Yanks for the memories, fellow Pinstripe lovers

I took the winners of my Pinstripe Passion contest to lunch Monday at the Spokane Club, where we were treated to good food and a flash of unexpected baseball magic.

Get this. As we were finishing our grub, Game 3 of the American League Championship Series came on the big screen in front of our table in the lounge.

BOOM! Derek Jeter crunches a lead-off, first-inning home run to give the New York Yankees an early 1-0 edge over the Angels.

“There’s your dessert,” I told my two lunch mates.

We left shortly afterward, which was a wise move. The game turned into another extra-inning epic with the Angels winning 5-to-4. Drat.

Last week I confessed my near-lifetime love for the Yanks, the most-successful and most- despised team in all of baseball.

Knowing I was hardly alone, I offered free lunch and prizes to two lucky fans. Their mission was to convince me of their affection for the Bronx Bombers.

As it turned out, I could have bought lunches for at least a deserving dozen of the 40-some who sent me e-mails, letters or left messages on my phone. There were some truly wonderful stories about encounters with some of the greats of the game, how baseballs came to be signed and the thrill of watching the Yankees play on their home turf.

Quite surprisingly, my column drew very little hate mail, which probably has a lot to do with Mariner fans going into hiding after last season.

Ned Fadeley, a longtime friend, made up for any lack of loathing, however. He sent me a photograph of his sweet newborn son, Whitman Tecumseh Fadeley, wearing a shirt emblazoned with the following text:

“I can’t even walk yet and I already hate the Yankees.”

This is the most egregious use of a child for cheap publicity purposes since Balloon Boy.

In the end, my contest honors went to two 58-year-old Spokane residents: Glynis Tucker and Kevin Olson.

Glynis won me over with her courage and dedication.

“Most of my friends are Mariner fans, so there is a lot of ribbing going on,” she wrote. “But my comebacks are like yours – ‘hmm … 26 wins. And how many times have the Mariners been to the World Series???’ ”

As an exclamation point, she included several photographs of her dressed up in Yankee garb at a Mariners game. She even had her toenails painted Yankee blue.

Her “rally toes,” Glynis calls them.

Kevin captivated me with an articulate and entertaining story. He told me how his dad took him and his brother on a train trip back in the 1960s to see the Yankees play.

After the game, Olson said they waited until Mickey Mantle eventually emerged from the stadium. Olson said he summoned up all his courage and gave his favorite player a pat on the back before the living legend climbed into a new Mustang.

“He was my No. 1 hero,” said Olson, adding that his late father, Harry, caught this baseball moment on his home movie camera.

Kevin and Glynis had never met before. But being diehard Yank fans, they had plenty to talk about.

KEVIN – “You should see my room downstairs.”

GLYNIS – “You should see my office.”

KEVIN – “It’s a Yankee monument.”

GLYNIS – “So’s mine.”

You get the idea. Go Yanks!