Positively 161st Street

"NEW YORK – The New York Mets lost on Saturday afternoon, two days before the official start of one of those baseball summers here, and Jose Reyes first recognized that."

"Subway Series heat is on full blast", Tim Brown

Sometimes I wonder how I got through third grade. Take today, for example.

"There's two of us," I was explaining. We were standing at an entrance to Yankee Stadium.

"We are both wearing jeans and Yankee tee-shirts," I added.

Yep, there we were, standing outside the Yankee Stadium. There were tens of thousands of people like us.

Oblivious, I persevered. "You're sure to recognize us," I was saying.

Yeah, sometimes I worry about myself. Sometimes I seem divorced from this world.

I'd been invited to watch the Yankees play the Mets from one of the luxury suites in the Yankee Stadium. I had invited my friend J to accompany me.

I had a cell phone number to call when we arrived, and someone was going to come down to escort us into the suite.

So there we were at Gate 4 for luxury-suite-people. "You'll recognize us," I blah-ed on, looking innocently around at the crowd of Yankee-cladded t-shirt people.

Amazingly we were eventually identified, and were escorted in. Me and my friend J.

We had a great time. I learned about strikes and outs and innings. It was like a mixture of cricket and rounders. I liked the way the crowed roared, and sang "YMCA" and The Star Spangled Banner. Patriotism and pop culture. Nothing better.

The Yankees were on top of the game in every set, or over or innings ... whatever. We were sure to win!

Then suddenly the game was over and the Yankees had won as I knew they would. We were all standing up singing, "New York, New York". Except for the Mets people that is. They slinked away somewhere. To Queens, probably. And then it was time to go.

"Let's get a cab," said my friend J. "Of course," I replied. "We aren't getting the subway! ASIF!"

We left the luxury of the glass-enclosed suite into the main part of the stadium, to join the throng of normal New Yorkers who seemed to be making their way to the subway.

And so there we were in the Bronx, surrounded by Yankee fans heading to the subway station.

"Where are the cabs?" I asked. "When I leave the opera they are everywhere!"

A few people near us glared. But I was undeterred.

Till I realized what I'd said. My mind was racing. What was wrong with me? Turning up at Yankee Stadium expecting to be recognized by my Yankee tee-shirt. Talking about the opera in the middle of the Bronx. Not that Bronx people don't go to the opera. I was getting confused. Political correctness was schizophrenic-ing me.

There were no cabs to be seen. Several New York cops tried to explain this to us. "You need the subway lady, there are no cabs here."

But we didn't want to know.

We walked north. We walked south.

Well maybe we did. We are both spatially dyslexic.

"I have no sense of direction," said J. "Me neither." I said.

Still no cab in sight.

Eventually we gave up and accepted out fate. We walked to the subway station.

Six minutes later we were in Manhattan.

I put J in a cab. I walked home.

"Jesus," I told the doorman when I reached the safety of my apartment block lobby. "I went to the Yankee Stadium and there were no cabs!"

"I know," he said. "It is a dead area. Never go there."

I got in the elevator and walked into my apartment.

Somehow I felt that I'd passed a test. I was fulfilled.


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