The Night I Got Kicked Out of Yankee Stadium--and Snuck Back In

It's a story that I've told many times, but one that still seems to bring a smile and cringe to my face: the night I got kicked out of old Yankee Stadium. It's a slow day here and I figured it was a good time to finally put the story on the blog. So here it goes:

The stadium security policy got me kicked out of a game--but provided for a memorable night

It was April 18, 2002 and I headed down to the old ballpark in the Bronx with my buddies Jordan and Micah to see the Baltimore Orioles take on the New York Yankees. The Yankees had David Wells pitching vs. Scott Erickson who the Yankees had pretty much owned over his career (9-13 with a 4.98 ERA and 1.522 WHIP).

I had three seats for that night and we piled into Jordan's minivan and headed down to Yankee Stadium. I was about to have major surgery, I still hadn't decided on where I was going to college, I was nervous/excited/anxious about leaving home to go to school, and I felt like a night of baseball with my boys would help take my mind off what was going on in my life.

Backing up a bit, my invitation to Micah was in return for him inviting me to Opening Day. His father's law firm had acquired four season tickets for the 2002 season in the last row behind the visiting dugout in the Field Box section (I believe that was the name of the area--though @leokitty suggests Field Championship via Twitter which is probably right). We had played hooky, and took the train from Scarsdale on Opening Day to see them play the Devil Rays. I told him I would pay him back with a game and the April 18th game was the one. 

The game was a doozy. The Yankees led off the bottom of first with a Soriano single, then a steal of second and a hit by Nick Johnson put runners at the corners for Derek Jeter (no Bernie Williams that night so the make-shift lineup had Derek Jeter in the three-hole). Jeter singled home Soriano and then Johnson scored two batters later when Jorge Posada hit a line drive single to center.

Meanwhile, David Wells was cruising along until the 4th inning when the Orioles struck for 4 runs behind a Jeff Conine three-run shot and a Marty Cordova (who always seemed to hit the Yankees well and owned a career .373 OBP against them) singled home a run. 

The Yankees struck back the very next inning. Robin Ventura led off with a walk and after a Rondell White (one of my least favorite Yankees) strike out, John Vander Wal singled to put two on with one outs for Shane Spencer. The New York Daily News writes how Spencer was told he was going to be in a platoon after a cold start to the season and just really happened to be in the lineup after a big home run the night before. Spencer had a 3-1 count on Erickson when he deposited a 3-run shot into the Yankees bullpen. Shane Spencer--the home run dispenser! The Yankees led 5-4 and never looked back.

While the Yankees were tacking on insurance runs, I was sitting in the Tier Box right behind homeplate. Although my seats were for the Tier Reserved, a crowd of barely over 35,000 left me free to roam down to better seats. After the Yankees had built up a 7-4 lead and the 7th inning was played, we decided to try to get into the seats that Micah's dad firm had that we had sat in on Opening Day. When we got down there, Micah recognized the people sitting the seats and after a brief conversation in which they let us know they'd be leaving, we decided to just swap tickets with them so we could sit where they were sitting (since it was the last row of the section, we were able to chat with them from the walkway).

All of a sudden I felt a hand on my shoulder and expecting it to be Micah's or Jordan's, I turned around to see a group of 6 very large security guards. I was told to hand the security guard my ticket which I did and he pointed to something on the back. I had no clue what was going on so I asked him why he wanted me to check out the Modell's coupon. "No," the man said, "read the fine print--especially this line."

The line he pointed to said something to the effect of that you're not able to exchange tickets with anyone else. I told the man the situation (that they were my friend's dad's seats, that the people sitting in them were leaving and that we weren't really doing anything wrong), but the guard would not budge. He told us we were being kicked out and we had to leave. All of a sudden, three cops joined our crew to make sure we weren't creating trouble.

As I was trying to plead with the guard to let us stay, I saw Mariano Rivera warming up. "Wonderful," I thought to myself, "there goes a chance to see him pitch."

Finally, the cops said that we either had to leave or be arrested. I debated for about half a millisecond and decided to just leave. Of course three seniors in high school needed two security guards and a police officer each to get out of The Stadium. So the 12 of us embarrassingly walked through the Stadium as onlookers pointed and wondered what sort of shenanigans we were involved in. They walked us out the media entrance and once we were in the street, they turned around and left.

I was not going to take this lightly. "Follow my plan," I said to my friends. I walked up to the next gate having no clue what I was going to say to the security guards, but knowing that I wasn't going into major surgery that I may not survive without having the chance to see Mariano Rivera pitch one more time because some idiot security guards thought it wise to harass us teenagers. Wasn't happening. But I had no plan by the time I got up to the gate.

So I blurted out, "I just left the Stadium but realized I left my raincoat in there! I feel like such an idiot but I just got that as a present and I don't want to lose it. Here is my ticket--is it OK if I go back in to get it?"

The security guards had no clue what to do but the request seemed innocent enough so they obliged--but only if I went alone. They figured it wasn't going to be kids trying to break back in if only I went I whispered to my friends to go down a gate and try the same thing and ran back in. I hid my face to try to avoid being detected by any security guards and was petrified some camera would catch me and I would end up in The Stadium jail like K-Rod this past week.

I got up to the seats in the Tier Box we had sat in before and called Micah. He was in as well and Jordan was on to the next gate to try to get in. The game was going to the top of the 9th and "Enter Sandman" was blaring on the loudspeakers. I was excited but nervous about being caught all at once. Micah ended up back in the seats and when he got there I looked back to see a police man on a walkie talkie. I thought we were screwed.

All of a sudden Jordan called. He got ambushed at the next gate and the police were following him back to his minivan. We had to leave now and come meet him. I told him I needed a few minutes. After all we had gone through to get back into The Stadium, I wasn't leaving without seeing Mo pitch. I told Jordan that I would be out soon.

The first batter was Jeff Conine who Rivera struck out looking on four pitches. As Tony Batista came to the plate, Jordan called again to let me know he was driving around the Stadium, trying to avoid the police. I told him to meet us by the bat and we would be down in a minute. I lied, but I felt like Mo could end this one quickly and we could run out of there. Mo got Batista on 3 pitches and then Jay Gibbons grounded out after 4. I grabbed Micah and we sprinted down the walkway trying to get out of The Stadium.

On the way down I turned to my side and there stood one of the security guards who had escorted us out. He looked totally shocked to see us, froze for a few seconds, and then went to go stay something but we were already flying down the ramp. Micah and I laughed hysterically as we got down, saw Jordan pulling up by the bat, hopped in the car, and raced away to the Major Deegan.

We laughed about the story the whole way back and stopped by our favorite diner, Montparnasse, in Scarsdale, telling any patrons or employees that would listen about our crazy night.  Every time I saw them taking down a gate of the Old Stadium, I thought about all the fun times there.

I had forgotten about that story until recently when one of my friends suggesting trading tickets with a few patrons leaving the Field Level seats a few weeks back. I warned him not to and shared my story of how I had been kicked out of--and snuck back into Yankee Stadium. It was somewhat of a cautionary tale but after telling it to him, he told me this was something that must end up on the blog.

Well here it is.