The Game

The Game

by Thad Sawyer

To Grammie and Grampie

R.I.P

Maple Leaf Writing Project Brattleboro, Vermont

Copyright 2017

Friday, June 3rd, 2016

My name’s Derek Prescott. I’ve been a New York Yankees fan my whole life, so naturally when my principal Mr. Timon announced the school was raffling off four tickets to the see the New York Yankees play the Boston Red Sox to raise money for the school library this morning, I almost died! I go to Eagle Point Elementary in Albany, New York. What we consider interesting is when the first grade gets a new student. So as it turns into a madhouse, I elbow and shove my way through the crazy amount of kids that make up our school’s student body so I could get some air and think about what was actually happening. By that I mean I happen to have twenty dollars in my backpack

(okay so maybe the money is for school supplies, but that doesn’t matter right now) which I now plan on buying raffle tickets with. The price is one dollar for one ticket and five dollars for ten tickets, so I can get forty tickets.

When I get to the front of the line to buy the tickets, I remember my best friend Jackson has been sick all week. He may be as big of Yankees fan as I am, but is giving him one of my tickets going to cost me the chance to win and go to the game? Overall I just decide to do it and take the chance of him winning. I mean I still have 39 tickets, right? Besides, he would do the same for me (probably). I know my chances will still be good, but will they be good enough to win? I guess we'll find out next Friday when they announce the winner.

When I got home my Mom asked where my new school supplies were. I had almost totally forgot to come up with an excuse, so I just said that I had left them at school. That seemed to work, because Mom didn’t bring it up again.

Friday, June 10th, 2016

Well, today’s the day of the raffle drawing. As the day went on I got more and more jittery. And now we’re here. Two minutes before Mr.Timon would be on the loudspeaker, announcing the winner. There are a few secondary prizes like an autographed ball from CC Sabathia, and stuff like that. Overall there are ten prizes. The school is using a first come, first serve basis so I have to be called first to get the tickets.

Earlier I saw Jackson in the hallway. I didn’t know if he had a chance to enter the raffle himself. He said he got there right after the deadline to buy tickets. It then made me feel so good to see him smile after telling that I had bought him a ticket. He asked me what he could do to repay me. I say that it’s no problem, or at least I try to but the loudspeaker cuts me off. I know that now it’s time. I hear Mr.Timon’s familiar voice. He announces that the raffle had been a big success, and we had raised $2,397 for the library. He then said that it’s time for the big moment, and what he would say next nearly made me faint.

He said Jackson Norris. It takes me a second to realize that that was Jackson, my best friend’s, name. I wasn’t the winner of the raffle. I wasn’t going to get to see the Yankees face the Red Sox at Yankee Stadium on Sunday, July 17th. Jackson won the raffle with my ticket. Just as a wave of high fives and pats on the back, mixed with the constant question of can I go with you, surrounded Jackson. I felt as if I was dead. I just felt like a pile of lifeless, useless bones. Jackson left to go get his tickets and my soul left right out an open window.

It was three rounds later when my name gets called. I get some high fives here and there, but not as many as Jackson got. I head to the office, where I find Jackson waiting there to congratulate me. He has his tickets in a box, which is in a bag that taunts me so much, that I almost grab it right out of his hands.

The only other prize that had been taken was a 100 dollar gift card to Sovrana Pizza, a popular restaurant in town. I choose to take a signed photo from Derek Jeter which is hidden towards the back.

Even if the previous person had seen the Derek Jeter photo, she probably wouldn’t have taken it. She’s( and this makes me cringe) a Red Sox fan. I definitely don’t like her one bit. Okay maybe I think she’s a little cute(okay, so I think she’s beautiful). Her name is Emma Wood. The only thing is, I don’t know how to talk to her. The last I tried talking to a girl the only thing that came out of it was a black eye.

Anyways I take the picture because Derek Jeter has been my favorite player since I was four years old because we have the same name, and he’s Derek Jeter. Why wouldn’t I want it? The school secretary Mrs. Jennings framed it in a navy blue frame with a Yankees logo on it and wrapped it in a bag and sent me on my way. On may way out I saw Jackson getting his picture taken by the news reporter for the paper, and I can’t tell you how much I wished that could be me.

Saturday, June 11th, 2016

I went over to Jackson’s house today to play wiffle ball with some other kids. Jackson’s house has a giant backyard, so we always play there. I don’t mean to brag but our team is the best this year. We draft teams at the start of the year. I draft a team, and Jackson drafts a team. We’ve been doing it the same for years. Usually Jackson’s team goes almost undefeated, but this year the tables had turned. It is my team who is winning every game, and hitting home runs and robbing them to. We are like the 1927 Yankees team of wiffle ball.

After we play two or three games everybody leaves, but this week after everybody else left me and Jackson went inside his house to play MLB The Show ‘16. We played a few matches of baseball before we got kind of bored, and Jackson suggested that we played truth or dare. I probably would have been better off just saying no, because I said truth to start the game and the first question that Jackson asked me was who my crush was. When I told him it was Emma, he nearly did a backflip. I told him not to tell anyone, and he said that he won’t with a playful grin. I guess we’ll see what that means.

Thursday, July 14th, 2016

It had just been a normal day like every other day this summer. It might have been the most stereotypical summer I had ever been through. I basically swam in a pond near our house and got ice cream at Emack & Bolio’s, so when Jackson called me I was rather surprised. We hadn’t seen eachother since two weeks ago when we played wiffle ball last, and I definitely wasn’t expecting what was coming next. He asked me to go to the Yankees game with him. I almost instantly said yes. He said it was the least he could do for buying him the ticket. He said that his dad would pick me up at 7:00am. It took a couple of minutes to convince my mom to let me go because I’m grounded. See, she figured out I spent the money on tickets and not school supplies. She’s is definitely mad, but you can tell that she likes the Derek Jeter picture.

Sunday, July 17th, 2016

The day had finally come. I was going to get to see the Yankees play live at Yankee Stadium. I had my Yankees home pinstripe jersey and some navy blue shorts on. I also had my Yankees hat. At about 7:05am Jackson’s dad honked his horn. I kissed my Mom goodbye and got into the car with Jackson and his dad. We talked a little bit about baseball before pulling in front of a green house. Little did I know that it was about to get really awkward.

A girl with a Red Sox cap blocking her face walked out the front door She took her cap off and I became terrified. It was Emma Wood. She sat right in the middle of us. The car became silent until Jackson introduced me to her, like I didn’t already know who she was. Apparently they are distant cousins, so that is a bit of information that he forgot to tell me when I told him I liked her.

After about ten minutes of just sitting there Jackson finally brought up the pitching matchup for the day. It was the Yankees best pitcher Masahiro Tanaka, versus the Red Sox best pitcher David Price. Emma and Jackson started fighting over who was the better pitcher. I told them that both pitcher were great (even though Tanaka is my favorite pitcher). Yet, they continued on fighting about them until Jackson’s dad broke it up. They stopped but you could tell they still wanted to fight.

We were about halfway there when we stopped to get gas. Jackson could see I was stressing out, so he pulled me out of the car to ask what was up. I then reminded him that I like Emma. He reacted like he had never heard that before. I reminded him that I told him like a month ago, and then remembered. He also acted like he felt really bad that he had invited her. He said that he’d been forced to by his parents, and that I shouldn’t let this ruin my day. Then he winked. Sometimes I just don’t get him.

The rest of the trip went decently and quietly. I just had to block their constant fighting and arguing. An hour later we finally got to the stadium.

Our seats ended up being pretty close to the first baseline near the dugout. We stayed to watch batting practice, and the catcher Austin Romine tossed me a official Major League Baseball. It was rubbed with dirt and grass stained, but I love it. Ten minutes later, I got it signed by Starlin Castro, the second baseman.

Everything was going good until the top of the first inning when Dustin Pedroia hit a bomb off of Masahiro Tanaka. Score 1-0 Boston. Aside from a few very happy Boston fans cheering (including Emma), Yankee stadium was dead. It stayed the same way until the fourth when the Yankees scored three runs off of David Price. That got everybody but the Boston fans pumped up. It stayed that way for the rest of the game and the Yankees won it with a final score of 3-1.

We all had a lot of fun until it was time to leave. None of wanted to go, so Jackson’s Dad said we could look around the stadium for ten minutes. It was fun, but the security guards were rushing us out of the stadium. As we were leaving we noticed a Red Sox fan making fun of a Yankees fan. Jackson’s dad has always had a high temper and a tough time controlling it. He went right over to the Red Sox fan and started fighting with him. After a few minutes of the quarreling, Jackson’s dad had had enough. He curled up his fist and punched the guy.

Me, Jackson, and Emma all rushed into a closed store as the police came over to see what was going on. We hid in clothes racks, and peeked out just in time to see Jackson’s dad being pulled away by the police. I had read earlier that the punishment for punching somebody was one night in jail. Just then the lights turned off. We ran over through the door to find all the stadium lights were off. We ran to each gate to find that they were all closed. We were locked in for the night .

We started to panic, but were silenced by the sound of a door opening. It was the night guard, or at least one of them. We hid behind some trash cans. We waited behind them for a few minutes until we couldn’t the guard. Jackson had been explaining a plan while we waited, and I didn’t love it. It had him finding supplies while me and Emma a place to use as shelter. We went off and found a utility closet to use. She was clearly getting cold so I gave her my sweatshirt. We started to talk about a few things like our summer break projects and what we’d been doing over the summer. Then she told me something that I never thought I’d here. She told me that she likes me, that she like likes me.

She told me that she had never had the courage to tell me. I told her that I like her and we both smiled. Just then, Jackson walked and now you could obviously tell that he had planned this all. He just smiled handed us both a flashlight and a bottle of water. We then set out to find some food.

A week ago if you had told me I’d be eating Lay’s in Yankee Stadium at 10:14 with Emma, I’d laugh. But here I am. I pulled Jackson aside and asked him if he’d planned me and Emma figuring out we liked each other, and of course he said yes. He planned every part of this besides you know, us getting stuck in the stadium. But we’re all happy either way.

After we finished our “meal” we decided to go check out the field. Just as we were walking down the steps to the field, we heard foot steps. It was another night guard. We ran over to some seats in the crowd. Emma’s knee sunk right into some ketchup, but after the night guard left we were fine. I wiped the ketchup off her knee with my shirt sleeve. My shirt was messy but I couldn’t help it. I really did love her. We walked down to get closer to the field. Jackson was the first to jump the fence and me and Emma followed. As walked closer we started to hear the cracking sound a bat makes every time you make contact. We were about half way when we saw a ghostly figure appear. It was the ghost of Babe Ruth taking batting practice.

It’s always been a legend that the ghost of Babe Ruth haunts the new Yankee Stadium because the old one was torn down. He saw us and walked over. He asked us what we were doing here, but Emma and Jackson were to starstruck to answer so I just explained our story. Then I asked him how this was even possible and he said that “legends never died, I heard that in a movie once”. I wasn’t sure about that, but I wasn’t going to be the one to argue with The Great Bambino.

He then told me that sometimes Mickey Mantle or Joe DiMaggio join him, but today he’s alone. He then asked if we wanted to play with him, and of course I said yes. We all took batting practice and talked about his hitting records. We kept playing until I asked him what I should do to impress Emma. He replied by telling me that he’s been divorced twice and all he regretted after he died was he wasn’t himself. He told me to be myself. And that's exactly what I did the next morning when I asked Emma to get ice cream with me when we got out of this place. It must of worked because she said yes right away and kissed me. She kissed me right then and there. That feeling I got then is probably going to be the feeling when I finally get out of this place, but until then I don’t know what it will feel like. It was about five minutes from midnight when we asked Babe Ruth how to get out of the stadium, and he told us the same way he gets in and out. He just stands next to his plaque in monument park, but then he remembered that was a ghost. Then he remembered one more way to get out. He explained that there was air vent that we could crawl out. He wrote the directions on a baseball, and then signed it. He just signed it. I got Babe Ruth’s autograph. This night went from good to great. Before we left to go to bed, we asked him if there was anything we could do to repay him. He told us we could get him a hotdog, and just like that we found a leftover hotdog a concession stand and gave it to him. We then said our goodbyes, and me, Jackson, and Emma went to go sleep. We would have to wake up early if we didn’t want to be caught sneaking out of the stadium.

Monday, July 18th, 2016

Today we woke up at 4:47 before anyone got into the stadium. We had to try to sneak out. It felt like we were trying to rob a bank, because of all the security we knew were around. We found the air duct, and crawled through it. It took us about five minutes before we saw light, and let me tell you that I have never been so relieved to see a sidewalk before now. We didn’t have any idea where to find Jackson’s dad so we just went to the main gate and waited for a little while. I borrowed a guy’s phone and called him, and he met us there. We saw him five minutes later, got to the car, and drove home. But this time Jackson sat up front, and I sat next to Emma. Who would have ever thought baseball would have caused all of this.