5 - Dispatch From the House that Ruth Build

The San Francisco Giants once lived here in New York.  In those days, before TV and jet planes, the Giants cross-town rivals were in Brooklyn, the hated Dodgers - who are still hated even as they moved to Los Angeles. 

Some of the old NY Giants baseball fans remained true, and none more true than those who frequent Finnerty’s - a bar on the Lower East Side.  Giants regalia festoons the place, orange & black are the fashion statements - and SF Anchor Steam is on tap.

We join the bar’s annual invasion of the local ballparks.  First to meet the expansion NY Mets, and then the old team of Cobb, Mantle and Babe Ruth - the also hated NY Yankees.  





Busses full of fans, hands full of beers and hearts full of hope that the Giants will prevail - and the Yankee fans won’t kill us.

The lowly Mets went down 2 games to 1 in their park where Giants colors outnumbered the locals.  But the hated Yankees are playing for a chance to make the playoffs, are sold-out and are not anxious to have a bloc of rabid rivals taking up seats.  

They give us the farthest highest section in Yankees Stadium where even Babe Ruth couldn’t hit a ball.  The anthem has me looking down at the flag - but all the Yankee fans can look up to our sea of orange, and can hear us too.

We cheer the Giants, the Yankee fans respond with a loud collective “BOOOOOOO!”  The beer vendor changes loyalties (trade before team), and the Jumbotron in centerfield judiciously avoids showing our section.  Great fun - until the most hated player on the hated Yankees - ARod (Alex Rodriquez), hits a grand slam homerun to win the game.  The Babe would have been proud.

- Ruthed Rod

Waitin' for the busses

Ball from an Angel (Pagan)