Stadium sendoff
NEW YORK — On Sunday evening, they will walk off America's most famous field for the final time.
No more sunny days spent watching the pinstripes run out across the same ground once patrolled by Ruth and Gehrig, DiMaggio and Mantle.
No more October afternoons with shadows creeping across the grass.
No more glorious nights with balls soaring into the upper deck as the old place shimmies from leaping, boisterous fans, their roar carrying out to the subway tracks on River Avenue and beyond.
It was an edifice built to symbolize American power, a place meant to hold the same place in New York's imagination as the Colosseum does in Rome's.
And now, 85Z\x years after it was opened, Yankee Stadium is about to close.
"I'm going to miss it all," Yogi Berra said wistfully.
So much of baseball's history has occurred on this five-sided patch of land near the Harlem River: Of the 601 World Series games, 100 have been played here. Eleven no-hitters have been pitched here, including three perfect games.
There are the monuments and the short porch. Before a renovation that added amenities and subtracted ambiance, there was the copper frieze and Death Valley. The new Yankee Stadium, a $1.3 billion palace rising just across 161st Street, may have the latest in comforts, food and amenities, but it will never replace the history of the original.
Retracing the path of Hall of Famers often runs through players' minds — especially these days — as they walk up the five dugout steps, crane their necks up at the vast crowd, then sprint onto the field.
"Just being able to run out on the grass where all the great players once did — that definitely will be missed," Yanks outfielder Johnny Damon said. "Yeah, I kind of enjoyed being able to play on the same field that Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle and Babe Ruth did, and hit the ball into the upper deck just like those guys."
Built for $2.5 million, America's first three-deck sports showcase rose over 284 working days in 1922 and 1923 — before there was an Empire State Building. They called it "The Yankee Stadium" back then, the article importing its grandeur during a gilded age.
Cheers began the very first day, when Ruth hit a three-run homer in a 4-1 win over Boston on April 18, 1923.
John Philip Sousa led the Seventh Regiment Band during the opening ceremonies, which included players on both teams parading to the flagpole. The crowd was announced as 74,200, and one scalper was arrested when he tried to get $1.25 for a $1.10 seat. Fred Lieb of the New York Evening Telegram dubbed the ballpark "The House That Ruth Built," and the name stuck.
All 26 World Series titles and 37 of 39 American League pennants won by the Yankees have come in years they played here. The ballpark had baseball's first electric message board (1959) and first replay screen (1976).
There were other events — the Baltimore Colts' overtime victory over the football Giants in the 1958 NFL championship, and Knute Rockne's 1928 speech urging Notre Dame to "win one for the Gipper" against Army. Thirty championship boxing matches were fought at the stadium, including Joe Louis' first-round destruction of Max Schmeling in 1938. There were soccer games with Pele, papal masses with Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, a rally with Nelson Mandela and rock concerts by Billy Joel, Pink Floyd and U2. A stadium record crowd of 123,707 attended a 1958 gathering of Jehovah's Witnesses.
But this sorry season will end without another World Series, not even a playoff appearance. It's a melancholy coda to Yankee Stadium's symphony of success.
That makes saying goodbye all that much tougher when Frank Sinatra's recording of "New York, New York" is played after a game for the final time.
The last home run will have been hit, the last game won and lost.
"I will definitely be sad," Jeter said. "It doesn't get better than Yankee Stadium."
