Final Day at Yankee Stadium


What does Yankee Stadium mean to you? Today is the final game to ever be played at the old Grandfather Clock of baseball history. More history has went down there at the House that Ruth Built than any other stadium in the game. It has been a quiet reminder that baseball tied us to another era of history and civlization. Before big business and corporate dollars took over, there was Yankee Stadium. To everyone that has ever been there, they have their own memory of the game’s version of the cathedral. It could have went on forever. Though ran down and rusty, Yankee Stadium is a historical landmark that far out-lived its lifespan.

For me, my first day at Yankee Stadium was when I was 20 years old. I visited my friend George in Connecticut and we went to see Roger Clemens pitch against the Kansas City Royals. Derek Jeter got the big hit, Clemens was Clemens, the Yankees won handily and we wandered around the Bronx neighborhood behind the stadium afterwards. I’ve been there twice since, but no time could compare to my first time hanging out in the Concrete Jungle that Ruth built.

To me, its the most historical stadium in American sports history. More than the Boston Garden, more than MSG, more than Fenway Park. The ghosts in the outfield came into play so many times in the postseason, counting as an extra teammate for the pinstriped crew. The ghosts that played there are immortal, they continue on forever. As Yogi Berra once said, “Its gets late awfully early out here,” and indeed it will at New Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. The legend and mystique of the Yankees will never die, like it or not; because of this Stadium and the history that has went down surrounding that very home plate.

Goodbye Yankee Stadium. Whether you’re a Yankees fan or not, if you’re a baseball fan you shed an inner tear today.

-Remembering Yankee Stadium [Baseball Musings]