The Volokh Conspiracy - Yankee Stadium, R.I.P.

Today is, of course, the final game for “the Yankee Stadium,” as it used to be called, and the Sunday NY Times has a terrific 2-page spread with reminiscences of their “Stadium moments” by Paul Simon, Jill Abramson, Robert Creamer, Keith Olbermann, Michiko Kakutani, and several others. They’re quite moving. I’m a Brooklyn boy, and I was six years old when our Dodgers left town, never to return, and to say I never got over it is an understatement. I couldn’t root for them anymore, needless to say – damn you, Walter O’Malley, damn you to hell! – but at least we still had the Yankees . . . to continue to loathe and despise. It was a hard time to be a Yankee-loather – from 1957 to 1964, the Yankees of Mantle, Berra, Ford, et al. won 7 American League pennants in 8 years (though, blessedly, they only won the Series three times in that span). But in my candid moments, I have to concede: at least they were the kind of team worth hating. That was always the thing (and still is) about the Yankees; I guess there are people who “hate” the Atlanta Braves, or the Colorado Rockies, or the Houston Astros – but you can’t hate one of them like you can hate the Yankees, which is a purifying, soul-affirming, life-enhancing kind of hate.

I went to the Stadium a whole bunch of times when I was a kid, and I’ll miss it when it’s gone. My greatest Stadium moment: Oct. 12, 1964, Game 5 of the ‘64 series, Yanks versus Cardinals. My pals Eric Nadel (now the lead broadcaster for the Texas Rangers), Marty Gross, and I got up at the crack o’ dawn to get on line for tickets (and yes, in New York City, you most definitely get “on line” for tickets); my dad, heroically, agreed to drive us there, sparing us the hour-and-a-half-if-you’re-lucky subway ride from deep in Brooklyn up to the Bronx. We end up deep in the left field bleachers, and what a game it was! The magnificent Bob Gibson holds the Yankees scoreless on 4 hits until the bottom of the ninth, when, with the Cards up 2-0, an error by Cards SS Dick Groat puts Mantle on first, and Tom Tresh crashes a homer to right-center to tie it up! The place goes wild (except for me), but is silenced again in the tenth when Tim McCarver cracks a 3-run homer to deep right to give the Cards a 5-2 lead – and Gibson comes back out for the bottom of the tenth (unimaginable, today) to set the Yankees down and give the Cardinals a 3-2 series lead. Alright!! It didn’t seem like a 1 ½ hour subway ride home . . .

	[David Post, September 21, 2008 at 2:01pm] Trackbacks Yankee Stadium, R.I.P. Today is, of course, the final game for “the Yankee Stadium,” as it used to be called, and the Sunday NY Times has a terrific 2-page spread with reminiscences of their “Stadium moments” by Paul Simon, Jill Abramson, Robert Creamer, Keith Olbermann, Michiko Kakutani, and several others. They’re quite moving. I’m a Brooklyn boy, and I was six years old when our Dodgers left town, never to return, and to say I never got over it is an understatement. I couldn’t root for them anymore, needless to say – damn you, Walter O’Malley, damn you to hell! – but at least we still had the Yankees . . . to continue to loathe and despise. It was a hard time to be a Yankee-loather – from 1957 to 1964, the Yankees of Mantle, Berra, Ford, et al. won 7 American League pennants in 8 years (though, blessedly, they only won the Series three times in that span). But in my candid moments, I have to concede: at least they were the kind of team worth hating. That was always the thing (and still is) about the Yankees; I guess there are people who “hate” the Atlanta Braves, or the Colorado Rockies, or the Houston Astros – but you can’t hate one of them like you can hate the Yankees, which is a purifying, soul-affirming, life-enhancing kind of hate. I went to the Stadium a whole bunch of times when I was a kid, and I’ll miss it when it’s gone. My greatest Stadium moment: Oct. 12, 1964, Game 5 of the ‘64 series, Yanks versus Cardinals. My pals Eric Nadel (now the lead broadcaster for the Texas Rangers), Marty Gross, and I got up at the crack o’ dawn to get on line for tickets (and yes, in New York City, you most definitely get “on line” for tickets); my dad, heroically, agreed to drive us there, sparing us the hour-and-a-half-if-you’re-lucky subway ride from deep in Brooklyn up to the Bronx. We end up deep in the left field bleachers, and what a game it was! The magnificent Bob Gibson holds the Yankees scoreless on 4 hits until the bottom of the ninth, when, with the Cards up 2-0, an error by Cards SS Dick Groat puts Mantle on first, and Tom Tresh crashes a homer to right-center to tie it up! The place goes wild (except for me), but is silenced again in the tenth when Tim McCarver cracks a 3-run homer to deep right to give the Cards a 5-2 lead – and Gibson comes back out for the bottom of the tenth (unimaginable, today) to set the Yankees down and give the Cardinals a 3-2 series lead. Alright!! It didn’t seem like a 1 ½ hour subway ride home . . .