Ol' Yankee Stadium

Now that Shea is kaput the reality is sinking in, Yankee Stadium will be demolished.
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My sadness is tempered by my disgust over the renovation job after the 1973 season. Two missing elements destroyed the beauty of the place. Gone was the copper facade overhanging the roof and worse; the bullpens were no longer bookends between the bleachers and the lower right and left field seats.
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The ghosts of Yankee & Giant fans hung in that space behind the facade. When I sat in the grandstands high up under the roof's cover and felt caught between the facade and the playing field, sometimes my hair would raise on my neck as I sensed the millions who sat there before me, who invested all their hope and poured all their sorrows on the team below. Part of anyone who measured a good day versus a bad day, based on how their team did, left a piece of themselves behind. I felt it.

(photo is available for sale at the New York Times Store).
The demolition is a final blow to a patient that's been dying for 36 years. (The place closed for renovation after the last Yankee game in 1973 and re-opened in 1976.) I'm sad, but in a different way then if the place was never subject to amputation. I never enjoyed Steinbrenner's remodeling.
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In the old park you could sit next to a ballplayer. You, in the first row, the last box seat in right field next to the bullpen ~ the player, sitting next to you on a park bench in the Yankee bullpen. Think about that next time you see 10 security guards standing in front of the Yankee dugout.
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Don't get me started on the football Giants still in Jersey!
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Many thoughts on this in the next few weeks...
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