Tuesday was a big day, as I got to experience my first baseball game! Ryan took me down to see the New York Yankees fighting… somebody. I know I hated the other team because they were from Tampa and I hate Tampa since I lived there for 6 months, but I don’t know who the team was exactly.
I didn’t think I’d know what was going on in the game exactly–and I was right–but there was enough neat stuff going on at the game that I had a killer time anyway.

There's Chuck! Uhh... hidden behind Ryan's head. Maybe I should have asked someone else to take the photos...
I got to meet Ryan’s friend Chuck, who was indeed as kind and friendly as advertised. And patient enough to answer all my questions about baseball. ALL of them. And there were a lot. What a cool person!
Apparently, baseball is a science! I had no idea! There’s all kinds of complex analytical patterns and sequences that can be seen in the way that the pitchers work and how the field guys position themselves to chase after the ball and such, and it differs for each individual player playing! I’ve never ‘got’ sports, but this put it into terms I could comprehend. Amazing!
We initially went and sat in totally the wrong section, which was probably bad. But then we ended up moving to the right section. Except over there, there were people who were also in the wrong seats, who were in our seats. Those people left our seats without a big fight or anything, so it wasn’t like a movie where a riot would break out. Which I guess is a positive thing. I wonder if it was the same people whose seats we had mistakenly taken in the other section? That’d be ironic, wouldn’t it?
Yankees scored 5 runs in the 1st round so I thought they’d score like 45 for the whole game, but it was only like 8, so that was sorta a letdown. But they did win! So that was good!
Outside of the game itself the people were really funny and entertaining, though. There was the Mortal Kombat song played, sadly without yelling “Mortal Kombat!” throughout, and a very energetic cowboy-looking guy doing an awesome dance to “Cotton Eye Joe”. I wasn’t really expecting people to be so into it and cheering and chanting and laughing and dancing and stuff. It was pretty crazy. I don’t think I have that in me, but it was still fun to watch. Maybe someday…
We got to see several attempts at “The Wave” that totally failed, as well as one really awesome attempt that made it all the way around Yankee Stadium. (I didn’t participate in that either. Someday…)
Food was crazy expensive though. I paid $5 for a pretzel that tasted like cardboard. I woulda been better off eating the $5, I think. It mighta tasted better. I can’t imagine how much Ryan and Chuck spent on hot dogs and beer, but I imagine it was some ludicrous amount.

You'll notice the vantage point is different in this photo, since we realized we'd sat in the wrong section earlier...
Game let out around 10:30, but adding on taking the subway and fighting the killer hordes of traffic and driving back upstate to Albany, and I got to bed around 3AM. For once I passed out easily, at least. I’d like to say that staying out until 3AM and then having to get up early reminds me of my college days, but I’m pretty sure that never happened…
Anyway, it was a really great experience. I’ve never gone out to see a legitimate sports game (sorry, sports entertainment WWE, I love you too), so it was definitely something new and fun. I hope I can go see another game next year. I want to have more fun…