The Mets game was completely sold-out. Opening day is always sold-out. It’s the beginning of a new season, there is so much hope in the air, reality sets in soon enough. The tickets are usually gone months in advance. There was none available at the box office. Even the scalpers had run out. There were, what seemed like, a couple dozen guys scattered about just hovering between the box office and the actual gate, hoping for anything.
I
was in this group. There was a growing sense of nervousness as we realized, if
this many people were looking for tickets, our individual chances of scoring
any were very slim. I was standing there drinking a beer out in the open, as
were the others—it was a different time in New York—as I planned my next
move.
The
old Shea Stadium, the way it used to be laid out, was that after you got your
ticket torn and you entered through the turnstile, there were two ramps, one on
the left side and one on the right. You had a choice of walking up either ramp
or you could continue on to the escalators, stairs, or elevators. Most people
walked the ramps. These weren’t corkscrew-style ramps. They were in a zigzag
formation. They started on ground level and zigged up to the second floor, then
zagged in the opposite direction to the third floor, and so on and so forth, a
few more times until the final floor.
Those
of us still without tickets were still milling about outside, where desperation
had turned to slight despair as game time neared. We needed a flat-out miracle
if any of us stood a chance. Right then, our miracle arrived in the way of a
big, old-style yellow school bus. We’re standing there when all of the sudden
we hear a large horn honk behind us, so we all look over.
The driver had just dropped off some kids and now
intended to park where we were all at, right next to a wall. Apparently we
weren’t moving fast enough for him so he honked again. We were already looking
at him after the first honk, collectively thinking the same thing as we got out
of the way and watched him park as close to the wall as possible. The second he
finished parking and turned the engine off, we knew what we had to do to get
in. Nothing had to be said. We all stormed that bus so fast, it was such a
blur. I can’t tell... http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BCQ2R7K?*Version*=1&*entries*=0
