World Series Champs Get Ticker-Tape Parade
N E W Y O R K, Oct. 30, 2000 -- Thousands of fans gathered today for what is becoming a familiar sight in New York in October — a ticker-tape parade through the famed Canyon of Heroes by the World Series champion Yankees.
Today’s parade in lower Manhattan was the fourth in five years, and the third consecutive for the Bronx Bombers. It was the team’s 26th World Series title. In the city’s first Subway Series since 1956, the Yankees last week defeated the crosstown rival Mets four games to one in the best-of-seven series.
Yogi Berra served as grand marshal, and manager Joe Torre and boss George Steinbrenner rode on the float that carried the series trophy. Even some celebrities — such as the cast of the HBO hit show The Sopranos and Sex and the City star Sarah Jessica Parker and her husband, actor Matthew Broderick — showed up to honor the pinstripes.
The streets were jammed with millions of fans who braved the cold to watch their heroes wave from floats as an estimated 40 million tons of confetti rained down.
The parade featured 19 floats, 11 double-decker buses and 22 bands. It began at Battery Park and ended at City Hall, where a rally hosted by New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, himself a lifelong Yankees fan, was held and where each player received a key to the city.
After asking for a moment of silence in rememberance for the victims of the USS Cole tragedy, standing in front of City Hall, Giuliani declared this Yankees team one of the best in the franchise’s history.
“The New York Yankees have brought us great teams going back to Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra,” he said. “But this team is the very best for consistency, teamwork and fighting adversity and overcoming it.”
New York Gov. George Pataki unveiled three specially designed license plates. One plate read 3PEAT and that one went to Torre. Another, for Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter, read MVP. And finally, the mayor received his own plate which read No. 1 Fan.
Wall-to-Wall Fans
Jeter, the ultimate team player, refused to ride on his own MVP float, preferring instead to be with the other Yankee infield as they moved through the Canyon of Heroes.
Enthusiastic fans waved several different signs for their heroes, including many marriage proposals to Jeter and one to Yankees first baseman Tino Martinez that read, “Tino, if you marry me, I’ll divorce my husband.”
Fans were taking up every inch of sidewalk and some were even standing on scaffolding, balconies and fire escapes. In restaurants along the parade route like Houlihan’s, people were pressed against the glass trying to catch a glimpse as the floats went by.
Two friends from Hackensack, N.J., wearing blue wigs, Yankees hats, and Yankees jerseys said they were excited, but it was still sort of a bittersweet moment.
“The parade is wonderful, but we had Game 6 tickets. But that’s OK. We could not have handled any more games. The pressure was too much,” said Cyrilla Carlile, as Christine Picariello nodded in agreement.
A Day Off for Some
So many fans lining the streets meant a lot of empty seats in offices and classrooms this morning.
Giuliani said he had no problem with kids missing school to participate in the tribute.
“Use it as a way of getting children to write more, read more, read biographies of baseball players, there’s lots of things you can do with this interest if you’re a good teacher, or an enterprising, involved parent,” Giuliani said.
Ray Gaynor of Manchester, N.J., agreed. He surprised three of his four kids at 4:30 a.m. with the news that they would be skipping school today to attend the parade.
“It’s the year 2000. You don’t know what’s going to happen next year. I thought they should be here,” Gaynor said.
Gaynor wouldn’t take his fourth child out of school because she had a test today.
But not everyone decided to play hookey from work or school today, and some found it difficult to get around.
“I work on Wall Street. How am I supposed to get to work? I am 15 minutes late the way it is, and I am not going to be an hour late because of some stupid parade,” said one Wall Street trader, who was late to work because police prevented him from crossing Broadway.
The head of New York City schools, Harold Levy, thought children and teachers should be in class today — although he gave high school bands permission to take part in the celebration.
Not a Celebration for Everyone
Today’s victory parade was not a celebration for everyone.
“There are some Mets fans here, and I went up to them before and I said you have to have the attitude the Dodgers used to have, which is wait till next year,” Giuliani said.
There were some Mets hats among the crowd today, although not too many. Chris Sutton, a Mets fan from Brooklyn, was on the corner of Wall Street and Broadway this morning, selling special editions of the Daily News.
“I’m a Mets fan. It would have been nice to have the Mets as part of the parade, but I understand their not being here. It’s sort of like coming to somebody else’s birthday party,” Sutton said.
ABCNEWS Radio, ABC affiliate WABC-TV in New York and The Associated Press contributed to this report.