I Waited 12 Years
Let's start this story WAY back at the beginning, 12 years ago in another time and place...
MJ and I were newly married. I have always been a big Yankees fan. My sisters are Yankees fans. My father was a Yankees fan...well, you get the idea. Anyway, my all time favorite Yankees player, Don Mattingly, retired after the 1996 season. I was heartbroken. Soon afterwards, the Yankees front office announced that there would be a Don Mattingly Day on Sunday August 31, 1997, which sold out almost immediately. The Friday night before the big day our good friends, Jon and Christine, called and asked what we were doing that Sunday afternoon and if I remember correctly, we were supposed to go to Cooperstown to see the Baseball Hall of Fame because I had never been there (still haven't been there) and wanted to see it. Someone that Jon knew GAVE him six tickets to that game on Sunday and did we want to go?? HOLY COW!!! I think I jumped up and down for the next two days because I was going to go to Don Mattingly Day.
At the game they gave each person a hand out with Don Mattingly's picture on the front, and his lifetime stats during his career on the back. MJ bought me another paper with a different picture of my favorite first baseman. The weather was great. The seats were great. The Yankees retired his number. It was perfect. Well, maybe if they had won the game it would have been really perfect, but that's another story. Anyway, one of the papers that they handed out to us has Mattingly's picture on the front and around his picture are pictures of all of his Topps baseball cards. MJ, who is a baseball card collector, decided that he was going to get all of the cards and arrange them, along with the papers that we got at the game, and our tickets and frame it for me because it was such a special day for me. Young love, right?
At first, we thought that we would be able to put it together ourselves. And we were able to do the arranging part, but when it came to actually putting it in the frame...that was another story. The mat board that we bought was too thick to fit in the frame that we had bought, so it sat in our back room for years. Every now and then MJ would bring it out, try to make it fit, and would bring it back, upstairs in frustration.
Finally, we decided that we needed to take it to get framed. I took it to Michael's while they were having a framing sale and they had a frame that was perfect: white with a little Yankee blue along the edges. Here is my favorite Yankee, all framed up and ready to hang on the wall:
This is the picture that they gave away at the stadium that day it was from the pictures on here that MJ knew how to arrange the baseball cards, from his first year in the majors, until the year he retired.
Our tickets:
The date of Don Mattingly Day:
So what happens when we get it home and go to hang it up? We have no picture hooks in the house! So, Donnie Baseball, as he was affectionately known in New York, will wait a few more days to get hung up. But, he waited 12 years already. What's another few days?
MJ and I were newly married. I have always been a big Yankees fan. My sisters are Yankees fans. My father was a Yankees fan...well, you get the idea. Anyway, my all time favorite Yankees player, Don Mattingly, retired after the 1996 season. I was heartbroken. Soon afterwards, the Yankees front office announced that there would be a Don Mattingly Day on Sunday August 31, 1997, which sold out almost immediately. The Friday night before the big day our good friends, Jon and Christine, called and asked what we were doing that Sunday afternoon and if I remember correctly, we were supposed to go to Cooperstown to see the Baseball Hall of Fame because I had never been there (still haven't been there) and wanted to see it. Someone that Jon knew GAVE him six tickets to that game on Sunday and did we want to go?? HOLY COW!!! I think I jumped up and down for the next two days because I was going to go to Don Mattingly Day.
At the game they gave each person a hand out with Don Mattingly's picture on the front, and his lifetime stats during his career on the back. MJ bought me another paper with a different picture of my favorite first baseman. The weather was great. The seats were great. The Yankees retired his number. It was perfect. Well, maybe if they had won the game it would have been really perfect, but that's another story. Anyway, one of the papers that they handed out to us has Mattingly's picture on the front and around his picture are pictures of all of his Topps baseball cards. MJ, who is a baseball card collector, decided that he was going to get all of the cards and arrange them, along with the papers that we got at the game, and our tickets and frame it for me because it was such a special day for me. Young love, right?
At first, we thought that we would be able to put it together ourselves. And we were able to do the arranging part, but when it came to actually putting it in the frame...that was another story. The mat board that we bought was too thick to fit in the frame that we had bought, so it sat in our back room for years. Every now and then MJ would bring it out, try to make it fit, and would bring it back, upstairs in frustration.
Finally, we decided that we needed to take it to get framed. I took it to Michael's while they were having a framing sale and they had a frame that was perfect: white with a little Yankee blue along the edges. Here is my favorite Yankee, all framed up and ready to hang on the wall:
This is the picture that they gave away at the stadium that day it was from the pictures on here that MJ knew how to arrange the baseball cards, from his first year in the majors, until the year he retired.
Our tickets:
The date of Don Mattingly Day:
So what happens when we get it home and go to hang it up? We have no picture hooks in the house! So, Donnie Baseball, as he was affectionately known in New York, will wait a few more days to get hung up. But, he waited 12 years already. What's another few days?
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