Now that the fantasy baseball season is in full swing, my own team, N.L. Hess, has managed to climb out of the cellar – last place – and risen above the Munchkins and Tims Thunder with the second best batting average in the league (only a little help from Brewers Ramirez and no help from Corey Hart or Maldonado...yet) and a dropping total E.R.A. with the help of sharpening outings by Milwaukee's Gallardo and Kyle Lohse.
As we get ready to test some of my players tonight at Miller Stadium vs. the Cubbies (Lohse pitching), it got me thinking baseball in the Big Apple where Julia and I plan to take in a Yankee / Blue Jays game in late August at Yankee Stadium,
located northward up a fairly long 'tube' ride to 161st st from Grand Central Terminal. My own fantasy team is strictly selected from the National League, so we won't be necessarily cheering any players (although Julia loves Jeter...I wish I could have stolen Cano somehow for my N.L. team), we will have the great historical fortune of traveling through a brief glimpse of Yanks and Mets country. We'll subway past, for example, the old Polo Grounds area. Just uptown from Central park,
nicknamed "The Bathtub," Polo housed any number of sports franchises over the years including the Yanks, Mets, the Jets and Giants.
The historical stadium is set underneath Coogan's Bluff, a historic site itself if for no other reason than sitting atop is the Morris-Jumel Mansion, George Washington's temporary headquarters for a difficult month in 1776 during the New York campaign. In this photo, the mansion can be seen at the flying flag on top the ridge. Decrepit and vying with any number of other Big Apple sports stadiums, the old Polo finally fell under the wrecking ball in 1964 and is now the site of the Polo Towers. As one story goes in 1963 Casey Stengel,
the iconic Mets Manager, told one of his pitchers during what must have been a slow start, "at the end of this season, they're gonna tear this joint down. The way you're pitchin', the right field section will be gone already." We can only hope that Lohse tonight fares better against the hapless Cubbies.
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