Day 22- June 5, 2012

Two adventures today- one set of pictures.


We live 8 blocks from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  The museum is 2,000,000 square feet, and has the largest footprint of any building in NYC. It has over 2,000,000 pieces of art.  Rather overwhelming. I have taken up going to the Highlight Tours as my own personal Art Appreciation Course. The tours are offered 3-4 times a day by docents.  Each docent chooses the pieces he/she will discuss, so each tour is different.    They always talk about things that I would not look at on my own (Roman statues, medieval art, a Syrian hall).  Anyway, on my Tuesday visit, I found that there was no memory card in the camera so I could not take pictures to include today.  I took extensive notes so will take pictures on my next visit and post them later.

We also went to a Yankees game with people from the Mennonite Fellowship.  It was Mary Ann's birthday celebration.  The Yankees have 2 senior days each month with $5 tickets.  The subway takes you directly to the stadium.  The stadium seats about 59,000, and has 4 levels.  It includes a place called Monument Park (see picture below).  The plaques are for the player numbers which have been retired.  Why is Jackie Robinson's plaque blue, and the others are black?  His number was retired from professional baseball; the others were retired by the Yankees.  There is a second display of plaques honoring players and staff (coaches, announcers,etc.).  The largest plaque (and center of the display) is Mr. Steinbrenner. There is also a museum, which we didn't visit because of the long line.

The Yankees permit you to bring in food and beverages.  I was told it is because of the religious dietary restrictions of some fans.  Nice for us, too- bring in a bottle of water and peanuts from home. Another nice feature is TV monitors in some of the higher sections.  We were in right field- with a tall foul line pole in front of us.  The monitors showed the pitches and replays of the important plays.

Seats were comfortable, and well-banked.  They also did a great job of putting in lots of women's restrooms- no lines.  Food included garlic fries- really garlicky. I found it surprising that a large order had only 350 calories, which made them doubly tasty. (There is a local ordinance which require food places to post the calories of their menu. I don't know the minimum number of establishments a company must have, but I have not seen the information in local restaurants, so assume that a company must have several locations for it to apply).

Oh, yes, there was also a baseball game.  Yankees beat Tampa Bay 7-0.  A blow out is not very exciting. The highlight of the game was the groundskeepers sweeping the infield in the 7th inning to the YMCA song, including dancing with their brooms during the chorus. 

I enjoyed this outing- we had an evening with some new friends and experienced a wonderful stadium.  And I would have the garlic fries again.

Al will probably tell you more about the game.

Sally

Sothby's Auction place is 4 blocks from our apartment.  I walked down to see what it takes to view an auction.  They were actually quite receptive to my question.  Everybody was dressed in very nice business clothing.  I was dressed in cargo pants and a t shirt.  Maybe they are used to have eccentric millionaires (which I am not, millionaire that is) comeing in, because they didn't seem to be put off by my dress.  Anyway, you give them $2,400 dollars on deposit.  Then you go to the auction.  If you haven't used any of the money to bid, they give it back to you two weeks after the auction.

I also had some phone calls with Bob Cardinal, a St. Paul Rotarian, and Bill Hueg, the artist making our Vision of Peace Statue for Nagasaki.  Things are progressing for our celebration of the statue on July 10. 

The Yankee game was at the new stadium.  It would have been fun to see a game in the old stadium, but the new one is very nice.  They have built several public use ball fields on the site of the old stadium.  The new one has very large concourses.  I suppose that the Twins stadium has such small concourses because they had to fit the stadium into the small footprint that they had.  Anyway, it was nice to not be so crowded.  Also, I think the seats are a little bigger, again because they could be because they had more room to make a bigger stadium.  The game itself was a yawner.  The Yankees scored two runs in the first inning.  Russell Martin hit a grand slam homer in the third inning.  That was pretty much the excitement in the game.  We were joking that Tampa Bay must have an A team and a B team and that they brought the B team.

Manny, Mary Ellen's boyfriend, is a professional umpire.  He used to do minor league but now does high school and college games.  It was interesting to hear him talk about being an umpire.  He knows the big league guys, but didn't give me any dirt on them. 

It is amazingly easy to get to the game.  I continue to appreciative of a working and extensive public transportation system.  We have not missed having a car. 

Al 

Yankee stadium from the subway stop

The concourse

Monument park

The grand slam home run

Manny, Mary Ellen, Al and Sally