Cards fan gets dirty looks in NYC

hkronmueller

In the city that never sleeps it's not a good idea to go running around proclaiming that you're a Cardinals fan.

Last week, I went to visit my boyfriend Jeremiah, who is spending his last summer as a college student at his mom's house in New Jersey. Two of the days I was there we took the train up to New York City.

When I visited him over New Year's we spent a lot of the time in the city looking at ground zero and partying in Times Square. We did some sightseeing, but we mostly ran past everything because it was freezing and dark.

This time the weather couldn't have been better with 80-degree temperatures, sunny blue skies and a cool breeze from the rivers and the Atlantic Ocean. And because it didn't get dark until about 8:30 p.m. we had plenty of time to get a good look at everything.

The first day we spent eight hours walking through the city. We stopped at Rockefeller Center, and I jumped up and down on the spot where the giant Christmas tree stands each year, we played on the piano in FAO Schwartz like the one Tom Hanks danced on in the movie "Big," and we wandered around Grand Central Station.

We also went down to ground zero after the memorial service was over to see how it had changed since we last saw it in January. We were able to get a lot closer this time. We could see the massive hole in the ground where the two towers and the other smaller buildings in the square once stood.

It was quieter this time, with no dump trucks carrying out mounds of dirt and debris and no jackhammers pounding away at the fallen steel and concrete.

The second day we decided to find some places we had never been before.

We decided to find the Central Park Zoo. Jeremiah has been searching for the zoo for the past four years from within the park. This time we decided we were going to walk around the outside of the park until we found it. (My New York City guidebook said you could catch a peek at some of the animals if you walked along the Fifth Avenue entrance, so we decided to give it a try.)

When we came out of the subway at the southeast corner of the park we immediately saw the signs for the zoo.

The book was right. It's a lot easier to find the zoo from the perimeter of the park instead of the interior.

After walking around there for a while, we hopped on the four train and headed to Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. Jeremiah, who bleeds Yankee blue, had never been to the stadium.

When we got there, fans were already gathering for the game that was later that night.

As we walked around we noticed Boston fans receiving glares and shouts of unpleasantries from the Yankees fans.

We decided to take a picture in front of a flagpole that listed the years the Yankees had won the World Series. I stood with a big frown, thumbs down. Jeremiah stood with a big smile, thumbs up.

I received many dirty looks from people walking by in Yankees attire. And when I made it clear I was a Redbird fan, I received even more.

Before we started heading back to the subway, we noticed a man sitting on a wall close to where we were who was giving me a thumbs up. This was most peculiar to me since he was wearing a navy blue Yankees T-shirt.

I looked at him funny and said, "I'm a Cardinals fan. I hate the Yankees."

He smiled an evil little smile like the Grinch when he tells little Cindy Lou Who that he's taking her Christmas tree to get fixed.

"Me too," he said.

I was glad to know I wasn't the only Yankee-hater in the Bronx.

Heather Kronmueller is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.