The House That Ruth Built

"I wanna be the Yankees!" I told my friend Dustin Paulsson as we geared up for our first trip to historic Yankee Stadium with a game of baseball on the Playstation. We considered this to be a preview of the next day's game between the New York Yankees and the Anaheim Angels. As a New York Mets fan, it is not customary to like the rival Yankees in addition, but I am the exception having grown up in a family that is predominately Yankee fans. It is every young baseball fans dream; to go to Yankee Stadium, the "House That Ruth Built," and I was about to get that chance as a 10 year old. The plan was for me to sleep over my friend's house so we could get a nice, early head start up to New York (which is three hours away) with enough time to get settled in for the 1:05 first pitch.

I lost the coin flip and had to be the Angels in our video game. We said that the winner of this game would win the real game that next day. As we went through that intense half hour of finger tapping on the controller and trash talking back and forth, I emerged victorious with the Angels with a score of 11-7. Even I didn't want to win that badly because the superstition was sinking in that the Yanks would lose thanks to my Playstation win. As we packed up the Playstation, we proceeded to get ready for bed. The usual teeth brushing, using of the bathroom, and inability to fall asleep were innately performed before finally slipping into the unconscious state of mind informally known as sleep.

We awoke bright and early at 7 AM. This way, we had enough time to mosey up to The Bronx with enough time to maybe get an autograph, get ourselves situated in our seats, and be ready for the first pitch at 1:05 PM. The cooler was packed with drinks and snacks for the ride up to account for any food or drink cravings we might have. Dustin and I sat in the back playing car games like the license plate game, where you see how many states you can account for by looking at the license plates of passing cars. We had our Walkmans playing the freshest CDs (this was obviously before the iPod era) and Mr. Paulsson would tell the occasional joke to keep the atmosphere lively and avoid boredom. As we entered New York, we approached a confusing fork in the road that went in opposite directions and seemed to infinitely twirl and wind every which way. Mr. Paulsson made his best guess at which was the right way to Yankee Stadium, and followed that road. After traveling along for a good 15 minutes, Mr. Paulsson realized that we should have passed it, or at least seen the stadium by then. As a man, he went against his better judgment and pulled into the nearest gas station, this one happened to be Shell, and asked the attendant for directions.

"Turn left at the intersection," the attendant said in his broken English, "then follow that street down for another three miles. You will see a big green sign for Yankee Stadium, then follow the signs until you are there." Fortunately, our misdirection only added another half hour to the trip and we had plenty of time to spare. We got to the ballpark at around 11 AM. All decked out in our Yankees gear, Dustin and I stared at the aura and mystique of Yankee Stadium, the House That Ruth Built. At that moment, Dustin and I were awestruck. It was everything we thought it would be, and more. The size and grandeur of this monster of a structure seemed to us, as young kids, to be the center of the universe. The reality had hit us; we were entering the same building that once stood Yankee greats such as Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, Lou Gehrig, and my personal favorite, Babe Ruth.

We gave the man our tickets and waltzed into the main concourse. Mrs. Paulsson made sure we all stayed together since it was so crowded. It was still early so this was just a sample of things to come. Mr. Paulsson took Dustin and I down to see if we could get some autographs as Mrs. Paulsson took Dustin's sister, Jessica, to their seats. We had packed our Yankee baseball cards for this very opportunity.