Yankee Stadium Memories

Although I have lived in Brooklyn for 30 years, I was born in the Bronx, as were my parents. I was raised in pinstripe diapers. Today, I was back in the Bronx, facing the past and the future.

New Yankee Stadium looks very much like its famous predecessor. The facade is majestic as always. The field looks the same as well. But, I have no memories here.

Across 161st Street lies old Yankee Stadium. It is surrounded by a blue wooden construction fence. Workers were busy clanging together a scaffold to continue with it%26#39;s demolition. The field is gone. The seats are gone. The crowds are gone. But my memories remain.

Perhaps my earliest memory is not of a Yankee game, but watching the New York football Giants. They were losing, and the crowd was singing ';Goodbye Allie'; a taunt to Allie Sherman, the head coach. I remember attending Mickey Mantle Day. I remember carrying a ';Tame the Tigers'; sign with a friend at age 13. I remember sitting in the upper deck with my ex girlfriend watching the Yankees beat the Dodgers in a World Series Game.

The most exciting day on the Yankee calendar was always Bat Day, when you got a full sized bat, with the autograph of a Yankee on it. My dad always took me and my sister to the game. She would get a ';good'; bat - one with a Mantle or Pepitone autograph. I%26#39;d always get the Ruben Amaro or Horace Clark bat. She%26#39;d never trade.

As I listened to the workers dismantling my past, I thought of all the great times that I had there. The Tuesday night games in the down years, when the Stadium was relatively empty. The nights when nothing special happened and I paid $2.75 for General Admission tickets, snuck down to the box seats, and watched baseball. Admission was cheap. Food was affordable. And memories were made. Goodbye old friend. Goodbye.

Yankee Stadium Memories

With all your posts of late, Mel, I think you need to change your screen name to %26#39;NostalgicMel%26#39;.

Yankee Stadium Memories

Great post mel,i understand what you mean,i%26#39;m very lucky as my soccer team here in england (west ham)has been at the same stadium since 1920,

Why did they decide to build a new yankee stadium anyway?when i went on the tour back in 07 in looked in good shape to me,

thanks for the post,

Darren

Yankee Stadium was originally built in 1923. ';The House that Ruth Built.'; In the 1970s, it had a gut renovation that brought it into the modern age. The problem was not with the stadium itself, but with the greed of the ownership.

Old Yankee Stadium was a great place to see a game. The sightlines were great, and the stadium rocked. However, the management determined that there were insufficient ';Luxury Suites';. These Luxury Suites rent out for the big bucks. While the new stadium has fewer seats for the real fans, it has many more luxury boxes so that the corporate mucky-mucks can sip their champagne and pretend to root for the Yankees, while checking the stock ticker.

Never been there. Though your post took me there. It is really to bad. One of my favorite reason for loving your city is the history. Yankee Stadium was part of that history. Enjoyed your post.

My strongest memory from the old stadium was sitting just above the yankee%26#39;s bullpen in the bleachers for game 7 of the 2003 ALCS (in red sox gear of course). Although very painful in the end for me, it was a magnificent game whose theater was only magnified by the grandiosity of the stadium itself. Watching NY pitcher after pitcher warm up and go in - trying to hold the game in reach (it went into extra innnings) was like viewing an opera with the huge big blue area behind home plate as its backdrop. Easily the most memorable baseball experience I have had. When Aaron Bleepin Boone (a.k.a. ';Mr. October 17th';) took Wake deep, the yankee fans around me seemed to float up to a higher level while my crew sunk down - all of a sudden I had scores of elbows above me from jumping and flying fans to deal with - we quickly and quietly crawled off to catch the train back to Brooklyn.

WoW! By now you know I love history. I think it%26#39;s sad that ';old'; Yankee Stadium is now gone. My husband and dad are going to a game, but it would have meant a zillion times more if it was going to be in the ';house that Ruth built';.

BTW... do either you or your sister still have your bats???

Mel--Have you read Don Delillo%26#39;s novel *Underworld*? The opening chapter, which is an absolute marvel, takes place at ';the shot heard %26#39;round the world'; in 1951. Of course, it%26#39;s Polo Grounds rather than Yankee Stadium, but it%26#39;s in much the same spirit as what you%26#39;re invoking here. Even if you don%26#39;t invest in the entire novel, you might like to read that opening chapter in a bookstore sometime. I don%26#39;t think you%26#39;ll regret it.

Crans - I couldn%26#39;t agree more. One of the great Baseball stories in print.

And Mel - you brought me back to my early days as well.

I should have mentioned this earlier - but the chapter in question was also published separately from the novel Underworld as a novella titled ';Pafko at the Wall';

:)

If you know who Pafko is, you know Baseball!