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A lot of Yankee ingenuity went into constructing a magical, mystical stadium - and its proud franchise
Rocky Mountain News, June 7, 2004
By Jack Etkin
Gwynn had made countless trips to New York for games against the Mets. On those visits, he had ridden the Padres bus any number of times from Shea Stadium to the airport in Newark, N.J., a trip that took Gwynn past Yankee Stadium. He could only look out and wonder, with as much nosed-pressed-against-the-window curiosity as any major leaguer can muster.
"I did that so many times and never got a chance to see the place," Gwynn said. "It didn't happen until '98. It was a big deal to me, going to Yankee Stadium."
The Colorado Rockies will make their first visit to Yankee Stadium on Tuesday, when they begin a three-game series. Like Gwynn, Todd Helton has gazed at the stadium from the window of a team bus, doing it as recently as two weeks ago when the Rockies, swept by the Mets, zipped through the Bronx on their way to the Newark airport.
On the stadium's marquee, Helton saw the Yankees' simple, imperial summation of their unique history: 26 World Championships. In a matter of hours, Helton will get to do more than stare curiously at the stadium's exterior. He'll see the inside, something he never has done.
"I'm definitely looking forward to going there, definitely looking forward to walking out to whatever they call it," Helton said, referring to Monument Park, "and checking that out. That's hallowed ground. I'm looking forward to being able to play there."
Monument Park, as the name implies, is an exhibition area beyond the outfield fence in left-center where six monuments and 19 plaques pay homage to the Yankees' august past. Monument Park was just about the first thing Gwynn saw of Yankee Stadium when he, his son Anthony, who was then 16, and several Padres teammates took the subway from Manhattan on the day before Game 1 of the 1998 World Series.
"You get off the subway, and you're like right in the 'hood," Gwynn said. "I could not believe there was a baseball stadium there. I was absolutely shocked."
Gwynn and his teammates entered the stadium near the left field corner. A quick right led to the visiting team's clubhouse, which is the path the other players followed. A quick left was the way to Monument Park, which is where Gwynn and his son headed.
"We hung out in the monuments for about 20 minutes, and it was an awesome experience for me," Gwynn said. "I was just like in heaven out there. When you walk in there, man, you can just kind of sense the history of the game, because a lot of it happened right there."
Yankee Stadium is part ballpark and part pantheon. It has been the home of players such as Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle, as well as teams that won so often that the World Series was practically a birthright for the Yankees and their fans.
The Yankees have won 39 American League pennants and those 26 world championships.
Yankee Stadium is where:
• Lou Gehrig began and ended his streak of playing in 2,130 consecutive games.
• On July 4, 1939, a terminally ill Gehrig became the first player in major league history to have his number retired and in a famous speech said, "Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth."
• Babe Ruth hit his 60th home run in 1927, surpassing the number of home runs hit that season by any other American League team.
• His voice raspy, Ruth made his final appearance at Yankee Stadium in June 1948, two months before dying of throat cancer.
• Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak began and ended in 1941.
• Don Larsen in 1956 threw the only perfect game in World Series history.
• Roger Maris broke Ruth's record and hit his 61st homer in 1961.
• Mantle, in his penultimate season, hit his 500th homer in 1967.
• Reggie Jackson hit three home runs, each on the first pitch, in a Series game in 1977.
One month before Jackson's feat, Rockies manager Clint Hurdle reached the big leagues with Kansas City. Hurdle's first visit to Yankee Stadium came in 1978, when he was 20.
"I was absolutely mesmerized," Hurdle said. "Yankee Stadium was a castle to me, a fantasy place. It was a place my father talked about. You'd hear other people talk about it with just glowing eloquence."
For the Rockies players such as Helton who never have been there, Hurdle suggests they "take a walk, a big walk and experience it all." The same as Hurdle, who said he went up to the third deck in right field and made a similar trek to the heights in left field "to look down at the bullpen."
Buck Showalter had a unique opportunity to commune with the Yankees' past. He was a minor leaguer in the Yankees organization from 1977 through 1983 and later managed in their minor league system before becoming a coach with the Yankees in 1990. The first time Showalter saw Yankee Stadium was in 1985, following his first year as a manager at short-season Class A Oneonta.
"It was pretty special," Showalter said. "(Sometimes) you get to these things that you've had on this pedestal and they're a letdown. It was better than I could imagine. It was ethereal."
It became even more mystical for Showalter when he managed the Yankees for four seasons beginning in 1992. Sometimes Showalter would spend the night at Yankee Stadium rather than go home if a day game was to follow a night game.
"I used to go out late at night, couldn't sleep, get a cup of coffee and go sit in the dugout," Showalter said. "The ring of lights they leave on was almost like a halo around the place. I'd walk out and talk to those monuments during those nights sometimes. Got a lot of great advice."
Monument Park is located between the Yankees and visitors bullpens. When Roger Clemens pitched for the Yankees, he would stop at the Ruth monument after warming up before a start. Clemens would put his fingers to his forehead, then touch Ruth's forehead.
"Put my sweat on his," Clemens said of his lucky gesture. "Kept that thing shiny, I know that."
The Yankees not only relish their rich past, they believe it has become a force, a karma that somehow will work to their advantage. In Game 7 of the American League Championship Series last year, the Yankees trailed the Boston Red Sox 5-2 going into the bottom of the eighth. They won 6-5 in the 11th when Aaron Boone, who was with the Yankees for only the final two months of last season, led off that inning with a homer.
"Like Derek told me," Boone said, referring to shortstop Derek Jeter, whose entire career has been spent in the Yankees organization, " 'The ghosts will show up eventually.' "
High and far
In January 1920, the Yankees bought Ruth from the Red Sox for $125,000. Ruth made a substantial and immediate impact. The Yankees, who were tenants of the New York Giants at the Polo Grounds, won 95 games and their first AL pennant in 1920. Attendance doubled to 1.29 million that year.
In 1921, the Giants told the Yankees to leave the Polo Grounds as soon as possible. They left in 1923 when Yankee Stadium, known as the House that Ruth Built, opened.
After the 1973 season, Yankee Stadium was closed for renovation. The Yankees played at Shea Stadium in 1974 and 1975 and returned home in 1976 to a facility that had been modernized and downsized.
The Yankees attendance record of 74,747 for a regular-season game was set against Boston in 1947. At the remodeled facility, the regular-season attendance record is 56,717.
At the original Yankee Stadium, an ornate copper façade adorned the front of the roof that covered most of the ballpark's third deck. In the remodeled Yankee Stadium, there is no such façade, only a replica atop a new, 560-foot scoreboard.
On May 22, 1963, Mantle hit a home run that ricocheted off the façade in right field and came within 18 inches of going out of Yankee Stadium. The home run came in the 11th off Bill Fischer and gave the Yankees an 8-7 win against the Kansas City Athletics.
In those days before the amateur draft, players signed to sizable contracts were known as bonus babies and had to be kept in the big leagues for their first year. That's why Tony La Russa, 18, was on the A's bench and making his first visit to Yankee Stadium.
La Russa said A's manager Eddie Lopat, a former Yankees pitcher and teammate of Mantle, had been baiting the Yankees slugger every time he batted. The A's had scored six runs in the eighth and tied the score in the ninth on a homer by Ed Charles. When Mantle came up in the 11th, he had gone 0-for-2 with three walks.
"I remember Mantle came up twice, and Lopat started agitating him from the dugout," La Russa said. "The first time, he was kind of laughing with him. It got to be the 11th inning, and Eddie started yelling. Mantle stepped out of the batter's box, looked over there almost like, 'I've had enough.' I'll never forget it. Veins were bulging in his neck.
"All that adrenaline and anger and boom! I submit he could have hit a ball farther. The ball hit the façade and bounced back almost to second base. George Alusik, "The Turk," was our right fielder. All the pigeon (droppings) and debris just came flying down at him. Oh, it was amazing. Mantle goes around third base and looks at Eddie like (he's saying: Take that.)"
From on high
Bob Sheppard is in his 54th season as the public address announcer at Yankee Stadium. His voice is rich and distinctive. Sheppard speaks slowly, without falling into the trap of shouting or hyperbole so common to public address announcers at sporting events. He's direct and to the point, with no gimmicks but with an unmistakable elegance.
Sheppard has been called the "Voice of God." Recalling the first time Sheppard introduced him, former shortstop Jim Fregosi said, "I wanted to crawl underneath the grass and the dirt. It was scary."
For Gwynn, getting introduced by Sheppard was "a big thrill," particularly since Gwynn had been talking about Sheppard in the dugout with broadcasters Keith Olberman and Fran Healy before Game 1 of the 1998 Series.
"I'm right in the middle of saying, 'Man, I wish I had a recording of Bob Sheppard saying my name when he announces me for the starting lineup.' And boom, there's Bob Sheppard. I hear, 'No. 19. Tony Gwynn. No. 19.' I turned around and said, 'Mr. Sheppard, nice to meet you.' After the Series, Olberman sent me one of those little things where you push a button, and here's Bob Sheppard saying my name. It was awesome. So for me, the experience of going to Yankee Stadium and playing for the first time was a big, big deal."
Gwynn will be a first-ballot Hall of Famer when he becomes eligible for election in 2007. He is best remembered for his 3,141 hits, his eight National League batting titles and his uncanny ability to line opposite-field singles between third base and shortstop.
In 27 games in the postseason,
Gwynn piled up 31 hits, including one home run. It was off Yankees left-hander David Wells and gave the Padres a one-run lead in Game 1, which they subsequently lost. Considering his milestone hits, his renown for moving the ball around and his career that included 135 home runs, never more than 17 in any season, it's strange to hear
Gwynn say of that Series home run, "That's still my favorite hit of all time."
By way of explanation, Gwynn said, "Because it was in Yankee Stadium. The fact that you're playing in Yankee Stadium and the fact that the world is watching. I hadn't been that nervous for a game probably since my rookie year. But to hit a home run in a tie game in the World Series off a left-handed pitcher in Yankee Stadium. It's like, 'This is what the big boys do when they play here.' "
Like Gwynn, Juan Pierre played in Yankee Stadium for the first time in the World Series. Pierre and the Florida Marlins began the Series there against the Yankees in October.
"I'd seen it on TV for so many years," Pierre said. "Until you experience it, you really can't explain it. It's like actually playing in a museum. That's the kind of feeling you get, because you can just think of all the great players that played on that field."
Goose Gossage walked off the mound plenty of times on that field, successfully saving another game for the Yankees. But the first time Gossage, a Colorado Springs native, saw Yankee Stadium he was a 20-year-old rookie with the Chicago White Sox in 1972.
He made the White Sox out of spring training that year and remembers thinking, "I hope I'm here long enough for when we go to Yankee Stadium."
That, indeed, happened, and Gossage remembers walking into the bowels of a stadium and before even entering the clubhouse, asking a guard for directions to the dugout.
"He says, 'Follow that rubber mat,' " Gossage said. "I walked down there, and all of a sudden, there's a light at the end of this tunnel. I walk and walk and pop out in Yankee Stadium. I almost (wet) my pants.
"And then I got in a game that night. My dad (Jake) had passed away in 1969, when I was a junior in high school. He never saw me either sign professionally or make it to the big leagues. I stood on that mound, and I looked around. The umpire was talking to me. I don't remember what he said at all. They're trying to get the game going, and I'm just standing there. I'm scared to death. My legs are shaking all over. I was shaking so bad, I didn't think I had the coordination to even throw a baseball.
"I'm telling you it was an out-of-body experience. I looked around and said, 'Dad, this is for you,' because he was a huge Yankee fan."
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