Sleep, sleep, wonderful sleep. If there is one thing that has been lacking on our trip, it has been sleep. This morning was only one of two days that we didn’t have to wake up early and get on the train. We took that opportunity to catch up on some much needed Z’s and slept in until about 10:45am. By 11:40 we were on our way to Yankee stadium for our tour at 12:40. We got off the subway right on time, but had to run to the ticket window to pick up our tour passes.
Yankee stadium has tours that start every 20 minutes for 7 hours a day, 7 days a week. It’s a crazy operation that they’ve got going. We got our tickets from a rude ticket guy, ran to our gate, and got there just 4 minutes late, but the tour had already left. The gate lady gave us attitude and then finally called on her radio to see where the tour was. She escorted us to a security guard, who took us to an elevator with another guard on it. We went up on story where yet another guard escorted us to our tour group.
We found ourselves in the Yankee museum where our tour guide, Mathius, was going on and on about how great the Yankees are as a franchise. We saw their 27 world series rings. Well actually, 26 world series rings and 1 world series pocket watch. They had some cool stuff in the museum, but Mathius would not stop with the overdone Yankee love. At one point, the elevator opened and a bunch of people with cameras got out. One of them was Harold Reynolds from The MLB Network. Because we were in the back and not paying attention to Mathius’ propaganda, he gave us a head nod and a ‘What’s up guys”. No big deal.
I mentioned all of the security guards that got us up to the group. Well, they didn’t go away. They stayed with the tour and made sure to always be in the front, back, and on all sides of the group at all times. It was like we had a maximum security prisoner on the tour with us.
Our next stop on the tour was to Monument Park where the Yankees have plaques for all of their great players. It’s in a really odd location. It’s directly behind the center field wall, covered by a net on top, and the only way to get to it is through winding hallways and stairways from one entrance in center field. At one point Brent wanted to get some shots without a bunch of people around, so he walked away from the group. Immediately one of the security guards was on the radio and followed a few feet behind him until he came back to the group. Brent asked the guard a question and the response was, ‘Ask the tour guide’.
Lastly, we went into the Yankee dugout. Mathius told us how, ‘The Yankees are first place, as they should be’ and ‘The Yankees are the greatest sports franchise in the history of the world’. Then the tour ended. They then had sales pitches about buying Yankee memorabilia and books and tickets and told everyone to go to the team store. All in all, the absolute worst tour experience of all the stadiums. Rude people, biased tour guides, sales pitches, we felt like criminals, we didn’t see almost anything we couldn’t normally see. It was just terrible.
After that travesty, we headed back to midtown to see everything we didn’t see yesterday. We had a long list, but first we needed to get some food. We had hopes of finding some New York pizza, but when we got off the subway there was a Wendy’s and by 2pm we were starving, so it goes. Everyone in Wendy’s was extremely rude too. Brent asked for a refill and the lady’s response was, ‘We don’t do refills.’ and then she walked away. Brent eventually talked his way into this.
The first thing on my list was to find where the movie ‘Phonebooth’ was shot. A quick google search showed that it was set in New York, but filmed in Los Angeles. Needless to say, i was crushed and settled instead for Rockefeller center. We wanted to go to the observation deck and one of the attendants told us it was $25. We laughed at the guy and he said, ‘Welcome to NewYork’. The ice rink was not an ice rink, but a cafe and the atlas statute is a block away. We thought ‘The Rock’ was overrated.
We cruised south on 5th Ave for a few blocks to the Empire State Building. We took some pictures inside and weren’t planning on going to the top, but YOLO so we splurged and spent the $23 to go up. By contrast to everyone else we encountered today, the staff in the Empire State building was extra friendly and joked around with us. Brent commented how nice they were and told her that the people at Yankee stadium weren’t. The girl’s response was, ‘Oh, we’ll yeah. That’s in the Bronx.’
The observation deck was super cool. You can see everything in the greater New York area. A storm was coming in from New Jersey and we could see the approaching lightning. By the time we got 86 stories back down to the ground, it had begun to rain. We threw our hats on and continued on our midtown tour. We walked up Madison Ave., a personal favorite of Brent’s because of the show ‘Mad Men’. The rain let up after about 15 minutes and we made it to Grand Central Station. We just wanted to check out the inside of the terminal. All of the train stations have been awesome and Grand Central did not disappoint.
Next, we walked to the United Nations. The UN buildings themselves are really old and ugly and none of the flags were flying today. We took some pictures, but it’s just a bunch of flag poles in front of some brown buildings, so we won’t bother posting those.
On our way to central park we passed the Waldorf hotel. It was the first hotel to offer room service. We also passed the Plaza hotel. You may remember it from ‘Home Alone 2: Lost in New York’. We walked in the hotel, but almost immediately walked out as we were getting all kinds of glares in our t-shirts and hats. Just across the street is central park. Unfortunately we needed to get to the baseball game, so we just walked along the park for about a block. The 100 yards or so we saw of the park looked nice and we wished we had more time to explore.
After the game, we headed to Times Square where we saw a bunch of crazy people dressed up in costumes, saw the New Year’s eve ball, and fulfilled every teenage girls dream by walking past where they filmed TRL with Carson Daily.
Baseball on the Road 