Tampa Bay Rays @ New York Yankees (2)

The middle game of my three in New York was a day game, with a start just after 1pm.  I arrived a little late, because the numerous signs I'd seen at the 39 Av subway stop saying "No Manhattan-bound trains between 10am-3pm Wed 21-Fri 23" hadn't registered.  I had to travel about 15 minutes the wrong way, plus waiting at the start and the turn around point.  Afterwards, I realised I could probably have walked 5 minutes to the M,R station two blocks further and saved a lot of time.

View from section 320b, row 9

Today was my first game in the premium seats, although I didn't actually use the club room to which I am entitled, as I wanted to actually watch the game.  I was almost directly behind the plate and quite high up, which gives you an excellent view of the field and what everybody's doing.  It makes it much easier to spot the fielding team adjusting their positions for each batter, too.  Sometimes just subtly, but always to a plan.

The game was quite tight, although I did miss all of the early runs and nothing else was scored until New York finally got to the Tampa Bay starter in the bottom of the 8th inning.  The upside to them taking a 2-run lead was we all got to see Mariano Rivera pitch the 9th inning.  He duly completed a 1-2-3 inning to record his 603rd career save, extending the record that he broke on Monday.  Winning this game also clinched a playoff berth for New York.

Due to an earlier postponement, the Rays and Yankees were playing a doubleheader, but it was a separate-admission DH, so they played "New York, New York" just the once and a huge army of cleaners who'd been positioned around the concourses during the 9th inning, got to work almost immediately - there seemed to be about 1 cleaner per row per section, which is a lot!  They had around half an hour to clean the entire stadium, although I suspect that they could have delayed the entry to the second game for a little bit to give them a little more time, if necessary.