The atmosphere at America’s favourite sports matches is legendary. I was determined to soak up the excitement at an iconic American sports game while in New York City. It was baseball season, so I bought cheap tickets to see the New York Yankees play the Boston Red Sox at Yankees Stadium in The Bronx. Two iconic teams, thousands of diehard fans and one age-old rivalry.

I was warned that although the atmosphere was awesome, that the game itself would be long and boring. I’m don’t follow any sport apart from tennis grand slams, but I figured that with armed with a hot dog, the company of my boyfriend (and his sports explanations) and my camera, that I could stick it out for a couple of hours.

I needn’t have worried – as it turns out, I have an inner baseball fan which has been dying to get out. I was totally hooked! In fact, it became one of my favourite experiences in New York City, which I recommend to everyone.

An All American Baseball Game

The rivalry between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox is one of the fiercest rivalries in American sport. In 1919, the owner of the Red Sox sold legendary baseball player Babe Ruth to the Yankees, to help fund one of his other projects, a broadway show. Once the Red Sox lost Babe Ruth, they didn’t win a world championship for another 86 years. This was known as the Curse of the Bambino, and ravaged the Red Sox while the Yankees soared to new heights.

I was so excited that we’d get to see such well-known teams, especially at Yankee Stadium! Getting to Yankee Stadium from Manhattan was pretty simple, we took the D Train from Byrant Park to Yankee Stadium which takes around 20 minutes.

The rules are easy to pick up, and before long I was explaining to David what different numbers and letters on the board meant, which came as a shock to us both ;).

Statistics is a really big thing for diehard baseball fans, and I saw quite a few guys sitting in the bleachers making detailed notes in notebooks. Sports betting is illegal in the state of the New York (Melburnians would hardly survive!), so I’m not sure if they just really get a kick out of knowing the stats for their favourite player, or what the point of that is.

The lines for food & drinks were blissfully short, so we got hotdogs and a bucket of chicken with chips – mostly for the novelty of getting a bucket of chicken. Because David paid with MasterCard he also got a free litre of Pepsi. Who drinks a litre of Pepsi?! The hot dog was yummy but the one piece of chicken I had made me feel sick…which is not surprising.

  

Mid-game entertainment, USA-style

The innings in baseball games are quite short, and in between each there’s entertainment that would only fly in the United States of America.

There was the usual crowd cam zooming in on fans desperate for their five seconds of fame, many of whom would be caught on camera, thanks to the five second lag,  flailing their arms around like those giant balloon men you see at car dealerships to try and get attention.

There were a couple of proposals, and I’m not sure that all of them said yes.

There were many long-winded, cringe-worthy (sorry) birthday messages flashed up on the big screen and  a song or two.

There was a pre-recorded tape of a Japanese baseballer trying to teach the Yankees how to pronounce a baseball term in Japanese. American baseball is huge in Japan.

My favourite part was when the guys dressed in white who sweep the field danced to YMCA with their brooms while they swept.

American entertainment has an eager, childlike enthusiasm that would never stick in Britain or Australia – it would elicit eye-rolls, not whooping and cheering. It’s very cheesy at times, but I have to admit that the boundless, shameless enthusiasm was kind of heart-warming. It’s like no one is embarrassed to be totally cheesy and what we’d described as “lame” at home, which is kind of sweet.

Dumb vs Dumber

Just as my attention was starting to wane, we were distracted by three boozy fans making total asses of themselves. The beauty of being a foreigner was that I didn’t have to feel embarrassed on their behalf and instead could appreciate the entertainment value of watching two mugs forget that it’s just a game. (None of these pictures are of them!)

It started with two young guys who were hurling insults at each other. I couldn’t make out everything that they were saying, but the gist of it seemed to be that one guy was a Red Sox fan, and was getting abuse for it. It seemed like they were angry, till I realised they were wearing matching Yankees jerseys, and were actually paying each other out by suggesting the other was actually a Red Sox fan. (#InsultOftheCentury).

When I was in America I often thought people were arguing at first, and it would take me a few minutes of listening to what they were saying to realise they were just having a normal discussion or were joking around. New Yorkers are so loud that everyday conversations sounded like heated arguments half the time! I was relieved to realise that these Yankee fans were just messing around.

Eventually, an actual Red Sox fan had enough of hearing insults about his team, and he stood up to put them in their place. He said he had a problem with their swearing, because his children could hear it. Naturally, he wanted to put them in their place by insulting them and threatening violence.

Makes sense.

When I wasn’t worried they were going to come to actual blows and start a huge fight in our section, it was a little bit funny. It was like watching Homer Simpson having an argument with himself. It went on for a long time, and I could only understand about half of it because of their super thick Boston and New York accents and because they were all slurring.

Mostly, it was one of the Yankees fans agreeing to a fight while the second Yankees fan sat back and hurled smart ass comments across the section. The Red Sox fan’s face was starting to turn as red as his bright red shirt and matching bucket hat (yes, matching bucket hat. No shame).

I was a little bit nervous that they’d actually start fighting, but also holding back giggles at how ridiculous they sounded. David was in hysterics.  Half of the other spectators told them to sit down and settle down, and the other half were face palming in embarrassment. I don’t know why I was worried about them coming to blows, neither of them had the agility to climb across a row of seats.

Eventually, the first Yankees fan was pulled back into his seat by his embarrassed girlfriend. The second Yankees fan was having no problem winding up the Red Sox fan on his own. They went back and forth arguing about which one of them was an asshole (spoiler alert: it was both of them), until the Red Sox fan was ready to explode.

Red Sox: If you don’t shuddup I’m gonna come over there and remove you FROM. YOUR . SEAT. You wanna fight me? You shut your mouth or I’ll come over there!

*RedSox puffs up his chest*

*Yankees puts his hands up in surrender, giggles*

Yankees: Okay, okay…..but you still an asshole!

*Red Sox implodes.* *Yankees howls with laughter.*

The second Yankees fan got kicked out, and the Red Sox fan made a big show of waving them goodbye with a gleeful “Ta ta!” while thanking the officers, blissfully unaware that he was obviously next to get the boot. The look on his face when the officers asked him to also leave was a little priceless. He really was stupider than he looked.

Peace returned to our section, and our focus went back to the game.

Trying something new

On the field, the Red Sox were victorious, but the Yankees put up a good fight. The game was great and the fans were entertaining but the best part of going to the baseball was that I found something new that I liked, that I didn’t expect to. There is nothing about baseball that suggests I’d enjoy it – cricket is apparently a close equivalent, and I can’t stand the sport. Who would have thought I’d enjoy baseball so much?

It wasn’t the first time I’ve learned something new about myself while I’ve been travelling. I don’t enjoy swimming and fish freak me out but I adored snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef and in Vanuatu last year. Another activity I planned to tolerate but ended up loving.

Both times a new environment and fresh opportunities have encouraged me to give something new a go, and I’ve been delighted with the results. Already being outside your comfort zone helps you take the extra few steps, but you don’t need to be on the other side of the world to discover something new about yourself.

I’m trying to bring the “give it a go” attitude home with me and am on the lookout for new things to try in Melbourne. I’m paying particular attention to things I’m quick to dismiss as “not for me” without really knowing much about them. Who knows how many other fans and enthusiasts I have just waiting to get out?

Update: I went to an AFL Game back in Melbourne, with corporate box tickets. Can confirm that the AFL is still not for me, but corporate boxes definitely are.