Retired FDNY firefighter, 84, surprised with tickets to first World Series: Im not a crybaby but you got me

This gift was an emotional home run.An 84-year-old former New York City firefighter was surprised with his first World Series ticket ever by his daughter — prompting the lifelong Yankees fan to burst into tears of joy, heartwarming video shows.Joe Baal, who now lives Tampa, Fla., was given a coveted ticket to watch the Bronx Bombers face off against the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 4 Tuesday by his daughter, Jaymie DePalo, who posted footage of the emotional moment he opened the gift.“I’m not a crybaby,” Baal says as tears roll.“But you got me.”Baal —  who went to his first Yankees game as an 8-year-old 1948 and served in the FDNY for decades  — was overcome with happiness and got adorably choked up in TikTok footage posted by DePalo.DePalo first got the idea for the gift when she watched the game that sent the Yankees to the World Series with her dad on FaceTime earlier this year — and saw how much it thrilled him, she told “Good Morning America.”“When I hung up with him, I immediately texted my sister and said, ‘We have to get Pop up to a game,'” DePalo told “Good Morning America.”“I was like, what credit card can I put this on and get him there? I wanted to make sure he saw it in person,” she said.

“At 84 years old, you don’t know how many more he’s going to see.”But DePalo didn’t have the cash to pay for the pricey baseball ticket and flight to New York City for her father — who served in the FDNY for nearly 30 years, including during the 9/11 recovery effort, and retired in 1991.So she posted a call for donations online, and was soon flooded with funds from people her dad had helped out over the years, she said.Sign up for our Metro Daily newsletter! Please provide a valid email address.

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“Within two hours, we had enough money to send him, for a ...