If you were 13 and Jewish, where would you want your Bar-Mitzvah to be? Some would choose a place where they could have fun with their friends, others would choose a place where Uncle Irving could come and light a candle on the cake. If you were Jonathon Ballan, the lead bond lawyer for the financing of Yankee Stadium, you would choose the Home of the World Champion New York Yankees, Yankee Stadium for the Bar Mitzvah of his son.
His Bar-Mitzvah party will have access to lounges and the big scoreboard for 30 minutes. The place where people give birthday wishes, marriage proposals and in-between inning games (who doesn’t love the Cap Game…maybe they will do a Yarmulke Game?), will be home to the Ballan family pictures and of course, cheesy music. All of this is happening on June 5. L’Chiam!
Everything was fine, and I am sure the invitations were ordered until the Yankees began negotiating with boxing promoter Bob Arum for a boxing match between World Boxing Association 154-pound champion, Yuri Foreman (a devout Jew that is studying to be a Rabbi) and Miguel Cotto who lost to Manny Pacquiao in November. They started negotiating for June 5. What? How can you have a boxing match when a Bar Mitzvah is going on?
Foreman is very popular is New York City. Because June 5 is a Friday, the boxing match would start at 11:30, because devout Jews cannot get to Yankee Stadium until after the Sabbath, which occurs at sunset (8:33pm on that date). Arum would expect over 30,000 people at the fight and was quoted as saying, “would probably not enjoy seeing a montage of Ballan family photos on the scoreboard.” You think? Instead of seeing card girls, they would see the Bar Mitzvah boy growing up. There has to be a solution, right?
Arum has offered all members of the party tickets to the fight. Foreman has offered to meet the Ballan boy in his locker room before the fight, the Yankees have offered autographed baseballs and I am sure other things will be offered. Arum was also quoted as saying, “The price of the Bar Mitzvah is an issue.” Well, let’s see. What could renting Yankee Stadium cost for a Bar Mitzvah? I could not find prices on the official Yankees website, but I am sure it is expensive. So, what do I think the issue is? “Pay for my son’s Bar Mitzvah and I will move it” is my guess.
In any way, stay tuned for Foreman/Cotto, which I have decided to call “The Battle at the Bar Mitzvah”. There is a backup date for Madison Square Garden, June 12.
I had a baseball theme at my Bar Mitzvah, but nothing like this. Mazel Tov.
