Old Timers Day Part I: On The Way

I'm writing this on a Greyhound bus on my way to New York City - more specifically, to Yankee Stadium, where it is Old Timers Day.

I turned 29 this year, and getting a step away from 30 gives your younger friends license to make fun of you. It also means that, during a doctor visit, you start to get warnings about watching your weight in the next few years. But none of this has made me so old as the Yankees releasing their 2008 Old Timers Day roster.

This year's roster is stacked with heroes from my golden years as a baseball fan, 1993-2001. Not only did the Yankees win four championships in that time, but I saw on television and listened on the radio to a large percentage of the baseball they played during that time. And in going to games pretty regularly since 1998, I have seen many of them in person.

When I was younger and watching Old Timers Day with my Dad, it seemed like he had a story for every player - one guy might have been great at throwing trick pitches; another might have been as good a clutch hitter as my Dad had ever seen, things like that. This, year, I have my own stories to about Old Timers like Paul O'Neill, Tino Martinez, David Wells, Jimmy Key, Mike Stanley, Jeff Nelson, Ramiro Mendoza, Wade Boggs, Jim Abbott, Pat Kelley, Graeme Lloyd, Darryl Strawberry, and Tim Raines.