[real-eyes] Re: devoted baseball fan
- From: "jose" <crunch1@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <real-eyes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2010 18:27:09 -0500
dude it is a hell of a story. I like that they didn't make her out to be
this soupper woman. wow. I never thought of using candy to keep track of the
stations. When I use to ride from Jamaica queens to the juish gild for the
blind at 65th and centeral park west, I would nap on the e traine and would
wake up just before my stop. that was a good way to ride because it was like
a 30 to 40 minute ride on that e train. then I would need to switch
traines, one of the traines just happend to be the d traine that she is
speeking of. in fact I took it once to the bronx. that traine felt like it
was doing 90 Mph from the last stop in manhatten tell it hit the first stop
in the bronx. I think it was 125th st. That ride would scair me.
wow she is an amazing gal and i don't think I could do it as offten as she
does.
Jose Lopez, President
Lopez Language Services, LLC
"We Speak Your Language"
Call us anytime at 888.824.3022
----- Original Message -----
From: "Reginald George" <sgeorge@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <real-eyes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, August 26, 2010 11:20 AM
Subject: [real-eyes] Re: devoted baseball fan
> Done
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Chip C.Bloch" <Chip.Bloch@xxxxxxxxx>
> To: <real-eyes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Thursday, August 26, 2010 8:22 AM
> Subject: [real-eyes] Re: devoted baseball fan
>
>
> Reggie,
>
> I thought it was one hell of an article, too! Can you do me a favor and
> forward it on to the first steps list? It might need some cleaning up to
> get rid of the internal links, reply messages and other stuff.
>
> Thanks,
> Chip
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: real-eyes-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:real-eyes-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> On Behalf Of Reginald George
> Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 2010 2:39 PM
> To: real-eyes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [real-eyes] Re: devoted baseball fan
>
> Hey, I just wanted to say thanks Chip. I'm not even a sports fan, but
> that
> is one hell of an article.
>
> Reg
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Chip C.Bloch" <Chip.Bloch@xxxxxxxxx>
> To: <real-eyes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: "'Bloch, Sherri D. (KCVA)'" <Sherri.Bloch@xxxxxx>; <wbloch@xxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 2010 11:45 AM
> Subject: [real-eyes] devoted baseball fan
>
>
> Monday, August 23, 2010
> Updated: August 24, 11:53 AM ET
> Toughest fan you'll ever meet
> ________________________________
> By Rick Reilly
> ESPN.com
> [cid:image001.jpg@01CB444A.F8236910]
>
> Jane Lang, who is blind, is one of the New York Yankees' biggest fans.
> During Hope Week, manager Joe Girardi (left) and pitchers David Robertson,
> Chad Gaudin and Joba Chamberlain escorted her on her two-hour trip to the
> park.
>
>
> Ask yourself whether you'd do this: Leave home. Walk 20 minutes to the
> train
> station. Take a 70-minute train ride to Penn Station in New York City.
> Weave
> for 10 minutes over to the subway station. Take a half-hour D train ride
> to
> Yankee Stadium. Navigate the vendors and chaos to get to your seat.
>
> Now ask yourself: Would you do all that blind?
>
> Jane Lang does it, accompanied at most games by only her Seeing Eye golden
> retriever, Clipper. Thirty times a year. At 67 years old.
> Which is why she was so gobsmacked Tuesday when she set out from her home
> in
> Morris Plains, N.J., only to find Yankees manager Joe Girardi and four
> current and former Yankees waiting on her doorstep.
> They didn't have a limo. They didn't have a fleet of Suburbans. They had
> only sneakers. They were going to make the journey with her.
> "Oh my God!" Jane said.
> "We think you're amazing," Girardi said.
> "Follow me," Clipper seemed to say.
> You have to understand what a two-hour, one-way journey to a baseball game
> takes for somebody like Jane. She's been blind since birth, and these
> trips
> have not always turned out well. Once, some kids decided it would be fun
> to
> spin her around a few dozen times. Another time, she fell onto the subway
> tracks and was nearly killed. But ever since she got a guide dog, she's
> been
> intrepid.
> The whole bizarre troupe: Jane, Clipper, the Yankees, their security guys,
> the PR men and the media -- paraded past the florist, Tony's pizza parlor
> and the little barbershop where one of the customers came out to wave and
> holler at Jane with the apron still around his neck.
>
> It's mind-melting to watch Jane and Clipper make their way down the
> clogged
> streets of Manhattan -- Clipper, taking cues from Jane, weaving her
> through
> a maze of street vendors, suits, iPhone zombies, boxes, bums, secretaries
> and scaffolding.
> Jane and Clipper walk at we-just-robbed-a-bank speed, which caused current
> Yankees pitching star Joba
> Chamberlain<http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?playerId(847> to
> holler, "Hey! Slow down!"
> Soon Yankees fans figured out what was going on and joined in, along with
> nearly everybody in town. By the time they reached the train station, it
> looked as though Clipper was leading a marching band.
> They crammed aboard the train, whereupon ex-Yankees star Tino
> Martinez<http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?playerId#88>
> slumped
> into his seat. "I can't imagine doing this," he'd say. Girardi, who was
> sitting next to Jane, said, "She's amazing. We should've done this
> blindfolded to give us an even better idea of what it's like."
> Pah! You think this is hard? Wait 'til they'd see the next leg -- Penn
> Station and the streets of Manhattan.
>
> [cid:image002.jpg@01CB444A.F8236910]
>
> In Monument Park with Paul O'Neill, Lang touches the Mickey Mantle plaque.
>
> It's mind-melting to watch Jane and Clipper make their way down the
> clogged
> streets of Manhattan -- Clipper, taking cues from Jane, weaving her
> through
> a maze of street vendors, suits, iPhone zombies, boxes, bums, secretaries
> and scaffolding.
>
> "And we complain about a little traffic on the Deegan [Expressway],"
> Girardi
> mused, shaking his head.
> Usually, when Jane finally gets to the D train and takes her seat, she
> feels
> for eight pieces of candy in her right pocket. Every time the train stops,
> she transfers one piece into the opposite pocket. When there's one piece
> of
> candy left, she knows the next stop is Yankee Stadium. No need this time.
> The very people she was traveling to see were telling her it was time to
> get
> off.
> Once Jane and Clipper reached Gate 6 -- two-and-a-half hours from start to
> finish -- Girardi and the players took over. They introduced her to former
> Yankees star Paul
> O'Neill<http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?playerId77>, who
> let
> her feel his face. She touched it the way a sculptor would. They let her
> hold Babe Ruth's bat<http://espn.go.com/video/clip?idT74171>, Joe
> DiMaggio's
> hat, the 2000 World Series trophy. She felt the monuments. When she got to
> Mickey Mantle's face, she said, "He looks tired."
> You don't know the half of it, lady.
> They introduced her to Mariano
> Rivera<http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?playerId240> and
> Derek
> Jeter<http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?playerId246>, who let
> her feel his famous mug. And once, when there was finally nobody talking
> to
> her, she crouched down and felt the infield grass as though it were finely
> spun silk.
> Imagine. She had learned the game as a girl, when her father had set up a
> checkerboard like a baseball field and guided her hands over it. She's
> been
> in love with baseball ever since. Now she was getting a guided, one-woman
> tour of the very heart of it.
>
> [cid:image003.jpg@01CB444A.F8236910]
>
> In a rare moment alone, Lang bends down to touch the field at Yankee
> Stadium.
>
> "I'm the luckiest person in the world," she purred. "I always have known
> there were three different things I always wanted: a house with a roof
> that
> didn't leak, someone to love me and kids. And now I got this. It's the
> utmost frosting, you know what I mean? I'll never get sick of this
> frosting!"
>
> Tuesday was just one day of the Yankees' Hope Week, a genius idea dreamed
> up
> by their public relations extraordinaire, Jason Zillo, who seems to have
> an
> addiction to helping people in ways nobody has thought of before. The
> Yankees gave $10,000 in Jane's honor to The Seeing Eye Inc., a place in
> Morristown, N.J., that trains guide dogs.
> Still, the day was Jane's, and strong, young millionaires kept coming up
> to
> her, praising her guts, skills and moxie. To which Jane would only shrug
> and
> say, "This is just my way of being free and living in the world the way it
> is."
> And as she stood there relishing the moment, it made a person think that
> the
> world the way it is can be awfully sweet.
> Special reporting by George Lenker.
>
>
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