Peanuts, Popcorn and Dermatology at Yankee Stadium

By MICHAEL QUINT

Dear Diary:

The Yankees were playing Cleveland on June 27 at the Stadium. It was “Free Sunscreen Day” â€"a dollop-size protectant where the packaging likely cost more than the product - but that wasn't the draw. It was a gorgeous, cloudless, 75-degree Wednesday; what better way to loll a summer's afternoon, drinking beer, scarfing knishes, cheering for the home team?

Before the first pitch, I loitered around the mezzanine concourse and acquired necessary sustenance. An attractive 40-something woman in a lab coat - a doctor, also part of the sunscreen promotion - asked me if I'd like a free skin cancer screening. In 50 years of going to the ballpark, with concessionaires barking “Scorecard!,” “Hey Coke!,” “Popcorn!,” I'm reasonably certain “Yo, Melanoma!” had never echoed my way.

With my right hand jiggling a warm, overflowing Heineken and my left hand cocked with a cold Johnny Rocket's burger, I said, “Sure, why not?”

The velvet rope (yep, even at Yankee Stadium) parted and the doctor was in. I pointed with my eyes to the spot on my face where I had had minor surgery six years ago. I expressed my sneaking fear that the benign cancer had returned. “Just a clogged pore at the scar tissue,” she said, peering through a Mr. Peanut-like monocle-magnifier, “and that other spot is mustard.”

I thanked her effusively; I may have even offered to buy her a beer. “Please come back,” she said, “on Free Prostate Exam Day.”

I think she was kidding; I'll have to check the schedule.

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