Day/Night Doubleheader

So, I love the fact that j is a sports fan who indulges me on my strange whims, even if I couldn't talk her in to the ultimate day-night doubleheader wedding with my friend since grade school, K and his wife A (instead we had weddings on successive days). Earlier this year, with all the talk about this being the last year of Yankee Stadium, I decided that we should make an effort to go up there before it happens (the same for Shea, but who really cares). I figured the best thing to do was to try and go up for a game during the week, because tickets on the weekend would be very expensive. Part of my scheme involved looking for dates in which both the Mets and Yankees were in town, so we could try and get them done in one shot. Then we just had to make sure j was post-call one of those days.

Wednesday, j got off of work and we drove up to New York to catch the Yankees-Twins game and then the Mets-Phillies game. It was supposed to rain, so I grabbed an umbrella, as we parked in Queens (for free) and took the subway to Yankee Stadium (number 7 to number 4)...

So here we are at Yankee Stadium
View from our seats

Attempted stitched panorama shot (poorly done)

Not that I'm a Yankees fan, but you really can't beat their history. Unfortunately we were never able to actually go down there to see everything, but here is Memorial Park from our seats.
Final score and the view of the fencing and All-Star Game logo.

We were able to see Rivera come in and pitch the final out, so that was pretty cool.
After the game, we hung out, took some more pictures, tried to stowaway onto a tour to see Monument Park, but they then denied us all because it was closed (?). Once the game ended, the stadium PA (btw, their announcer was as dynamic as the guy that does the Tom Shane jewelry commercials) played New York, New York on a continuous loop. By the third time, we were ready to run as far away as possible so I think it had its intended effect.

We took the 4 back to Grand Central Station, where we wandered around and got some dinner. I almost lost my surefire anti-rain device (having an umbrella on me keeps the rain away, without it it will rain), but a nice gentleman caught me as we were leaving. Then we took the number 7 to Shea for the nightcap. Shea was interesting, not as cool/historic as Yankee. Comes from the same mold as Veterans/Riverbend/Busch/3 Rivers. The lower part of each level is set up to be box seating, so that kind of reminded me of Churchill Downs (except with normal seats and not folding chairs).

Shea from the outside (actually on the way out)
Another poor attempt at a panorama shot.

Here we are in Shea.
Above the scoreboard in Shea, cool neon sign.

Thought this was a funny stat line after the first inning due to 4 walks and a fielder's choice, we had the rare 2 runs with no hits, no errors. Couldn't have happened to more of a wife beating douchebag, Brett Myers.
We left a little early (after Jose Reyes hit his decisive 3-run blast). On our way out, Mr Met says goodbye to j.

The rain held off all day until the ride home (even though the hour-by-hour forecast on weather.com was up to an 80% chance of rain by late afternoon). Got back late, but not unreasonably. It was a fun trip, but then again, I wasn't the one who had to be up around 5:30 the next morning. Thanks for going on these adventures with me j.