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The subway platform was jammed shoulder-to-shoulder. Kids with backpacks on their way home from after-school activities, waiters on their way to dinner shifts, and all sorts of working types shuffled on and off the trains. In front of me stood three men in Yankee caps, each wearing a jersey or a navy-blue shirt with the NY logo.

“I’ve been waiting for over a year to break out this Jeter jersey,” said one of the men, sliding his jacket sleeves down his shoulders to show off the number two on his back. “I shouldn’t even be wearing it. It’s a collector’s item. Shouldn’t be wearing this coat either. You see this tag?” He held up the tag. “Cooperstown Collection. Shouldn’t even be wearing it. It’s a collectible.”

“World Series, baby,” responded one of his friends.

All three men were in their forties, gray hairs in their goatees, thinning hairlines shaved bald. We’d boarded the Six train and were headed uptown from 14th Street.
“Break out the good stuff for the World Series,” repeated the man in the Jeter jersey. “Collector’s item. Shouldn’t even be wearing it.”

Our train came to a stop at 42nd Street. A few Phillies fans, all in red t-shirts, shuffled in among the growing crowd of Yankee’s jerseys.

“Philadelphia fags. City of brotherly love bullshit…” one of the three men laughed. Then he turned to his friend without a coat. “You gonna be warm enough in just that jersey?”

“I’ll be warm as soon as Jeter gets his first hit.” They all laughed. “Perfectly warm then, huh.”

“They win tonight, I’m calling in sick tomorrow.”

“You got it all set-up, huh?”

“What’s to set-up? I just miss my route for one day. They can handle it.”

“He ain’t gonna know?”

“Who? My boss? Of course he knows. Yanks win the World Series, everyone knows I ain’t gonna be in any shape to go to work the next day. Everyone knows I’m going to the game.”

Tonight was game six of the World Series and in a few minutes we’d be at the 161st St subway station, Yankee Stadium. Progressing through Manhattan, the after-school and after-work crowds deboarded, replaced by more and more Yankee fans as we approached the Bronx.

By the time we reached 161st Street, the train was packed, the masses outside directed by traffic cops. We moved like a herd on slow stampede, inching down the staircases and out into the plaza outside new Yankee Stadium. Venders filled the streets: t-shirts, programs, stickers, buttons, noise makers, shirts that said “Philly Sucks,” shirts that said “Yanks in six!”, shirts for seemingly every player on the Yankee roster. There were peanut vendors and clowns offering face paintings, a guy selling baseball cards, another guy selling pennants.

I’d come just to see the fanfare. I had no tickets and would watch the final game in my apartment. The World Series was something I just didn’t want to miss. The World Series meant baseball and it meant a championship race and it meant it was almost my birthday – in this case my 27th.

The Yankees won game six, winning the World Series that night. And indeed, like clockwork, five days later I turned 27. For the occasion my mother’s uncle Fred, treated me to dinner.

Fred, a retired shipping industry executive in his mid-seventies, was in town from San Francisco. He had done well for himself, had cut his own way in life, had made a career of building and running large businesses. Fred has an energy about him, a confidence that doesn’t waver. He had remarried at seventy and relocated to the west coast. Since then he’s been traveling around the world. Fred isn’t the type to let life pass him by. He’s been more than supportive of my life and career, even giving me a dose of criticism here and there but never losing any faith in me, not that I was asking for anyone’s opinion.

“You’re on the right track,” he told me, or at least that’s what I heard from him. “I know what kind of work you’ve put into this, how much you care about it and how you’re willing to suffer for your work.”

Fred knew I hadn’t gotten into this lifestyle to appease anyone. He knew I wasn’t looking to follow anyone’s orders either. But he gave me some advise anyway.

“Get someone to handle your marketing and your management needs,” he told me. “You’re getting to a point where you need to guard your time, do the parts you enjoy, do what you’re good at and get an expert to handle all the non-artistic stuff. You’ll need to get the right person and you’ll need to get someone who believes in you.”

Nothing Fred was saying was new to me, but hearing it from him reinforced the ideas that had been running through my mind.

Fred continued, “You’ve got what it takes to make it in this and I’m sure you know that. It won’t be easy for you and you’re gonna stumble here and there and that’s okay. Not everything you do is gonna turn out exactly how you hope, but if you make the right decisions, you can make it to the top of your field.”

Fred’s words echoed through my mind long after our meal was over. I wasn’t naïve enough to let anyone blow sunshine at me but I knew he wasn’t deluding himself. It felt good to have someone I respect sit me down and tell me he believed in me. I’d spent nearly four faith-fueled years laying the foundations of my career as a writer, a performer, and a traveler. Now I was ready to start building a life and a profession atop those foundations.

A soft autumn breeze blew chilly on my ears. It was early November in New York. The Yankees had just won their championship and I was setting course to win mine.