by Jane Heller
Pettitte works in and out of trouble all day. He is at 102 pitches in the bottom of the sixth, and I figure he is done. But he comes back out for the seventh and gives up three runs.
Edwar takes a beating in the top of the eighth, allowing two homers that put the Rays ahead 8–2.
In the bottom of the eighth, the Rays make a pitching change: Dan Wheeler. I am so excited! His parents are my new friends! Let’s go, Dan!
His mother and aunt are too nervous to watch and hide their eyes, but Norman cups his hands around his mouth and yells, “Come on, Wheels!” Michael and I cheer for Wheels, too. He gets Giambi and Melky to fly out. There are congratulations all around.
The Yankees lose two of three to the last-place Devil Rays but cling to their two-game lead over Seattle for the wild card.
Back at the hotel, Michael says he is getting another cold. I pray this one goes away quickly, like the one he caught in Detroit.
AL EAST STANDINGS/SEPTEMBER 2
TEAM W L PCT GB
BOSTON 82 55 .599 —
NEW YORK 76 61 .555 6.0
TORONTO 70 66 .515 11.5
BALTIMORE 59 76 .437 22.0
TAMPA BAY 56 81 .409 26.0
Week 23 September 3, 2007
I think the world of Brian Cashman. There aren’t enough guys like him in the big leagues. Before I came here, people told him I was an arrogant prick—that if things didn’t go well I would burn you. I was in a bad state of mind last year. But he was open and honest with me, and I explained myself, and he let me prove I’m a good guy in the clubhouse. Guys like me? We give everything we have.
It is Labor Day and Michael doesn’t feel like celebrating. He is sneezing and hacking. I say he should skip today’s game and rest so his cold doesn’t blossom into anything worse. He protests at first—“This is the beginning of an important series against the Mariners!”—but caves after another sneezing attack.
My sister is happy to be his surrogate. We meet at the 86th Street subway station about noon and ride to the Bronx together. We make an unlikely pair. She has short dark hair and a normal woman’s figure. I have long blond hair and am shaped like a pencil.
When we arrive at the Stadium, I point skyward. “We’ll be sitting up there.” She doesn’t go to many games, so I want to prepare her.
“These aren’t that bad,” she says, once we have settled into our seats in Tier 13, row H.
For me, the seats are great. Sure, they are insanely high up, but they are also between home plate and first base—prime viewing.
During the “Yankeeography” about Catfish Hunter, I spot a sixty something woman sitting alone a couple of rows below us. She has short gray hair under her Yankees cap, is wearing earphones that are plugged into a Sony radio with a Yankees sticker on it, and is filling in names on a scorecard. I am curious about her—I have become curious about fans in general and She-Fans in particular—and hop down to speak to her.
“Are you a longtime fan?” I ask.
“Since I was a little girl,” she says with a wistful smile. “My father introduced me to the game. It was the greatest gift he ever gave me.”
I think about other She-Fans I have met. Their fathers introduced them to the game, too. “Do you think we’ll make it into the postseason?”
“The pitching is inconsistent, but if we get quality innings out of the young kids, we could do it. And once we’re in, anything can happen.”
“I’d hate to see us climb back from where we were, only to get knocked out in the first round.”
“We all have such high expectations—it goes with the territory—but sometimes things don’t work out, and we just have to accept it.”
I study this woman as if she were a science project. She is a She-Fan like me, and yet she approaches the Yankees with such balance.
“Have you been a Yankee fan for a long time?” she asks me.
I nod. “I’m writing a book about my relationship with them.”
I expect her to laugh or roll her eyes, but she asks for my name. “I’ll be on the lookout for the book.”
The Yankees jump out to a 1–0 lead in the bottom of the first, but Clemens, who is said to have foot blisters, has nothing. Ichiro’s homer in the third is just the beginning, and the Mariners are up 5–1 when Mussina comes in to relieve in the fifth.
“Sorry for inviting you to this pathetic display,” I tell my sister. In addition to Clemens’s miserable outing, the Yankees are stifled by Hernandez, the Mariners’ hard-throwing starter. He is hurling 98 mph fastballs with 80 mph sliders thrown in.
“What do you mean?” she says. “I’m having a great time.”
Mussina does not exactly shut the Mariners down, but he is not as horrendous as he has been. He allows two runs over four innings, and the score is 7–1 as he departs for Chris Britton in the top of the eighth.
The woman I spoke to earlier gets up to go. I didn’t figure her for someone who would leave before a game is over.
“Seen enough?” I call out to her.
“Some days they don’t have it,” she says with a chuckle. “There’s always tomorrow.”
Amazing. The Yankees are about to lose to a team they need to beat, and yet she doesn’t act even a little miffed.
When I get back to the hotel, I check on Michael, who is still sneezing. I also check e-mail. There is one from Larry Brooks, who says he may be covering the Kansas City and Toronto road trips and hopes we can get together in one place or the other. He passes along the contact info of a friend of his named Jen Royle. He says she interviews all the Yankees for the YES Web site and knows them really well. “She’s a great girl,” he says.
On Tuesday morning George King has an article in the Post about the party A-Rod hosted last night at the waterfront mansion he is renting in Westchester. I am furious that I was not invited. Of course, I am not even allowed in the press box, but I can picture myself all dressed up, sipping Dom Pérignon, munching on those miniature hamburgers that are so popular at cocktail parties these days and chatting with various players and their wives. I would surely have scored an interview with a Yankee.
Michael is still feeling rotten, so I leave him to sleep and rest. It is another beautiful sunny day, and I enjoy my walk down First Avenue to Luca, the restaurant where I meet Kat O’Brien for lunch. She is an adorable 27-year-old from Davenport, Iowa, who covered the Texas Rangers for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram before joining Newsday. This is her first season as the Yankees’ beat writer.
While we eat, I ask Kat about the team and their chances of winning a championship and their chemistry in the clubhouse, and she is very knowledgeable about all of it. But mostly I am curious what it is like to be the Yankees’ only female beat writer.
“Was the idea of moving to New York daunting?” I ask.
“It was exciting,” she says. “I’m not really afraid of new experiences.”
“Was it hard to make friends with the other beat writers?”
“Not really. I had heard that they were cliquish,but I knew most of them from covering the Rangers. Being female can be a negative in some ways, but it’s also helpful because people remember you.”
“How is it a negative?”
“Older people who’ve been around the game for a long time don’t really think women would know anything about sports. And you hear sexual comments.”
“How do you deal with that?”
“I pretty much ignore it. But I speak Spanish, and that makes it kind of interesting. One time I overheard something along those lines. I turned around and said something back in Spanish. One of the players said to the others, ‘Be careful. She understands.’”
Back at the hotel, I check on Michael. He is still feeling awful, so I enlist my friend Marty to be my date for tonight’s game.
Marty is a Mets fan and, therefore, hates the Yankees, and when we get to the Stadium, he is not as diplomatic as my sister was about the seat he is stuck with. We are in Tier 11, row H, above home plate.
> “How the hell are you supposed to focus on the game from all the way up here?” he says.
“You’ll get used to it,” I say. “By the fifth inning, you won’t feel like barfing.”
As Wang takes the mound, Marty asks me how the book is coming. I say I have not met a Yankee yet.
“This Jason Zillo guy is still stonewalling you?”
“I even asked him if I could interview him, and he never let me.”
He says I should try going through the players’ agents. He pulls out a piece of paper and writes down the names of the agents he knows. He has been producing Broadway musicals for years and has no fear when it comes to picking up the phone and calling people. “One way or another, you’ll have your Yankee.”
Wang’s sinker is really impressive tonight. He holds the Mariners scoreless through six. In the bottom of the inning, A-Rod hits a towering blast into the upper deck in left. The Yankees are up 4–0 in the seventh when Joe finally puts Mientkiewicz in at first base. It bothers me that we have a Gold Glove infielder and don’t use him.
The Yankees break the game wide open in the bottom of the seventh, scoring seven runs, but Seattle scores two off Vizcaino in the top of the eighth for 11–3. Viz is showered with boos as he trudges to the dugout.
“Yankee fans are merciless,” Marty remarks. “You’re ahead by eight fucking runs.”
“No lead is safe with this bullpen.”
The final score is 12–3, and the Yankees are now two up on the Mariners for the wild card.
I wake up on Wednesday with Michael’s cold. I figured it was only a matter of time before I caught it. I can’t afford to be out of it today—not for my reunion with “the girls”—Barb, Diane, and Patty. I am counting on them to tell me how to meet my Yankee.
I pull myself together and hurry over to Sarabeth’s, the appointed restaurant on Madison and 92nd Street. Standing near the entrance are three middle-aged women who can only be Barb, Diane, and Patty. I have not seen them in 40 years, and yet I recognize them immediately.
Barb is “the tall one.” She has light blond hair that curls under her chin and is dressed in a chic black outfit. She looks prosperous and put together. Diane has light brown hair, full lips, and eyes that widen when she is excited and demonstrative,which is often. And Patty has flaming red hair with bangs that fall into her eyes. She is the most soft-spoken of the three but giggles frequently—the happy-go-lucky, free spirit. They are just as funny and approachable as I remember.
We go inside, get a corner table for four, and order lunch. I explain how I came to write a book about divorcing the Yankees and ask permission to turn on the tape recorder.
“My relationship with Sparky brought me such pleasure and pain!” Diane blurts out.
“Sparky Lyle?”
“It’s such a long saga, and I don’t even know if I should get into it,” she says, dying to get into it. “What I do know is that my story with Barb and Patty would be a great movie. I would write it myself, but—”
“Let’s stay on point,” Barb cuts her off. You can tell they have been through this before. “What happened was, my dad actually played minor league baseball and my brothers were interested in baseball, so I became interested in baseball players.”
Patty laughs. “All three of us grew up in Philly. Barb and I were childhood friends.”
“When we were 14,” Barb continues, “we used to go to games at Connie Mack Stadium. My poor father would have to park outside and wait until all the ballplayers came out so I could shake their hands and say hello. We were all crazy about Richie Ash burn, and I knew what car he drove.”
“It was a different time,” Patty says wistfully. “The players parked their own cars and didn’t lock them.”
“So Patty and I got in Richie’s car one day during a game,” says Barb. “We laid down in the backseat and stayed very quiet. They brought his car up to him, and he got in and started driving. All of a sudden, I went, ‘Richie!’ He turned around and said, ‘What the hell?’ I said, ‘I love you.’”
We all laugh. “You were definitely the nervy one,” I say to her.
“I was,” she acknowledges. “But that started our relationship with Richie. From then on, we were the 14-year-old girls who would open his car door for him when he came out. He would say thank you and pat us on the head and muss our hair. All the guys treated us like their little pets.”
“When did you become more than the Phillies’ little pets?” I ask.
“We started going to spring training,” Barb says.
Patty laughs and points at Diane. “We told our parents we were staying at your house.”
“We got friendly with Clay Dalrymple, for example,” says Barb. “He was a catcher with the Phillies. We used to babysit for him. But after we went to spring training the first time, we started looking at them all differently. We would check out the new players and say, ‘Oh, we like this one or that one.’ By that time we were well known at the ballpark. We were allowed to wait outside the clubhouse and say hi to the players.”
“Were there other girls hanging out at the ballpark, too?” I ask.
“They were slutty girls,” says Diane. “We were still virgins.”
“Which is why the ballplayers called us the Cherry Sisters,” Barb says. “We would make out with them,but that was it.”
“We were groupies,” says Patty.
“We were not groupies!” Barb insists.
“How do you all define groupie?”I ask them.
“Groupies are those women who want to take half the team,” says Diane. “I think we were just looking for love in the wrong way.”
“And we were very selective,” says Barb. “That’s the difference.”
“So you’re just virgins who hang out at the ballpark,” I confirm.
“We would even go there in the off-season,” says Barb, “or when the team was on the road. We’d be let inside the clubhouse. We’d steal their jockstraps.”
Everybody laughs. “When did you start dating the players?”
“It was Frank Torre who got us started,” says Diane. “His nickname in Philly was ‘Toast’ for ‘Toast of the Town.’ I remember seeing him leaving the games with a stogie hanging from his lips and a bevy of tall Playboy Bunny types on each arm. One night Barb, Patty, and I were waiting for a taxi to take us home from the stadium after a rainout. Frank saw us and asked if we’d like to go to a party. That was the beginning of our social life with the players—a step up from being their little mascots.”
“After that we’d go to bars where we knew they hung out, and we’d make out with them,” Barb says.
“We were so young we weren’t scared of anything,” adds Patty.
“When I think back now,” Barb says, “I don’t know how I got out of some of the situations I put myself in. I was once in a car accident with Jack Hamilton at 2 o’clock in the morning. I ran because I was afraid Jack would get in trouble. There was actually an article in the paper the next day saying they suspected a female was in the car.”
“We all put ourselves in bad situations,” Diane agrees. “One time in spring training we were making out with the players and their wives showed up. We had to jump in the shower and hide.”
“Eventually you moved to New York and shared an apartment,” I say. “How did you meet players in your new town?”
“You get to know them, and they get traded to different teams,” says Patty. “They come into town and introduce you to their new teammates.”
“I remember one night in New York,” says Diane. “Jack Hamilton, who had been traded to the Mets, came over with Tug McGraw. We all went out for drinks. We lived right around the corner from Mr. Laffs.” Mr. Laffs was a hot spot on the Upper East Side owned by Yankee Phil Linz and frequented by ballplayers.
“When I met you three, you were hanging out with Red Sox players,” I say.
“The first one I met was Yastrzemski,” says Diane. “One night we were in Mr. Laffs, and I ended up t
alking to Carl for hours. He was very intelligent, which separated him from the herd. He came to the apartment a few times.”
“I was dating a Red Sox pitcher named Billy Landis,” says Barb.
“And Tony Conigliaro,” Diane reminds her.
Barb nods. “I was probably the only one who went out with both Jack Hamilton and Tony Conigliaro.”
“We didn’t always have sex,”Diane wants me to know.
“It was more innocent in those days,” says Patty.
“I once spent the night with a player who just wanted to cuddle,” Barb says with a laugh. “He missed his fiancée.”
More laughs all around. I turn to Diane. “What was it about Sparky that appealed to you?”
“There was a certain love of life that I never found in another man.” She looks forlorn. “He was hard to forget. During the first year, we were more like friends—definitely not lovers. The relationship intensified the next year.”
“How?” I say.
“He gave me the diamond tie tack he got when the Red Sox won the pennant in 1967. I had it made into a charm with his name on the back and put it on my charm bracelet. And he used the ‘M’ word.”
“What ‘M’ word?” Barb asks.
“Marriage,” Diane says.
“But if you’d married him, you could have become the wife he’d cheat on next.” The minute I say the words, I wish I could take them back.
“It wouldn’t matter,” Diane says. “I’m married to someone else, but if Sparky came up on the white horse to rescue me, I would go with him in a second. I’m only capable of loving one person. And it’s him.”
There is a moment of silence.
“What made you all give up the life?” I ask.
“It was Joe Torre who banged our heads together and told us to stop,” says Barb. “I thought he was one of the nicest people I ever met in baseball.”
We all look at Diane, knowing she is stuck on Sparky.
I turn to Barb. “You have three daughters. Do they know about this part of your life?”