Paul Bass Photo
Patrick Barnes (left) and Lance Ligon on the Edgewood "Island" with BamBam and Monkey.
The morning after, Patrick Barnes had the fingernails to prove he had stuck with his New York Yankees until the bitter end of a once-promising season.
Or the absence of fingernail, to be more precise.
“I cried: The Yankees lost. My fingernails are gone; I was biting my nails during the game last night,” Barnes said as he walked his German Shepherd BamBam Monday morning on the Edgewood Avenue “Island” (the grassy median) near the intersection of the Boulevard.
Patrick with BamBam.
Barnes, a 56-year-old retired Yale Medical School custodian, offered his thoughts Monday morning during a conversation on the “Word on the Street” segment of WNHH FM’s “LoveBabz LoveTalk” program, reflecting on the Houston Astros’ Sunday night victory capping a four-game sweep of the Bronx Bombers in the American League championship series.
His friend and fellow dog-walking retiree, Lance Ligon, had watched the game too, but without feeling all that stress. Ligon roots for the Red Sox, not the Yankees. And he expected the outcome.
“I already told him they weren’t going to make it. I kept telling everybody: You have to get past Houston! Nobody wanted to believe me,” Ligon said as he took his terrier Monkey (named after Curious George) on his morning exercise-and-business rounds on the Island.
Ligon, who is 73, knows his baseball: He recently retired from 54 years of coaching youth teams. He’s also a former South Carolina state trooper and disabled Army vet who served in Vietnam.
He reflected on the lessons he learned as a coach: “You have to treat people as you want to be treated. Young people can tell one thing: If you’re phony, or if you’re for real. In my 52nd year, I got an award for coaching. There were some kids who came out. A whole bunch of people showed up. One of the kids said, ‘He wasn’t our coach. He was our father.’ I never will forget that.”
Ligon has a prediction for the upcoming Astros-Phillies World Series: “It’s going to be tight. Houston’s got good pitching. Their pitching is outstanding. Phillies have got some hitting. It will go six, or even the full, seven games.”
He plans to watch them all, he said. “I love baseball.”
Barnes, meanwhile, will pivot his rooting to the gridiron. Although he doesn’t have high hopes for his team, the Washington Commanders aka former Redskins. “They’re OK,” he said with a shrug. “I’m loyal. I grew up with those guys.”
Click on the video to watch the full conversation with Patrick Barnes and Coach Lance Ligon on the “Word on the Street” segment of WNHH’s “LoveBabz LoveTalk” program, including discussion of road rage and crashes on Edgewood and the impact of new bike lanes. Click here to subscribe to WNHH FM’s “LoveBabz LoveTalk” and here to subscribe to other WNHH programs.