THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, November 6, 1996 TAG: 9611050430
SECTION: MILITARY NEWS PAGE: A24 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: At Sea
SOURCE: BY CHRIS MCLAUD
LENGTH: 61 lines
What timing - I'm half a world away in the Persian Gulf, and the Yankees are in the World Series.
I was 11 years old when I made my first trip to Yankee Stadium with my family, and to this day, I can remember the feeling that rushed through me as I stood in the midst of its traditions and the memory of 23 world championships.
I've lost count of how many times I've been to the stadium since. And if I couldn't make the games, I'd always schedule my engagements around the team's appearances on TV.
Then came our deployment. And the Series. And no way to get to the stadium. And no television.
As it turned out, all was not lost. The ship's operations department sailors were able to tune one of their antennas to live radio broadcasts of the game over an international marine satellite and pipe it throughout the ship.
I listened to the games with two other die-hard Yankee fans, Mark Blask and Joe Blasetti. The games began here at 3 a.m. because of the eight-hour time difference between the gulf and the East Coast, meaning that we had to sacrifice five hours of sleep for each game. But that didn't hinder our work: We were running on ``Yankee adrenalin.''
On game day Mark, who lives in nearby berthing, woke me up at 2:30 a.m. I changed into my good-luck New York Yankees T-shirt and boxers, threw on some athletic gear and headed to the office, stopping by Joe's berthing on the way to wake him up.
The day before, I'd had an article published in the ship's newspaper predicting the Yankees would beat the Braves in six games. Unfortunately, there are not many places to hide on a ship of 5,500 sailors when you go out on a limb. After the Yankees were pummeled 12-1, it seemed like every Braves fan on the ship was going through his or her phone book, looking for my number. Tomahawk cheers filled my ear whenever I picked up the phone.
For Game 2, we followed the same routine, with the same result: The Yanks were shut out, 4-0.
As dawn rolled into morning, we pondered in great distress the Yankees' 0-2 Series record. Mark noted that during both games we had switched the TV to another station for a while. We concluded that we'd hexed the Yankees, and that we mustn't do that again.
Braves fans again gave me the business - on the phone, in the passageways, in the chow line, in berthing. Before Game 3, like all the games, we Yanks fans huddled on the strategies we felt the Yankees needed to use to win.
We did our part. We wore our clothes inside-out, the closest we could come to wearing rally caps.
It worked. The Yankees won Game 3. I got a few calls from Braves fans, but their tone had changed. ``Well, I knew they were going to win at least one,'' went the typical comment.
We never changed the TV for the rest of the Series. We kept our clothes inside-out. My Yankees won the world championship in six games.
And you know, I found I enjoyed listening to the games on the radio. At times, it was easy to forget we were off the coast of Bahrain. I felt almost as if I were sitting on the first-base line. MEMO: Petty Officer 3rd Class Chris McLaud is a yeoman in the weapons
department of the carrier Enterprise. by CNB