Baseball road trip: I took the good vibe train to Yankee Stadium

The good vibes continued. Aside from the game on the field.

Every year when the Major League Baseball schedule comes out, I typically look for one of three things when it comes to my baseball road trips.

• What day can I go to two games in one day in a city like New York or Chicago?

• Is there a new stadium I can get to that I have never visited?

• Is there a fun road trip to take to see the Pittsburgh Pirates?

The last sentence is the type of thing a crazy person says, but craziness is the main prerequisite for actually being a fan of the Pittsburgh Pirates. You need to be a little bit off to put yourself through this nonsense every year.

When it comes to the first option, there are two New York days this season for the same-city double-header. I already took one of them, which turned into a very different sports road trip with four games in two days. I will be be taking the other trip in late August (Sunday, August 30: Yankees-Red Sox Sunday afternoon; Mets-Astros in the evening; Maybe the U.S. Open on Monday).

I am not sure if I will get to a new stadium on the list this season, but there is still time.

This week, with the Pirates playing the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium, I also ended up taking advantage of the third option.

I have been to Yankee Stadium many times at this point, but it has always been as a neutral observer without a care in the world as to who wins. In that instance I usually just blend in with the crowd and cheer for the Yankees because, hell, what do I care? I’m just here for a good time, a few beers, and a chance to talk some baseball with random people. It’s never a bad time. It’s always fun. Especially out in the bleachers where things really have a tendency to fly off the handle.

This time, however, was something different.

This was the first time I was going to Yankee Stadium as a fan of a visiting team, and walking right into the belly of the beast with another team’s jersey on. That could go in a lot of different ways, especially depending on how the game is going.

The schedule worked out that the first two games of the series were falling on days where I had no work responsibilities or deadlines and could just get out of town for a couple of baseball games.

In the end, I only saw one game (Monday), because Tuesday’s game ended up being “rained out” even though it never actually rained after 6:30 in the evening and turned into a lovely New York City summer night.

As frustrating as that ended up being, I still really enjoyed Monday.

It started with a trip on the Good Vibe Train.

Like most baseball games (and activities) in New York, this required a ride on the subway, which is normally a pretty easy thing. I imagine if I lived in New York and had to experience all of the headaches that come with it on a daily basis I would feel very differently about it, but I love the subway. It is fast. It is efficient. It is cheap. It gets you where you want to go and need to go. It is great. For a bumpkin that comes from an area without anything even close to that level of mass transit, it is a really freeing feeling to not have to worry about driving, traffic, or parking. Just get on the train, spend $3, and get right to where you want to go. The idea of the subway is always more intimidating than the reality. Most subway rides are pretty dull and mundane. Nobody talks. Heads are down. Everybody wants to get from Point A to Point B and not be bothered. Don’t bother people, people typically won’t bother you. It works.

This trip on the D Train, however, was not like that at all.

It was the Good Vibe train.

The good vibes were attempted (some might say forced) by the conductor over the loud speaker. This dude was the main character for the day, and he was trying to make this Subway ride a full-blown experience. He wasn’t just announcing station stops and telling you to stand clear of the closing doors. He was adding commentary. He was telling jokes. He was telling riddles. He kept saying over and over again, “this isn’t your normal subway ride because you’re on the good vibe train.”

The vibes were not landing with most of the passengers, who, again, just wanted to get from Point A to Point B.

At one point he told a riddle and said he would give the answer at Yankee Stadium, but if you were getting off the train before then you could try to give him the answer personally. He made sure to point out, repeatedly and emphatically, that he was the person located in the middle of the train, and not at the front. He was so adamant about this because “the person at the front is driving the train. She’s getting us to where we’re going. Don’t bother her.”

You just know based on that comment that woman was over that shit 30 seconds into the shift and told him “nobody better bother me with this shit.”

(The riddle was you see a boat full of people, and an hour later you see the same boat but there isn’t a single person on it. How can that be? The answer was all of the people were married. He enjoyed this riddle. A lot. My guess was ghost boat.)

Immediately after leaving the Good Vibe train a guy in a San Diego Padres hat approached me on the platform and said, “Looks like I’m on your side tonight” and gave me a fist bump. We talked about Mason Miller as we walked up the steps, and he was hoping the Padres trade him for a haul because, “he’s only a relief pitcher.”

This was a perfect encounter and fascinating perspective given the way Pirates fans (and some Pittsburgh media) seem comfortable to give up the entire organization to acquire him.

I was honestly impressed with how strong the Pirate fan contingent was. I didn’t feel alone. I didn’t feel out of place. Even more impressive was the fact Yankees fans were really, really cool the entire night. Nobody heckled me, and everybody was mostly happy to just talk baseball.

Even as the Pirates unleashed a comedy of errors in the first inning to fall behind by four runs, nobody was giving me any shit about it or telling me how much my team sucked.

It might have helped that I had a Yankees fan with me, but even without that I never felt like anybody was trying to go out of their way to be a jerk.

It is entirely possible that the Pirates just do not bring forward much passion from other team’s fans. Especially against the Yankees in the middle of July. They do not play in the same league, they are not competing against each other for anything, and they only play each other three times per season. It’s not like it’s a fierce rivalry. Maybe Dodgers fans had a different experience over the weekend. I have seen Red Sox fans get heckled in the bleachers. Why get mad at the Pirates when you can save that energy for a team that is actually chasing you? Or that you are chasing?

I think it also helps to just not be a dick.

When Esmerlyn Valdez hit his 440-foot dinger into the right center field, I stood up and cheered for my team, and that was that. When I was standing in line for a beer with the Pirates having just taken a 5-4 lead, I informed the mad Yankees fans around me that the Pirates bullpen was about to blow it and they laughed with me, with one of them saying, “yeah but you guys have a good team this year.”

I even joked that the ultimate kick in the balls for me in this game was going to be the possibility of having to watch David Bednar come into the game to Renegade, and how I was already getting preemptively mad about it. Especially given the state of the Pirates bullpen.

They love David Bednar up there, by the way (for now, at least).

I’ve seen the Pirates play in a few different cities, including both New York stadiums and Philadelphia, all of which I thought could be a frustrating experience. But the Yankees fans, much like the Mets and Phillies fans, were just … totally fine.

“Just don’t be a dick,” probably works in a lot of areas in life, but it especially works here.

Even when the benches emptied there did not seem to be much animosity toward the Pirates, and everybody just seemed happy to see the benches empty and the bullpens trot in from the outfield.

Probably the worst roasting I took from any Yankees fans came in the damn hotel lobby. On the way to the game the guy that checked us in looked at my Pirates jersey, smiled, and simply said “Go Yankees.”

The next day he saw me again in the lobby, got a huge grin on his face, and asked, “did you enjoy that game last night?”

Tame stuff, but I am here for it.

It was also balanced out by the bartender in the hotel bar who served us both nights and was a huge Boston Red Sox fan, and told us she was really cheering for the Pirates. We love a balanced universe.

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We took in this game with my good friend (and Yankees fans) Jayson Buford (find his work all over; he always tackles good subjects, does a great job and is a generally awesome dude). He is typically my accomplice at Yankee Stadium, and he is always introducing me to new spots around the stadium in the Bronx.

He informed me that our normal pre-game spot was no longer the place to be and was becoming a little too well known. He is trying to find another place that’s still hot. In the meantime, we met at Dugout across the street from the stadium and quickly pounded a PBR before going in.

I would give it a recommendation if you are going to a Yankees game for the first time.

It’s not only literally right across the street from the stadium, it’s across the street from one of the easiest gates to get in that typically has the smallest and fastest moving lines. It puts you into the stadium behind the bleachers, but you can still access everything else from there without having to stand in what always looks to be an endless line.

It also had a good vibe.

As for the stadium itself, my opinion of Yankee Stadium still remains the same after all of these years and all of these visits.

It’s not a bad stadium by any means, but it doesn’t have the same charm as the top-tier stadiums in the league.

It’s functional, even if a little dull. But that’s somehow perfect for what it needs to be and the energy Yankees fans bring. They’re not there for a ballpark experience. They are there to win, and see teams that win. That’s the attraction. That is the standard and expectations.

There were two Yankees fans sitting next to us that I would guess were in their VERY early 20s, and started talking to us around the fourth or fifth inning. They asked if I was from Pittsburgh, with one of them telling me they loved PNC Park. It turned out he had been to a lot of the same stadiums I have been to and shared a lot of similar feelings about the best ones (Camden Yards in Baltimore getting universal high marks). When they asked my opinion on Yankee Stadium, I very quietly said “I know this could get me in trouble here, but while this place is a lot of fun, I think Citi Field is a better ballpark.”

He did not hesitate to agree.

The appeal of Yankee Stadium remains the atmosphere and just the general feel of the place. Just as is the case with Madison Square Garden, the crowd makes it what it is and makes it worth the experience. Everybody is there to just watch a baseball game, people are invested in every pitch and there is a very knowledgeable feel from the crowd. They were aware of Esmerlyn Valdez and his rookie breakout. They knew the Pirates weren’t the same old Pirates offensively and can mash the baseball. They knew who was out of the lineup and why. Their homework was completed. They knew what they were watching. That also adds to the atmosphere and the good feeling.

It just sucked that Tuesday’s game ended up getting cancelled because I had great seats for that game and was looking forward to another game on the road. But, if you are going to have a game get rained out and give you an unexpected free night in a city, New York City is the place for that to be. I actually ran into multiple groups of Pirates fans around the city in restaurants and bars. We all shared a Go Bucs before looking out the window at the rainless night. Beautiful night for a ball game.