Rain-out

We should've gone to the Cape League game. They didn't get rained out.

It's Matt's day off today, and we had joyful plans and schemes for watching the Yankees/Mets game tonight, but no. It's been rained out. After only an hour of rain. Sigh.

The last time I was at Yankee Stadium, it rained for three and a half hours before they finally sent us home. I was so excited for that game... we had seen the day game the day before, with Andy Pettitte pitching against the Red Sox, and we were camping just a bit north of the George Washington bridge, so that we could stay in town for the two games.

That first game, on Sunday, we had bleacher seats, and I got royally roasted by the sun. On the way back to camp after the game, my car got a flat tire, and we had to change the tire on the practically non-existent shoulder of the Palisades Parkway, tractor trailers zooming past us, only feet away.

Fortunately, I still had the "donut" spare tire in the trunk -- but it had no air in it. So we put that on and limped slowly, on the rims of the donut, to the nearest exit, where we hoped to find a gas station with an air pump.

That town totally hooked us up. We got our air, and bought some water and snacks at the grocery store. The cashier had seen us deal with our tire in the parking lot, then saw our hot, dusty faces above our obviously brand new Yankees T-shirts, and gave us the water and kibble for free.

The next day, Matt and I wandered aimlessly around mid-town Manhattan, seeing the sights for a while. We ducked into St. Patrick's Cathedral for a break at one point, and enjoyed the mellow coolness within. We admired the stained glass windows and general gothic-ness of the place, then walked back outside, stepping around office workers eating their lunches on the cathedral steps.

Then back to Yankee Stadium, where we drank beer inside the concourse with a friendly couple from Florida during the three-and-a-half hour rain delay. When word came that the game was postponed, I burst into tears. I was sunburned and tired and over-reacting, but these tickets had been Matt's birthday present to me, and we were going home to Syracuse the next day. And I had been looking forward to seeing Roger Clemens pitch what would have been his 20th win of the season, had he won.

When we woke up the next morning, the weather was so outstanding, I tried to convince Matt to stay for one more day and use our rain checks that night. We didn't have any cells phones at the time, so I had to walk to the ranger station to use the pay phone to call Yankee Stadium, to ask if we could use our rain checks that night. I got no answer at the Stadium.

When I got back to the campsite, Matt was breaking down the tent, and had the car radio on with both doors wide open so he could hear better. I walked up to the site just in time to hear that the World Trade Towers had just fallen.

We drove back up to Syracuse that morning, and it wasn't until sometime the next week that I realized I was still wearing the same t-shirt I had changed the tire in.