Friday, November 6, 2009

Victory Parade Pictures

The parade today was a pain logistically - to be expected when you cram a couple extra million people into Manhattan on a Friday morning - but I managed to get a couple pretty good pictures (culled from a ton of other shots of other people's hands and cameras) and wanted to post them here.

Ladies and gentlemen, your 2009 World Series MVP.

And Paul Blart, Mall Cop.


Miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiichael Kay.



Freddy Sez with his frying pan/sign combo. If I hadn't seen this, I would have assumed that they had to shake him awake on a park bench somewhere to get him to come along.



A-Rod, giving the Jay-Z/Rocafella hand gesture and wearing a very goofy-looking hat that he may or may not have bought from Justin Timberlake.



Alfredo Aceves and his wife (I'm guessing), along with Phil Hughes right behind him and Brian Bruney on the far right.

Surprised they didn't make Bruney walk.

Get it? Because he gives up too many walks!!!!1!1one!!exclamationpoint!


Sabathia and Teixeira with the appropriate signage.



Mr. Derek Jeter, but that's not the best part of the picture, in my opinion. It's that pretty much everyone is holding up a camera.



Jeter with his parents behind him, Minka Kelly on the left and a roll of toilet paper in his hands. Unlike A.J. Burnett, who gunned the one that was thrown to him back into the crowd, Jeter politely tossed it aside.



Me taking a pictre of someone taking a picture of Joba who's taking a picture of us.

/universe implodes



Andy Pettitte and his family. Tell your wife to stop texting, dude.



Mariano Rivera waving a Panamanian flag. He "closed" the parade, you could say.


The scene was... interesting. There was very nearly a big fight that broke out because a group of thuggish kids thought someone "was invading their territory". Word for word, I swear. Guys, there are about 3 people per square foot down here, no one has "territory".

We got of at the Rector St. stop on the 1 line and the cops weren't letting people walk up to Broadway. Instead we had to go all the way down to Battery Park and get to Broadway from there. Coming around the Citi Bank building there was a total human gridlock. Some geniuses were yelling for everyone to "just move" as if there were some people blocking the way who just needed to be reminded of that. Others were encouraging people to "keep pushing", which from my experience with dense pedestrian traffic isn't the safest thing to do.

There were a bunch of little fuckers (maybe 15-16 year old kids) that decided it would be a great idea to bodypaint themselves white with pinstripes and the number 27 on their back, apparently not realizing that they'd be brushing up against people all day. The people behind us had noisemakers and kept running into TGI Friday's to take shots during the parade. If the Yankees have the best fans in the world, they weren't at the parade today.

But that's fine. We saw it. It was awesome. There a couple of moments where I got the chills watching players go by and the ticker tape fall down. And that's about all you can ask for, right?

7 comments:

  1. Great pictures. Wish I could have made it.

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  2. i'm glad you got to go. i watched on tv. .. they played 'we are the champions' at city hall. it was a great nostalgic surprise to hear that song played after game6 --- i nearly forgot how sentimental it sounds and i forgot the stadium plays it when clinching at home

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  3. In a way, it would have been a tremendous experience. However, given the sheer crush of humanity, the difficulty in foot and mass transit transportation, some of the requisite boobs in the throngs, and the inability of most people to get anywhere close, it might have been an event for me to avoid (if I lived closeby) unless I could have been there very early.

    Seeing parts of it on TV was great. The players seemed as amazed by the massive crowd as they were joyous over the great accomplishment.

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  4. Next time, Cliff.

    Yeah, I thought they would play Sinatra first that night, Anon. But it makes sense to with WAtC only for WS victories.

    Jason - Agreed, it was a total clusterfuck down there, but we just felt like we had to do it. We drove about 3 hours each way, parked on the Upper West Side and took the subway for the last leg. Left at 6AM and got back a little after 4 PM. I'm also pretty sick with a cold/cough of some sorts which probably tainted the experience a good amount.

    I'm glad we did it, but with the lengthy spacing of the floats and the assholes around us, there were a few times when I wished it would end.

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  5. I enjoyed seeing the players up close alot and being in the insanity of a few million people but being my first ticker tape i was a little disappointed at a few aspects.

    There were a bunch of filler, like buses of fans, politicians, trucks of photographers...this is to be expected and the "who are you" chants were amusing, but there were periods of 5-10 minutes where absolutely nothing went by. Also, whoever in City Hall that is in charge of the logistics of setting this up has their head up their ass. forcing all those people to go around two corners was fucking retarded. And on top of that when it was over you had to walk all the way around again.

    So in closing...FUCK YOU, NYC SPECIAL EVENTS PLANNING!!!!

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  6. Awesome. Great work, Jay. Great season, tough year for many of us, but thanks to the Yankees for picking us up in a way. Enjoyed the season on the blog and looking forward to next year. 95 days until Pitchers and Catchers.

    27.

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  7. What a mess down there. Metro North was packed. The 5 train was packed - couldn't even get to the Wall St stop, had to get off at Fulton. Fought through the crowd to work my way down Trinity, and when I tried to work my way up Rector, NYPD already had it blocked off. Same deal as Jay - I was told I could go south to Battery or north to Chambers if I wanted to try to get up to Broadway. Ended up waiting it out until they started letting people through. Was maybe 40 people back on Rector, and the downslope of the street didn't help with being able to see.

    I won't even post my sorry picture - but from the looks of it Jay I wasn't more than a block or so away from where you were. Definitely a clusterfuck, definitely a pain to move around before, during, and after, but worth it for the experience. With any luck will have easier time meeting up at next year's parade.

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