The New York Yankees again made history Wednesday night in the opening game of the World Series. I'm not talking about their brand new billion dollars plus stadium or their continuing record of appearances. The Yankees making news in baseball's post season play is not that surprising and certainly, nothing a non-fan such as me would usually blog about. The game didn't mean that much to me, the Yankees lost, I liked that part, but it is just the first game of a best of seven series and by time the final game's over most of us won't remember much about it.
Let me introduce to you to someone who will never forget game one of the one hundred and fifth World Series. Her name is Suzyn Waldman and she is the first woman ever to announce a World Series game. This was not a fluke or a publicity stunt; she has been calling games with her partner John Sterling on the Yankee owned radio station since 2005.
I don't know Ms. Waldman and I've never heard her call a game so I can't tell you if I think she's good or bad at her job. I have heard of some of her histrionics such as crying as she called the last game Joe Torre managed for the Yankees, I guess she never heard of the 'there's no crying in baseball' rule. I understand she also became a little too excited about Roger Clemmons return to the Yankees in 2007. To me, all this proves is that she is a fan of the game and of her team and how can that be bad.
The real reason I'm writing this is to congratulate Ms. Waldman but not just for her history-making job but also for her great timing. I know she must be a fighter to land a job in a male dominated market with the best organization in baseball. I know she is a fighter because Suzyn Waldman is not only a historical sports announcer she is also a breast cancer survivor, and as you surly must know by now October is 'Breast Cancer Awareness' month. So in a month full of pink, pink bats, pink shoes, pink sweat bans and god knows pink what else, we finally have something important to make us aware of this terrible disease.
In today's world, it seems that all of us have someone close, who is fighting breast cancer. We need women like Suzyn Waldman to show us you can survive and go on to lead productive lives. I tip my hat to Suzyn Waldman and as I'm a Yankee hater, I hope she doesn't get to announce too many more Yankee World Series games but I do hope she is able to call many more regular season games, oh and one more thing, "Go Phillies"
