First Yankees Game

- 3 minutes read - 572 words

Taken from private correspondence

… happy Memorial Day weekend 2026. With a long weekend upon us, Lauren had the great idea that we (finally) take a family trip to Yankee Stadium and see the home team play. As game day (May 24) got closer, the forecast was dreadful: rain, rain, rain. It had been raining for something like thirty hours straight ahead of first pitch. But fortune smiled on us.

As we approached the stadium, the rain seemed to lighten. Fortunately our seats were also underneath the overhang of the upper deck so we knew we were going to have some rain protection — provided that the wind didn’t kick up too much.

We walked through the galleries toward Section 227. I passed those names, and even as a not-sporty person I knew so many of them. Maris, Ruth, Mantle, DiMaggio, Rodriguez, Jackson…so many legends. I tried to tell my boy about how my grandfather had told me about those names once. He told me he had grown up in New York and that Baby Ruth candy bar was named for a guy named Babe Ruth; and he sang “Joltin’ Joe Di-Mag-gi-o.” The crowd noise muted my sobs as I choked up, and I held his hand.

We found our seats. Safely there, with the overhang as umbrella and jackets for warmth, we settled in. Our neighbors saw the little boy and gave him some hand warmers to keep him warm. It was genuinely touching to see everyone wanting to make sure his first game was the stuff of memory. And little did we know, it would be.

I did a dash to concessions and the family shared chicken wings, french fries, and ginger ale. The teams went eight scoreless innings. It wasn’t exactly thrilling, but Tampa Bay wasn’t giving up easily and neither were the Bombers.

And then the stuff of baseball history happened.

In the bottom of the ninth, near the top of the order, Tampa Bay walked the leadoff man. Coming next to the plate was team captain Aaron Judge. Our little boy lit up with recognition that the 99 on his back matched the 99 on Judge’s. I think both Lauren and I knew that if anyone had a better-than-average chance to send it out and close the game, it was the Judge. We tried to share the stakes with our little fan.

Ball. Judge kicked, stretched, and got into position.

And then he delivered. It sounded like thunder on the field — like a tree being felled by a bulldozer. At the peal of lightning, our boy’s little head snapped around toward the plate. The crack of the hammer Mjolnir became all-too real for a split second.

We watched the ball take off at an angle, and for a couple of hard seconds we weren’t sure whether our dream scenario was actually playing out. We held our breaths.

Judge knew before we did: he flipped his bat casually from his left fingertips as the ball sailed into the stands. The horns blared, the people cheered, the naysayers said naught. It was the stuff of legend.

I stood up, dancing, waving, and hoisted our boy onto my shoulders so he could see an ocean of pinstripes jumping up and down. He covered his ears as “New York, New York” played. I felt breathless. My boy, my wife, and I were part of history, just for a moment, together.