Stars At the Stadium And So is Wally

Stars At the Stadium And So is Wally


When the American League All Stars take the field July 15 as part of Yankee Stadium's long goodbye to the baseball world, it will mark another entry in the logbook of the Wally the Ex-Firefighter Yankee Great Moments Room.

Wally will be in the upper deck down the right-field line, accompanied by Billy the Lawyer, because a man who spent 20 years racing into burning buildings was not going to be scared off by the $410 tariff that Major League Baseball required as part of a mandatory package that included the Future Stars Game and the Home Run Derby. After all, if all it was going to cost him was considerably less than dinner for five in a five-star Parisian restaurant next month as part of his grand European tour with the wife and kids, what's the foie gras problem?

A Believer in Tradition

How could saving money while getting a better view of the game from your living-room couch, with the beer colder and a lot cheaper, compare with being a witness to history? That meant something to Wally - a lot more than to a Yankee ownership that tries to sell tradition like it was holy writ but is abandoning a baseball shrine because greater luxury box revenue awaits in a new ballpark just up the street.

A CURTAIN CALL: Among those who will be bringing a special electricity to the final All-Star Game played at Yankee Stadium are Manny Ramirez (left), Mariano Rivera and Wally the Ex-Firefighter.

Like most firefighters past and present, Wally found a place for the profane as well as the sacred in his soul, as could be witnessed up close in his last visit to the Stadium before the All-Star Game, July 6 against the Red Sox. We were sitting in a diner on 161st St. - ''shouldn't there be a real restaurant within walking distance of the Stadium?" Wally wondered - when one patron passed us wearing an "Anyone But Farnsworth" T-shirt. Wally offered an amen, but in a minor upset didn't stop the guy to ask where he'd bought it.

The News and the Post were filled with stories about Alex Rodriguez and Madonna (a cautionary tale lies there for young women: don't fall in love with guys nicknamed A-Rod), but it never made it into our pre-game conversation, which veered between our kids' study habits and the underachieving ways of the Yankees and Mets (at least one of us saw a common thread there). For Wally, much more interesting fodder was provided by another slightly off-center couple, Suzyn Waldman and John Sterling, whose high, far and really gone bombast he does a particularly sharp impression of, prefaced by a "Ho, ho, ho, Suzyn."

Wally, his son named after a former Yankee manager (and no, it's not Stump, Stick or Bucky) and I were joined for the game by Dan the Met Fan, who specializes in mimicking politicians' voices but also does a nifty Bob Murphy ("And that's gonna be all for Rudy Giuliani").

Even in the strongest of years for the Yankees, Wally has a tendency to see the frosty beer glass as half-empty, making it all the more remarkable that he's been at so many pennant- and World Series-clinching games since the renovated Stadium re-opened for business 32 years ago. The rough spots along the way have often propelled Wally from his seat to wander about the Stadium in search of an elusive Lucky Spot, but he keeps showing up, even after seven consecutive post-season appearances without a championship for the Yankees.

Not Inspiring Much Confidence

This year just making the playoffs looked dicey on that steamy Sunday evening, which the team began 9-1/2 games behind the upstart Tampa Rays and five behind the Red Sox for the potential wild-card spot. The Yankee bullpen was starting to look a bit steadier than the year before - though Mr. Farnsworth was always a threat to self-destruct - but the fourth and fifth starters didn't inspire much confidence and the hitters alternated between scoring 10 runs one game and 7 over the next four combined.

The day before, seven batters had been hit by pitches during a 2-1 Yankee win. There was no indication that either team regarded any of the HBPs as deliberate, but Wally, looking to set the right tone from the start, stood up as Jacoby Ellsbury stepped into the batter's box for the first pitch and shouted, "Hit 'im!" Cooler heads prevailed, as Joba Chamberlain passed on beaning Mr. Ellsbury in favor of inducing him to ground out to third.

Wally was willing to give Derek Jeter's slightly sub-par performance so far this year a pass in recognition of past achievements, but he was less kind to Jorge Posada, the veteran catcher coming off a career-best season whose injuries had dulled his bat and made his throwing arm a liability.

Even A-Rod's second-inning homer off Tim Wakefield for a 1-0 lead didn't spare Mr. Posada the Wrath of Wally when he struck out two batters later, flailing at a knuckleball one pitch after laying off a 73-mile-an-hour fastball that any of us might have stepped out of the not-so-cheap seats and hit. Matters didn't improve any when the Red Sox scored three runs off Mr. Chamberlain in the top of the fifth inning and, after Jason Giambi walked to start the bottom half, Mr. Posada stepped to the plate again.

Mr. Giambi is one of several turtles in the Yankee lineup, but Mr. Posada (who is another) has a bad habit of hitting into double plays, and the long time it takes Mr. Wakefield's pitches to get to the plate and the difficulty of handling them suggested some unorthodox strategy might be in order.

"Would you run Giambi?" I asked.

"No," Wally replied, treating the question with the same suspicion he applies when, just to make sure he is paying attention, I ask whether he would send the runners on a 3-2 count when no one is actually on base.

A Zone of His Own

This time Mr. Posada tried something new, leaving his bat on his shoulder as Mr. Wakefield's knuckler earned a strikeout call from Laz Diaz, the plate umpire whose interpretation of the strike zone to that point evoked the improvisational brilliance of John Coltrane.

When Robinson Cano followed with a soft fly ball to right, I said it might not have been a bad idea to have had Mr. Giambi stealing during the Poada at-bat.

"Yeah," Wally replied, "would've gotten the inning over faster."

By the time Melky Cabrera accomplished that by grounding out to the second baseman, Wally was ready to concede the game. Not, however, without another dig at Mr. Posada. Lapsing into his impression of Mr. Sterling, he declared loud enough for most of our section to hear, "Ho, ho, ho, you know, Suzyn, Jorge's the kind of hitter that you could strike him out his first two or three times up but then late in the game ... you can strike him out again."

With one out in the Red Sox's sixth and Kevin Youklis on first following a walk, Sean Casey hit a hard grounder that Mr. Giambi speared.

"Double-play," I pronounced in one of my premature forecasts that make Wally cringe.

Taking a more-measured view of Mr. Giambi's erratic throwing arm, he replied, "No way."

But Mr. Giambi's throw to second was only slightly off line, and Mr. Jeter corralled it without much trouble while tagging second, then threw back to first in plenty of time to get the plodding Mr. Casey.

Out Comes Girardi

In the bottom half of the sixth inning, umpire Diaz expanded his strike zone just enough to call out Jose Molina - who was catching while Mr. Posada served as designated hitter - on a knuckleball that crossed the plate at throat level. As we pondered that call, a ball that passed the next hitter, Brett Gardner, near his ankles drew another strike call and, apparently, some disagreement from manager Joe Girardi, for Mr. Diaz gestured toward the dugout and gave an emphatic "you're outta here!" signal. Mr. Girardi then charged out to get his money's worth, with the crowd roaring.

When play resumed, Mr. Gardner singled, prompting Wally to declare that the manager's eruption was a calculated plan to fire up his team. It seemed to be working when he stole second and then scored on a hit by Mr. Jeter, who moved to second as the tying run when Mr. Wakefield threw wild on a pickoff attempt. But Bobby Abreu's line drive was turned into a spectacular leaping catch leading to a double play by Boston shortstop Julio Lugo to end the inning.

By this point, Wally had yelled himself hoarse, which is not quite the same as losing his voice.

Mr. Jeter ranged far to the right-field side of second base to field Mr. Lugo's grounder, but he threw wild to first, and Mr. Lugo scored from second when backup catcher Kevin Cash doubled to left field. Once again Wally seemed daunted by a two-run lead.

A Timely Triple

But in what seemed less time than it takes Mr. Sterling to say, "Don't ya know, Robbie Cano!" the Yankee second-baseman tripled home two runs to tie the score in the bottom of the inning, which was where it stood when, as we moved downstairs to the main level for a quicker getaway after the game, the Red Sox came to bat in the top of the ninth to face Mariano Rivera.

The Yankee closer, so superb that even Wally has never lost confidence in him after any of his rare failures, had barely survived the previous afternoon, entering the game with a two-run lead and giving up a run and loading the bases before getting three consecutive outs without the ball leaving the infield. Now, he also began with some difficulty, giving up a soft single to Mr. Casey that, after a sacrifice bunt and a dribbler fielded by Mr. Rivera, left a pinch-runner at third base as Manny Ramirez stepped out of the dugout to hit for Mr. Cash.

Most of those in attendance believed the Yankees would walk Mr. Ramirez intentionally - as a loud but not completely stupid guy behind us put it, "He's the best right-hand batter we've ever seen" - and have Mr. Rivera take on Mr. Ellsbury for the third out. But when a conference at the mound broke up, it became clear that Mr. Rivera intended to go right after Manny, who had occasionally hurt him in the past but overall did no better against him than the rest of the free world.

Give Girardi the 'Willie'

Wally reacted as though the Yankees had brought in Mr. Posada to pitch. "It doesn't matter if it works out," he said in the closest his husk of a voice could muster to a shout. "For a move like this, you gotta wake up Girardi 3:30 in the morning, fly 'im out to California and fire him."

Longtime students of the Wally Dialectic will overlook the likelihood that, with Mr. Girardi already thrown out of the game and back in the clubhouse, he probably didn't have the primary say in the decision to pitch to Mr. Ramirez. Instead, they will be impressed by the rhetorical genius of reminding everybody of the clumsy way in which the Mets had fired Willie Randolph three weeks earlier. It was in this same vein that, after Billy Wagner blew the first of many saves last month, Wally had wondered whether Oliver Perez, whom Mr. Wagner had publicly chastised for getting knocked out of an earlier game in the second inning, would be reminding the Met closer that he had to compete better than that in the future. (And in something that might be regarded as a remarkable coincidence except for Mr. Wagner's frequent failures of late, earlier that evening he had managed to blow a win for Mr. Perez by giving up a two-run homer with two outs in the ninth inning.)

This would be the only logical explanation for Wally going so ballistic about Mr. Rivera deciding to take his chances against Mr. Ramirez, however much others also questioned the move: it was just Wally being Wally.

Mariano Shows Him Something

Three pitches later, with Mr. Ramirez never taking the bat off his shoulder, he was struck out by Mr. Rivera, who even at the age of 38 does not feel the need to pitch around anybody. But after the Yankees failed to score in the bottom of the ninth and he quickly retired the Red Sox in the 10th, Edwar Ramirez was seen warming up in the Yankee bullpen, bringing new urgency to the Yankees' efforts to score again the Red Sox closer, Jonathan Papelbon, who is not far from Mr. Rivera in ability.

Mr. Cano singled and was bunted to second by Mr. Cabrera, but pinch-hitter Wilson Betemit struck out, leaving it up to Mr. Gardner. His single four innings earlier had been just enough to have his average at .100 as he stepped in against Mr. Papelbon, in what looked like a mismatch. But after falling behind 0-2, Mr. Gardner began fouling off pitches, worked the count even, and on the seventh pitch of the at-bat dribbled the ball past Mr. Papelbon toward the direction of centerfield. Mr. Lugo had left the game for a pinch-hitter in the ninth inning, and his lesser defensive replacement, Alex Cora, got his glove on the ball only to have it skitter away into the outfield as Mr. Cano ran home with the winning run.

Wally was jubilant, Wally was joyous as we trotted out of the Stadium, got quickly into the car and out of the parking lot, and were able to make the all-important not-permitted-to-everybody left turn that sent us hurtling toward the Major Deegan ahead of most of the crowd. But bad news loomed like a three-game losing streak after we shifted over to the Bruckner Expressway - a sea of red brake lights and a sign further up ahead indicating that the highway was completely closed for road work.

"Don't they realize it's the end of a holiday weekend?" I asked. "Don't they realize I'm trying to get home?" Wally countered. He soon acknowledged, however, that it was a lot easier sitting in traffic after a Yankee win.

A Detour Past the Zoo

Even this fork in the road was not without its consolations. As we slogged toward a detour to the Sheridan Expressway, an SUV pulled up alongside us and the driver asked if we knew how to get to the Throgs Neck Bridge from there. "Dr. Hershon?" Wally replied, having recognized the Yankee team physician, who as luck would have it had operated on Wally when he ruptured his Achilles tendon on the job more than 15 years earlier.

My less-than-perfect command of The Bronx was good enough to get us all headed in the right direction after a slight detour past the Bronx Zoo, and, we speculated as we drove home, might, if Wally needed an orthopedic surgeon again in the future, get him a break, as it were, on Dr. Hershon's rate.

Four days later, the Yankees suddenly only 6-1/2 games out of first after winning two from Tampa, Wally called while driving home from Yankee Stadium to say he had just picked up the All-Star tickets. Security was so tight, he reported, that "they were checking these three women's handbags like it's Air Force One," but he had made it through, gotten the magic envelope, and declared, "I'm so pumped up - I can't believe I'm going."

The less-than-ideal location of the seats was secondary. What mattered was that Wally the Ex-Firefighter would be in the house. Let the game begin, and let the speculation commence on what might happen involving Mr. Rivera that Wally would second-guess regardless of how it turned out.