By Ken Rosenthal

My favorite memory is the Jeffrey Maier game in the 1996 ALCS. I was a columnist for the Baltimore Sun at the time, but I grew up in New York. My father originally is from the Bronx, and when we would play one-on-one basketball or compete in something else, he would always invoke "Bronx Rules." Which is to say, no rules! So, after that game, I explained to the good people of Baltimore the concept of "Bronx Rules." And I wrote that the only way to fight them would be for the Orioles’ crowd to play by "Bronx Rules" when the ALCS returned to Baltimore. In short, I was trying to incite a riot, basically. But of course, nothing changed.

After coming home to Baltimore, I remember sitting at breakfast with my son Sammy, who was five years old at that time. I asked him if he had heard about what happened to the Orioles in New York, about the kid who interfered with the ball. He looked at me and said, "I hate that kid." And I thought, "Awright!"

Ken Rosenthal covers baseball for Fox.

By David Pinto

My fondest memories from Yankee Stadium both happened during a double header on July 2, 1978. Detroit was in town at a time when teams still scheduled twin bills on holidays. In game one, the Tigers shutout the Yankees for six innings, leading 2-0. Ron Guidry held a 12-0 record at that point, and it looked like his winning streak might end. In the bottom of the seventh, however, Gary Thomasson was on base with two out and Fred Stanley due up. We were sitting in the grandstand behind first base when suddenly a huge cheer went up from the third base stands. We wondered what happened, and then Mickey Rivers’s head popped out of the dugout. Mick the quick came off the disable list that day, having not played since June 16th. He walked gingerly (as he always did) to the plate, and ripped a line drive to right field. Mickey Stanley leaped but didn’t make the catch. While the ball was bounding away, Stanley went over to argue with the ump (I assume about fan interference). Rivers, with his blazing speed, circles the bases to tie the game! The crowd goes wild and the Yankees go on to win the game 3-2, extending Guidry’s win streak to 13.

In the night cap, Graig Nettles batted third, coming up with two men on in the third. Jim Slaton came in high and tight with a brushback throw, and Graig fell to the ground avoiding a hit by pitch.

My immediate thought was that Slaton made a huge mistake. I had seen Nettles knocked down before, and he tended to respond very constructively to brushbacks, getting a hit. Sure enough, Nettles launched a three-run homer for the first score of the game. That’s the way to deal with a knock down, and the Yankees went on to a 5-3 win and a sweep of the double header.

David Pinto blogs about baseball at BaseballMusings.com.

By Dave Kaplan

My warmest memory of Yankee Stadium is of a rainy and chilly day. This was April 9, 1999, the day Yogi Berra finally came home.

It was a day so many waited for and feared might never happen. For 14 years, Yogi, a man always at peace with himself, never buckled under constant pressures to return to the place where he’d become such a beloved legend. I learned a lot about Yogi in my new job as director of the Yogi Berra Museum & Learning Center. Mostly I learned that beyond his warm and fuzzy public image, he’s deeply principled and a man of honor.

And being dishonored by George Steinbrenner two weeks into the 1985 season, when he was fired as manager without the courtesy of a face-to-face meeting or personal phone call, rubbed him badly. Yogi’s subsequent self-imposed exile – he quietly vowed never to return as long as The Boss was in charge – was admired by legions. He was the Yankee who couldn’t be bought.

Fast forward 14 years when George flew up from Tampa in the dead of winter to our Museum in New Jersey. He came seeking forgiveness, in person, for one of “the worst mistakes I ever made.” Yogi graciously accepted his apology in a private meeting, and slyly hinted he would return to Yankee Stadium.

So he did on Opening Day. Yogi and his wife Carmen were encircled by TV crews and photographers right outside the Stadium entrance. I was nervously excited for him as he was ushered into the employee entrance. What was he feeling? Did he ever believe this day would come? Wearing an overcoat and blue blazer and a baseball tie, he ambled his way down the steps into the Stadium’s underbelly, through the twisting corridors to the Yankee clubhouse. As I walked alongside him, he almost seemed a little lost, not familiar with the surroundings. Later he admitted to a case of Opening Day nerves as if he’d never been away.

Yogi made his rounds in the clubhouse, warmly greeted by players who’d never met him. Old friends like Joe Torre, Don Zimmer and Mel Stottlemyre eagerly embraced this gnome of a man whose remarkable life and history were so intertwined with Yankee Stadium.

Finally, as the Yankees gathered in the dugout for the pregame ceremonies, which included the raising of the 1998 championship banner, there Yogi sat on the bench. Players walked by patting him on the leg for good luck. Then Bob Sheppard, in his inimitable style, created a hush in the crowd when he said, “Now let’s welcome back a special guest…”

He listed Yogi’s incredible accomplishments, including his record 10 world championships, and called him “a source of inspiration to his teammates … a man of conviction…Let’s welcome back,” said Sheppard, his voice rising, “Yogi Berra, No. 8.” The Stadium erupted with a deafening roar. I was allowed to watch from the corner of the dugout as Yogi walked to the mound in a driving rain where David Cone applauded with his glove. He shook Cone’s hand and tossed the first pitch to Joe Girardi, who rushed toward him with the ball, excitedly. “Thanks Yogi, this is a real thrill,” he said. Then as Yogi walked off, he gave a half-wave to the crowd which was still standing, cheering and chanting, “Yogi…Yogi…Yogi.” For the man famous for saying it ain’t over til it’s over, it was over. Yogi Berra was back in Yankee Stadium.

Dave Kaplan is the Director of the Yogi Berra Museum & Learning Center.

By Ed Randall

Though I grew up only three-and-a-half miles away, I was never a Yankee fan. Still, I anticipate a profound sadness that the stadium I grew up in is soon to exist never more.

Yet, I might have more of a connection, a predisposition, to the franchise than I ever care to admit. My father’s birthday was September 10th, the same as Roger Maris’; mine is October 20th, the same as Mickey Mantle’s.

The stadium cast a long and continuing shadow on my life.

I went to grammar and high school for 12 years in the same building at All Hallows just three blocks away and took the subway behind the center field fence. I threw snowballs from the platform near pedestrians below while waiting for the northbound train (in making that stark admission, I trust the statute of limitations has expired).

I saw my first game there and have very vague memories of being fascinated by the TV cameras in the outdoor photo box.

Perhaps another sign foreshadowing my career calling.

I recall standing near a ramp leading to the box seats as a child when a door swung open and there stood Johnny Blanchard in all his Yankee pinstriped splendor and his shiny black spikes that clicked when he took a step. It was breathtaking. Today, ironically, Johnny Blanchard, fellow prostate cancer survivor, sits on the Advisory Board of my charity, Ed Randall’s Bat for the Cure.

Back then, patrons in the lower level–which we could rarely afford–exited the park by walking on the field! Imagine slowly making your way along the warning track up the left field line, turning right past the visiting bullpen and auxiliary scoreboard and then, the best part, past the monuments. More than once did I walk out onto River Avenue through the Yankee bullpen where countless home runs came to rest and where everyone from Joe Page onward warmed up. Somehow, even then I knew the importance of what I was experiencing.

That ritual made me want to do one thing: genuflect.

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By Steve Lombardi

In terms of having a lasting memory of “this” Yankee Stadium, it’s difficult for me to single out one particular “in-person” game experience and say “That’s the one.” In truth, I’ve been very fortunate when it comes to being at the Stadium for some special games.

I have been there for many Opening Days. In fact, I’ve been to so many of those that I’ve lost count. If I had to guess, I would say that I’ve been to at least a dozen of them. This includes the one in 2003 where Hideki Matsui hit a grand slam against the Twins (in his first home game as a Yankee). That was one of the coldest days I ever spent at the Stadium.

I’ve also had the privilege to attend many post-season games at the Stadium. My first was Game Two of the 1977 ALCS – where Hal McRae tried to kill Willie Randolph on a take-out slide during a double-play attempt in the 6th inning. In addition to that one, I was there for Game One of the 1977 World Series, Game Two of the 1981 World Series, Game Six (Get ya’ tokens ready!) of the 2000 ALCS, and Game Five of the 2001 ALCS. All of those were good memories.

Of course, I was also there for some post-season clunkers as well. These include Game Two of the 1997 ALDS, Game One of the 2001 ALDS, Game Three of the 2001 ALCS, and (yikes!) Game Six of the 2004 ALCS.

However, the absolute best post-season experience was witnessing, in-person, Game Seven of the 2003 ALCS. I will never forget being there to see that incredible event. Still, it’s hard for me to say that the Boone-Homer game is my “lasting memory” of Yankee Stadium.

Why? Well, I’ll never forget being there for that game – for sure. But, I’ll also always remember being there on August 22, 1976 – when the Yankees scored 8 runs in the bottom of the 9th inning to tie a game where they were losing, 8-0. And, I’ll never forget being there during the second game of a double-header on September 9, 1981 when Dave LaRoche used “La Lob” to whiff Milwaukee’s Gorman Thomas. And, I’ll never forget being there on July 1, 2004 when Derek Jeter dove into the stands after catching a pop-up.

Heck, I’ll always remember being there for Sam Militello’s first game on August 9, 1992 – because my buddies took me there as part of my bachelor party and Militello pitched so well. And, there are several other “fun” times at Yankee Stadium that I will remember forever – in addition to that ALCS winner against the Red Sox in 2003.

This is why it’s impossible for me to pick “one game” – even a game as legendary as Game Seven of the 2003 ALCS – as my “lasting memory” of Yankee Stadium.

So, then, what is my “lasting memory” of this Yankee Stadium? Well, in the end, I believe that my lasting memory of “the Stadium” will be that “this one” was “my Stadium.”

I did see my first Yankees game on August 8, 1973 at the “old” Stadium. But, that was the only time I was at the “first” Stadium. And, I did see a handful of games at Shea Stadium – when the Yankees played there in 1974 and 1975 (including Billy Martin’s first game as Yankees manager). But, without question, I’ve seen the most of my “in person” Yankees games at this current Yankees Stadium. I have no idea how many, but, to be conservative, I would estimate that it’s been over 150 games (since 1976).

When I start to ponder my current age and life expectancy, the increasing family demands of my time, and the estimated prices for tickets to the “new” Yankee Stadium, I figure that there’s no way that I will ever attend as many games in the “new” Yankee Stadium as I have attended at this “current” Yankee Stadium.

Therefore, “this” Yankee Stadium – the one that opened in 1976 – will forever be “my” Yankee Stadium. And, that’s my lasting memory of “the Stadium.” For the rest of my life, I will always remember the “collective experience” of being at this Stadium.

Hey, if you’re going to have a lasting memory, why not make it a big one?

Steve Lombardi blogs about the Yankees at Was Watching.com

By Dayn Perry

I’m a to-the-grave Cardinals fan. I’m not a Yankees fan. Never was. I don’t dislike them–in fact, I appreciate what they’ve meant to the sprawling history of this game. Mostly, I’m indifferent to them as a team. What I am not indifferent to, however, is New York City and the Yankees’ indelible place in it.

I grew up in a small town in South Mississippi, which, other than the human elements native to all of us, had little in common with New York. When I was in second grade, however, I read a story about young girl named Frieda who lived in New York. The story told me about her walks to school, her rides on the subway, and her interactions with kinds and colors of people I’d never imagined. Frieda’s life seemed impossibly different from mine, and this place she called home, well, I needed to know more about.

When I got home from school that day, I dragged down the “N” volume of our World Book Encyclopedias and looked up Frieda’s home town. The foldout map of New York was like nothing I’d ever seen before. It was sinewed with roads, train lines, expressways, side streets, and all the rest. It was just a map, but you could almost sense the clots of humanity that made the map a real place. And the names in and around New York were just as fascinating–fascinating in their hard sounds and the hard places they evoked. Hoboken. Brooklyn. Bayonne. Canarsie. Nyack. Red Hook. Hell’s Kitchen. Pelham Bay Park. Bensonhurst. Scarsdale. And my favorite name of all: The Bronx. It was the toughest, most perfect word I’d ever heard. It sounded like a punch in the gut. It grabbed you by the collars. Bronx. And what kind of place had “the” in front of it? Whatever it was, there could only be one. After all, it was “A Bronx.”

I don’t remember how old I was when I found out that the Yankees toiled in the Bronx–that place with the unforgettable name–but I do remember that my estimation of them increased dramatically. I was 19 years old when I finally made it to New York City, and I greeted it with wide, mystified eyes. I was 30 when I finally made it to Yankee Stadium (via the 4 Train, of course), and I’ve never paid less attention to a baseball game in all my life. I was too busy taking in the architecture, the perfect weather, the cold beer, and, from my seats in the distant reaches of the upper deck, the view of that perfect word: Bronx.

In the years between the time I first read about Frieda’s New York and first set foot in Yankee Stadium, my fascination with the American urban experience consumed me. As it was for so many people drawn to the stew of the city, New York was it. It was everything, including those guttural names on the map. I’ll always remember Yankee Stadium for bringing together two of my abiding passions, baseball and the city of cities, like no other venue–no other thing–could have. It’s an urban game to me, baseball, despite its apocryphal origins in the countryside. It’s always been about cities and energy and crowds and fathers and sons and those without fathers and without sons. Hell, the ballpark, in some regards is itself a city–people thrown together, haphazardly and at times uncomfortably, to feel and live. Some arrive late; some leave early; and some stay for the full nine innings, never thinking of going anywhere else.

On that day in Yankee Stadium, I didn’t pay much heed to what was a damned fine game. But I stayed all nine innings, and I never thought of going anywhere else.

Dayn Perry writes about baseball for Fox.

There are three weeks of baseball left in the regular season. The Yankees start the day in fourth place and we are left hoping for small victories–Mussina winning twenty, Abreu and Rodriguez reaching 100 RBI, Rivera keeping his ERA under 1.50. Since the Yanks are all but out of it there will be plenty of time to get sentimental about the final days of Yankee Stadium.

In the spirit of saying a proper goodbye, I’ve asked a group of writers and baseball enthusiasts for their take on a lasting Stadium memory. Most entries are short, just a few hundred words, but I’ve left the length up to their discretion.

I’ll be posting one guest post per day for the rest of the season. But I’d also love to hear from you guys as well. So if you’ve got a favorite memory, a funny scene or incident from the old place, please send it to me at alexbelth@aol.com (Don’t leave just leave your thoughts in the comments section, cause I’d like to cut-and-paste a group of them in a series of posts, The Banterites Remember Yankee Stadium, or something to that effect.)

Thanks and enjoy.

Lasting Stadium Memory #1

By Anthony McCarron

It’s strange, but most everything else about that night is a blur, dissolved into a torrent of deadline writing, scrambling around the clubhouse for quotes and later, in the Stadium press box, for the words to detail the looming Subway Series – this time, for real – that was coming between the Yankees and Mets.

All that furious effort, I don’t remember any of it, not even hitting the computer button that would send my final story to the editors and signal the end of my workday. That the Yankees rallied from a 4-0 deficit, that the Mariners scored three times in the eighth to make it close again and October pariah Alex Rodriguez was incredible for Seattle with four hits, including a homer and two doubles? Forgotten until I looked at the boxscore recently.

But what I’ll never forget is what happened after David Justice’s Game 6 home run in the seventh inning of the 2000 ALCS against Seattle, the shot that essentially put the Yankees in the World Series yet again.

My God, the press box of the old place was shaking. Swaying. There were 56,598 souls in the stands that night, Oct. 17, 2000, and all of them must have been stomping as Justice rounded the bases, as they begged him to come out of the dugout for a curtain call.

Frankly, it was unsettling and for more than just a single moment. I stopped re-working my running game story – the one that has to be to editors as quickly as possible once the outcome is decided – and put my hand next to the computer sitting in front of me to feel the vibrations. Yikes.

I was in my first season on the beat. I had worked the 1999 World Series and knew that the Stadium could get raucous, but this was something else, scary and amazing at the same time.

Afterward, Justice, an affable fellow who mostly enjoyed dealing with the press, talked about the indescribable – what it’s like to hit a huge home run in an important spot with the baseball world watching. “I wish y’all could feel it,” he said.

We can’t, of course. For a moment, I had my own feeling in its wake, though, just as memorable for me.

I have been at most of the epic events at the Stadium of the last 10 years or so, from dirty chapters of the Yankee-Red Sox saga to late-night, story-busting home runs in the 2001 World Series. But no memory has endured the same way. It is still the first thing I think of when people ask about working so often at Yankee Stadium.

Anthony McCarron is a reporter for the New York Daily News.

Perfect grace consists not in exterior ornamentation of the substance, but in the simple fitness of its form.

—I Ching

All forms of great artistic expression are paradoxes at their core. Each work of art must have some sort of underlying unifying principle. To succeed, the elements of that artwork have to both connect with that underlying principle in order for the work to cohere, and at the same defy that principle in order for the work to surprise and delight. Jazz songs, for example, typically start off with a basic melody played straight, off of which the musicians will then improvise for the remainder of the song.

When I visit a new ballpark, I love to start out by finding a place where I can stand and absorb a panorama of the ballpark. What’s this park about? What’s the melody that holds this thing together? Often, this isn’t something you intellectualize–you just get an overall feeling of the place. Once, I’ve got that sense, I like to go around and photograph all the little elements of the park that surprise and delight me.

Last Sunday, I made my first and only lifetime visit to Yankee Stadium. My usual modus operandi was thrown off from the start, as I was informed by Cliff Corcoran that if I want to see Monument Park, I should go straight there as soon as the gates open, or I won’t get in to see it at all. So my first impression of Yankee Stadium was not a panorama, but a crowded throng of humanity being led by ushers with bullhorns up and down and around and through narrow, low-ceiling ramps and barricaded corridors in a 95-degree heat:

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Real Life

When Reggie Jackson left New York, Ray Negron’s glory days came to an end. Now, he had to adjust to a more mundane reality, and a greater challenge—how to advocate for himself. Negron had defined himself by what he could provide to other, more famous men.

"Growing up is hard," says Negron. "In baseball, you are a kid forever. When I left the Yankees, I didn’t have the players to protect me anymore." Negron married his longtime girlfriend Barbara Wood in 1981; they got an apartment in Far Rockaway, had a son four years later, and were divorced before the end of the decade. "It was hard to give my heart and soul to a situation when I didn’t really want to be there," he says.

While he was with the Yankees, Negron gradually lost touch with his half-brothers who were caught up in the street life, junkies while they were still teenagers. "It wasn’t until the eighties that we got back together again," says Negron. "To them, I was wealthy. When they reached out it would be out of desperation or need. Then my brothers started having kids all over the place, and I couldn’t handle it, I couldn’t handle it." Negron is shy when talking about them because he doesn’t want to embarrass them. "They think that I think that I’m bigger than them. I mean, it becomes very tough because they are still your blood, you understand?"

Negron’s two cousins who had been with him the day he first met Steinbrenner, Edwin and Christopher Perez, died within a year of each other during the mid-eighties; Edwin, in what Negron calls "a gang-related incident," and Christopher, from AIDS, which he got through a dirty syringe. Negron was with Christopher the night Edwin was murdered in Brooklyn. They drove to the Perez home in Brooklyn and were greeted outside of the house by Christopher’s father, and a group of cousins and neighborhood friends.

"My uncle had a cardboard box in his arms filled with guns. He said, ‘Take one, let’s go.’ That wasn’t my style, so I stayed at the house with my aunt. ‘She’s going to need somebody to be with her,’ I said. I wasn’t going to get caught up in that. That wasn’t me. I loved Billy the Kid," he says remembering Martin, "but I wasn’t that Billy the Kid."

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Prince of the City

 

Ray Negron was only supposed to work a couple of games to re-pay his debt, but then one of the regular bat boys got sick, and in no time, Negron had himself a steady job. He moved on the field with the languid movements of a professional, his uniform fitting tightly, his stirrups pulled up just so. At 145 lbs, Negron was too skinny to be confused with a big leaguer though the players occasionally tried to pass him off as one of them when he was on the road with them, to get him laid. "You said it, not me," Negron squeals with delight, remembering today.

When the Yankees took batting practice, Negron was busy with the daily clubhouse chores, but he would sneak in a couple of swings in the batting cage or hang around at shortstop and take ground balls while the visiting team came to hit. One day, the Texas Rangers were in town and Negron was playing short against live bp when he made a couple of good fielding plays. Billy Martin, the Rangers manager, a man rarely without a fungo bat in his hand, was standing on the third base side of home plate. He turned his attention to the boy, motioned with his hand and then tossed a ball up and cracked a hard groundball at him.

"Billy noticed that I could play," Negron recalls. "Later, he introduced me to two of his middle infielders, Lenny Randle and Davey Nelson. Every time Texas came to town, I would ball boy down the right field line so I could hang with them. They taught me and to this day, I can honestly say that I’m still friends with both of them."

"I was impressed by his etiquette and his manners," recalls Lenny Randle today. "A lot of kids are annoying at that age, they just want stuff from you. But Ray wasn’t pushy, he was honest and had an innocence and genuine enthusiasm about him. He was the kind of little brother you wanted to have. Hey, when he was a teenager he was booking us to speak at the Y, at local Little Leagues for a couple of hundred bucks here and there. He had moxie."

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A Four-Part Bronx Banter Exclusive

[Author’s Note: This story was written last summer. It covers Ray Negron’s life from the spring of 2006 through the spring of ’07. Some of the basic facts stated in the piece have changed: Joe Torre is no longer the manager of the Yankees; Hank and Hal Steinbrenner have taken control of the team; Negron has just completed his seventh children’s book for Harper Collins. But, despite these events, the essence of Ray’s story remains true. I hope you enjoy.]

Part One

“Let me show you the Boss’s suite,” says Ray Negron. It is a cool evening in early May, 2006, and Negron’s boss, George Steinbrenner, the principal owner of the New York Yankees, is out of town. Several hours before game time, Negron, 51, is walking down the outer corridor of the loge section at Yankee Stadium, his head cocked like an upper classman with the run of the school. He exudes an insouciant confidence, the kind of man who is used to keeping his cool in hot situations. Negron has short black hair and skin the color of café au lait. His large, liquid brown eyes and long eyelashes are almost feminine; his cheeks sag–the sign of a thin man growing older—and lend a sense of gravity to an otherwise boyish countenance. As usual, Negron looks crisp. He is wearing a gray, patterned suit and slim brown shoes. On his right ring finger is a massive gold World Series ring from the 1996 Yankees.

“I can’t wait for the new Stadium,” Negron says. “Maybe I’ll get an office.”

“The ubiquitous Ray Negron,” a veteran New York sportswriter calls him. Negron is a gypsy, constantly on the move, from the executive suites through the press box down to the locker room. He does not even have his own desk; instead, he totes everything he needs in a leather-bound book with a Spaulding logo embossed on the cover: Negron serves as a director of community relations for the sporting goods company, one of his many jobs. The book is filled with notes scribbled in different colored inks–reminders, phone numbers and addresses.

Negron knows everybody and stops to say hello to security guards and executives, retired sportswriters, scouts, and current players. Negron works for the Yankees as a special advisor to Steinbrenner and is primarily employed as an all-purpose utility man. He represents the club at the Kip’s Bay Boys and Girls club, the Hackensack University Medical Center, and grass roots community centers in the Bronx. Like a greeter in a casino, he escorts business men and their children through the corridors of the Stadium, giving his own private tour, and he schmoozes with celebrity visitors, like Patti Labelle, Regis Philbin and Richard Gere, making sure they are comfortable in their seats. Negron, of Puerto Rican and Cuban ancestry, is an avuncular figure to the team’s young Latin players like Robinson Cano and Melky Cabrera. This summer, Negron will enlist the two, along with other Yankee players, to visit classrooms, hospitals and boys and girls clubs around the tristate area, as he promotes his first children’s book, The Boy of Steel, a story about a young boy with cancer who becomes bat boy for the Yankees for a day.

Few people know Yankee Stadium as well as Negron and few people have been around Steinbrenner’s Yankees longer. And it all happened by chance. In 1973, Steinbrenner’s first year as team owner, the Boss caught Negron, a skinny kid with an afro, spray painting an “NY” logo on the outside of Yankee Stadium. But instead of handing him over to the police, Steinbrenner made Negron a bat boy, issuing the kind of punishment that is the stuff of a boy’s wildest fantasies. So began a career in baseball that has lasted more than thirty years. Negron has done everything from shine the players’ shoes and collect their dirty jockstraps, to bring them food from their favorite restaurants and park their cars. He has been an agent, an actor, an advisor, and a liaison; a confidant, a sounding board and a whipping boy to some of the biggest egos in the game. He is whatever he needs to be.

Negron has founded a career off his serendipitous meeting with Steinbrenner and everything that has happened next—from Billy and Reggie to Doc and Darryl. “The Boss essentially saved my life and I’ll never forget that,” says Negron, touching my arm. He likes physical contact, and occasionally touches his listener in a jocular, reassuring way to make sure you’re listening. He speaks in a measured, cautious manner, his raspy voice tinged with an unmistakable Brooklyn accent. Ray speaks so often in public that in private his conversation sometimes feels rehearsed, like he’s an actor repeating the same lines over and over in a play. Yet he is so sincere that it feels as if he’s telling you something for the first time, even if it’s a variation of something he’s said countless times before.

Negron pauses and then adds, “Not saved, really, he gave me a life.”

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