After you moved off from a live mall to vent at the players in New York City Here's Matthew. Thank you I grew up as a huge fan of The New York Yankees was when I was very small involved going to games maybe once a year with my my father my little brother watching Reggie Jackson a little bit older watching. Dave Winfield and then when I kind of came into my teens Don Mattingly who was you know my absolute favorite player and as you know I went to high school in New York and it was kind of a turning point the 1st time that I went to myself and I started going you know he was by myself and I was in one of these games in the fall of 99 he won but I went. Up to the stadium bought a ticket to the bleachers and went and sat in the bleachers and was watching. The game and noticed for the 1st time something that I've been to the stadium so many times before but I've never seen this kid in right field wearing a uniform who was a bad boy playing catch with the right fielder and I never noticed the battle before and this kid cannot play catcher as his life he was throwing the ball over Jesse bar fields had the right fielder and he was one hopping him and I was like you know I I'm not a great athlete but I can play catch at least at least as well as pay can and I don't understand why the as you know that job and I couldn't tell us I went home that night and I tore a page out of the program that listed all the different you know Yankees actives and I wrote a handwritten letter to everyone from Steinbrenner on down to stop Merrill who was the manager at that point and basically said you know my name is Matt and I'm 16 years old and I'm a huge fan of the Yankees and you know I don't know if you can apply for this pathway position but if you can I really would like an application and I'm so excited to hear from you that if I don't hear from you soon I'm going to follow up with with a phone call so yes sent these off in about 2 weeks went by and after you know 2 weeks I hadn't heard anything and so I picked up the phone and the scripts Yankee switchboard number was on the same list of executives and Secretary Rice was on a lot of New York Yankees and I said Hi this is Matt Macof and I sent a letter in a couple weeks ago about applying for a bad boy position and nobody got back to me. So she was like Ok well take your name down and not somebody get back to you and she took took my number down and another week us by and I don't hear anything so I think up the phone again and I call in the woman answers the phone a little New York Yankee is and I say Hi this is Matt you know I. Sent some letters and about the bad boy position I called last week and somebody was supposed to call me back but you know I thought it was kind of rude that they had them. And so she you know she laughed and she asked me How old are you and I said 16 and she laughed some more and I don't really understand what she was laughing at but. You know she took down my name again she said you know I'll make sure that something gets back to you so you know a few days later sure enough in the mail a letter arrived on on Yankee letterhead official letterhead and invited me to come up to the stadium for an interview with Nick Priore who's the clubhouse manager so I put my jacket and tie on and I don't even think I told him my friends about this because it was way way too weird to explain so I went to took the 4 train up to the stadium and walked into the you know walk around the stadium this is October so they weren't playing in the World Series in October back in 91 so it was very very quiet and I walked around the same and walked into the lobby and there's a security guard there and I introduce myself and I Same here for the battle interview many picks up the telephone and he's like you know next some kids here see you and you know Ok so he's as you know have a seat so I sit down and in the pinstripe lobby and I'm you know passing about 10 minutes waiting for this guy next to come up for the 1st job interview of my life or the 1st job of my life and I'm you know trying to think of the questions that he might ask me as I'm ready to tell him what my favorite subnet is in school and. You know why I think the Yankees need a big back behind Mattingly you know to win the pennant next year and what you know Mickey Mantle's batting average was in 1956 and like all these different questions so you know I'm kind of passing the time and these double doors burst open and this guy walks in obviously Mack but he doesn't introduce himself he's you know could be anywhere from 40 to 80 years of age. He has this greased back hair and he's has a stove he between the 2 teeth left in his mouth and a chalk tobacco possibly also in this right Peter t. Shirt and Yankee shorts and white athletic socks pulled up to his knees in his shoe polish like black sneakers that are obviously shoe polish and he just looks at me and says Are your parents in a minute taking the train home late at night so I say you know I take the. Training school every day I think I think it'll be fine and just kind of looks at me and. Finally I said No I don't think my friends of mine are taking the train home late at night and he says will come back opening day so. I was October you know I go home I think I have to jog I'm not I'm not really sure you know 6 months later Opening Day 993. I show up at 9 am I put on my jacket and tie I walk back to the stadium I go back downstairs and you know through these tunnels and come to this you know big steel door that's a Yankee clubhouse on and I walk inside and it's complete pandemonium and you know there's. These ball players that I'd only seen before on t.v. Or across rows and rows of stadium seats and like there they are in the flesh in front of me and Don Mattingly is over you know on the right and I had a poster of Don Mattingly above my bed for my whole life and he's standing right over there and Jimmy Key the ace of the pitching staff is over there and and all these guys and you know opening day in the stadium is not just a sports event it's a news event the beginning of spring and in New York and Mayor Dinkins is there with his entourage and the Mayor Dinkins and I Mattingly you know it's so you know I'm walking around and just kind of lost and I figure you know I better go find find next so I walk up to Nick and I say Nick what do you you know what I'm mad we met a couple months ago what are you doing today is my for 1st day of work so this essay that asked out of my way so I kind of quiet. Strength back into my backpack over on the side and just kind of wander around in a daze and I feel a tap on my shoulder and I turn around this Don Mattingly and he sticks his hand out and he says has it going on Don Mattingly are you going to be working with us this year. Which you know even at that moment I never really thought about the experience in those terms and he could have said so many other things that wouldn't have been as cool as that he could have but you know are you who are you are you going to back lawyers going to be working for us this year but he said you know I'm down mad and we're going to be working with us this year so I said I know if you are Mr Mattingly I'm out of the baffle and he's like great to meet you Matt. I have a very big very big job to ask of you I just unpacked all my bats for from spring training and I don't know if it was the altitude of the flight from Florida or the humidity down there or why but the game starts in about 2 hours and I need you to find me a bad stretcher. So I say Ok so I go I go Friday. And I go you know naked This is baby probably half a dozen ballplayers are like Father am for double a batteries or you know my hat size is my hat's too small or this or that and I go up and I'm like make I need a bastard by manually and he lets loose with a stream of expletives that fell on I swear completely version ears like I've never never heard that type of language in the movies before or anywhere let alone directed at me so I kind of like rock back on my heels and go and find somebody I can trust like Nick's assistant Rob and I ask him you know I need a passion for Mattingly and Nick told me to go f. Myself and I don't know what to do so he was like chill out you know I thought Danny chartable is using one of his lockers so Danny chartable is the power hitting right fielder I go to his locker and I'm getting dressed in his uniform and I stand on the side and he says you know how they go and I find a man in the back oil and he did fast retrofit on matting when I heard you were just using one so he's like well I was using one but I left it in the manager's office you should probably go check and there. I sank things of the around and I go into the manager's office and walk in and Buck Showalter the manager is having a press conference with probably. 8 or 10 reporters and I stand off on the side and I'm kind of you know. The conversation comes to a standstill basically because there's a 16 year old kid there in his Easter blazer and jacket that. Standing in the manager's office the Yankee Stadium 2 hours before a 1st patient opening day looking very lost and very anxious and. Showalter turns to me and he's like can I help you and I say I'm man I'm going to Bath and really sorry to interrupt but I need a basher for Don Mattingly and Danny terrible says that he left it in here. Show Walter looks noun like beneath is that skinny you know he's like will you know how to do you need a right handed one or a left hand over and. So this is the 1st moment all day that I actually you know this is the 1st question that I had that I could answer with complete confidence because you couldn't have grown up in New York at that time you know without knowing that Mattingly was the best left handed hitter in baseball so I say right he left out about structure. So he's like Well I think we maybe have a right hand I want to run here but probably not a left handed corner and like you should try to move the Red Sox clubhouse and see if they have one of the so I said. Ok thanks sorry to interrupt it at this point I'm like sprinting down the hallways like the tunnels beneath the stands the 1st day stands at the stadium and I run into the Red Sox clubhouse and find their equipment manager and give him like the whole story man I'm a new back play for the Yankees and Danny's heritable left his right hand a basher and up and there's office a left handed one and like the game's about to start and he's like calm down you know we don't have one but we need on like here's 20 but let's. Go up to the sporting goods store on 161st rate of revenue and buy 2 Hi-Fi and I planted one for Matt only a right handed one for us and I'm bringing back the change. So he gives me this when I put it in my pocket I run up stairs you know at this point it's like an hour before opening day the fans are coming down like 50000 fans are coming down from you know the subway in the opposite direction that I'm walking I'm the only person in the world who knows that you know if I don't come through on this mission Mattingly is going to go up there again it's Roger Clemens in the Red Sox on ope. And a stadium with a toothpick in his hand a school bus so I'm like fighting against the crowd and feeling so much weight on my shoulders and I make my way you know and I'm about to cross the threshold of stand sporting goods when it dawns on me like I've played a lot of baseball in my life and I you know been a big fan for a while and like I don't even know what a bad structure looks like. And the smoke meant that I'm like walking into the store it dawns on me for the 1st 1st time like is. Is this is like Could this possibly or who could this possibly be a joke and if it you know but I had so much fear because like if it is a joke and I go back and I tell them not only you know I'm too smart to fall through your you know your b.s. Pass rusher story and I'm wrong I'm going to be back in the bleachers like before my 1st game you know and lose my dream job. You know I take 3 laps around the stadium kind of committing myself like it's got to be a like it's got to be it's got to be a joke and I you know I walk back to back and I go down the stairs I walk into the clubhouse Mattingly winks at me from across the clubhouse a couple of other ballplayers laugh. Mattingly goes 3 for 5 that day Yankees when it was my 1st day and Stripes and you know I didn't learn until later on that I was the 1st kid in anyone's memory to have gotten the job without having a connection without you know somebody knowing somebody or my dad knowing somebody or or whatever which was you know listening to less than itself and you know as intensely naive my pursuit of that job was you know I was probably as naively intense in chasing the bad structure but you know the lesson in the story is you know when there is you with a great deal of persistence and a little bit of common sense even if the thing you're chasing may not exist you can sometimes well into being thank you the American withdrawal isn't all through journalism television where. He's currently writing a true crime books Matthew wrote on N.B.C.'s Law and Order and the c.b.s. Television series clubhouse was based on his memoir that boy coming of age with the New York Yankees the Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media and Woods Hole Massachusetts and presented by p.r. Rex We hope you will support your public radio station right now by calling us 180-576-5727 or going to k. P.b.s. Dot au r g Hi I'm liable see in this is the December fund raising campaign it's the time of year that we explain how the station gets on the air it really is easy your contributions make this station exactly what it is listener contributions make it possible for us to bring stories like the ones you hear on the mosque and all we ask is that you pitch in with a contribution How about 10 dollars a month or 20 or $100.00 a month that amount is up to you we're asking you to make a one time contribution of $12240.00 or $1200.00 right now or just make a one time contribution of $12240.00 or $1200.00 right now just go to k. 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A great comes around I promise come an alibi rebuys talking about a hey you go on a promise I'm going to probably you know would you where you know you go will wanna where I'm going with what me I own wasn't planned on a I don't really want to go I thought I just skip it I thought I'd youth and up being a kid in a corner chicken in. The standin there. So . After being constantly bugged by friends and family other side you know what the heck might as well go this is what is going to be about so on graduation am prom was on the same day as graduates was only on in a day we sang Celine Dion I hated a. Song I don't home I get dressed done my Sue how my little for Dawn no stun and. I should mention that I 1st we had no idea how was going to get there and we knew no buses that ran by so we figured we were going to take a cab with my friend Shannon conscious says hey my mom got a truck you can swing by my mom will drop you off on my uncle so my mom was Ok with it they knew each other they decided we decide to go along with the plan so I'm going to my French an Intel says a block away from my house not far she lives next it is daycare I used to go through as a family tree died in there I've known him since birth like my 2nd family were all outside killing my mom say going to begin pictures you know how to get