When we moved from Florida to New York in September, 1961, I attended several Yankee games with my friend Wayne. It was a magical time to be at Yankee Stadium.
Wayne
Wayne was one of the first friends I made when my family moved from Florida to Glen Cove, New York in September, 1961. Our fathers worked together as waiters in a restaurant in Roslyn, about eight miles from Glen Cove. Ray, Wayne's dad, commuted to Manero's from the Bronx.
Wayne was a year younger than I. He taught me that I could survive without the protection of my two older brothers. They both joined the air force the previous summer and left me alone with my alcoholic father and clinically depressed mother. But by the end of the summer, dad got it together and moved the three of us to Long Island.
Wayne's family lived two subway stops from Yankee Stadium. I was a rabid Yankee fan since I was about five years old, even though I was raised in western Massachusetts, definitely Red Sox country. But my dad grew up following the great Yankees teams of the 1920s and 1930s. My brother Cork was a Boston fan, and my other brother, Rick, for some unknown reason, was a Tigers fan. I was my dad's last hope to be a Yankee fan. I didn't disappoint him.
Wayne and I got along very well because of our shared passion for the greatest team in the history of baseball. It was September, 1961, and every weekend the Yankees were in town, I spent at Wayne's apartment. Wayne showed me how to read a subway map, so I could find my way from Yankee Stadium to the Bronx Zoo, and even into Manhattan.
We were at the Stadium on October 1, 1961 when Roger Maris broke the single-season home run record that the legendary Babe Ruth had set in 1927. Sixty-one in '61.
What a thrill for a kid who had been dragged all over the East Coast while his father was looking for a Geographic Cure to his alcoholism. But none of that mattered when we sat in the right-field bleachers and saw Maris launch his historic shot into the right-field grandstands. Unforgettable.
Wayne helped teach me that I not only had the toughness to survive the ravages of parental alcoholism and depression, but I could handle myself in a potentially cruel city like New York. We didn't last long in New York, only about eight months. Dad continued his search for a Geographic Cure and dragged mom and me to Arizona in April, 1962. I would need every bit of toughness Wayne had taught me.