Confessions of a She-Fan

by Jane Heller

  “Mom!I’m excited about this trip! It’s a good thing, okay?”

  When Michael and I are alone in the guest room later, he tells me his cell phone is missing. “I must have dropped it at Camden Yards.”

  “So it’s sitting in the middle of a ballpark where any maniac can use it! You have to be so careful these days!”

  Tuesday begins promisingly. I get an e-mail from Susan Tofias, who became my best friend in the sixth grade when we danced to “The Loco-Motion” in the gym. She moved to a Boston suburb after college and raised a family while I moved around the country and wrote books. But she is my Scarsdale friend and I am her Scarsdale friend,and we keep in touch via e-mail. She is one of the people I wrote to after Jason Zillo barred me from the press box. She has a large social circle in Boston, and I asked her if she knew anybody with Red Sox tickets. She writes back that her friends, Steven and Joan Belkin, are willing to part with their four field-box seats for the Sunday game at Fenway in September. This means there is an extra seat for Michael’s brother Geoff, who lives in New Hampshire and is, of course, a diehard Red Sox fan.

  “There is only one caveat,” writes Susan in her e-mail. “The game will probably be nationally televised and the Belkins’ seats are VERY VISIBLE ON TV. SO NO YANKEES CLOTHES! YOU MUST NOT EMBARRASS THEM!”

  “They’re being so generous. I wouldn’t dream of embarrassing them,” I write back. “I will happily bury all evidence of my Yankee-ness.”

  Michael and I leave at 3:30 for tonight’s 7:05 game against the White Sox. He takes 684 to the Hutchinson River Parkway to the Cross County Parkway to the entrance to the Major Deegan—except it is not the entrance to the Deegan.

  “I know you hate asking for directions,” I say to Michael, “but could you please ask for directions?”

  “Okay,” he says grudgingly. “But I have to find the right person.”

  He pulls into the parking lot of an Irish pub where three gray-haired men in black suits are standing around smoking unfiltered cigarettes. They look like undertakers or Sopranos cast members or both. Michael gets out of the car and speaks to them. He returns after a few minutes and off we go. I know we are nearing the Stadium because the black Jeep in front of us has a decal on its rear window with a man in a Yankees cap pissing on a Red Sox cap.

  I turn on WFAN to find out if there is any trade news now that the 4:00 p.m. deadline has passed. There is. The Yankees have traded not Farnsworth but Proctor—to the Dodgers for infielder Wilson Betemit. I have never heard of Betemit, so I don’t know what to make of this deal. The FAN also reports that the Red Sox traded a minor leaguer to the Rangers for Eric Gagne, who is more famous than Wilson Betemit.

  We arrive at Yankee Stadium at 4:30 and can’t find a parking lot that is open. They all have gates that are locked. As we wind our way through the narrow, serpentine streets—161st, 162nd, 163rd—it’s clear we’re not in Baltimore anymore. The streets are teeming with people who are serious about getting the most bass out of their boom boxes.

  We park in Lot 16. It is about a mile from the Stadium, but it is open and it only costs $14 as opposed to the $28 they charge at the valet lots.

  Michael takes a photo of me in front of the Stadium. We plan to document that I have actually gone to every ballpark.

  Afterward I scan the crowd and recognize Freddy, the man who encourages people to bang a spoon on his pan to bring the Yankees luck. He has been around forever—a legendary character in the Bronx—and I have to meet him.

  He is sitting on a bench in his pinstriped shirt and Yankees cap, pan in hand, along with a sign that reads: “Freddy Sez Yankees Can Improve!” He is stooped over, and his face is covered with gray grizzle, and he looks 100 years old. But he smiles and lets Michael take his picture with me.

  “How did you become the Pan Man?” I ask.

  “I grew up in the Bronx,” he says with the accent to prove it. “I was always a Yankee fan. About 20 years ago I started bringing a pan to the games for luck. In the beginning I bought my own tickets, but now they let me in for free.”

  “You’ve become a celebrity.”

  He grins proudly. “Did you see me in For Love of the Game?”

  “Of course I did.” I am lying, but I don’t have the heart not to. Before I can find out more, another fawning woman sidles up to him, and I am history.

  Michael and I enter the Stadium through Gate 6, where the snarling security guards check our bags and clothes and pat us down as if we were going through security at the Baghdad airport. Even the ticket takers bark at us. The people who work here are not touchy-feely like the employees at Camden Yards. They are like bouncers at a nightclub.

  We forage for food before finding our seats. We find an outpost of Bronx’s famous Mike’s Deli on Arthur Avenue. I order a turkey sandwich known as the Sweet Bird, and Michael, who is determined to sample the hot dogs at every ballpark, gets his first Yankee Stadium dog, which he rates an F.

  We take the escalator to Tier 17. Well, several escalators. It is one thing to be at the very top of Camden Yards. It is another to be at the very top of a stadium that holds over 55,000 people. I flash back to the night we went to the World Series with the Other Jane Heller and sat behind the on-deck circle. You can’t even see the on-deck circle from up-up-up here. It is not for people with vertigo.

  Tier 17 is between first base and the right-field foul pole. Our seats are in row C, on the aisle. I now understand why this ballpark is being torn down. It is butt ugly, except for the immaculately kept field and the distinctive facade. The seats up-up-up here are truly uncomfortable—hard and bare with no legroom—and their blue paint is faded and sad looking. And the aisles themselves are so narrow that you have no choice but to step on people to get anywhere. Still, this is Yankee Stadium—the cathedral in which I have worshipped since I was a child.

  “Disorderly conduct will not be tolerated and will lead to immediate ejection,” intones Bob Sheppard, the longtime voice of the Yankees. This place has history, but it is not warm and fuzzy.

  Sheppard announces the Yankees lineup accompanied by the theme from Star Wars. I get a kick out of how he lingers over each name,particularly “Der-ek Jeet-ah.” And he is funny with the names of the Latino players. He rolls his r’s, but his dentures get in the way. A-Rod elicits a huge hand from the crowd. They have come to see him hit 500.

  Tonight is the first of a three-game series against the White Sox. Mussina is on the mound. He has a nice, clean first inning and gets a loud “Moooose” call. In the bottom half, A-Rod steps in to chants of “MVP!” and the flashbulbs go off. It is an absolutely blinding spectacle, and I can only imagine how daunting it must be for him to try to hit a baseball with all those lights popping. He flies out. But Matsui homers, and the Yankees jump ahead 4–0. The Stadium may be dilapidated, but there is no place more electric. When the crowd rocks, the cathedral rocks, too.

  Before the top of the seventh, we applaud the grounds crew and their “YMCA” dance routine. But we turn solemn during the seventh inning stretch and Kate Smith’s “God Bless America.” When I watch the games at home, the song is my cue to disappear into my office to check phone messages and e-mails, but now that I am here, I am touched by it. I feel very patriotic singing along with 54,999 others.

  In the bottom of the seventh, the Yankees are up 16–3 and here comes A-Rod. He flies out yet again, and there is a collective sigh of frustration. He is now in an 0-for-16 slump.

  After the game, Michael and I are pushed and shoved and elbowed as we attempt to leave the ballpark. Even after we make it to the parking lot, it is pure madness—gridlock, horns honking, people telling each other to go fuck themselves.

  We are back at my mother’s by 11:30. She is still awake.

  “I looked for you in the stands,” she says. “I don’t understand why I couldn’t see you.”

  “We have to sit very high up.”

  “You can’t get seats right down in front?”

  “Not yet,” I say.
“I’m working on it.”

  In the Wednesday New York Times there is speculation that since the Red Sox got Gagne, the Yankees will call up a rookie from Scranton named Joba Chamberlain to be our setup man. Supposedly,this Joba person has a live arm and can strike batters out. I will believe it when I see it.

  Joe Longo at Gersh e-mails that he has not heard back from Jean Afterman and suggests that I should just call Jean at her office. He gives me her number. “Tell her you’re the one who’s doing the book.”

  I swallow hard and dial her number. A young woman answers.

  “Is Jean there, please?”

  “Who’s calling her?”

  “Jane Heller. Joe Longo suggested I call.”

  “Oh. Joe. Sure. Please hold.”

  I am on hold for several minutes when the assistant returns.

  “Can I get a number where Jean can call you back?”

  I give her my cell number and go on and on about how important it is for me to talk to Jean as soon as possible, but she has already hung up.

  At 3:00 p.m. Michael and I leave my mother’s for tonight’s game against the White Sox. We don’t get lost this time. We drive straight to parking lot number nine. It is easily 100 degrees.

  Inside the Stadium we check out the food court, but I will not pollute my body with hot dogs or chicken fingers. We keep walking—until we see something called the Pinstripe Pub.

  “Let’s go in,” I say to Michael.

  “It’s a private club.”

  “So?” I turn to the guard stationed outside the door. “Can you take two?”

  “Sorry,” he says. “You need a special pass to get in.”

  Michael gives me a look,but I am not budging. I am hot and I am hungry and I am determined.

  “A special pass?” I say. “But we came all the way from California for tonight’s game.”

  “Don’t tell anyone,” he says, then opens the door and whisks us inside.

  I give Michael a look and find us a table. The restaurant is air-conditioned and has waiters and menus and, best of all, serves wine.

  After dinner, we search for our seats. They are in Tier 18, row C—above third base and much better than last night’s. At 6:58, right on schedule, Bob Sheppard’s voice booms with the lineups. He really gets a workout trying to maneuver around the White Sox’s “A. J. Pierzynski.”

  Pettitte is on the hill tonight. He strikes out two of three in the top of the first. In the bottom of the inning, A-Rod comes up and the 500 Show starts all over again: the flashbulbs, the chanting, the holding up of signs and banners. He flies out.

  It is 7–1 in the bottom of the seventh when A-Rod gets another turn. He has done nothing in this game. Nothing in days. He looks completely unnerved by the attention and pressure, and I feel sorry for him. Sure, he is a gazillionaire and the best player in baseball, but he is a psychological wreck right now. You can see it in his body language even from Tier 18. For this at-bat, everybody in the Stadium stands. He works the count to 3–1, then grounds out. I hear a few boos.

  The 8–1 final is the Yankees’ third straight win. We are on a roll.

  Thursday brings another day game after a night game—and another trip to a hair salon. It is time to touch up my roots. Bruce, my colorist in Santa Barbara, applies my shade of blond every month, but he has given me my “formula,” and I hand it over to Trish at the Peninsula Hotel’s Mélange Salon in the city. I want to look my best for dinner with John Sterling later.

  Michael and I have brought our dress-up clothes in garment bags and plan to leave them at my sister Susan’s high-rise apartment on the Upper East Side while we go to the game. She meets us in the lobby and introduces us to her doorman. His name is Hilton, and he is a Yankee fan.

  “I heard about your book,” he says with a big smile. He is a handsome young man in his uniform. “Pretty cool.”

  “Thanks, Hilton.”

  “I heard about the hassles with the tickets, too.” He nods at my sister, who has apparently told him my life story. “I’ll keep my ears open. I think one of the tenants here works for WFAN.”

  “You really shouldn’t go to the game,” my sister says once we are upstairs in her air-conditioned apartment. “It’s too hot. You can watch it here, and we’ll order lunch, and you’ll be more comfortable.”

  My sister is 7 years older than I am. She is also a mother, a grandmother, and a preschool teacher—very nurturing and much nicer than I am. I don’t see her that often, since we live on opposite coasts. And we don’t share the same interests—she is a show-tunes person and I am a rock-and-roll person, for example—but we share an interest in the Yankees, and that is no small thing.

  She and Michael persuade me that it would be silly to go to the game. So we watch it in her living room.

  Clemens falters badly, departing in only the second inning after giving up eight runs. I am amazed at my sister’s lack of anger at the Rocket. She doesn’t throw cheese at Michael or me. The Yankees tie the score at 8–8 in the bottom of the frame, but the White Sox win the 4-hour contest 13–9 after Farnsworth watches two homers sail over his head and Cano lets a ball dribble through his legs for his second error of the day. A-Rod is still stalledat499, but at least he got a couple of hits.

  Bob, my brother-in-law, emerges from his office in the apartment.

  “How’s the book going?” he asks. He is trying to quit smoking, but I detect a whiff of cigarettes on his clothes.

  “I’m having trouble getting access to the Yankees,” I say.

  He thinks about this. He always tries to help. He drove me around to look at colleges when I was a teenager and found me my first car and, of course, introduced me to the groupies who lived next door. “A friend of mine knows Bob Watson,” he says, referring to the Yankees’ former GM, who is now the disciplinarian at Major League Baseball. “I’ll ask him to put in a good word for you.”

  I love that I have this grassroots support for my cause.

  The Post House on East 63rd Street is a dark, clubby steak house filled with Upper East Side power brokers and their trophy wives. Michael and I arrive in our dress-up clothes and Sandy and Doug McCartney come along soon after. Sandy is attractive, with intelligent eyes and a warm smile. She jumps right in and starts talking, so there are none of the awkward silences that often accompany first meetings. Doug is tall and tanned and handsome, and he laughs easily. I am so glad they let us horn in on their dinner.

  John shows up looking not the least bit weary from the marathon game he has just broadcast. He is nattily dressed in a dark suit with a white handkerchief in his jacket pocket. He is taller and trimmer than he appears on TV, but what gets me is the Voice. Unmistakable.

  Since he is an Important Personage in New York, we are led to the Post House’s best table. Once we are seated, I remind myself that this occasion is a social get-together,and I rein in my impulse to grill him about the Yankees. Well,I do askance questions. He is very affableand charming and doesn’t seem to mind.

  “What if you have to go to the bathroom while you’re on the air?” I ask, after having established that he has not missed a single game since he started with the Yankees in 1989.

  “I hold it in until the game is over.”

  “What do you do to relax after a game?”

  “I watch tapes of The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful.”

  I notice his World Series ring. It is gold with diamonds studding the interlocking N-Y. He lets me try it on, and it is so heavy I can hardly lift it. He says the new versions are even bigger and gaudier. This one is big and gaudy enough.

  The dinner is very cordial. As we are leaving the restaurant, John pledges his help with the Yankees once again.

  “I don’t know exactly what I can do, since Jason Zillo won’t let you into the press box. Maybe you could interview the beat writers and ask them about the players.”

  “Thanks. I’ll do that.”

  During the drive back to Westchester, Michael and I cr
ack each other up doing impressions of John.

  “It’s an A-Bomb! From A-Rod!” I say in a mock baritone.

  “Theeeee Yankees win!” Michael says in his deepest voice.

  “Except they didn’t win today,” I say in my own voice.

  On Friday morning, I try Jean Afterman again at her office. Her assistant is brusque. She takes my number. I have a bad feeling about this.

  I send Jean an e-mail, explaining who I am in case she is confused by all the info from Joe Longo and Brenda Friend.

  My heart stops a few minutes later when I see her name in my in-box. She will be my advocate, I tell myself. She will understand the emotional component of being a She-Fan. She will “get” this.

  I open the e-mail.

  “Ms. Heller,” she writes. “This is a Media Relations matter and you should address any inquiries to that department. I have nothing to do with these issues.”

  Talk about curt. She regards me as an “issue.” And she copied Jason Zillo. I am sure he is thrilled that I went over his head.

  What is wrong with the Yankees? Don’t they understand that I am their number one fan?

  At first I panic that my publisher will void the book contract if I don’t get access. But I call Marty, and he reminds me that this kiss-off is just a minor setback.

  “Remember what I told you. There’s always one player who will talk, and you’ll find him—with or without their cooperation.”

  He gives me the name of a ticket broker he has used in Toronto: Mike Chivlelli at Kangaroo Promotions. I call Mike and buy tickets for the games against the Blue Jays at the Rogers Centre next week. They are not cheap, but they take5minutes as opposed to the2hours I spent on StubHub.

  Tonight the Yankees open a three-game series against Kansas City. My niece, Lizzie, and her husband, Aaron, will be at the game, and I look forward to seeing them. It is very hot and humid with a forecast of thunderstorms, so I stick my collapsible umbrella in my bag.

  At the Stadium we take the escalators up to Tier 5, row V, the highest we have been so far—only three rows from the very top. We are directly above home plate, but we might as well be up in the blimp.