Farewell, Yankee Stadium
I spent a lot of time that humid summer in the cool confines of the archives room, poring through photos of Yogi Berra and Joe DiMaggio, reading scorecards from games played long ago and generally living in a baseball time warp. The room was stuffed with trophies and plaques and mementos of the greatest baseball team that ever existed. Here was all this history, all this fame right at my fingertips. Ticket stubs, game programs, yellowed articles, and dusty photographs were my companions that summer. Each time I left the room — usually after a futile search for whatever memorabilia or picture I was sent for — my fingers would be coated with the dust and grime of the legacy of legends. I cherished every moment spent in that room, mingling with the ghosts of Yankees past.
I watched plenty of games from the press box. Sometimes I helped keep the scorecard; sometimes I just chatted with reporters or players who were on the injured list and joined the press to watch the game. I ate lunch in the third base seats, legs stretched out, sun beating down, and Yankee Stadium seemingly to myself. I parked in the player’s lot, sometimes walking in with the players themselves. I was the original George Costanza.
Late that August the pennant race was heating up and the summer nights were cooling down. I knew my days as a part of the New York Yankees staff were drawing to a close. In a way, I was relieved that I wouldn’t have to make that miserable morning drive on the Grand Central anymore. But I hated to give up the perks of a job where I mingled with Don Mattingly and had my name in the Yankee Magazine.
It was close to my last night there when I was invited to watch a game from the general manager’s office. There I was, in this huge office full of baseball impresarios, sharing drinks and glad-handing each other. I stood quietly in the corner, too overwhelmed by the presence of baseball greats to move out of the spot.
I stood with a co-worker at the huge window that overlooked the playing field of Yankee Stadium. I was watching the game from an office behind home plate, surveying the game as if I owned the team. I looked at the outfield bleachers where I had sat so many times before. I was mesmerized.
The co-worker excused himself to go get a drink and I stayed at the window, watching the game in awe.
Then a voice from beside me: “Great view, isn’t it?”
I looked up to see Mickey Mantle standing next to me, grinning. I nodded, unable to speak.
Me and Mickey, watching a Yankee game from the office above home plate.
Farewell, Yankee Stadium. Thanks for the memories.
Wow, what a great story. I am insanely jealous that you met Mickey, that is something I would cherish until the day I died.
I recently blogged my first, and final trip to Yankee Stadium and if you don’t mind, I’d like to share it here: http://hellamike.com/dangerblog/?p=70
Great story as usual!
I think it’s a major tragedy that they’re doing this. It should be protected as a historical landmark. Such amazing history. It makes me sick that they’re doing this. So sad.
i agree with kristine, the stadium should be saved and used as a baseball museum. so much history so many memories. and i have never been there nor am i a yankees fan, so with that Go O’s
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i agree with kristine, the stadium should be saved and used as a baseball museum. so much history so many memories.
Taking a course in engineering history, I was struck by the opening premise – virtually nothing engineered and built is designed to last forever, nor should it be.
And we should accept that even beautiful, historic objects should be torn down and scrapped if they are no longer economical, occupy valuable land best utilized for more modern purposes.
If they are “over-abundant”.
Meaning that the Roman Pantheon is a priceless building worth the millions spent on preservation and study over the years because it is one of a kind and a tourist draw. But if there were a thousand of them, most should make way, if they have to, for the needs of the time.
Since it was a military course, we discussed the needed scrapping of elegant, awesome military gear like battleships, sleek fighter planes, superb tanks with “battle history” – the goal was to retain enough for preserving the historical legacy – but beyond that, it was mindless to save every great vessel, plane, armor & troop piece in a “preserve everything” mentality.
Same holds true in civilian construction. Ensure enough is preserved for a historical legacy that can continue past war and hard times – but all the rest, houses/skyscrapers/bridges/stadiums?
Count on it becoming economically obsolete, worn out by use, and the surplus going in the recycle bin.
We also have the option of virtual preservation since the 19th century, which gets better each year. Most of our “legacy” scrapped stuff or destroyed stuff (WTC, USS Arizona, Ebbets Field, 3 Rivers Stadium, architectual marvel house lost in a fire, Saturn 5 Moon Rocket) has a healthy separate existance in preserved design prints, people’s accounts, film and other archial media.
Yankee Stadium? Lots of great memories. Not important enough to keep standing on the taxpayer’s or private foundation’s dime – so “Ta-ta!”.
But it exists on in zillions of archived material sources. That is good enough.
I’ve only been to NYC one time during the baseball season, but I made it a point to take in a game at Yankee Stadium during my stay. This stadium’s iconic status was well-deserved, some trememdous baseball history was made there and it’s sad to see it come down.
It occurred to me that a great cause for optimism is being missed in this New York episode. ‘The Cathedral of Baseball’ built at what some may erroneously consider New York and the world’s zenith in the roaring twenties turned out 85 years later to be replaceable, but in this time not even grand enough to be preserved.
With a caveat that an obscene amount of public funding went into the New Yankee Stadium, it is a great confirmation that we’re not in the new Dark Ages that something as majestic as the old park isn’t really as indispensable as many may have thought.
Think about it; our civilization’s prowess may be on an incline so breathtaking that soon, paving over things as grand as Walt Disney World and building version 2.0 may go over easier than this!
I went to Yankee Stadium as a boy in the 60′s and saw a magical game where Bill Mombouquette of the Red Sox took a no hitter into the 8th inning .Tom Tresh broke it up with a bunt single and two batters later Elston Howard doubled in the winning runs. The image sticks with me of a heavyset black woman dancing in the aisle over Howard’s hit. Alas, Yankee Stadium goes the way of Ebbets Field and the Polo Grounds. Now we have corporate named stadiums and overpaid rent-a-players. Different America I guess.
Last Tuesday, I flew from Chicago to NY for a Yankees game. I wanted to see it before they tore it down. It was fantastic. I am still partial to Wrigley, but you have to love Yankee Stadium just for the history. Not to mention the football that was played there too! 1958, Colts-Giants, the greatest game ever played.
The new stadium looks pretty neat. It is also cavernous compared to the older version.
“History is bunk,” some forgotten, unimportant car magnate once said. I say tear down the damned thing and forget whatever transpired there.
Oh, and errr…go Red Sox!
The stadium is not historic enough to be preserved? Tell that to all the citizens of NYC who’ve been dragged through the bureaucratic wringer for wanting to make alterations to properties they own that are seriously less “historic” than the “House That Ruth Built”. What’s really criminal is that it wasn’t that long ago that the city spent large dollars renovating the stadium. The problem with the stadium is not an engineering problem, but the serial greed of sports franchise owners, who, with the cooperation of their political cronies, have been sticking it to taxpayers everywhere for decades.
For years Steinbrenner said the Stadium had to be replace and even moved to New Jersey. Then the Yankees drew 4 million. 4 million! And did it again and again.
And with all the parking problems, they still kept coming. And George got quiet on the matter. But he wanted a new stadium and now he has it.
And there will be 10,000 less people able to be at a game. And the cost will be much, much higher for those that do get a ticket.
That’s progress?
In those hallowed halls, the ghosts of many a baseball legend reside. The pulse of the city is evident in the crowds there. As a Met fan, there are only moments that compare to that energy. At Yankee Stadium, that energy is palpable even before a game, between innings, during the National Anthem and when Sinatra belts it out at the end.
The place is beyond special. The very vibration of the place is beyond words.
I was at some games this year. And had a chance to be there again Thursday and Friday but I have had enough. I think it would have been too sad. And I know that there would have been great sadness to be there last night.
I’m happy I wasn’t there. Even as a Met fan, I pay homage to the great Cathedral of the game.
Baseball now especially here in NY isn’t what it was and the dollars have changed it. Baseball is now for those of us who remember growing up cutting out milk cartons to get a ticket in.
Now a Father can hope to see one game a year with his son. But his son doesn’t care. He doesn’t watch the games let alone attend. It costs too much and the legacy is no longer passed down.
This concludes the end of an era. I wish it wasn’t so.
My one Yankee Stadium experience occurred in the mid-’80s. Visiting town, I took in a game vs. the Minnesota Twins. Ron Guidry had just come off the DL and was the starting pitcher for the pinstripes. The Yankees won it 4-2; my most enduring memory of the game was watching Mickey Rivers get to second on a walk (ball four was a wild pitch). That was hustle!
The demolition of Yankee Stadium is but another symptom of the current management’s progress in transforming baseball into a celebrity gawking event. Nowdays things like A-Rod’s divorce draw far more attention than the actual games do. I suspect it won’t be long until the new stadium is renamed Chase Manhattan Ballpark or some such. And more than likely, few people who know how to keep a score card will be able to afford tickets.
As a youth of 11, my father took me to Yankee Stadium for the 1960 Old Timers Day, because he wanted me to see the baseball heroes of his youth and early adulthood.
He made a special effort to point out Ty Cobb, who actually played decently for a 74-year-old.
It was the last time Cobb ever put on a uniform, and even though he wasn’t a Yankee it is to this day my deepest association with that stadium, as my father passed to me his deep respect for the game.
Some time around 2050 at least one man will take his son to Yankee Stadium for the Old Timers Day, point out Derek Jeter and tell his kid about The Dive, or The Flip back in ’01.
And so it will continue, even as this new stadium is eventually replaced, long after any of us are still around.