February 6, 1958

Today is the sad anniversary of the Munich air disaster in 1958, when a plane carrying members of Manchester United crashed on take-off from Munich airport. The team was returning from Belgrade. Some of us old timers from Summers Sports Pub can remember the moving description of the Busby Babes (as the ill-fated Manchester United squad was called) by a former Red Star Belgrade player Bronko, who was a regular at the fabled Arlington soccer pub.

Bronko played against the Busby Babes in that last match of their lives in Belgrade. You couldn't listen to him without sharing the excitement he still felt decades later competing against some of the best footballers England ever produced; or forget the emotion he still showed when forced to remember the crash. It was a rare privilege to listen to a detailed description of the match from the perspective of a Red Star player. (I also asked Bronko later who his favorite footballer was to play against of all time. The true athlete that he was, he said without hesitation "Georgie" - George Best.)

RIP, Roger Byrne, Eddie Colman, Mark Jones, Duncan Edwards, Billy Whelan, Tommy Taylor, David Pegg and Geoff Bent … and Jackie Blanchflower and Johnny Berry.

 

Sertab Erener and Demir Demirkan

On April 8, 2010, I attended a concert at the K Street Lounge. I have yet to hear anyone say anything nice about this D.C. night club. After my evening there, I have a mixed report. The managers that night were certainly pretentious, but the bartenders were excellent. When the day of judgment comes none of this will matter because what I heard would elevated a suburban garage to the registry of historic buildings.

That night, which should be listed as one of the great nights in D.C. arts (but I won't hold my breath) saw the legendary and incomparable Sertab Erener, Turkish singer and winner of the Eurovision Song Contest in 2003 perform with Demir Demirkan (who wrote the song that won the contest, "Every way that I can.")

I had arrived early and was rewarded with an opportunity to hear Sertab and Demir rehearse. It was a warm, humid evening for April and a side door at the K Street Lounge was open. Seeing the two Turkish superstars rehearsing through the huge plate glass front window, I saw the open door and walked in. At the time they were rehearsing Demir's excellent song "Kaphe." I watched them rehearse for a good half hour, as though it were a garage band. Then they departed in their limousine, returning later for the concert.

The concert itself was remarkable for such a small venue. Sertab's voice is operatic and Demir's guitar playing is unique, an effortless mixture of many styles. Combined with Sertab's range and their songs were magnificent. It was live music as it was meant to be performed; elevating listeners from time and space, taking them to another world, if only too briefly. Sertab and Demir may have left D.C., but they left behind an unbelievable evening, and brought history to a few yards on K Street.

Section 39 in the Bronx

As everyone who follows baseball knows, last season was the final year for The House That Ruth Built. The Yankee Stadium which inhabited that historic patch of land between 161st Street and River Avenue in the Bronx from 1923 to 2008 was demolished and moved directly across 161st. In September, the final month the Yankees would play in Yankee Stadium (the highest paid team in baseball was not going to make the playoffs), a decision had to be made: when would I make my last visit. My chance of obtaining even a lone ticket for the final series against the Baltimore Orioles, let alone the final game of the final series, was along the odds of winning the lottery. Unless, of course, I was willing to part with a sizable sum of money for even a restricted view of the game.

Fortunately, the White Sox were also in town the final week. I became a fan of the Yankees in the 1960s. The exact date was April 19, 1967, when my father took me to a game between the Yankees and the White Sox at the old Comiskey Park. I had been leaning toward the Yankees since 1964, the year we moved to Chicago, when the White Sox and Yankees were in the heat of the American League pennant race. It was a cold afternoon as only Chicago can deliver in April. I didn't feel the cold though: a twelve year old boy is not bothered by the weather when he can look out on the field and see Tommy John on the mound for the White Sox and Whitey Ford for the Yankees. And closer to our seats along the first base line, Mickey Mantle, having been moved from center field to first base, a sign that his career was nearing its end. Mantle was obviously in pain; watching him run from home plate to first base even hurt my young knees. The Yankees won the game, and as my father and I left 35th and Shields for the Dan Ryan Expressway, from then on I was a Yankee fan as much as anyone born in the Bronx.

So I decided that my final game at Yankee Stadium would be Thursday, September 18, 2008, against the White Sox, the last game of the series. (The choice also had symmetry: Comiskey Park had been torn down and moved across the street too.) There were tickets available, still at reasonable prices. But where would I sit? After all, it wasn't just any game. I decided it would have to be the bleachers, Section 39, the center of the Yankee Universe. I searched on StubHub - forget about the Yankee website - and found a bleacher ticket. I strained my eyes, was it true? A ticket was for sale, "Bleachers 39." I blinked a couple of times, it was still there, so I typed as fast as I could and bought it. I kept my fingers crossed for a couple days, but the ticket arrived; a real ticket, not an internet ticket for scanning by the seemingly endless army of men over sixty, who guard the gates to baseball grounds. I have that ticket still, it is on the table as I type.

Section 39 was an acquired taste, like whiskey, and support for the Yankees there was served straight up. The irony of the analogy is not lost: the right field bleachers were declared alcohol free by the Yankee organization. All of the right field bleachers were robust, the old Ruthville, but Sections 39 and 37 were the heart of the right field bleachers, home of the Bleacher Creatures, where the famous roll call of the Yankee starting line-up would begin. The roll call that evening has found its way to You Tube, and I am somewhere, maybe it is only my voice, in the video; the abuse shouted at Yankee hating Ken Griffey, Jr. that evening in center field from the right field bleachers has not made it to You Tube, as far as I know. I have sat - stood would be more accurate - in Sections 39 and 37 before, but the atmosphere that evening, though robust, seemed more retrained. The Yankees were not going to make the playoffs, and for many it would be their last evening at Yankee Stadium. Perhaps the restraint was from people trying silently to record memories. I certainly did, with a camera and the mind's eye, like a final date, when a couple knows that they will never see each other again.

The Yankees beat the White Sox that evening, like they did that afternoon in April 1967. As I left the stadium and walked along River Avenue to the subway station, I looked at the new Yankee Stadium nearing completion. It will be more comfortable than the old stadium; and, of course, more expensive. Though there will be right field bleachers, there will not be a Section 39 or 37. I don't believe the Yankee front office has a great affection for the sober honesty of the fans, or its use of the Bronx dictionary. Bobby Abreu in right field was informed that September evening from Section 39 that 2008 would be his last season in pinstripes, even though he hit 2 home runs and had 6 RBIs in the game. I reached the subway, climbed the stairs to the mobbed platform, boarded the train, and as it moved toward Manhattan, I had one last look at The House That Ruth Built, remodeled by George Steinbrenner in the 1970s. The next time I am here, you will have vanished, I thought, like Comiskey Park. There is an old philosophical riddle, which once occupied philosophers' minds: "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" Yes, like the roar of the fans at Yankee Stadium and Comiskey Park that no one can hear today, but which will travel forever in the heavens. The sound of my voice travels with the roar.