
All day yesterday I was a little anxious. Not about my actual life - everything's fine there, except that Sam has a bad cold - but about the Yankees. Could Andy Pettite pitch well on three days rest? Who would be the bridge to Mariano? Would Ryan Howard finally start hitting? Would Pedro look great again?
Turns out the answers are: Yes, at least well enough; Chamberlain and Marte; no; and hell, no. Last night the Yankees won their 27th World Series - and the first one Eve got to witness. I woke her up when Mariano took the mound for the top of the 9th.
He's the best that ever lived, I said.
Watch history. She curled up with her pink fuzzy blanket around her shoulders, over her Derek Jeter shirt, and watched intently as Rivera got one out, then walked a batter, then retired the next two on ground balls. Big grin, eyes wide open. Token arguing about staying up to watch the interviews, and then back to bed.
A new tradition for me. Until last night, every World Series win I watched was followed immediately by a phone call from my father.
They did it again, he'd say, and I could hear the smile in his voice. Around dinnertime last night I realized that I wasn't just anxious about the depleted Yankee bullpen. I was also under a wave of grief: a Yankees World Series that I wouldn't share with the man who taught me to love the Yankees. A World Series I would watch alone.
But even before I got Eve out of bed, I wasn't alone. This was my first World Series with Facebook, and I discovered a universe of Yankee fans and Yankee haters in the comments on my status updates. And after it was all over, when I was getting ready for bed, I looked down at my cellphone and there was a text message from my assistant in the old practice: GO YANKS! WE DID IT! Not alone at all. I am grateful for my friends.
Last night the Yankees won their first World Series in the new Yankee Stadium. The names change, but the balls keep flying over the fences. Last night I watched my first World Series with my daughter, and without my father. This is joy. This is grief. This is tradition. This is family.