On the Closing of A Yankee Stadium
To me, it's actually the closing of the second Yankee Stadium. The first went down in 1973, although its is officially described as a "renovation". Out came the famous upper deck facade (carted off to Albany where it was tunred into scrap). Gone was the auxiliary scoreboard. Gone was the 296 foot right field proch. Gone were the on field monuments, relegated to a "Memorial Park".
Well, you get the idea.
Yes, there were still reminders of the original House That Ruth Built. The rampways. The tunnels under the stands leading from the clubhouse to the dugout. The backdrop of Bronx County Courthouse (and just a bit of the elevated subway on River Avenue).
But clearly this was not the original Yankee Stadium. I considered it Yankee Stadium # 2.
So, it is with mixed feeling that I look at the closing of this Yankee Stadium.
Now, I'll lose the tunnels, the ramps on the court house views too. And there's more (such as Macombs Dam Park)...And I'm not the only one.
Here's a sampling:
* It's Gone! Goodbye! (Sports Illustrated)
by Tom Verducci (In the voice of Yankee Stadium)
"..In a dying state, you don't worry about offending people. So let me just come out with the truth, even if this one might hurt: The original Yankee Stadium has been gone for 35 years. Derek Jeter doesn't stand in the same batter's box as Joe DiMaggio did, because home plate was moved forward some 10 to 20 feet in the renovation. Leftfield doesn't "get late early out there" anymore, as Yogi Berra famously observed, because the layout of the field changed; Death Valley, the infamous leftfield gap where titanic blasts went to die, became only a near-death experience, its deepest point chopped from 457 feet to 430 in 1976, to 411 in '85 and finally to 399 in '88. The frieze, made of copper, was sold for $75,000 to a guy in Albany, N.Y., who promptly melted it to sell for piping and other pedestrian uses. The foul poles were sold to a baseball team in Osaka, Japan, for $30,000. One-hundred-eighteen steel pillars, which were either a distinct structural element or a nuisance, depending on whether you ever sat behind one, were removed...."
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/the_bonus/09/18/yankee.stadium/1.html
* George Vescey (NY Times): " This is not the same Yankee Stadium where, as a youngster, I saw a dying Babe Ruth in 1947, or, as a young reporter, covered Mickey Mantle’s shot off Barney Schultz in the 1964 World Series. But it is the same renovated Stadium, on the same site, where I covered the Yankees of Williams, Rivera, Jeter, Pettitte, Posada — and (Joe) Torre.....The Yankees, Mets, Giants, Jets and Nets are all building pleasure palaces based on tax breaks, legal or otherwise, and the presumption that all those rich and giddy American corporations will subsidize luxury boxes for the shrimp-eaters and the wine-sippers.....
"Both New York baseball teams have bet their money, our tax money and government-supported infrastructure, on corporate-subsidized luxury boxes and seats, backed up, theoretically, by individuals with fortunes to burn on conspicuous consumption like waiter service at ballparks....I always thought of baseball as a Depression sport. In tough times, a latter-day Studs Lonigan could always plunk down a few quarters and spend a few hours at the ballpark. But now the two New York clubs, and their football cousins, have committed their core personality and economic future to corporations that we, all of us, are subsidizing with our own dwindling dollars.....Forget about the Naming Rights Jinx that has struck a large number of corporations-on-the-make that put their names on sports palaces in the past generation. What about the companies that have underwritten all that munching and sipping by visitors who are vaguely aware of the event taking place outside the soundproof windows? What happens when those folks tap out?"
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/18/sports/baseball/18vecsey.html
*Bill Crystal on worshipping at the Cathedral (synagogue) of Baseball (NY Times)
"....Saying goodbye to it is saying goodbye to a huge part of my life. The bond of my late father and his boys, the way he taught us about the game, its intricacies, its glory, its failures, the plays that are made, the ones that aren’t. How to read a box score and recreate a game.
If stadiums are the cathedrals of baseball, or in my case synagogues, then I have been worshiping at the same place for over half a century. The Stadium has been the safe room of my house of memories...."
"....To me, it was never the awesome place of the Babe, Joe D. and Mickey after it was renovated. The pillars were gone, the facade was gone, yet the ground was still the same, the aura of past moments hovering always. It was still ours.
I will miss this park because no matter how great the new one is, I won’t be able to look over and see my dad and me and my brothers sitting there, in the sun, eating a hot dog and learning how to keep score"
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/sports/baseball/21crystal.html?ref=sports
* Yankee Stadium, Going the Way of Joe DiMaggio (NY Times)
by Paul Simon
"....So, so long, Scooter, so long, Joe, so long, Mick, and since I never got the chance to say it, so long, Dad."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/sports/baseball/21simon.html?_r=1&ref=sports&oref=slogin
* Tour Director Feels Pangs With the Final Group (NY Times)
By JACK CURRY
Published: September 20, 2008
"Tony Morante paced near Gate 4 at Yankee Stadium early Friday afternoon, his eyes already red and moist. Morante watched fans file in for the last scheduled tour at the Stadium. He seemed anxious. Morante has so many stories to share, so a part of him wanted this tour to stretch for hours".
"This was not just another walk through the park for Morante, the director of Stadium tours. Not when he has been coming here since 1949. Not when he has been dispensing thousands of tidbits on tours for 22 years. This was Morante’s chance to whisper goodbye to a shrine".
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/20/sports/baseball/20tour.html?ref=sports
Landmark in Hearts and Minds, Not in Fact (NY Times)
By RICHARD SANDOMIR
Published: September 20, 2008
If historical significance is a measure of a landmark, why has Yankee Stadium never been designated one by the New York city Landmarks Preservation Commission ?
(i.e.....the commission believed the Stadium was no longer worthy of the designation.
“The renovation stripped it of all its historic features,” said Elisabeth de Bourbon, the director of communications for the commission. The rooftop frieze and columns were gone, the playing field had been lowered, the seating configuration changed.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/sports/baseball/21landmark.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
* At Ebbets Field, It Was Really Over When It Was Over
by DAVE ANDERSON
September 20, 2008
"...I happened to be the last sportswriter out of Ebbets Field after the last Dodgers game there. Happened is the correct word. I was with The New York Journal-American then and had covered the Dodgers for The Brooklyn Eagle, but I didn’t plan to be the last writer out...."
"... I don’t get all the fuss about Sunday night’s “last game” at Yankee Stadium. It’s not as if the Yamkees were moving to that proposed stadium that never materialized on the West Side of Manhattan or, heaven and the Babe forbid, to New Jersey. They’re just going across 161st Street to their glossy new Yankee Stadium, all $1.3 billion of it, with the same name in the same Bronx neighborhood..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/sports/baseball/21daveanderson.html?ref=sports
*Melancholy in Bronx, but Not Because of Stadium (NY Times)
By DAVID GONZALEZ
Published: September 19, 2008
"...It’s just that too often, no one much respected the neighborhood outside its walls, including Yankee executives..."
"....Now they will have their new stadium, rising on what had been Macombs Dam Park. A lone sign taped to the window of a Jerome Avenue apartment building still demands that the Yankees leave the park alone...."
"...Although it took almost two years, local groups are getting grants from the community benefits agreement that was part of the stadium deal. More is promised. Local activists are waiting for the replacement parks they were promised, too...."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/20/nyregion/20bronx.html?hp
Verducci in Sports Illustrated's conclusion:
"...So there you have it. You know my secrets. You've roamed by basement hallways. You've seen my hidden places. You know my life story. And now you know my dying wish. When all of me is gone I hope you can remember the special place I occupied in American history. I want you to remember the emotions and the meaning of that night in 2001 because I was never just about great baseball. I was always about much more than that...."
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/the_bonus/09/18/yankee.stadium/3.html
Well, you get the idea.
Yes, there were still reminders of the original House That Ruth Built. The rampways. The tunnels under the stands leading from the clubhouse to the dugout. The backdrop of Bronx County Courthouse (and just a bit of the elevated subway on River Avenue).
But clearly this was not the original Yankee Stadium. I considered it Yankee Stadium # 2.
So, it is with mixed feeling that I look at the closing of this Yankee Stadium.
Now, I'll lose the tunnels, the ramps on the court house views too. And there's more (such as Macombs Dam Park)...And I'm not the only one.
Here's a sampling:
* It's Gone! Goodbye! (Sports Illustrated)
by Tom Verducci (In the voice of Yankee Stadium)
"..In a dying state, you don't worry about offending people. So let me just come out with the truth, even if this one might hurt: The original Yankee Stadium has been gone for 35 years. Derek Jeter doesn't stand in the same batter's box as Joe DiMaggio did, because home plate was moved forward some 10 to 20 feet in the renovation. Leftfield doesn't "get late early out there" anymore, as Yogi Berra famously observed, because the layout of the field changed; Death Valley, the infamous leftfield gap where titanic blasts went to die, became only a near-death experience, its deepest point chopped from 457 feet to 430 in 1976, to 411 in '85 and finally to 399 in '88. The frieze, made of copper, was sold for $75,000 to a guy in Albany, N.Y., who promptly melted it to sell for piping and other pedestrian uses. The foul poles were sold to a baseball team in Osaka, Japan, for $30,000. One-hundred-eighteen steel pillars, which were either a distinct structural element or a nuisance, depending on whether you ever sat behind one, were removed...."
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/the_bonus/09/18/yankee.stadium/1.html
* George Vescey (NY Times): " This is not the same Yankee Stadium where, as a youngster, I saw a dying Babe Ruth in 1947, or, as a young reporter, covered Mickey Mantle’s shot off Barney Schultz in the 1964 World Series. But it is the same renovated Stadium, on the same site, where I covered the Yankees of Williams, Rivera, Jeter, Pettitte, Posada — and (Joe) Torre.....The Yankees, Mets, Giants, Jets and Nets are all building pleasure palaces based on tax breaks, legal or otherwise, and the presumption that all those rich and giddy American corporations will subsidize luxury boxes for the shrimp-eaters and the wine-sippers.....
"Both New York baseball teams have bet their money, our tax money and government-supported infrastructure, on corporate-subsidized luxury boxes and seats, backed up, theoretically, by individuals with fortunes to burn on conspicuous consumption like waiter service at ballparks....I always thought of baseball as a Depression sport. In tough times, a latter-day Studs Lonigan could always plunk down a few quarters and spend a few hours at the ballpark. But now the two New York clubs, and their football cousins, have committed their core personality and economic future to corporations that we, all of us, are subsidizing with our own dwindling dollars.....Forget about the Naming Rights Jinx that has struck a large number of corporations-on-the-make that put their names on sports palaces in the past generation. What about the companies that have underwritten all that munching and sipping by visitors who are vaguely aware of the event taking place outside the soundproof windows? What happens when those folks tap out?"
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/18/sports/baseball/18vecsey.html
*Bill Crystal on worshipping at the Cathedral (synagogue) of Baseball (NY Times)
"....Saying goodbye to it is saying goodbye to a huge part of my life. The bond of my late father and his boys, the way he taught us about the game, its intricacies, its glory, its failures, the plays that are made, the ones that aren’t. How to read a box score and recreate a game.
If stadiums are the cathedrals of baseball, or in my case synagogues, then I have been worshiping at the same place for over half a century. The Stadium has been the safe room of my house of memories...."
"....To me, it was never the awesome place of the Babe, Joe D. and Mickey after it was renovated. The pillars were gone, the facade was gone, yet the ground was still the same, the aura of past moments hovering always. It was still ours.
I will miss this park because no matter how great the new one is, I won’t be able to look over and see my dad and me and my brothers sitting there, in the sun, eating a hot dog and learning how to keep score"
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/sports/baseball/21crystal.html?ref=sports
* Yankee Stadium, Going the Way of Joe DiMaggio (NY Times)
by Paul Simon
"....So, so long, Scooter, so long, Joe, so long, Mick, and since I never got the chance to say it, so long, Dad."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/sports/baseball/21simon.html?_r=1&ref=sports&oref=slogin
* Tour Director Feels Pangs With the Final Group (NY Times)
By JACK CURRY
Published: September 20, 2008
"Tony Morante paced near Gate 4 at Yankee Stadium early Friday afternoon, his eyes already red and moist. Morante watched fans file in for the last scheduled tour at the Stadium. He seemed anxious. Morante has so many stories to share, so a part of him wanted this tour to stretch for hours".
"This was not just another walk through the park for Morante, the director of Stadium tours. Not when he has been coming here since 1949. Not when he has been dispensing thousands of tidbits on tours for 22 years. This was Morante’s chance to whisper goodbye to a shrine".
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/20/sports/baseball/20tour.html?ref=sports
Landmark in Hearts and Minds, Not in Fact (NY Times)
By RICHARD SANDOMIR
Published: September 20, 2008
If historical significance is a measure of a landmark, why has Yankee Stadium never been designated one by the New York city Landmarks Preservation Commission ?
(i.e.....the commission believed the Stadium was no longer worthy of the designation.
“The renovation stripped it of all its historic features,” said Elisabeth de Bourbon, the director of communications for the commission. The rooftop frieze and columns were gone, the playing field had been lowered, the seating configuration changed.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/sports/baseball/21landmark.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
* At Ebbets Field, It Was Really Over When It Was Over
by DAVE ANDERSON
September 20, 2008
"...I happened to be the last sportswriter out of Ebbets Field after the last Dodgers game there. Happened is the correct word. I was with The New York Journal-American then and had covered the Dodgers for The Brooklyn Eagle, but I didn’t plan to be the last writer out...."
"... I don’t get all the fuss about Sunday night’s “last game” at Yankee Stadium. It’s not as if the Yamkees were moving to that proposed stadium that never materialized on the West Side of Manhattan or, heaven and the Babe forbid, to New Jersey. They’re just going across 161st Street to their glossy new Yankee Stadium, all $1.3 billion of it, with the same name in the same Bronx neighborhood..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/sports/baseball/21daveanderson.html?ref=sports
*Melancholy in Bronx, but Not Because of Stadium (NY Times)
By DAVID GONZALEZ
Published: September 19, 2008
"...It’s just that too often, no one much respected the neighborhood outside its walls, including Yankee executives..."
"....Now they will have their new stadium, rising on what had been Macombs Dam Park. A lone sign taped to the window of a Jerome Avenue apartment building still demands that the Yankees leave the park alone...."
"...Although it took almost two years, local groups are getting grants from the community benefits agreement that was part of the stadium deal. More is promised. Local activists are waiting for the replacement parks they were promised, too...."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/20/nyregion/20bronx.html?hp
Verducci in Sports Illustrated's conclusion:
"...So there you have it. You know my secrets. You've roamed by basement hallways. You've seen my hidden places. You know my life story. And now you know my dying wish. When all of me is gone I hope you can remember the special place I occupied in American history. I want you to remember the emotions and the meaning of that night in 2001 because I was never just about great baseball. I was always about much more than that...."
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/the_bonus/09/18/yankee.stadium/3.html
posted by eric model | 10:43 PM
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