Yankee Fans

I left work this evening at 6:45 p.m., which must be a record. As I stepped onto the 4 train, I practically drowned in Yankee emblems. Hmmmm, I thought to myself, must be a Yankee game tonight. I'm a sharp one. I know.

On the Bronx-bound train headed up the green line, I must have snuck dozens of glances at a middle-aged man and his two young daughters. All three of them were covered from head to toe in Yankee attire. The father - though I wouldn't necessarily describe him as obese - had one of the roundest bellies I've ever seen. His two daughters must have been about 12 and 6 years old. They weren't doing anything out of the ordinary, but I was drawn to the way the man kept looking down at his little girls.

The older one stood next to him clutching the pole. The other was kneeling on the seat in front of him with her elbows in the window sill looking out into the darkness of the subway tunnel. The look in his eyes was one of tender pride and excitement, but I don't think it was because he had tickets to a Yankees game and was about to see Derek Jeter. He had the look of a father who couldn't wait to see the wide-eyed stares and uncontrollable smiles of his young daughters as they took in the aweinspiring sights and sounds of a packed stadium.

Even if you've been to Yankee Stadium before or pass by it everyday like I do, there is an energy in the air when the Yankees are playing. Having traveled beneath the entire length of Manhattan and under the Harlem River, the train emerges from below ground into the Bronx and Yankee Stadium looms ahead. On game nights, the passengers turn to peer into the gap of the stadium wall. The train races down the track and begins to slow into the station, and you get a half-second glimpse of the grass sparkling under the lights and the thousands of people lining the stands. As the little girl perched in the window sill pointed excitedly at the gap in the stadium wall and looked back up at her father, I wondered at that moment what it must be like to witness the marvel of a tiny person you created.