WILL GIVE 70 POINTS A Crystal-Clear Love Affair

from Memories of Yankee Stadium by Scott Pitoniak

1 May 30, 1956, remains indelibly etched in Billy Crystal’s mind.

2 That was the day the future actor, comedian, and director attended his first game at Yankee Stadium, and Mickey Mantle wound up making quite an impression on the eight-year-old boy and the copper facade hanging from the right-field roof.

3 During that afternoon contest between the Yankees and Washington Senators, Crystal and thousands of others watched in awe as the blond Bronx Bomber launched a moon shot that barely missed becoming the first fair ball hit completely out of the stadium. Mantle’s blast on a 2–2 fastball from Senators pitcher Pedro Ramos ricocheted off the decorative facade, just 18 inches from the top of the roof.

4 After the game, Ramos joked to reporters: “If it had not hit the roof, it would have landed in Brooklyn.”

5 The Mick’s lng home run capped an extraordinary day for young Billy—a day that would change his life forever.

6 His father was a concert promoter who managed the old Commodore Music Shop on 42nd Street in Manhattan. Legendary jazz artist Louis Armstrong had given the elder Crystal his box seats for a Yankees game that late May day, and the father had planned on taking Billy’s older brother. But when his big brother hurt his back, the ticket went to Billy. His dad arranged for Yankees trainer Gus Mauch to take Billy down to the home-team clubhouse before the game.

7 “You can imagine how exciting that was for a little kid,” Crystal told the New York Times in a 1998 interview. “Gus came out and talked to us and then took my program inside and brought it out with all the signatures on it. [Yankees manager] Casey Stengel came out in the hall, and I remember saying, ‘Who’s pitching today, Casey?’ and he looked at me and said, ‘You are, kid, suit up.’ How could you not be a Yankees fan after that?”

8 Mantle became his idol and the stadium the center of his young universe.

9 Crystal would make the 90-minute trek on the Long Island Railroad to the famed ballpark about 25 times a season after that memorable day. And he and the neighborhood kids in the New York suburb of Long Beach would play baseball in the summers from sunrise to sunset.

10 Crystal blossomed into an outstanding second baseman and earned a baseball scholarship to Marshall University in West Virginia. But his baseball playing days ended when the school dropped the program his freshman year.

11 He wound up returning to the metropolitan area and eventually studied film and television at New York University, where one of his professors was Academy Award–winning director Martin Scorsese.

12 After working for several years as a stand-up comic, Crystal left Long Island for Hollywood in 1976 and, a year later, got his big break when he landed the role of the gay character Jodie Dallas on the ABC sitcom Soap. He later became a regular on Saturday Night Live, where his “you look mahvellous” impression of Fernando Lamas became a huge hit with viewers. His career peaked in the late 1980s and early ’90s when his roles in blockbuster movies such as When Harry Met Sally . . . and City Slickers established him as a major star. His celebrity status only grew when he became a frequent host of the Academy Awards show.

13 Along the way, Crystal developed a friendship with Mantle, his childhood idol. The Mick said on several occasions if anyone ever did produce a movie about him, he’d want it to be Crystal. And in 2001, six years after the Hall of Fame baseball player died, Crystal debuted the film 61*, which took a behindthe-scenes look at Mantle and Roger Maris’s pursuit of Babe Ruth’s home-run record during the historic 1961 season.

14 Nearly a half-century after his first trip there, Yankee Stadium remains one of the most special places in Crystal’s world. Though he lives on the West Coast, he has returned often to the ballpark to watch games and take part in special ceremonies.

15 The stadium he first saw in 1956 underwent massive changes during the renovations of the mid-1970s, but it still remains a magical place.

16 “I still feel the same way I did when I was a little boy,” he said. “The joy it gave me when I was playing with my friends, pretending to be a Yankee, or pretending with my brother that we were broadcasting the games.

17 “I just think of my father. Every time I’m [there], I think of my father. I think of the way he got us to love it without saying, ‘Love this.’
The author’s purpose for writing this selection is to —
A) explain the effect Yankee Stadium had on Billy Crystal
B) recognize Billy Crystal’s achievements as an actor
C) recognize Billy Crystal’s achievements as an actor
D) promote the public’s increased interest in baseball