"LET'S SHUFFLE WIMPY TO THE CHAIR"

From my book,  SEE YOU IN CCU

 A LIGHTHEARTED TALE OF MY OPEN-HEART SURGERY

By Steve Ludwig

The following is from Chapter Nine:

That first night after the procedure was, by far, the haziest, most surreal time of my entire hospital stay.

It was 2:15 early Saturday morning, almost a full day since my operation. It was at that time when two of my nurses lost their minds.

They came to my bed and told me it was time for me to walk from my bed to the recliner chair. Huh? I thought I had a few more months before considering actually moving. And how they were going to accomplish this impossible feat was completely lost on me. I couldn't even blink my eyes without fear of my chest staples popping open, and they want to MOVE MY BODY?

I was sure they had the wrong patient.

Does the doctor know they're going to do this? Who gave the OK? I want to talk to my congressman! Who is my congressman, anyway?

Are these two even real nurses? Maybe they're a couple of those cheese-eating candy stripers they allow to walk around this joint.

When the nurses positioned themselves on each side of my bed, I knew I was doomed. So this is how I'm going to die: trying to move.

That chair had to be two whole feet away! But there was no fighting it now. I didn't have the power to resist.

"OK, sweetie, slide over little by little." They were talking nicely because they knew I was going to die; I was on to their little game.

Me? Slide over? I was scared to breathe too hard, and they wanted me to slide over.

Somehow I did it.

The nurse on my right side gently slid her arm behind my head. Oh, no, what good can possibly come out of this?

"We're going to sit up on three." WE are going to sit up on three?

"One, two, three."

I gave my obligatory "uggghhh" moan. The other nurse swung my legs slowly over the side of the bed.

It suddenly occurred to me that they knew exactly what they were doing. They hadn't lost their minds; I had lost mine.

I relaxed a bit, yet I was pretty sure the step down from the bed to the floor would end my life.

It didn't.

Instead, I was miraculously standing straight up, with each one of these marvelous nurses holding an arm, tenderly yet securely.

"OK, little steps now."

I kind of shuffled two steps, my tubes and intravenous bag following alongside. I sat down in the chair, tentative as ever, positive that everything would splat apart. My nurses placed a blanket over my lap, reclined my chair back a bit, soothing me in the process.

"We'll be right outside." They left, closing the curtain behind them; and there I sat, completely still. Without moving my head, I darted my eyes back up to the clock: 2:25. What a traumatic ten minutes!

Sitting in the chair, I was so afraid I'd hurt myself by moving the wrong way. I was convinced that if I twisted the least bit, my staples would come out, the wires that held my ribcage together would shift apart and become misaligned and heal wrong, my stomach and intestines would spill out and drip into my urine bag. While I was at it, I wondered if my visitors would be able to see that bag of pee. Was it hidden? Who cares? I just had heart surgery!

By the way, some friendly advice if you ever have a hospital stay: Leave your pride in the lobby when you first get there. The quicker you learn not to care what part of your body the nurses see, the more enjoyable the overall experience will be.

Scared to move because of the whole stomach-and-intestines thing, I sat virtually motionless in my recliner for at least an hour. I was perched on a bothersome, wrinkled overturned part of my hospital gown. But I was convinced that this fold on my butt wasn't anywhere as uncomfortable as it would have been if I had moved to fix the wrinkle. That's the type of logic I dealt with in those first few days after my procedure.

I eventually was helped out of the recliner with each nurse again grasping an arm.

"Wait, hold it, OK, hold it, wait, it hurts, wait." I moaned and groaned my way throughout the entire twenty-four-inch journey back to bed.

I had hoped to make my nurses' jobs as easy as possible. Sue, my wife, would come home from her hospital with tales of difficult, uncaring patients; so out of respect for  Sue and all the nurses with whom she shares her profession, I didn't want to be one of those difficult patients. I needed to be a good one.

But I knew it wasn't working. I was doing the best I could, but I felt like such a failure. I was so weak, so dependent on my nurses. Without question, now I was most doubtful of my survival than at any other point leading up to this moment.

When my nurses finally put my dopey butt back into the bed, I lay there and looked at the ceiling.

How was I going to be able to do things on my own, ever, in my life? I'd never get better. 

I couldn't wait to get into a traditional room on the regular cardiac floor where I could have a phone. I missed talking to my dad. Of course, Sue had been updating him all day with calls to his home down the Jersey shore, but I wanted to hear his voice with my own ears. Mom had passed away two years before, but we still had Dad, and I longed to speak with him.

But I couldn't even speak with my own father because of the shape I was in. I didn't want to be here.

Soon enough, I felt that syringe empty its magical liquid into my shoulder; I knew I'd be floating within minutes. The minutes became seconds.

There I found myself again, across the universe, without a care...

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And hey! I have a pop culture radio show called STEVE LUDWIG'S CLASSIC POP CULTURE. All the shows are archived, so if you'd like to check it out, here's the site:

                              www.PlanetLudwig.com 

I can't forget my little brother's blog~ He and his buddy since the second grade go back and forth in cyberspace about tons of pop culture topics. 

Check it out at: www.secondgrademinds.wordpress.com.

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As always, thanks to all of you who read my blogs...And thanks for the 17,000-plus page views...Good health to all of you!

Steve Ludwig  

"THE OLD YANKEE STADIUM

VS.

THE NEW YANKEE STADIUM

Which Is Better?"

Part 2

By Steve Ludwig
With Special Guest Blogger,
Joe Potente

When Joe and I talk about the old Yankee Stadium vs. the new, there's a big part of us that is also talking about "Yankee Tradition" within the new Yankee Stadium.

OK, so let's get right to it.

Joe Potente and I, two veteran Yankees fans, say the old Yankee Stadium is better than the new Yankee Stadium. 

They tore down a cathedral and replaced it with a cold, corporate building.

Of course, the Yankees don't have a monopoly on cold, corporate buildings. Pretty much, any professional sports conglomerates that have "upgraded" (notice the quotation marks) their venues are cold and corporate.

But we're not talking about just any professional sports company-- we're talking about  THE NEW YORK YANKEES!! 

Babe Ruth (sorry Red Sox fans), Lou Gehrig, Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford, Thurman Munson, Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera...

The new Yankee Stadium is impressive-looking from the outside. And inside, its seats are much more comfortable and it's certainly easier to walk around the Stadium's areas. I especially like the facade encircling the inside:

But for a fan, experiencing a baseball game live is much more than looks and accessibility. And this is where the new Stadium pales in comparison to the old; there is no atmosphere! There's no buzz!! How can this many people not sound loud, even while screaming at the top of their pin-striped lungs?...

I don't know why the acoustics of Yankee Stadium Two stink, but you don't feel the Stadium shake, you don't feel your eardrums ringing after one of those "Yankee moments," like you did in the old Stadium.

The powers-that-be (the Steinbrenner kids) have cow-towed to the bigshots who use a Yankees game to conduct a business meeting, with practically no thought to us true, loyal fans. Hell, they've even created a moated section of seating around the infield, separating the corporate biggies from us other fans-- the soul of the Yankees. And as Joe P. has so clearly pointed out to me, those expensive seats are empty throughout most of the game anyway. Oh sure, they've been paid for; it's just that the butts that are supposed to be sitting in them are usually seated in one of the Stadium restaurants, talking about everything except the Yankee game they're attending. 

I love when I listen to a Yankee game on the radio, and John Sterling or Suzyn Waldman tells me, "Not an empty seat in the Stadium." Except for the 5,000-10,000 that are empty surrounding the infield. (If you've ever wanted to experience two Yankees games at once, watch the same game on TV with the sound down and the radio on. What you're seeing and what you're hearing are often two different things.)

Don't get me wrong, I could sit in those premium seats...for a mere $300 per seat, which is the face-value. And who the heck can get one of those seats at face-value? They've been claimed way in advance. Wanna sit there? Get scalped, my fellow Yankeemaniac! A middle-class family can't afford to sit there! Add to that the $35 to park your car, the Carvel ice cream whose servings are much smaller than in the old Yankee Stadium (and trust me, I know of what I speak when it comes to Carvel ice cream!), the way- overpriced food (although the Lobel steak sandwiches at 15 bucks are delicious...even though the soft rolls they're served on irk Joe Potente), and the souvenirs...

The bleacher seats are certainly affordable; just make sure you don't get stuck with the obstructed-view bleacher seats. Yes, you read right. This new "improved" Yankee Stadium Two has obstructed-view seats! How could they do that? 

I'll tell you how; they don't care about us real fans.
The affordable seats in the upper deck (as well as all the seats in the new Stadium) are so damn far away from the field, unlike the old Stadium. Here's how it looks from the new upper deck:

It's "Yankees tradition" in name only. Tradition Shmadition.

Yankee Stadium Two does, as I mentioned, have some positive points. The bleacher sections do connect to the rest of the Stadium, so you can buy a relatively cheap bleacher seat, and watch the game, standing, in a closer spot in the Stadium.

An important question raised by Joe Potente: Do the rich-seat men's room urinals have modesty panels between them? The upper-deck Yankee Pee Sinks don't! 

Now that pisses us off! But I digress...

Getting in Yankee Stadium Two is oftentimes Gestapo-like. Guys, you'll probably have to raise your shirts before security lets you by them. They want to check out your belly. What happened to equal rights? Let the Yankee lady fans lift their shirts! They can hide Mets water pistols just as easily as we guys can!

There is more of a food selection (Lobel's steak!!) in the new Stadium. However, it took Joe and me more than a few games to get used to the fact that a fan can buy sushi at a Yankees game. Sushi!! At a Yankee game!!...Oh, wait, that's right. The structure of Yankee Tradition came crumbling down along with the destruction of the old Stadium's physical structure.

I like the Yankee Museum in YS2. The autographed baseballs are cool...

 Thurman Munson's locker is on display...

...although if they really cared about carrying the tradition across the street from the old Stadium to the new (as Derek told us they would do after that final game at the old Stadium), they would've have put Captain Thurman's locker, untouched, in the new Yankees locker room as they did in the old locker room.

Here are Derek and the other Yankees, as seen from Joe's and my seats, waving goodbye to us after the last game at the old Stadium....The last night of that TRUE Yankee experience...

Time marches on, I understand, I get it...But let it march on in a "warmer" way, in a more "genuine fan" way...

Last year, I thought I may want to go the Morgan State - Hampton New York Urban League Football Game at Yankee Stadium. I was psyched! Tradition returns, this time to Yankee Stadium Two! So I went online to Yankees.com, ready to order tickets.

Well it turns out that bringing the tradition across the street to the new Stadium was so sincere, that I could only attend the Morgan State game if I bought a ticket to another football game at the Stadium...A game I wasn't interested in! I sent an email to the highers-up of the House That Juice Built, and explained I only wanted to buy  tickets to the Morgan State game. I wrote that I felt it was unfair to be forced to buy a ticket to the other game, that I feel I was being squeezed.

I never got a reply.

It reminds me of what the Giants and Jets fans are forced to do at PSL Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ.

When Joe and I were preparing to get together to discuss what we'd include in this blog (and in Part 1), we thought we'd make a day of it and take a tour of the new Yankee Stadium and then eat at the New York Yankee Steak Restaurant. One look online at what the tour consisted of was enough for Joe to decide NOPE! It's nothing like the tour offered in the old Yankee Stadium. Why, I remember the thrill of sitting in the very spot in the Yankee dugout where Mr. Joe Torre sat during the glory years of his tenure:

All of us Yankee fans LOVE the Yankees with an unmatched passion for other sports teams!!

In Yankee Stadium Two, we almost feel like intruders, that the "Yankee Thing" is now bigger than us, and we're not welcome.

As I stated earlier, for Joe and me (and I'll bet a good many of you Yankee fans reading this), this is not about the players and the on-field activity; it's the guise of what once was a sport which has now become almost exclusively big business.

If all of us didn't bleed pinstripes, would we make seats from the old Yankee Stadium refurbishment of 1973 a part of our home's decor, like the Potentes have?...

My family also owned a pair of these historic seats. When the original Yankee Stadium was being reconstructed after the 1973 season (the Yanks would play the '74 and '75 seasons at Shea Stadium--a sacrilege in itself), the Stadium seats went on sale for TEN DOLLARS APIECE. Fans could actually buy them for $7.50 apiece from Korvette's, if you brought 5 empty Winston cigarette crush-proof boxes with you to the store. My dear mom even switched from Marlboro to Winston for a couple weeks so we could save a few bucks!

Um, my mom switched cigarettes for us. My dad, in his work area in the basement, leaned on one of our historic Yankee seats to saw a piece of wood, and with it, the Yankee seat was partly sawed. An historic event in the Ludwig basement...

If Joe Potente (and yours truly) didn't love the Yankees, would he have this bench from the orignal first set of Yankee Stadium seats as part of his backyard?

With Joe's permission (although Joe assured me I didn't have to ask), I gingerly sat on the bench. I was sitting on a piece of history as important as any you'd find in a museum.

We fans lovingly make the Yankees a part of our homes; they're part of our families; with families come tradition.

Yankee Stadium Two and all it stands for is a cardboard reproduction of what Yankee Tradition used to be.

We love the Yankees...We love the tradition...We want it back in the new Stadium...

Thanks to Joe for his help in writing this and my previous blog. Thanks also to Joe for sharing some of his pictures with me.

And I'll say it again... JOE, IT'S TIME FOR YOU TO START A BLOG!!!

Follow me on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/LudGuy

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IF YOU ENJOYED READING THIS BLOG, WOULD YOU BE SO KIND AS TO CONSIDER BUYING MY FIRST BOOK? IT'S CALLED SEE YOU IN CCU - A LIGHTHEARTED TALE OF MY OPEN-HEART SURGERY. WHY, IT'S FUNNY (SO I'M TOLD).  BUY IT DIRECTLY FROM MY WEBSITE: www.PlanetLudwig.com

 PLEASE LOOK FOR MY SECOND BOOK, FEELING WELL: SURVIVING LIFE AND STUPID PUNS, coming sometime!!!!!!!!!!!

IN MY NEW BOOK, I'LL TALK MORE ABOUT THE YANKEES, THE BEATLES, MY LOVE OF HORROR MOVIES, BEING IMPALED BY MY YOU-KNOW-WHERE ON A TELEPHONE POLE AT FOUR YEARS OLD...YOU GET THE IDEA.

And, oh yeah~ I have a radio show! It's called STEVE LUDWIG'S CLASSIC POP CULTURE. It's fun and groovy! Check it out at www.PlanetLudwig.com.

MY BROTHER TOM ALSO HAVE A BLOG. WON'T YOU CHECK IT OUT? HE AND HIS BUDDY SINCE SECOND GRADE WRITE ABOUT POLITICS, SPORTS, AND ALL THINGS POP CULTURE. IT'S CALLED "SECOND GRADE MINDS," AND IT'S AT www.secondgrademinds.wordpress.com.

As always, thank you so much for reading my blogs We're up to over 17,000 page views from over 18 countries.

Good health to you all! Steve Ludwig

"THE OLD YANKEE STADIUM

VS.

THE NEW YANKEE STADIUM"
Part One

By Steve Ludwig

With Special Guest Co-Blogger,

Joe Potente

I can feel life starting to make sense again; spring training has begun!

So I felt it was time to team up with my buddy and fellow die-hard Yankee fan, Joe Potente, and decide which is better: the old Yankee Stadium or the new Yankee Stadium. 

Now just to be clear, this isn't about old Yankees teams or players vs. present-day players; it's about the two buildings.

Here we are at that last, bittersweet game at the old Yankee Stadium, September 21, 2008:

To get to the bottom of this burning question, we did what any decent Yankee fans would do: we went to a bar to discuss it.

So the other day, after spending an hour or so at J & R Music World in NYC (buying things that we may actually get around to listening to before we're both dead), we found ourselves at the great Connolly's Pub and Restaurant, on 46th St.

Over chicken wings, burgers, sweet potato fries, beer and ginger ale, we started.

Joe's history of attending Yankee games goes a little deeper than mine does. He estimates he's been to somewhere between 350 to 400 games; of those, we've been to about 250-300 together.

I needed to know something from Joe before we got to the Stadium talk; I asked him for the Top Five Yankee games that's he's attended. 

He told me it was impossible to pick the top five, but he did give me five memorable games, just not necessarily his top five attended games of all time.

In no particular order, he's what he told me...

Joe remembered his first-ever visit to Yankee Stadium, on June 9, 1956, when he was 8-year-old Joey Potente. Don Larsen pitched that game, and the great Number 7, Mickey Mantle, was in the lineup. The Yankees blew an early lead and lost 15-8. But what Joe remembers most is how huge and stark the Stadium appeared to an 8-year-old. Also, there were so many support poles throughout the Stadium.

Here's a picture from 1957. It'll give you a good idea what Joe was talking about:

Joe noticed something that was missing on his first visit to Yankee Stadium: the TV and radio announcers' voices. Aside from Bob Shepard announcing each player's name as he strode to the plate, Joey P had to follow the action of the game without the play-by-play.

As I mentioned, Joe saw Mickey Mantle play at his first-ever in-person game. I couldn't forgive myself if I didn't share this picture with you of the Mick and me in 1989 (I think I'm still shaking from my nervousness of being so close to the Mick...):

Joe was also at the Chris Chambliss home run game in 1976. The Yankees vs. the Royals, American League Championship. Bottom of the ninth. Game Five. Tie game. The winner goes to the World Series against the Dodgers. Chambliss sent Mark Littell's first pitch over the right center field wall to win the game.

Joe sat with fellow Yankee maniac, Professor Al Bayley, in the first row, field level, right field foul pole!

You can imagine the hysteria that ensued. I asked Joe if he or Al were among the delirious fans who stormed the field as Chambliss struggled to circle the bases. He said they took one look at the way fans were being knocked over and slugged by fellow fans, and decided they'd stay right where they were to take it all in.

There are Joe and Al...See 'em? See 'em?

A cool sidelight to the story is how Joe got the tickets to the game. In those days, fans had to mail in their playoff ticket requests via traditional mail. Payment in an envelope had to be postmarked before 12 noon on a specified date. So Joe did just what a Yankee fan had to do: he took a personal day from work, and posted his envelope at the Grand Concourse office, the post office closest to Yankee Stadium. It worked...

July 1, 2004. Yankees - Red Sox... Derek Jeter's catch of Trot Nixon's pop up in fair territory. Jeter's momentum carried him into the third-base seats.

Sitting one level above on the third base side, almost directly even with Jeter's dive was...you guessed it, our favorite Yankee fan, Joe Potente. Not only was the play a memorable one for Joe, but the game itself stands among Joe's favorites that he attended. The Yankees went on to win the game in 13 innings on John Flaherty's game-winning hit.

Yankee fans of a certain age will remember the 1978 World Series vs. the Dodgers as the series in which Graig Nettles made some of the most spectacular, acrobatic plays ever made by a major league third baseman. Not one, not two, but play after play after play, Nettles would kill Dodger rallies with his glove.

Joe was at two of those games, so he wanted to count the overall play of Nettles as a fourth choice of his. 

Game 4 (one of the two Joe attended) also featured the play in which Reggie Jackson stuck out his hip to prevent the Dodgers from turning a double play. But according to eyewitness Potente, Jackson's hip paled in comparison to Nettles's hands.

Up until now, these memorable games all took place at the old Yankee Stadium. Well, that stands to reason. Joe's old Yankee Stadium career began in 1956 and ended on September 21, 2008.

For his fifth memorable game (and, again, Joe made it clear to me that there's no way) he can limit the memories he's accumulated in the nearly 400 Yankee games he's attended can be encapsulated in a mere five), Joe takes us to the new Yankee Stadium (with yours truly in tow).

June 12, 2009...The first Subway Series in the new Stadium. Joe and I sat in our excellent seats: center field in the Batter's Eye seat (right above the Mohegan Sun sports bar, for those of you who know the new Stadium's setup).

Sorry Met fans, but here goes...

Bottom of the 9th, 2 outs, Yanks down 8-7 to the hated Mets. Jeter on second, Teixera on first (representing the winning run). A-Rod at the plate; K-Rod on the mound. Francisco Rodriguez pitches and gets Alex Rodriguez to lift a lazy pop to second baseman Luis Castillo. A collective moan from the Yankee fans, followed by some expletives hurled A-Rod's way. Joe's and my shoulders slumped as A-Rod blows it. Met fans are already cheering their certain victory...Castillo circles under the ball, Joe and I shake our heads disgustedly, and...

He drops the ball!! Jeter scores! Teixera scores from first! The Yankees win!

Joe and I COULD...NOT...BELIEVE...WHAT...WE...SAW... 

The range of emotions in those few seconds when the ball left A-Rod's bat to when it left Castillo's glove is what going to Yankee games is all about. 

With the combination of Yankee fans' groans to unadulterated delirium and Met fans' unadulterated delirium to groans, Joe and I both feel it could be the loudest we've ever heard the crowd in the new Yankee Stadium.

If you get a minute (1:23, to be exact) do a YouTube search for "Mets fan celebrates too early in Yankee Stadium EPIC FAIL "put it in the books".

It's a fan-made video from the stands at the moment Castillo drops the ball. It'll give you an excellent feel for what it was like.

(Or copy and paste below:)

http://youtu.be/Jy0tBBVhBAw

So there you have five memorable games attended by Yankee Fan Supreme, 

Dr. / Professor Joseph Potente. After talking about these five games, our attention returned to the task at hand...

OK,  what was the result of our discussion of which is better, the old Stadium or the new Stadium?

I guess you noticed at the top of the blog it reads "Part One."

Joe and I will offer our answers to which is better in Part Two, coming very soon.

Until then, we'd love to hear your comments on memorable games that you've laid witness to, in either the old or the new.

(And oh, yeah, join me in my movement to convince Joe Potente to start his own blog!)

[Follow me on Twitter:  www.Twitter.com/LudGuy]

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I'D LIKE TO THANK THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE PART OF THE 17,000 PAGE VIEWS IN OVER 20 COUNTRIES THAT MY BLOGS HAVE RECEIVED.

Listen to my cool and groovy radio show, STEVE LUDWIG'S CLASSIC POP CULTURE, at www.PlanetLudwig.com. Thanks!!

If you enjoyed reading this blog, would you kindly consider buying my first book? You can read about it (along with reviews) at www.PlanetLudwig.com.

And, hey, don't forget my brother Tom! He and his buddy since second grade have their own blog called "Second Grade Minds." Check ot out at www.secondgrademinds.wordpress.com.

And as always, thanks all of you so much for reading my blogs! Good health! -Steve Ludwig

The following is an excerpt from my second book (to be released sometime!!!) titled LAUGHING TO DEATH - SURVIVING LIFE AND STUPID PUNS...

WATCHING THE BEATLES ON 

The Ed Sullivan Show

FEBRUARY 9, 1964

By Steve Ludwig

"I'm not watching those girls on this TV!"

That was what my father told my brother Bill and me on Sunday afternoon, February 9, 1964.

"Those girls" were the long-haired, unmanly-looking Beatles. And in a few hours, live on TV at 8 PM, this brand-new singing group from England would on the Number One variety show in America, The Ed Sullivan Show.

But my problem was that we couldn't watch the show on the "good" black-and-white TV in the living room (even though the show was in black-and-white anyway), like we did as a family every Sunday night; Dad had seen pictures of the Beatles on Bill's Meet the Beatles album:

I remember when my brother Bill bought the album. It was released on January 20, 1964, and although I can't remember for sure, I know Bill bought it either on its release date or a few days after. 

The back cover even told us about the three-weeks-in-a-row upcoming Beatles' appearances on Ed Sullivan's show...

And I remember thinking how cool the Beatles looked on the back cover photo: the haircuts, the matching suits, the neat Cuban-heeled "Beatle boots," and the way George had his hand on Ringo's shoulder; these guys were pals.

But my dad was adamant; no Beatles on the good TV! I have the feeling there were other dads who felt the same way about these guys. And anyhow, as my dad proclaimed, "They're wearin' wigs anyway!" 

Of course, today, at age 86, my dad's hair is longer than those February 9th Beatles; and he loves the Beatles.

But not on this night in 1964.

Two days before in school, on Friday, all that my fifth-grade classmates were talking about was the Beatles being on Ed Sullivan.

So on Sunday, during Disney's Wonderful World of Color (which we watched in black-and-white, of course, on the good TV), my mom, my Uncle Ron (who was living with us at the time), my just-under-two-year-old brother Tommy (holding his bottle by the nipple between his front teeth) came upstairs to join my brother Bill and me. We had left Disney a few minutes early to get upstairs in time to set up the crappy, little black-and-white TV we had. We positioned it in such a way that we would get the best possible reception. 

(I have no idea what my dad watched for that hour, but I do know we all watched Bonanza and then Candid Camera back downstairs on the living room TV after Ed Sullivan.)

We gathered around the upstairs TV. 

Ed was introduced to the audience, and out he came. He told us how, in the past, the show has had Sammy Davis & Ella Fitzgerald and the little Italian mouse, Topo Gigio, and tonight was another big night. My mom had read in the Sunday newspaper that afternoon that the Beatles would be on first; we were ready.

But not so fast... Before the Beatles, a couple 30-second commercials:

Oh, come on! We want the Beatles! First we had to watch an Aero Shave moisture test followed by Griffin Shoe wax being spread on glass, and being told how much better it was than that other leading brand.

OK, back to the show... 

After a brief intro about "these youngsters from Liverpool who call themselves the Beatles..." Ed announced, "The Beatles!"

The first image we saw was not of the group who would forever change the face of music, as well as the face of the world; it was of those crazy screaming girls in the audience, who were almost as much of the performance as the Fab Four themselves:

"Listen to those girls..." my mom said as her voice trailed off. I had a pretty hip mom in those days. She would buy albums by Johnny Mathis and Andy Williams and Herb Alpert and play them all day long in the house. I owe as much to her for my love of music as I do to my older brother Bill, who bought all the Beatles (as well as others) albums.

So to give you an idea of when we first actually saw the Beatles on that Sunday night, I paused my DVD of The Ed Sullivan Shows Starring The Beatles at the precise moment the cameras faded out from the delirious audience to the Beatles on stage, as Paul McCartney counted in All My Loving...

The "arrows set" was a simple one, but looking back years later, I've come to appreciate its symbolism: All signs point to the Beatles. They are, at this moment, the center of the entertainment universe...

Mom, Uncle Ron, Bill, and I were mesmerized; my baby brother Tommy was probably lying on the floor drinking out of his "botty."

During their second song, Till There Was You, the Beatles' names were flashed under their images. After all, at the time, they were still pretty much unknown to anyone over the age of eighteen! The writing under John seems to be what many who watched that first night remember:

Yup, John was the married Beatle (although years later, fans have noticed it was Ringo whom, during his closeup, can be seen mouthing the words, "Hi Maureen," to the  sweetheart he'd marry the following year.)

Speaking of Ringo's closeup, I got a kick out of it that night (because I definitely remember it live), especially when George followed the overhead camera as it panned to Ringo on his drum riser:

After Till There Was You, they performed their most well-known song at the time, She Loves You.

After the final, "Yeah, yeah, yeah...YEAH!!!" of She Loves You, they gave their soon-to-become-signature Beatle bow:

Ed promised us they'd be back "...in the second half of our shew," and until then we had to sit through magician Fred Kaps, comedians Frank Gorshin and McCall & Brill, British singer Tessie O'Shea (Ed piled on the British acts for this show), and the cast of the Broadway musical Oliver! 

Things were cosmic that night, because playing the part of the Artful Dodger in the Oliver! cast was future Monkee Davy Jones!

The Artful Dodger would years later be challenging the "Cute Beatle" for lead cuteness:

There are only two performers I remember being on the show that night besides the Beatles: the cast of Oliver!, whose soundtrack album my mom played all the time, and Frank Gorshin. I remember Gorshin doing an over-the-top impression of tough-guy Broderick Crawford. Years later, when the full Sullivan shows became available on videotape, it was if I were seeing all the other performers on that show that night for the first time. (There's NO WAY I remember acrobats Wells and the Four Fays, who closed the show after the Beatles' final number...)

I don't remember for certain, but I'll bet it's because we were all talking about the Beatles' first half appearance, just waiting for their second-half set, while the other guests were on.

During this second set, the Fabs performed I Saw Her Standing There ("One, two three, FOUR!!!") and their big hit at the moment, I Want To Hold Your Hand.

Then they took their final bows, put their instruments down (as Ringo jumped off of his riser), and walked over to Ed:

As the girls screamed, the Boys smiled and waved before they left the stage until next week's show:

My mom, Uncle Ron, brother Bill, me, and (with an occasional glance at the TV from the floor) my brother Tom, were only five of the 73,700,000 (that's 73 MILLION) who watched that night. It was the largest television audience up until that time.

At one point during the Fab performance, my Uncle Ron noticed the LUDWIG Beatle drum head. As my name is Steve Ludwig, you can imagine the delight of all of us Ludwigs as Uncle Ron pointed at the screen and said, "Hey! 'Ludwig!'"

Today, I proudly hang my replica LUDWIG Beatles drum head on a wall in my "Beatles Room" at home:

The next day in school, all of us were talking about the Beatles the night before. I remember the girls trying to decide which Beatle was the most handsome. I distinctly recall my classmate Patty saying that George was "manly handsome." I had a little crush on Patty, and what she said made me feel jealous (or as jealous as a fifth-grade boy can be...).

All week long my classmates and I talked about the Beatles' appearance on the following Sunday's Ed Sullivan Show. By the way, by that second appearance, even my dad gave in to watch. He kept shaking his head and saying, "Jesus Christ!" during the Beatles' set.

Then they were to make their third and final (until again the next year) appearance on the February 23 edition of Ed's show.

Here's something I only learned a few years ago about that February 23rd appearance: It was actually taped the afternoon of their first appearance on 

February 9, in front of a different audience and shown on tape on the 23rd's live show. Yup! So technically, the Beatles' first performance on the Ed Sullivan stage was the afternoon of February 9, 1964; the evening was their first live appearance on American television. 

So just for the record, here's a screenshot from their February 23rd TV appearance, taped on the afternoon of February 9, 1964:

Something else that we Beatles fans hadn't known at the time was that poor George Harrison had missed the morning rehearsal (Derek Taylor, the Beatles' press secretary, stood in George's spot on stage for camera-angle setups), because he had tonsillitis and was running a fever. By the afternoon's taping and the live evening performance, George somehow managed to perform, still running a fever. Way to go, Georgie!

And, oh yeah (yeah yeah)... Way to go, Ed!! Thanks for bringing us The Beatles!!

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As always, thank you so much for reading my blogs. Good health to you all!  -Steve Ludwig