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I cut out of work early today to go see the New York Mets play the Atlanta Braves. About a month ago my brother-in-law Bill called to find out if I would be interested in going to a Met game with him and his (step) father-in-law. Bill's father-in-law, Barry, is a huge Met fan. Bill, on the other hand, is a life long Yankee fan. But ya can't turn down your father-in-law. But Bill knows that I am into the Mets so he extended the invite. And of course I said yes.
Since the 9/11 attacks, all Major League Baseball stadiums have put some stronger security measures in place. A letter that comes with the tickets tell you to get there early because these security measures can really back up the crowds. So Barry wanted to park in Manhattan and take the subway out to Shea Stadium in Queens. The easiest way to get the subway after parking in Manhattan is to take the Lincoln Tunnel straight into the parking lot of Port Authority building, and take an elevator from the parking lot straight down to the subway. That worked well for them, but since I am about 7 miles from the GW Bridge I wasn't quite sure what would be the best way to get to the Port Authority building. I left work at about 3:45 PM with the plan to meet in the PA building at around 5:00 PM. I crossed the bridge with no problem and as I was zipping down the West Side highway, I couldn't help thinking that I had left way too early and I would have a lot of time to kill in the PA Building. Traffic got a little heavier around the PA building because everyone else at that time of day is trying to get out of the city at that time. And the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel is right by the turn to get into the parking levels of the Port Authority. Just as I was making a right onto 9th Avenue (after being waved ahead by a cop, no less) some guy clipped the front bumper of my truck. ACK!
We both got out of our vehicles and there was very little damage on either car. There were no dents, just scraps and exchange of paint. It really wasn't that big of a deal but this guy was driving an ATT company car and that ATT required him to file a police report. AUGH! I ran over and talked to the cop who waved me into the intersection. He told me we had to call 911. The other guy called 911 from his cell phone and was told that it would take about an hour for someone to get to us. Screw that! I flagged down a passing police car and "innocently" asked him if he was the car that 911 told us to wait for. He said no and was about to leave as I said how unfortunate it was that our two cars were adding to the traffic trying to funnel into the Lincoln Tunnel. He stopped again and radioed in to see what was holding up the unit that was responding to our call. Then he took off. I spotted another police car accross the avenue and repeated my act. This guy also radioed in to find out where the response car was. In about 7 minutes, the unit sent by 911 arrived. As they did, Bill called my cell phone to tell me that they were in the tunnel and would be read ready to hop the subway in about 15 minutes. Well the NYC cops were nice enough guys, but man, did they take forever to fill out all the paperwork. We sat there for about 20 minutes while they copied all our info down and made a report. As soon as they were done, I hopped back into my truck, went half a block, and turned into the Port Authority. Interestingly, as I pulled up the ramp to the parking deck of the PA, there was a police car sitting right in th middle of the ramp. I pulled up and the office asked for my drivers license. She wrote down some info, handed my license back and sent me on my way. I guess it was some sort of security measure since 9/11.
I parked nice and close and called Bill as I was walking to the elevator. He said they had just come down the elevator and were ready to go. I was releived that I hadn't held them up. We met out in the street, went back into the building and down to the subway. I use the NYC subway infrequently, but as soon as I got down there it all came back to me. Bill and Barry kind of turned navagation over to me. I guess they didn't know the subway at all. Barry went to the lady in the token booth and said "Round trip to Shea Stadium". Hee hee. Like she cares where he's going. The NYC subway runs on tokens. The tokens work everywhere. You use a token to get through the turnstiles into the subway and, once you're in, you can go anywhere. There aren't any special Shea Stadium tokens. The whole thing looks confusing, but is really pretty easy if you read the all the signs down there. Down we went to the IRT #7 out to Willets Point and Shea Stadium. We hopped on the express #7 and off we went.
Let me take this moment to tell you how nice of a day it was. We are having an unusual heat wave in the Northeast. The temperatures were in the upper 90s. When we originally got the tickets, we were sure that we would spend the evening freezing in the swirling winds of Shea. Well, gametime (7:10 PM) temperature was 83 degrees. Nice.
Pedro Astacio pitched a complete game for the Mets and beat the Atlanta Braves 3-1. It wasn't an exciting game from a "showy" standpoint - no home runs, no stunning plays. But it was a nice tight game that was in doubt till the end. It had a lot of points to second guess and anticpate the moves of both managers. From a pure baseball standpoint it was a great game. Oh... and I ate a lot of crap. As I usually do at a game.
Getting back was no problem. There was the inevitable crush getting on the subway, but we zipped back to the Times Square station, hopped the elevator to the parking levels and off I went through the tunnel back home.
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