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So, as we contemplated becoming an angry mob (led by my man D who was absolutely fuming) complete with torches and bloodhounds in search of Lil’ Whyte-T, I was in laughing-to-keep-from-crying mode. I was amused that somebody that so rarely gets “took” in any part of the world, just got “took,” and that I was going to have such a wealth of material from which to draw from for my next blog entry. I thought about all of the good-natured ribbing I would take from the Gotham contingent up in here and reasoned that this slice of humble pie would somehow be good for me, even if simultaneously detrimental to my ability to pay my house note this month. Our little ad-hoc mob eventually dispersed as most drifted into the various sports bars on River Avenue to watch the game there while tossing back a few cold ones.

I held out hope though. There was no way that I was going to come all the way across the country and get to the end of this Yellow Brick Road only to be stuck on the outside looking in like Diana Ross fresh off the discovery that Richard Pryor was not “The Wiz,” but just some cat named Herman Smith from Detroit. In the 3rd inning I tried to play the sympathy card with some cat working the entrance at Gate 6 who actually heard me out before saying that he usually can get an extra ticket and would be willing to give it to me, but today he really didn’t have one. Incensed by the hordes of people leaving the Stadium in favor of the bars as the Bronx Bombers fell behind 5-0 in the 4th and sinking deeper and deeper into the notion that this really might not night happen for me, I grabbed a seat on a bench between the subway and bleacher entrances respectively. There I sat in my white sneaks, baggy Nike basketball shorts, navy blue Ecko T-shirt and Ray Ban shades for the next 2 innings looking like somebody had stolen my dog.

But then, like flash floods or earthquakes, daylight inside a railway tunnel, Monday morning after too much weekend, an opportunity appeared. Suddenly! As sista-girl guarding the Bleacher Gate looked over in our direction, D looked at me and laughed, suggesting that I do that voodoo that they claim that I do. In his own words, he’s 5’7” on a good day and he and this other little cat at the bar the previous night were going on and on about how lucky tall guys are, suggesting that every woman in the room instantly ignored them when I walked in. Recall what I said earlier about desperate times and desperate measures? So after some random segue broke the ice, I found myself no longer seated but standing right at the gate, engaged in some playful conversation.

“You’re an undercover cop, aren’t you?” she inquired, intimating that sometimes law enforcement are sent around to make sure that stadium security is doing their job to the best of their ability.

“Me? Are you kidding? Do I look like a cop? Seriously?!?” pleasantly amused at being confused for law enforcement. Montel Jordan or even Juwan Howard, I get sometimes, but never undercover cop. Pathetic, tragic figure in need of some pity and sympathy was what I was really trying to sell at this point.

I’ve got to give it to the Bronx’s own Melba B. S he didn’t just roll over and let us in. It was a solid two innings before she started to soften up, even as the crowd erupted on Xavier Nady’s bases loaded, ground rule double scoring Derek Jeter and Bobby Abreu, drawing the Yanks to within 2 runs at 5-3, and erupting again when Wilson Betemit’s subsequent grounder scored A-Rod to bring them within 1.

“They’re playing Y-M-C-A now…,” she said.

“What’s that mean?” I asked.

“That means the grounds crew is doing their routine and that it’s the 7th inning and I’m that much closer to going home.”

“Oh…I see,” I said, feeling like D and I had perhaps over-estimated my so-called mojo. Precious time was slipping away.

But then there must have been some divine intervention because in an instant she clenched the back of her neck with her left hand while craning her neck as far as she could to the right and saying something about the crick that had been plaguing her all day as she stood at her post.

So after we helped ourselves to some recently vacated seats in the bleachers, we proceeded to experience 3 of the most action packed innings of baseball in recorded history. Xavier Nady’s 3-run jack in the 7th but the Yankees up 8-5 as the capacity crowd went absolutely bananas . The Los Angeles Angels’ Mark Teixera’s promptly took the Edwar Ramirez offering out of the yard for a grand slam in the 8th to reclaim the lead for the Angels at 9-8. As we (yes, “we”, as I am have been a closet Yankee fan for years, as long as they aren’t playing my A’s) were reduced to near silence save for some Bronx cheer (boos) directed at Mr. Ramirez. But this was short-lived as the New York unleashed an offensive onslaught in the bottom half of that inning, regaining the lead and extending it to 14-9.

So in the end, things worked out for me. Even though I was to fly in less than 3 hours, I managed to talk D into stopping for that elusive arroz con pollo at La Fonda Boricua. It was pretty good, but perhaps I need to slow down and have it again when I can stay awhile because I left feeling like I could pull that off. But that was neither here nor there because traffic leading up to the Lincoln Tunnel was putting my 815 departure in grave danger. After doing the O.J. thing (Hertz O.J., not the White Bronco edition) all the way to Gate C-131 and even being re-booked for 7am the next morning, the words “DELAYED: Now 8:45” magically appeared on the board and I rode in the exit window all the way home. I so should’ve played the lottery on August 3, 2008.

Destah Owens is a single father of two from Northern California and proud UCLA Bruin who travels the world for his job as a computer engineer. His blog, “Soufflés in Saigon,” is exclusive to Urban Thought Collective.