Those who have shared in it need only to close their eyes and all the senses return in an instant. The feelings of hot summer sun, and anxious October chill. Smells of hotdogs and char grilled pretzels, cigarette smoke, and beer stained concrete. The taste of Peanuts, and Cracker Jacks. The smacking sounds of a glove in hand, and the snap of bat connecting with the ball. Or the voice of God over the P.A. system.
And of course the sights!
The bright blue seats! The white concrete façade! The dank and dim concourses. The steep narrow upper deck. The Ambulance parked outside the garage door out past monument park. The black bleachers in center.
And that short porch in right! Oh that short porch!
Reggie Reggie Reggie! The Giambino! The O’Neill targets! Phil’s call of the Roger Maris record breaker! Jeffery Maier! And the Babe in his own house!
The view of the courthouse above the scoreboard and façade.
The place I am referring can be found at East 161st street and River Avenue in Bronx New York. It is the most recognizable sports setting in American history.
It is of course Yankees Stadium.
The House That Ruth Built, as it has been commonly called, will close its doors forever this Sunday night. For me Yankees Stadium has been like a home, and a place I will never forget.
My first trip to Yankee Stadium came somewhere around 1986 with my father. I was too young to remember much then, and my father is too old to remember much now. What we do remember is that it was a Yankees / Red Sox double-header. I remember the Trail- Ways bus that took us to the Bronx, and I remember all the floodlights that lit up the evening sky. But I mostly remember the dark concourse ramps that my father and I jogged up and down to keep my six-year-old energy in check.
My next Yankee Stadium experience would come just a few years later. This time my mom and little brother would be joining us, along with my uncle Gary and my great aunt Marge. The six of us all in one car, with my sick brother stinking up the back seat. The Yankees were facing the Detroit Tigers in a Saturday afternoon game. My uncle had Saturday season tickets so this was a regular event for him. After entering the turnstiles our parties split. Marge and Gary proceeded to their seats in the main reserve (section 13 row E seats 1 & 2), while my immediate family and I proceeded to the upper deck down the third base line. The experience was down hill from there. The Tigers destroyed the Yankees on the field, while the majority of the fans were drunk and unruly off the field. It was there that I first learned what marijuana smells like, as the fans in our section were toking up. We left the game in the seventh inning knowing full well we might have to wait three innings back at the car for Marge and Gary. When we got to the car, we found that they were waiting for us. Their experience was no better then ours. My mother vowed to write George Stienbrener a letter, but never did.
By 1991 my aunt Marge was attending fewer games with my uncle Gary. Between adult influence, pre-puberty, and little league, my interests in Major League Baseball began to grow tremendously. My uncle Gary saw this and began asking my brother and I to accompany him to Saturday home games at Yankee Stadium.
The 1991 Mayors Trophy game between the Yankees and Mets was not only a practice game for both teams, but also a practice game for me as a fan. I knew that if I appeared to be bored, disinterested, too antsy, or made too many trips to the bathroom, then it would be the last game I would attend with my uncle. My brother’s audition did not go as well as mine, but nonetheless he and I would alternate Saturday games with my uncle for the next ten years.
Shortly after the 1991 season, my brother and I became spoiled rotten. My father began taking us to Tuesday night games along with my sister. Between my dad and my uncle, I was now seeing a ton of great games in the house that Ruth Built.
As I began to grow up, Yankee Stadium became my home away from home. A place that I knew vast comfort and entertainment in the city that never sleeps. I experienced great friendships and family moments over hundreds of games and thousands of innings. I went to games with girl friends, and after college visitations. I went on school nights and stayed up way past bedtime. I went to games on my own, and even took a British friend to his first ever American baseball game. (He tried to equate it to Cricket.) I went to playoff games and two World Series games, Game 2 of the 1996 World Series, and Game 1 of the 1998 World Series. I even took my dad to his first ever playoff game, last season against the Indians in the division series.
In recent years my sister has become a huge Yankee fan. She has attended a great many games with my father, uncle and I. Her newfound joy for the Yankees and constant optimism for the Yankees have made it wonderful attending games at the stadium with her.
Since 2004 plans to build a new Yankees Stadium have been looming. At first those of us with fond feelings for the current Stadium denied that the day would ever come. Then there was a groundbreaking ceremony. Then over the last two seasons strong visual evidence began growing every day. Now the New Yankee Stadium is almost complete just beyond the third base side of the current Stadium. As the 2008 season began, the theme of endings had also begun. Last opening day, last season series, and last All-Star game.
As the Yankees scheduled their lasts, so did I.
I had been planning it for some time. I wanted to send my home away from home off right, and give Yankee Stadium the honor it properly deserved. To do so I wanted those family members closest to me by blood and Yankee bond to be there to witness the end. And so I got tickets one last time for my father, my uncle Gary, my brother, my sister, and I and on Tuesday September 16th 2008 we attended our last Yankee game at the Stadium. It was an emotional game full of highs and lows. The five of us shared in all the usual laughs, but we also had a polite amount of pain and mourning. My father got a bit emotional when he revisited his old seat in right field. Gary was nostaligic when remembering games past from his old seats in section 13. My sister had her moments and my brother refused to accept the move, vowing never to go to the new stadium. My heart skipped a beat when I entered the park and flipped the turnstile one final time.
A very special moment occurred in the bottom of the first inning, when Derek Jeter collected his 1270th hit at Yankee Stadium to pass Lou Gerhig for the most hits all time at Yankee Stadium. It was a fitting end, and I was thrilled to be there to witness the Yankee Captain make history.
It was the only highlight from the game itself. The Yankees will miss the playoffs for the first time in 13 years this season. The game itself carried no playoff ramifications. The Yankees struggled to score runs and in the ninth inning they were down by four. The last batter of the game was Johnny Damon. Johnny hit a high lazy fly ball to the short stop Orlando Cabrera. As the ball landed in the shortstops glove my heart once again skipped. I lowered my head and finished writing up my scorecard. Not a word was spoken, and it felt like the entire stadium was silent as Frank Sinatra sang New York New York. None of us wanted to leave and we took our sweet sweet time moving from section 14 of the upper deck. We stopped for photos, shared our feelings and cracked some jokes. Finally we were forced out of Yankee Stadium and departed from the gates in left field.
The end had arrived.
Now all that remains is the final weekend series, and a Sunday night game on ESPN that will officially mark the end of an era in baseball and in history.
As I conclude this blog and write my final thoughts on Yankee Stadium, I will refrain from commenting on the change. I will not offer an opinon regarding power, or wealth, greed, or progress, or old versus new. I will simply say in conclusion that a very special place that has been very important to my life will soon be destroyed and gone forever. What will remain will be photographs, videotape and a mind bursting with memories. Like so many other things in life, we can’t stop the clock. We cant stop the change, all we can do is accept the things beyond our control remember the past with a sense of fondness, and look to the future with a sense of hope.
The bright blue seats! The white concrete façade! The dank and dim concourses.
The steep narrow upper deck.
And that short porch in right! Oh that short porch!
