Yankee Stadium Memories

As I watched Yankee Stadium's last game ever, on ESPN last night, many memories came to mind. Things I saw on TV. My very earliest was Reggie Jackson's 3 HRs in a World Series game in 1977. the greatest is Josh Beckett and the Marlins beating the Yankees in Game 6 in 2003 to clinch their second title.

Yesterday's game started with a very nice opening ceremony. All those all-timers like only the New York Yankees can put together, reunited in a farewell event. No other team can get even close to what we saw last night. Once a friend explained it to me this way: pick a kid in the middle of Africa, a kid that has never seen a game, and ask him to name a team in US sports. Chances are he will name the Yankees". My friend is totally right.

I am not a Yankee fan. Far from it. My twin brother is one and my late wife was one, too. We always feud about it. First on my Philadelphia Phillies (1977-1992) and later with my Florida Marlins, once they came about back in 1993 in my adopted hometown of Miami.

I had the incredible opportunity of attending two games in Yankee Stadium. They just happened to be two of the 100 World Series games they hosted there in 85 years of long tradition. As a baseball lover, the opportunity to be there, where Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle, just to name the four top players who have ever worn the pinstripes, was plenty. In addition, there was the World Series atmosphere, Don Larsen threw the ceremonial first pitch of the series to Yogi Berra and the autumn chilly weather that lets you know the season is winding down. Nothing could make it better for a pure baseball lover.

I can't recall now if it was the first or second game of that series, maybe the second one, when Roger Clemens and Mike Piazza were carrying a grudge from a beaning incident during interleague play earlier in the season. In their first confrontation Mike Piazza hit a foul ball that broke his bat. The barrel landed close to the mound and Roger Clemens picked it up and threw it at Piazza as he was walking down the first base line. It was one of the most vicious things I have ever seen on a baseball field. Later Clemens stated he thought it was the ball. Look at the accompanying pic and let me know when was the last time you held a ball like that, and, even if you honestly thought it was, you threw it at the runner??? I don't recall the name of the umpire at this time, but he didn't have the "cojones" to eject Clemens in the first inning of a WS game in Yankee Stadium, as he should have.

Few sport facilities in the world may equal the history of Yankee Stadium. The only ones that comes to mind is Wembley Stadium in London and maybe the Maracana in Rio de Janeiro. Estadio Azteca in Mexico DF could also be in that group.

The time has come to move across the highway so there can be more luxury boxes, more revenue, more absurd contracts for burned out players, more disparity in the league and the start of an era where other teams, the ones that know how to use at least half of their brains, will start getting to the post season while the mighty Bombers have to start all over again given they depleted minor league system, their crappy pitching staff, their on-the-way-out veteran players and the outrageous contracts that still remain in their books.

Long live the Yankee Stadium memories!!! That line does not apply to the Yankees, though.