Yesterday, was my first game live at the ‘New’ Yankee Stadium. Man, what a place.

The stadium itself is just pristine. The grass, the infield, the views, oh my gosh, the views!!! Outside of the lack of lighting in the stairwell exiting Monument Park, There wasn’t one place in the whole park where you thought, ‘this could be better’. It was just great.

A massive thank you to my cousin Tim and Uncle Ron for being there with me. Being with Tim’s extended family was neat just listening to all the stories, there was even one involving my Dad, which was really cool.

One of the cool crowd interaction things at Yankee Stadium is ‘The Roll Call’. ‘The Roll Call’, is where the bleacher creatures will clap out and chant a fielder’s name, until they get some sort of acknowledgement, which then they cheer wildly about. Most players tip their caps will wave or point back at the crowd, not Aaron Judge. Judge, perhaps the most popular Yankee, as an ode to fellow outfielder Brett Gardner, flexed. The crowd went nuts!!!

The game itself was great too. It was impossible not to get swept up in the atmosphere almost immediately. The crowd was into every pitch, plus Gerit Cole pitched, and pitched well, which him being my favorite player, I was very happy about.

The highlight of my watching Cole came in the first inning. Cole was facing Twins hitter, Josh Donaldson. Previously, Donaldson complained about Cole’s alleged use of substances to improve the spin on his pitches. Nothing, I repeat nothing, has come of these allegations. My feelings of Donaldson being a complete prick aside, I was interested to see how the matchup would play out. In an awesome turn of events, Cole won the battle, striking Donaldson out, punctuated by Cole glaring at Donaldson and mouthing a few choice words before walking off the mound towards the Yankee Dugout. The crowd ate it up!

Back to the game itself. Cole pitched well, weaving in and out of some trouble and earned the win. The game turned offensively in the fifth inning. The Yankees scored 5 runs in the frame, including a clutch run scoring hit by Giancarlo Stanton, and would go on to win 7-1.

The last thing of note that happened ganewise involved two homeruns. One was an absurd non homerun, and the other was a really special home run. The absurd involved Rougned Odor. Odor hit a bomb of a 3 run homerun to the delight of the crowd, for about 3 seconds, the joy faded to a obscenity filled crowd wide tirade.

Apparently, Odor had called for time as Twins reliever, Ralph Garza Jr had finished his wind up qand and threw his pitch, Home plate umpire Angel Hernandez granted Odor time, the only problem was Odor then swung and crushed the pitch. The bottomline was Hernandez was correct, Odor had a brain freeeze, and the crowd quickly went from instantly overjoy to collectively confused, to collectively pissed in the span of about 2 seconds. It was definitely a unique circumstance.

Luckily, and thankfully, the crowd’s venom quickly turned to cheers in the Bottom of the 8th. Yankee Shortstop, Andrew Velazquez, a rookie, hit first home run of his career, at Yankee Stadium! The special part of this is, Velazquez is the definition of a ‘Home Grown Yankee’. He’s 24, from the Bronx and still lives in the Bronx still with his parents! How cool is that? You couldn’t write that story if given 100 tries.

It was a hell of a day in the Bronx, and one I will never forget!