Pastime

PASTIME

  I took my son to his first baseball game today. My Yankees, now his Yankees, like dreams manifested thundered into the colosseum to do battle with their opponents. I could see through his six-year-old eyes with a wonder that I hadn’t felt in years. He caught onto the rhythm of the game and roared his delight as a part of the throng, rising when they rose, cheering when they cheered, leaving him with a lingering hoarseness that could never outlive the images still dancing in his head. As I tucked him into bed that night, he squeezed a hug noticeably tighter with no need to explain why. I plucked his new Yankees cap from his head and put it in a place of honor on his bedstand.

  Memories clamored for my attention like the voice of the public address announcer at the ballpark. For the first time in years, I thought of Harry Edelson and the story I had written about him for Sports Illustrated years before. I sat down at my desk in the study where so many words were pieced together through my career, spanning the decades to the silent unheard cheers of my loyal readers. Jumbled letters arranged in an attempt to give meaning to their individual nothingness. The typewritten draft gave proof to the age of the piece that I wrote on Edelson. Penciled in the margins were many notations and quotations of the evening we spent together at Yankee Stadium…THE Stadium. I could practically hear the bark of a vendor over the crowds excited pregame rumble.

  “Hot dogs! Get yourself a tasty hot dog here!” I was transported as I pored over my words, lost in a memory I had forgotten.

SEASON TICKET HOLDER ATTENDS

LAST GAME AT YANKEE STADIUM

  I arrived at the park early today, avoiding the reminiscent reunions that were springing up all over the grounds. I sat alone in a section above where I would watch the game, because I wanted to see Harry Edelson arrive. I wanted to see him as the Stadium had seen him these last eighty-five years. You see, not only is Harry a season ticket holder for every year since the Stadium opened in 1923, but he is the only one.

  I knew Harry immediately as he exited the tunnel and emerged field level. He stood blinking as his eyes adjusted to the bright late afternoon sun. A man of moderate height, not excessive in weight, clean shaven, one could be forgiven if they were to mistake this 91-year-old gentleman for a youngster in his early eighties. Harry Edelson took the Yankee cap from his head as he gazed at the perfectly green field, with its gleaming white bases and precision base paths. Harry was home, and all was in order in his house. He held that hat against a black Yankees jacket, his other hand clutching a program and pencil. I imagined his lips moving soundlessly murmuring some plea to the higher powers for yet another Yankee victory. An usher approached Harry but instead of shooing him off to his seat he placed a hand on the old man’s shoulder. They exchanged words that I could sense were attached to their heartstrings, then shook hands as if for the last time. Broken from his reverie, Harry headed down the aisle that parallelled the right field foul line. Several times he tipped his hat to a lady or waved at a shout of recognition, but mainly his attention was on the dugout on the first base side. The Yankees dugout. He seemed to slow his pace, maybe hoping one last time that he would get called out onto that field, maybe hoping that one last time the mighty George Herman Ruth would stride out and pick up a bat. One last time.

  Harry shuffled up the steps to his seat and it was a neighborly outpouring from his section, all season ticket holders alike. Harry stopped at his row and lowered the first seat, whacking away all manners of evil with his magical Yankees cap. He raised that seat then repeated his routine on the second seat, which he finally lowered himself into with exaggerated care. Harry sat for a moment soaking it in, then with a smile he licked the tip of the pencil he pulled from a pocket and began carefully filling in the starting line-ups. First, the visiting Red Sox with an air of unconcerned dismissal, then ever so carefully, the vaunted Yankees line-up. He would squint his eyes at the scoreboard, then looking back at his scorecard, he inserted the first batter. His face scrunched with concentration as he guided the pencil. I found myself silently urging him on. D-A-M-O-N, I mouthed. J-E-T-E-R, I urged as he lowered his gaze back down from a second peek at the scoreboard. Together, we filled out the rest of the starting nine, finally placing Pettitte on the mound.

  I had decided to join Harry in time for the first pitch, but hesitated as I neared, stopping to watch all rise for the playing of the National Anthem. I saw Harry hoist himself up, remove his cap, and stiffen into a military salute learned long ago. He mumbled the words reverently as he had done since this grand place was opened in 1923, a timeless moment stuck on replay until this day, September 21, 2008. Yankee Stadium’s last. He wiped away a tear, perhaps a bead of sweat, with the sleeve of his jacket as he returned his hat to its perch. I appeared at his side before he had taken his seat and introduced myself. He offered me the aisle seat.

  “That used to be my seat, when I was young. My Dad would sit here where I am right now. He got two season tickets before the Stadium opened, and one way or the other my family has managed to keep them all these years." The words spilled out and Harry seemed relieved that he had someone to tell them to.

"That first year here the Yankees won the World Series, and we became fans for life, though Dad didn’t take a shine to their manager, Miller Huggins. The “Murderer’s Row” gave us championships in ’27 and ’28 and I suspect they were Dad’s all-time favorites. I didn’t go with Dad to every game, because I was still a young boy in the ‘20’s and as Dad was known to say, “Baseball is a game that’s still a bit rough around the edges, and the New York fans are even rougher.” The Yanks took three years off from the World Series, but in 1932, when I was 15 years old and bound and determined to play for the Yankees, they had a team that other towns only dream of, and I was hooked. “Nine Hall of Famers…” his voice trailed off and I could see that he was seeing his favorite ghosts as they had danced across the field. As I watched, I could almost see that 15-year-old Harry reverently paying homage in this, his holy sanctuary.

  “The 30’s were grand. Four more World Championships, I had a good job working for the rail line, and to top it off, I married the love of my life the week after the Yanks swept the Reds in the World Series. That summer my son, Harry Jr. was born. I still feel responsible for the dry spell in 1940. I didn’t get to the park as often as I should have, and the boys failed to make the show. I’m glad I spent the next three seasons here with my dad as often as possible. I’m so glad that we avenged the loss in the World Series to the Cardinals in 1942 the next year, because it was Dad’s last year here at the Stadium. When he passed, the year after, I got to move over here to his seat, and sometimes my wife would join me. She was especially fond of Sunday double-headers; I suspect it was because she got out of cooking Sunday dinners during the season when we attended a ballgame.”

  Harry Edelson’s voice trailed off, his eyes following the movement of the baseball, but his thoughts years away. The crack of the bat snapped him out of it and we both watched a long fly ball fly over the wall into right field. The sedate NY crowd leapt to their feet as Johnny Damon rounded the bases scoring Matsui and Molina in front of him to post the Yanks to a 3-2 lead. To imagine that this man next to me had seen the same off the bats of legends like Mantle, Gehrig, Ruth, and DiMaggio, like a loyal sentry seeing knights off to battle year after year. But now, the castle would be no more. As the innings went by the stories flowed from Harry, and I learned the lore of the castle. NO MAN, he exclaimed in capital letters, had EVER hit a fair ball out of Yankee Stadium during a game. Ever. How when Harry Jr. was 6, he started bringing him to the park in 1945, and that that was metaphysically responsible for Championships in ’47, ’49, ’50, ’51, ’52, ’53, ’56, ’58, ’61, ’62. How Harry Jr. had been killed in Viet Nam in 1963, and that directly contributed to World Series losses in ’63 and ’64.

  “I think 1965 to 1975 were the darkest years of my life. My wife Anna tried to keep her game face on but deep down it killed her to sit in his seat here next to me. Sucked the joy right out of the game. She came less and less until in 1974 she was hit by a taxi and killed right here in the Bronx. A block from home.”  Harry blinked back brittle tears. “The hardest part about it?” He turned and looked me in the eye. “After the 1973 season, they decided this old building needed a facelift. Gutted the place, and the Yankees had to spend the next two seasons playing their home games in Shea Stadium! Shea fricking Stadium!” He shook his head, and I could almost see the regret fall from him like the dust on an unread book. “I couldn’t do it. Not Shea Stadium.”

 “We beat the Dodgers for the title in ’77 and ’78, breaking a fifteen-year drought, but I think they broke the park’s magic by renovating because other than losing to the Dodgers in ’81, the Yanks were absent from the World Series for seventeen seasons. In 1994 my faith in baseball was tested as they cancelled the entire season due to a player’s strike. Thanks to Joe Torre we were champions once again in ’96, ’98, ’99, and 2000. The last two times we made the Series we lost. You know the truth? I had never heard of the Diamondbacks or the Marlins!”

  Just then the familiar guitar intro to “Enter Sandman” filled the stadium, as closer Mariano Rivera took the mound to shut down the Red Sox in the 9^th inning for the win. The crowd rose to their feet with the bleacher fans roaring “MAR-I-ANO!” Harry struggled to his feet, as if his 91 years had suddenly caught up to him. Time was running out. His eyes looked up, perhaps scanning the upper decks, perhaps searching for a sign that his heroes are waiting for him, keeping a place for him in their eternal dugout. Was baseball the background of Harry Edelson’s life, or was his life background to baseball? When the years stole so much from him, it was his sport, it was his team, but most of all, it was his Stadium that was always there for him.

Authors Note: The last game in the original Yankee Stadium on 9/21/2008 was also Harry’s last game. He passed away quietly that winter in his home in the Bronx.

 The Yankees did win a World Series title the next year in 2009. They have not been back to the World Series since…

The End