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Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Nosebleeds

AN EDITED VERSION OF THIS PIECE APPEARED IN THE LETTERS SECTION OF THE NEW YORK TIMES ON OCTOBER 7, 2015

("Take Me Out to the Nosebleeds")

The Nosebleeds. Mr Leitch would suggest that it is only here that the real romance of the game lives. Where the true fan of baseball exists, where the stories abound and the recollections are not manufactured. Where there are no "Johnny come latelies".

I have been chasing foul balls for six decades now all over Yankee Stadium, old and new, front row to last. From days when I poured water over my head to battle the heat to those when I took shelter from the cold and wind in the bathrooms. From Mickey Mantle to Derek Jeter, but also Phil Linz to Horace Clarke. And while there is a mythology associated with being in the Nosebleeds, I want to report that the best fans do not congregate in only one section of the stands.

The seats of the die hard are scattered about, living wherever one locates someone  in whose heart the beauty of the game beats fiercely. I have had a continuing love affair with the Bronx Bombers from the 1950's to this evening, when I will take my seat in the third tier out by the foul pole and try to will a worn out and staggering team to victory.

I am a Nosebleed fan no matter where I am located.  Nosebleed is a state of mind.

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