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By Vincent Landolfi Jr.
I took my son Jason to his first Yankee game when he was 11 years old. We went with my cousin, Gerard, and my “stepbrother,” Mike Colucci, Sr., (formerly of Mike’s Ortley Deli). It was opening day, and we bought tickets for some games the rest of that season, because there was no Internet or Ticketmaster, and that’s how you did it in those days.
Last Friday on the eve of Old Timers Day, Jason returned the favor and took my 5-year-old grandson, Shane, to his first Yankee game, along with his wife Meaghan, and my 3-year-old granddaughter, Emily. Jason’s being a Yankee fan may not have been the predominant factor in Meaghan’s accepting his marriage proposal, but it didn’t hurt.
I didn’t have that same experience growing up. The man who did the honor of taking me to my first Yankee game was Mr. Ramella. Back in the ‘70s, Louie Ramella and his family vacationed at their family’s summer home in Ortley Beach, where I grew up with my brothers and sister. I got to know the Ramellas, at first, because I dated their daughter Mary Lou.
Mary Lou Ramella was an effervescent soul, who, even at 16, had a bubbly personality, a neon smile and a congenial compassion for her family and friends. Oh yeah, she was also drop-dead gorgeous. She was my first “real” girlfriend during the short time that adolescent romances lasted in those days. I got to know her brothers, Johnny and Danny, who were a few years younger and became and remained friends with my younger brother, Flip.
A few years later, as the summer was winding down in August, Flip was invited to go along with the boys and their father to a Yankee game at The Stadium. In what turned out to be fortuitous circumstances for me, they ended up with an extra ticket and I was invited to go along.
I will never forget the sight when we came through the walkway and out into the stands of the green grass spread out below like a sparkling emerald fan. We were so high up that you saw the ball fly off the bat before you actually heard the crack, and it felt as though you could reach out and grab it.
As luck would have it, it was Old Timers Day that afternoon at Yankee Stadium. Many former Yankee greats came back to play in an exhibition game which gave the fans a thrill and themselves a chance to be on the field one more time at least. What it did for me was to allow a lifetime of rooting for the Yanks through the sports pages of The Star-Ledger and on black-and-white Channel 11 to come alive in person and in true living color.
Babe Ruth’s daughter was honored before the game and took part in the first pitch ceremony. The M&M boys, Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris, were there, alive and well. Phil “Scooter” Rizzuto gave the crowd a few “Holy Cows” and Joe DiMaggio, the Yankee Clipper himself, hit a bullet off the wall in left-centerfield for an RBI double.
I didn’t know then that I would go on to coach Little League and high school baseball (and football)(including many teams on which my son would play). But looking back, I can put my finger on those specific instances and people who were directly responsible for molding my interests and desires, and the path that my life would take. Like the time we piled into their station wagon and went to Old Timers Day with the Ramellas.
