FAREWELL YANKEE STADIUM

The Yankees played their last game at the "old" Yankee Stadium last night. But really, they played their last game their back in 1973, which was when they closed the stadium for remodelling. When they returned in 1975, the place was never the same.

When I reflect on my memories of the pre-1975 stadium, I mostly remember the players. Thurman Munson, Horace Clarke, Gene Michael, Roy White, Ron Bloomberg, Fritz Peterson, Steve Kline, Mel Stottlemyre, Jerry Kenney, Ron Woods, Lindy McDaniel, Jake Gibbs, Elston Howard, Joe Pepitone, Tom Tresh, Frank Tepedino and my boyhood idol, Bobby Murcer. They didn't win much, but to this little boy, it didn't matter. They were my team and they played in the greatest stadium in the world.

The funny thing about my memories of the stadium is that the Yankees always played Detroit. Or so it seemed since those were the games to which my dad would take us. So, I remember many of the Tigers players as well: Norm Cash, Al Kaline, Willie Horton, Tom Timmerman, Bill Freehan, Dick McAuliffe, Mickey Stanley, Jim Northrup, Gates Brown, Ed Brinkman, Aurelio Rodriguez, Mickey Lolich, Woodie Fryman, Joe Niekro.


The stadium had a Hall Of Fame area near the main entrance, bleachers were 50 cents, the flag pole was on the field, and death valley in the outfield seemed further away than our home in Brooklyn. Doubleheaders meant you got two games for the price of one. Oh yeah, and, it always seemed that we would sit behind a support beam. I guess they had a reduced priced seating plan.

True, when the team returned to the refurbished stadium, the winning tradition returned with them. And, from that time on, some of the best players in the game came to wear pinstripes: Catfish Hunter, Graig Nettles, Chris Chambliss, Reggie Jackson, Mickie Rivers, Don Gullett, Willie Randolph, Jimmy Key, Jessie Barfield, Lou Piniella, Ricky Henderson, Don Mattingly, Mike Mussina, Goose Gossage, John Wetteland, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettite, Jorge Posado, Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Johnny Damon, Chien Ming Wang, Hideki Matsui, Dave Winfield and now Joba Chamberland. But, something was missing for me. Murcer was traded after the 1974 season and the old ballpark now seemed as uninspiring as Shea Stadium.

During the last few years I lived in New York, the stadium started to become magical to me once again. Recently I found that a friend that I took to the stadium in the late 1980s had passed away. I can remember how much she soaked up the atmosphere during the game, and through her excitement my childhood love of the stadium had returned. I returned to the stadium as often as I could after that game with many different friends. I was in attendance the day they retired Reggie Jackson's number 44. I was also in the bleachers for a great ninth-inning come-from-behind win over Boston (Sox Suck!).

I haven't been back to the stadium since I moved to Florida in 1996. But, as Yogi Berra says in the promos that were shot for the last game - "I won't miss the place". I won't because for me it is a place where in my memory, Murcer still plays center and the Yankees always play the Tigers. And, forever, I'll be watching the game from behind a beam with my dad and my sister. How can I be sure? I can because that's the way I've been remembering the REAL "old" Yankee Stadium for 35 years.


From the papers: