Well, much like when the pitcher allowed ten home runs in a single inning, it’s the end of an era. (Sorry, couldn’t resist) A day I have heard about for a few years now and just shuffled to the back of my mind, hoping it wasn’t real. The final game is being played and then they are tearing down Yankee Stadium. I’m not a rabid sports fan and I don’t even follow the Yankees as closely as my father and brother. But I grew up on Yankee baseball and I stayed true through the 80′s when they couldn’t win a game to save their lives.
So now I can add another thing to the list of wishes/goals I will never accomplish. I will never take my daughter to Yankee Stadium. The new stadium will be magnificent and I’m sure it will carry on the tradition, but it just isn’t the same place. It’s the same idea behind when we drive past that damn field of trees in some podunk Pennsylvania town and Teresa’s father points out that his dad used to play ball there. Oh sure, there is a nice new ball field over in town now, but this abandoned lot is where he played, that’s where we point to. That is our tradition.
I’ve been to Yankee Stadium a lot when I was a kid and even though I haven’t been there in decades, it was always nice to know it was there. Bumping into random strangers getting the tickets, buying a program and a hot dog and then hitting that tunnel. Walking through the dark tunnel with the light at the end of it, holding my father’s hand. Getting to the end of that tunnel and seeing the lush green of the field, the bright blue skies and that fabled facade in between them. Taking in just how big the place is and how EVERY single big name I ever heard of has played here. The giant NY behind home plate…
Yankee Stadium will go on but it will never be where I saw Dave Winfield being heckled and then cheered by the same drunk in the same inning. It won’t be where I stood up and yelled “Buckwheat!” when they announced Eddie Murray. It won’t be the place where I ate potato kinish with my dad and it won’t be where I sweltered through a loss in the July 3rd heat, only to listen to Dave Righetti’s July 4th no-hitter on the radio the next day… Most of all, even if they carry on the tradition, it won’t be the place where I fell in love with Frank Sinatra. Walking out of that place after a win, listening to “New York, New York”, it just moves something in you.
It’s the closest thing I have to a church and I will miss it.
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