When ballers play soccer

I'm not the regretful type, but today, I really wished I had a genuine Spalding basketball. You see, if I'd owned one, I could have brought it down to Nike Field in Sara D. Roosevelt Park this evening, whereupon the likes of Baron Davis, Jason Kidd, Leandro Barbosa and Steve Nash would have gladly signed their names on its bumpy leather surface.

Alas, all I had was a France national soccer team t-shirt, and Thierry Henry left before I could persuade him to autograph it.

See what I mean by regret? How often does Steve Nash organize a free charity football match in New York's Lower East Side in which some of the NBA's best players rub shoulders with international soccer stars like Henry, Salomon Kalou, Claudio Reyna, Robbie Fowler and Steve McManaman?

Okay, I'm not entirely disappointed. After all, I got to pat Baron Davis's sweaty shoulder (yes, I had to reach up to do so).

Maybe the problem was that I got there too late. The game started at 5:30 PM, and by the time I arrived, there were only ten minutes until halftime. It took me all of halftime to wriggle my way to the front of the crowd of several thousand who were clinging to the fence surrounding the field (if you've never seen an urban soccer field before, it's basically a small pitch with no bleachers and a twenty-foot fence on the perimeter).

Everyone stood to watch, but it was worth it -- some of the world's best athletes were playing the beautiful game right in front of us. Steve Nash, a wizard with any rolling object, scored multiple times, athletically so. Fellow Phoenix Sun Leandro Barbosa, aka The Brazilian Blur, was on the same team, playing a sport he must have seemed destined to excel at growing up until sidetracked by basketball (of all things). On the other team, Jason Kidd wasn't half bad, but Baron Davis was by far the weakest player, lumbering around in orange Reeboks, black-rimmed glasses and a baseball hat. To be fair, everyone seemed to be having fun, especially Davis, who jawed with the crowd amiably. And it was hilarious to watch basketball players out of context. That defender looks really familiar. Hey, that's because he's Raja Bell!

It almost goes without saying that the pro soccer players performed well, but Thierry Henry seemed out of it, despite hearing pockets of the crowd chant his name. Kalou was the most active, scurrying all over the pitch and playing give-and-go with Kidd.

At the end of regulation, I didn't even know or care what the final score was. The small crowd that was allowed to sit within the fence quickly rushed the field and surrounded the players, Sharpies and jerseys in hand. I squeezed through a hole in the fence and tried looking for Henry, but he'd already been whisked away into a large black SUV. If I'd gotten to the game earlier, I would have noticed the SUVs were the best place to wait for players post-final-whistle. Kidd and Nash were being mobbed, but since I had nothing for them to sign, I decided to leave. Baron Davis evidently had the same idea -- he walked out the gate just as I did. I didn't have anything for him either, so I simply patted him on the shoulder (twice), wiped my hand on the France t-shirt, and said, "Good game, Baron," as the mob implored Davis to move to New York and play for the Knicks.

Yes, I know what you are thinking, and it is true: I now have Baron Davis's sweat on my t-shirt. Yes, I am wearing it right now. Who needs Thierry Henry's autograph?

Yankee dandy

Man, I'm over the moon about this one: Last night, I went to my first Yankees game at Yankee Stadium, where, perhaps for the first time in years, I felt like a kid again.

It's the lights that got me. I arrived at the stadium, handed my ticket over, pushed through a turnstile, walked down a tunnel, and was suddenly confronted by a battery of white floodlights. Then I utterly forgot that it was raining, that I'd spent $5 just to check my bag in a locker, that I'd be spending many more dollars on hot dogs and chicken fingers and beer, that my seat was all the way in the upper deck. This was Yankee Stadium, the House that Ruth Built, the home of champions. Everything around me was a reminder of the dominance of the New York Yankees, the most successful North American franchise in professional sports history. I felt small and inexperienced and apprehensive. Do I belong here? I wondered. Do I know enough about the sport of baseball to enjoy this? Am I going to witness history tonight? Where are the bathrooms?

There's somewhat of a backstory to this. For most of my life, baseball had been nothing but a stereotype -- "America's favorite pastime" -- with impenetrable rules. About the only thing I knew was that a guy throws a ball, another guy hits the ball with a wooden bat and runs around a diamond, stepping on bases as he does so, and if he's lucky or good, he gets back to home plate and scores. But I knew virtually nothing else. I never had to; I grew up on the baseball-free island of Borneo, where the favorite pastime is watching American documentaries about Borneo just to laugh at the way Westerners pronounce "orangutan."

The last two years of my life I spent teaching myself the ins and outs of the game, mostly because I felt ashamed for being an American resident who was completely ignorant of baseball. [A similar shame prompted me to learn, among other things, the rules of American football, how to sing "America the Beautiful", and how to identify American Idol winners by hairstyle.]

I don't claim to know that much about baseball, but one thing I know is that you can learn an awful lot, even if you're as ignorant as I was, just by watching Yankees games on TV. So until last night, that's exactly what I'd been doing for two years.

But man, nothing beats going to a game in the Bronx. My co-worker and friend CSG had two free tickets and offered one to me, and even though I'd already made plans for the evening, there really wasn't a question of whether I should take the ticket.

The thing about baseball is that if it's raining hard enough, they'll delay the game, which is how we found ourselves sitting in a summer downpour waiting for the clouds to roll off. About an hour after the game was supposed to have started, a rainbow appeared over the stadium, and the sky cleared up. Game on!

If you really want to know how the game went, read the Associated Press recap here. I'm here to tell you about the things I didn't know from simply watching a game on TV:

• The best deal on concessions is the chicken fingers, by far. I mean, they weren't cheap -- this is a pro sporting event, after all -- but they're a better deal than a $5.25 no-frills hot dog. Even the New York Times agrees somewhat. Here's a list of great ballpark food (go here and click on New York).
• The beer sellers only call out "last call!" to get you to buy beer. They stuck around at least 45 minutes after "last call."
• If you buy a bag of Cracker Jacks for $5.75, just give the vendor $6.00 and tell him to keep the change.
  
• The people around us all seemed to know each other. At first, I thought they were one big family who'd come out to see the game together, but then I realized that they were all season-ticket holders and had come to know each other as neighbors.
• During the rain delay, the stadium played "Soak Up the Sun" by Sheryl Crow over the PA system. It seemed like a cruel joke. But then they played some Springsteen and Sinatra and all was forgiven.
• Women in the Bronx have really big chests. It sort of makes it hard for them to climb up to the nosebleed seats in the upper deck.
  
• Yankee Stadium feels like it was built for champions. The outfield grass is immaculate. The upper deck rises sharply around the field, almost majestically, like walls of a canyon. Even I, a mere spectator, felt like a champ.
• It was also thrilling to hear Bob "The Voice of Yankee Stadium" Sheppard announce the players over the PA, especially when he pronounced Derek Jeter's name. "Now batting for the Yankees... shortstop... number two... Derek... Jeetuh... number two."
• It's sort of a cliché, but you know what else you can hear? The sound a bat makes when it smacks a ball out of the field for a home run -- one of the greatest noises in sports.
  

You know those Japanese or Singaporean or Filipino people who grow up listening to Elvis Presley and then decide in their old age to make a pilgrimage to Memphis just to see where The King lived and died? That's not how I felt when I went to Yankee Stadium. I didn't grow up watching baseball. I didn't even try to make it out to Yankee Stadium in the four years I've been in New York. I don't worship the likes of A-Rod and Jeter. Jorge Posada is not my favorite Puerto Rican.

But when the Yankees won the game, and Sinatra's "New York, New York" came booming out of the speakers, and thousands of jubilant New Yorkers sang along, I couldn't help but join in. It was a great day to be in the greatest city on earth.

Close encounter of the naked kind

I'd just arrived in the city from church in Jersey this afternoon, guitar case in hand. As I crossed Seventh Avenue, who should I see but the Naked Cowboy. He was walking down Seventh headed in my direction, bare muscles rippling, strumming his white guitar and singing at the top of his substantial lungs. For one terrifying moment, our eyes met, and I thought I'd find myself in some bizarre guitar duel a la Crossroads, my soul on the line. And then he sang his next verse, I kept walking up 32nd Street, and it was over.