My Turn: Opening day at Yankee Stadium? The earth moved

With the approach of my 75th birthday (a big milestone that felt more like a millstone around my neck), my wife, Joan, asked me what I would like. Something special, she said.

I knew what not to ask for. Certainly not clothes. If I asked for, say, a nice new sweater, Joan would have said, “Not until we get rid of some of your old sweaters.” Joan periodically marches me up to my clothes closet and does what she calls “culling,” and what I call “wardrobe massacre.”

True, I am a hoarder and she is a culler, which makes us a good match — she would have nothing to cull if I didn’t hoard. A new pair of pants? Forget it. First I have to try on some old pants, which she will tell me are too long. No, I say, the pants aren’t too long, it’s just that my legs are too short. At a certain age, you wake up one morning and you’re suddenly an inch shorter and your pants no longer fit. That inch mysteriously materializes around your waist.

After some thought, I told her what I wanted — tickets to the opening game at Yankee Stadium. A lifelong Yankee fan — Mickey Mantle was my boyhood hero — I had been to World Series and playoff games, and even an Old-Timers game (which might have been more appropriate for this occasion). But I had never been to an opening day game, with all the pomp, ceremony and ridiculously overpriced seats.

Joan thought that was a good idea, and so we went online and found some upper deck seats behind home plate that cost about what I paid for my first car over half a century ago. And so on opening day we headed toward the stadium — not exactly an earthshaking experience, you’re thinking. Except that was the day of the earthquake in New York.

When the first tremors occurred, we were in the subway, where it always sounds and feels like an earthquake, so we had no idea. When we got to the stadium, Joan got a cryptic text from our neighbor, who almost never texts us: “Are you guys OK?”

We had no clue what he was talking about until our phones started buzzing with an emergency alert: Earthquake in New York! Stay indoors! Away from any unsecured objects!

Stay indoors? We were in Yankee Stadium with some 50,000 other people, each one a potential human projectile. What could go wrong? I had visions of being knocked senseless by airborne hot dogs, or being launched into Monument Park by a particularly strong aftershock.

Getting into the stadium was somewhat of an adventure, as well. That day had wintry weather more suitable to football than baseball. Our tickets were on the cellphone — Ticketmaster cruelly would not allow them to be printed out.

When we got to the gate I took out my cellphone, but my nearly frostbitten fingers could not get the phone to respond. I frantically tapped on my phone for several minutes, holding up hundreds of people lined up behind us, who were surely thinking very dark thoughts. About a minute before I was ready to give up and smash the phone into many tiny pieces, it finally responded and we got in. I did learn an interesting fact — that it is possible to sweat profusely while nearly freezing to death.

As for the game, the Yankees were shut out that day in a rather anemic performance.

The most memorable stat came when my age, along with my name and a birthday message, flashed on the scoreboard after the seventh inning, courtesy of Joan. For the record, I did not get a standing ovation.

Michael Golden
Great Neck