T he Empire State Building. Times Square. Central Park. The Brooklyn Bridge. The Strand bookstore. The Statue of Liberty. Pizza in Little Italy. Broadway shows. The subway. Bagels.
The Yankees. Derek Jeter.
These are the things I think of when I think about home.
No New Yorker would ever be afraid to tell you we’ve got a lot of state pride. We do. For most, it’s rooted in the icons I mentioned above. For me, it’s also rooted in memories of baseball.
My grandfather, known as G.P., was the world’s biggest Yankee fan. I could come up with a surprisingly long list of witnesses — huge Yankees fans themselves — who would attest to that fact.
In 2007, during an epic whiffle ball game, my cousin Gill hit what looked like a “home run” — that is, the ball was hurling straight for the tree that marked home run territory.
G.P. was sitting in the outfield smoking a cigar. But cigar between his lips, G.P. stood and caught that would-have-been home run with just one bobble of the ball.
As is the fault of memory, I don’t remember which team won or if we’d even been keeping score. But I do remember watching my grandfather catch the ball. I remember thinking it was the greatest moment in whiffle ball ever, and I remember how he signed it, though it’s now sitting in a glass case on a dresser in New Jersey: G. “Jeter” P.
