bronx Bombers tie generations together in my family.

Baseball is really a beautiful thing. Grown men can be kids forever, and play on Neverland’s Diamond. We sit and marvel at their heroics from the early days of April to the brilliant nights of October. A season is like life. It’s filled with ups and downs. There are streaks and slumps, a beginning and an end. As I sat with my baby boy I thought about how this game, this team has made my life better. The greats I watch and mimicked on the little league fields. The games I went to with my Dad, family and friends. The players I met and got to know a bit. And now I can turn the love of the Yankees to my son. He can begin his journey knowing the Yanks will always be there to bring you home again.

I have so much more I’d love to write, but as I sit here typing I realize that some of the feelings and thoughts I had Sunday are better left inside. Memories and moments that are just for me and mine. We all have them, and just taking a quiet second to flip through them like an old photo album is just a nice hot dog and a beer for the soul.

Thank you, New York Yankees, Past, present and future…from me, my family and my son, Mikey.

** The Greatest Club in the World. I’m so happy to be a lifelong member. We miss ya Yogi! **

  
 
 

--Mike O'Hara Senior "Features" Writer
Twitter: @mikeyoh21
 

 

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