Saturday, June 17, 2017

Day 10...New York

As I mentioned in a previous post, four years after my grandfather passed away, my grandmother remarried. Her new husband, Jim, was actually an old friend from her youth, at the time living in White Plains, New York. As a result, when they wed, she moved back to New York with him.

This all made White Plains the perfect spot to stay in the New York area. Our first afternoon there, Eric and I headed to the little lake a few blocks from where my grandparents lived. It was a private beach, but we were able to visit as my grandparents' guests. Not only did we enjoy our time in the water and on the beach, there was also a tennis court that we took advantage of by playing wiffle ball on it.

Our first night in New York, we didn't have any MLB games to take in, but we did get to go to a ballgame. Jim's son Tim played in a softball league, so we went and saw him play. I don't have much recollection of what happened at the game, but afterward we went out with him and two of his teammates, Ike and Albert. Ike was a fellow postman with Tim and Albert worked for the town of Harrison, but I could hardly get over how much they looked to me like what I thought a stereotypical New York cop would.

Anyway, they told us a great story about how they often played basketball at the YMCA with former Yankee and Red Sox pitcher Mike Torrez. On one such occasion, Torrez had his young son with him. As Torrez was getting dressed afterward, they convinced his son to ask him the following question: "Hey Daddy, who's Bucky Dent?" If you're not laughing already, perhaps you'll be helped by the video below of the diminutive Dent famously facing Torrez in the 1978 one-game playoff between the Yankees and the Red Sox.

That night, as we hung out with Tim, Ike and Albert in New York. The Yankees were still in Boston, where they would lose a third straight one-run game at the hands of their arch-rivals. But they'll always have Bucky Dent.


Miles Driven Today: 224
Total Miles Driven: 2,320

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