Canyon of Heroes: Ballplayers

These parades are really just so adoring fans can scream at their sports heroes one last time, shower them with praise and hoarse yells of "We love you Matsui!" and "Jeter! Jeter! Aaahhh! Jeter" (those have been ringing in my ears for a few days now).

I was hoping that the parade would be a few floats with the Yankees on them, slowly driving by, soaking in the adulation, and then we could all go on to lunch. Pretty strange to call it a parade even. But then, of course, I'd be wrong, and it was a "parade"...they had one car roll by--it had Yogi. Then they had one of the convertible tourist buses full of people I didn't recognize (the crowd would chant "Not Im-Portant!"), then a high-school marching band, then a float! With Yankees? Well, one or two...then a car, then a bus, then a marching band, then a media truck, then a float!

It seemed like there were thousands of feet between each group of paraders. It took quite a lot longer than I'd ever imagined. I knew the marching bands were high schoolers because a drunken student next to me would scream at every group, "We beat you in football! You guys suck in football!" Every single one. Then apparently his team's band came by, and he went crazy, yelling and screaming (and even cursing one of his own teachers who was leading the band), and I yelled as loud as I could, "You suck at football! Your football's garbage! You suck!" One of his friends thought that was funny, but the kid was too drunk to even notice that anybody had said anything.

But anyway, we all cheered and screamed for our players, and that's all that really mattered. I'm posting some pictures here, and I apologize about the quality...it was tough and crowded and my camera, while awesome, was having trouble with the light sources and the constant jostling, which renders some pictures blurry...I have lots of footage, but again, the files are too large to fit up here.

First, we have World Series MVP, Hideki Matsui.

Next we have (hard to see anyway) A-Rod, Francisco Cervelli, and hip-hop mogul Jay-Z.

Then we have two expensive imports, CC Sabathia and Mark Teixeria.

And of course, bringing up the rear, we have the Greatest Closer Ever, Big Mo, Marniano Rivera.

I had better film footage of Andy and Jeter and Jorge than I do of pictures.