Friday night April 12th after work I went up to the Bronx. I stopped of at the Court Deli RestaurantCourt Deli Restaurant when I got off the subway. I proceeded to buy a corned beef sandwich that I ate when I finally got up to my seat in section 420B row 7 at Yankee Stadium after I made a special visit to see a young man named Jacob Landis who was at that game too. Stay tuned for the special post that I'm going to do that will go into further detail about him. It promises to be a great read.
Little did I know when I met him that we were going to see history that night.
Jacob wasn't the only one I knew that was at the game. We had a number of regulars in the royal court if you will that were on hand that night as the Yankees opened a three game series against their division rival, the Baltimore Orioles in what was a rematch of the 2012 American League Division Series in October.
I'm referring to Michael Abrams who has seen over 900 consecutive Yankee home games, of the course the King was present and accounted for as was, Bryan Gilligan, Vincent Ascanio and Pat Gorman. In addition, we had David Sack who was there with his friend Andrew.
As for the game we saw, the Orioles went ahead 1-0 in the top of the third inning. The Yankees answered back in their half of the third as they tied the game at one. In the bottom of the fifth inning, the Yankees took the lead, 2-1. The Orioles got even in the seventh inning when they capitalized on a Yankee mistake as former Red Sox Kevin Youkilis made an error as catcher Matt Wieters was the beneficiary of his blunder. He advanced to second on a balk by Yankee starter CC Sabathia. Two batters later he scored to tie the game when shortstop J.J. Hardy got a single to center field to drive him in. The Yankees once again wasted no time as they took advantage of an Oriole error by center fielder Adam Jones who appeared to have caught a fly ball but at the last minute the ball came out of his glove which allowed three runs to score after an intentional walk and a hit by pitch. That gave the Yankees a 5-2 lead going into the eighth inning instead of ending the seventh inning tied at two.
In the top of the eighth inning, the Orioles were all ready to stage another comeback as they got two singles to start the inning from Alexi Casilla and Nick Markakis. Then came the unexpected play of the game as third baseman Manny Machado hit a ground ball to second basemen Robinson Cano who threw the ball to shortstop Eduardo Nunez to force out Nick Markakis at second base. Nunez then turned and he got Alexi Casilla in a run down between second & third. Casilla was tagged out for the second out then low and behold, the Yankees managed to get the batter Manny Machado out too as he tried to go to second base but he was thrown out which completed the rare triple play which invoked me to imitate a classic call of the King as I blurted out he out, he out and he out. They were all out. Triple Play! With that being said, the Yankees behind CC Sabathia escaped further damage. That was music to my co-worker Dan Juvan's ears as he stopped by a few innings earlier to visit. He was joined by his pal Isaac who he refers to as his brother from another mother. They were also with their friend Jess who was at the game with them. I want to thank them for coming up to say hello.
As they departed to go back to their seats, it was time for Mariano Rivera to come on in the 9th inning. He proceeded to close it out as the Yankees beat the Orioles, 5-2.
It should be noted that the last time the Yankees turned a triple play at Yankee Stadium was on June 3, 1968.
As a baseball fan, it was great to witness history again.
Stay tuned as I will recap another memorable weekend the King and I experienced. Please bear with me as I continue to find time to play catch up.
Thank you for reading and following along.
Yours truly,
Gary Herman
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