Mike and Joanna Rajendran had to come out for the parade — the Yankees won it all for them.
The Hartsdale couple were the first to be married at the new Yankee Stadium in August, exchanging their “I do’s” as the Yanks crushed the Red Sox. Mike, a 34-year-old technology specialist, wore a blue and white pinstriped suit for the ceremony.
“My husband promised me the Yankees would win the World Series, and he said that would be my wedding gift. It was the best wedding gift he could ever give me. It was nice of the team to oblige. Being here, celebrating their win, is incredible. It’s the icing on our Krispy Kreme wedding cake,” said Joanna, 32, founder of Ourloveyoga.com.
“It feels like the end of our fantasy that began when we exchanged our vows.”
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When No. 27, manager Joe Girardi, stepped onto his float with the franchise’s 27th World Series trophy, fans were chanting, “28! 28! 28!”
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Not everyone came to praise the Yankees — some came to trash their fallen foes, the Philadelphia Phillies. At one point before the parade started, someone tossed a Phillies cap into the middle of Broadway. A sanitation worker stomped on the hat — and was cheered like Derek Jeter.
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City Councilwoman Letitia James (D-Brooklyn) is now a full-fledged Godzilla fan. “He was very nice,” she said after having her picture taken with Hideki Matsui in the Governor’s Room at City Hall, where the team gathered before receiving keys to the city.
“He was very humble,” James said of the World Series MVP. “He was in the corner by himself, no pomp and circumstance. I just said, ‘Can I take a picture?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ That was nice. Everyone else had handlers, not him.”
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Dance instructor Luigi Paulino, 20, of The Bronx, shouldn’t add “actor” to his résumé. “I told my boss the usual, that I’m sick. She said ‘have fun’ because she knows what a diehard Yankee fan I am,” he said. “I just had to come.”
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Moses Reyes, 54, of Washington Heights, who cheered on the Yanks at parades in 1977, 1978 and the 1990s, brought along a four-foot casket that had the words “Phillies RIP” on it. “The Yankees killed them, so we have to bury them,” Reyes said.
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Andrea Ippolito, 18, a freshman at Fairleigh Dickinson, missed two classes to go to the parade — and is praying her teachers aren’t Post readers.
“I e-mailed my professors and told them I had a doctor’s appointment in the city. I’m bringing them a fake doctor’s note on Monday,” she said.
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Mother of six Jackie Vesga left her Spotswood, NJ, house at 3 a.m. with five of her kids — Kira, 22; Alicia, 20; Quintin, 11; Johnny, 10; and Nelly, 9 — to make sure they got a prime spot. The family knew to camp out at the start of the parade route at Battery Place. “We’ve been coming since they were babies,” she said of her kids.
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Trinity Church Rector Jim Cooper had a heavenly view of the parade. He used a lift outside the church that had a congratulatory banner to watch the proceedings from about 20 feet in the air.
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A footnote to baseball history: Rudy Giuliani was planning an unprecedented Midtown parade for the Yankees if they captured the Series after the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001.
“We couldn’t have had it downtown here because of all the work being done,” he said. “And right before we lost, I was planning to figure out how we would do the route.”
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Michelle Valerio of Brooklyn brought her kids Aaron, 12, Jonathan, 10, and Ashley, 8, to the parade — even though it meant no school.
“They’ve got Yankee fever. I’ve already signed their doctor’s note,” she said.