Sunday afternoon, and it was time for the marquee event of this journey – one final USRT visit to the hallowed grounds of Yankee Stadium.

With stadium traffic, construction of the new ballpark and everything else going on, we decided to park the car in one of the neighborhoods north of the stadium on the #4 line, and then simply rode the train into the ballpark. We craned our necks in anticipation, and all of sudden, there it was! The cranes, the construction and the gleaming new Yankee Stadium, rising next door to the venerable old place. It is still one great sight to see.

The streets were bustling with fans on a beautiful warm Sunday afternoon, and really, the neighborhood surrounding Yankee Stadium is really pretty cool. Tucked underneath the elevated train platform are a ton of small merchandise shops, restaurants, taverns and bodegas catering to the baseball fan. The smells in the air and the cacophony of noises is great to just soak in.

We walked around the new ballpark and took pictures and then made our way in for one final time. One final game.

And what a game it was! The West Division leading LA Angels were in town for what could be a playoff preview, and the packed house was disappointed early as the Angels took a quick 5-0 lead and were seemingly in cruise control. But the Yankees chipped away and tied the game at 5, then took an 8-5 lead in the 7th and the place was absolutely going nuts.

Then the crowd got deflated as the Angels Mark Texeira hit a grand slam home run to give his team a 9-8 lead. But the Yankees would storm back in the bottom of the 8th, plating 6 runs to eventually win the game 14-9. Amazing!

We hung out with our friends Gary Herman and Mike “The King” Casiano. These guys are big Mets fans and definitely not Yankees supporters, so their Shea Stadium antics are much more muted and sedate here at The Stadium. These guys have also been doing a lot of road trip planning now that the NHL schedule is out, and like us they await the NBA schedule which should be out in a couple of days. They’ve got a visit to Buffalo the first weekend in November for the Bills/Jets game at The Ralph on their radar, so we will look forward to welcoming them if that comes off.

It was a long game, and we took one long final look at Yankee Stadium before heading back to the subway station. By the time we got back to the car it was 5:20PM and the ride home to B-lo awaited.

Five ballparks in four days in five different states. This summer road trip was yet another awesome one!

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