In a week during which elderly Yankee figures seem to be meeting their demise with frightening regularity, it is worth noting that the Yankeemobile of Hawthorne train station–the pinstriped, Yankee-logo-d Jeep Cherokee that graced the Hawthorne lot over the past year–has not been seen in months.

We first spied the Yankeemobile in September 2009. For a while this season, it seemed as though the driver only took the Yankeemobile to the station following Yankee wins, but that theory was disproven by the end of April.

Every time, it sat in a prime spot, backed into the space so that all at the station can take in the full glory of its face–a wide grille smiling like a smug first-place team.

But the Yankeemobile seems to have gone the way of the baseball-cap bullpen cars. Was it a short-term lease, sent back to the dealer after the Yankees captured championship #27 last fall?

Or has the driver been sleeping in a bit, relaxing after the pressure of winning the title has been lifted, and is taking his chances in the lot down by the ballfields?

Anyone seen the Yankeemobile of late?

We shared an earlier passage of Dennis Lehane’s The Given Day a few months back–which also had Babe Ruth drinking heavily on a train.

It’s a big ol’ 700-pager, but it’s interesting. Lehane of course does those Boston-based crime novels that so easily transfer to the big screen: Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone, Shutter Island.

The Given Day is a little different. It’s World War I era-Boston, and the hale fellows of the Boston Police Department are hurtling towards a strike. The book shows Lehane writing in a fanciful style not seen in his previous books as he tells three separate, but ultimately intertwined stories: a Boston police captain’s black sheep son, Danny Coughlin, leading the BPD insurgency, a young black man, Luther Laurence, trying to get back to his young family after being forced to leave them in Tulsa, and Babe Ruth breaking from the Red Sox for his fateful marriage to the New York Yankees.

Babe has by far the smallest of the three men’s roles in the book, but it’s no less memorable.

This happens at the very end of the book, when the Babe has been jettisoned by the Sox.

On the train to New York, everyone was drunk. Even the porters.

Twelve in the afternoon and people were guzzling champagne and guzzling rye and a band played in the fourth car, and the band was drunk. No one sat in their seats. Everyone hugged and kissed and danced. Prohibition was now the law of the land. Enforcement would begin four days from now, on the sixteenth.

Babe Ruth had a private car on the train, and at first he tried to sit out the revelry. He read over a copy of the contract he’d officially sign at day’s end in the offices of the Colonels at the Polo Grounds. He was now a Yankee. The trade had been announced ten days ago, though Ruth had never seen it coming. Got drunk for two days to deal with the depression. Johnny Igoe found him, though, and sobered him up. Explained that Babe was now the highest paid player in baseball history. He showed him New York paper after New York paper, all proclaiming their joy, their ecstasy about getting the most feared slugger  in the game on their team.

“You already own the town, Babe, and you haven’t even arrived yet.”

That put a new perspective on things. Babe had feared that New York was too big, too loud, too wide. He’d get swallowed up in it. Now he realized the opposite was true–he was too big for Boston. Too loud. Too wide. It couldn’t hold him. It was too small, too provincial. New York was the only stage large enough for the Babe. New York and New York alone. It wasn’t going to swallow Babe. He was going to swallow it.

I am Babe Ruth. I am bigger and stronger and more popular than anyone. Anyone.

Some drunk woman bounced off his door and he heard her giggle, the sound alone giving him an erection.

What the hell was he doing back here alone when he could be out there with his public, jawing, signing autographs, giving them a story they’d tell their grandkids?

He left the room. He walked straight to the bar car, worked his way through the dancing drunks, one bird up on a table kicking her legs like she was working burlesque. He sidled up to the bar, ordered a double scotch.

“Why’d you leave us, Babe?”

He turned, looked at the drunk beside him, a short guy with a tall girlfriend, both of them three sheets to the wind.

“I didn’t leave,” Babe said. “Harry Frazee traded me. I had no say. I’m just a working stiff.”

“Then you’ll come back someday?” the guy said. “Play out your contract and come back to us?”

“Sure,” Babe lied. “That’s the idea, bub.”

The man patted him on the back. “Thanks, Mr. Ruth.”

“Thank you,” Ruth said with a wink for his girlfriend. He downed his drink and ordered another.

This must happen fairly frequently.

Say you’re C.C. Sabathia’s agent, and you need to keep C.C. in the loop on some business matter–say, reaching out to Myanmar to make sure they have enough cotton fabric to produce the star hurler’s ginormous uniform pants.

You need to tell your secretary, or your assistant, or your “girl,” or whatever they call the agent underling in that situation to copy C.C. on the email.

Do you say, “Hey, can you CC C.C.?”

Or do you say, “Hey, can you CC Sabathia?”

Both are a bit hard to say, and ultimately susceptible to confusion–not a good situation when you’re talking about a client that’s worth like $200 million.

If it’s me, I probably go for accuracy more than expediency:

“Hey, lackey, can you CC Carston Charles Sabathia on this? And where the hell is my Jameson on the rocks?”

[image: nj.com]

You may have heard McCarver/Buck mention the other night–Phillies ace Cliff Lee, jammed in traffic hours before his World Series start Wednesday night, jumped out of his cab in upper Manhattan and hopped a pair of subways to get to Yankee Stadium.

According to the announcers, Lee went unrecognized by his fellow riders on the 6 and then the 4 train.

Reports the Daily News:

Lee was stuck in a taxi at 5:45 p.m. en route from his team’s Manhattan hotel to Yankee Stadium before his Game 1 start, when the driver told him they were hopelessly stuck in traffic and it might take two more hours to get to the ballpark. Lee instructed the driver to find the nearest subway stop. A veteran of the underground system from his visits to New York with the Indians, Lee successfully navigated from the 6 to the 4 train and arrived about 15 minutes later - in more than enough time to toss his complete game opposite CC Sabathia.

“I still had plenty of time,” said Lee, who went unrecognized. “I’ve always taken the subway, but for whatever reason I took a taxi the other day. If I would have known it would have been that long I just would have gotten right on the subway.”

Adds Gothamist:

Lee called his agent, Darek Braunecker, who advised him to leave the cab, find a policeman and ask for help getting to the stadium. The Phillies’ traveling secretary, Frank Coppenbarger, told Lee to do the same thing.

Lee instead told the driver to take him to the nearest subway. He got out at W. 119th St., Coppenbarger said.

Lee got to Yankee Stadium at 6:20, had to prove to the guards he was actually a player, then shut down the fearsome Yanks in a complete game.

The Philadelphia Phillies opted for a chartered train ride to Gotham to prepare for their World Series showdown with the Yankees at the House That Ruth(less Pursuit of Free Agents) Built.

The Phillies also hopped a train to New York to face the Yankees in the 1950 Series.

Writes the New York Times:

The reason for the train was neither historical novelty nor an exercise in team building in advance of the World Series, which begins Wednesday at Yankee Stadium. It was pure convenience. The distance between Philadelphia and New York is too short for a flight, and a fleet of buses traveling up the New Jersey Turnpike could spend as much time on the approach to the Lincoln Tunnel as the entire train ride.

So for the first time in recent memory, the team boarded the Phillie Express from 30th Street Station in Philadelphia about 4:45 p.m., bound for New York’s Penn Station.

(As an aside, today’s NY Times also has a big story about how newspaper readership is way down. My copy of the paper was trimmed badly at the printer, so I couldn’t read the print version of the Phillies-Amtrak story, as the last word in each sentence was cut. I instead read it online.)

[Ballplayers are just like you and me! Pedro Martinez turns up for work at Penn Station.] 

Amtrak officials said it was difficult clearing the sidewalks for the players upon their arrival, as they got there right at the peak of yesterday’s evening commute. The players got a mixed reaction from people schlepping into Penn Station.

When the first members of the team emerged from Penn Station on the corner of 32nd Street and Eighth Avenue, they were greeted by a couple of Phillies fans. Their voices were soon overtaken by more lusty locals chanting, “Let’s go, Yankees.”

Perhaps that explains outfielder Jayson Werth’s terse “no” when asked if he could give his assessment of the short ride.

Nevertheless, Hannah Kirkner, a native Philadelphian and a freshman at the nearby Fashion Institute of Technology, was delighted to see her team on a Manhattan sidewalk.

“I thought it was so cool they came here by train,” she said. “It’s very representative of our city to take the train. It’s so human.”

We’re doubtful the players will opt for the 4 train to Yankee Stadium tomorrow.  

[image: NY Times]

Just as the Great Yankeemobile hit a pothole en route to the Fall Classic, Trainjotting’s Connecticut Correspondent “Saugatucker” was selecting the winner of our first annual Caption Contest.

Saugatucker speaks:

The grand prize of all the dollar bills you can stuff down C.C. Sabathia’s uniform pants goes to Jim for caption #1, “Introducing the New American League Hybrid - fueled by Steroids and Bud Lime.” The Bud Lime cinched it - it would have been even more of a sure thing had submitter opted for Bud Light Lime, as you couldn’t find a more soulless brew.

Honorable Mention to Foot It Tim for “Batshit Day”. Remember, Tim, this is a family blog.

Yes, folks, it’s your last chance to come up with a witty caption for the Trainjotting caption contest. Simply come up with a funny/snarky/heart-warming tagline for the photo below, shot at our train station last week, and post it in the Comments section.

Winner gets lunch for two at Arby’s with Nick Swisher.*

My other car is a ’70s baseball hat bullpen car.

* No supersizing, please.  

On the eve of the American League Championship Series, we’d like to welcome you to the first annual Trainjotting Caption Contest. Please post the best caption you can for the following photo, taken this morning at our train station.

A little back story: The fully pinstriped and logo’d Jeep Cherokee pictured above positively lords over the train station parking lot, backed into the best spot in the yard and just daring the measly Toyotas and Chevys in its midst to knock it from its lofty perch.

In short, if the Yankeemobile could speak, what would it be saying?

The winner gets as many dollar bills as he/she can stuff in C.C. Sabathia’s uniform trousers.

The Yankees unveil a new fall tradition this evening, as the winners of the Little League World Series, the Twins representing the Twin Cities of Minnesota, are invited to River Avenue to face off against the Bronx Bombers. It’s a tall order indeed for the Twins, whose payrolls is roughly comparable to how much Brett Gardner’s personal assistant makes in a year.

Metro-North has three extra Hudson Line trains, dubbed the ”Yankee Clipper”, of course, to shuttle fans to the ballpark for tonight’s 6:07 kickoff, along with one direct train on both the Harlem and New Haven Line.

The Hudson Line trains depart Croton-Harmon at 3:55 and 4:57 and Poughkeepsie at 3:30. The New Haven Line train leaves New Haven at 2:45, makes the major stops, and then makes like a Sabathia fastball from Stamford to the Yankees-153rd Street stop for a 4:21 arrival, leaving ample time for the consumption of Bud bottles at Stan’s.

The Harlem Line direct train departs Southeast at 3:20 p.m. and makes all local stops to Mount Vernon West at 4:31 p.m. then operates non-stop to the Stadium for a 4:52 arrival. 

Of course, diehard fans can also take the subway to 125th and grab a shuttle train from there. 

“Despite a game time that is in the heart of Metro-North’s evening rush hour, the railroad wants to give fans the opportunity to try our great game day service and experience the ease of beating stadium traffic,” said Metro-North President Howard Permut.  “Although the railroad does not have a lot of extra train cars or a lot of extra track capacity on a weeknight at 6 o’clock, we felt that this playoff home stand series will allow us to attract fans who we hope will become regular customers.” 

[image: examiner.com]

For some reason, the Missus and I were discussing a commercial we’d (separately) seen for a pinstriped Yankeemobile–some car painted in full New York Yankees regalia for the taste-challenged Bronx Bombers fan in your life.

Mind you, neither the Missus nor I–Sox fan and Mets fan, respectively–can stomach much of anything Yankee-related. But we were truthfully discussing how many of the Yankeemobiles actually get sold. I know hardcore Yankee fans–some I’d even call friends–but nobody I know would ever drive such a thing.

We also discussed the insurance aspect of owning the Yankeemobile. Mind you, we live in the heart of Yankee Country, which becomes abundantly more evident when the Yankees are actually in the midst of a good season. But surely there are Yankee haters around, some who see it as their duty as card-carrying Yankee haters to key up the Yankeemobile parked next to them in the parking lot. And surely there would be times when you drive beyond the greater New York area, and perhaps even toward that crimson country known as Red Sox Nation a few hours to the north east.

In short, we decided that nobody-but-nobody would ever actually be caught dead in such a thing. Caught dead in a Yankee pinstriped coffin, perhaps, but not the Yankeemobile.

But wait. There it was, a pinstriped Jeep Cherokee, interlocking N and Y on the hood, in the Hawthorne station parking lot this morning. It was in a prime I-got-here-early spot, and the driver had backed into the space, freeing up precious seconds this evening when he’s able to simply pop the thing into Drive and, presumably, jet on down to the House That Ruth(less Pursuit of Free Agents) Built. Its grill was grinning greedily over the whole of the parking lot, like Clemens after striking out 15 and beaning three.

My only question is, if you’re already getting the pinstriped Yankee S.U.V., why not just go all out and get the pinstriped Yankee Hummer?