Goodbye Yankee Stadium

Last night Yankee Stadium held its final NY Yankee game and sadly I couldn’t be there to witness it in person. Yankee Stadium has meant so much for so many people and not only because it is home to the Yankees who are 26 time World Champions. (Don’t worry Sox fans you only have 19 more to go!) Over the years Yankee Stadium has played host to numerous events, but more importantly Yankee Stadium has played a significant role in my own family growing up.
My brother, sister and I were raised in New York and between the three of us; we attended the majority of Catholic High Schools on Long Island. Since December 2000 my brother has been a member of the FDNY, my sister and mother are both elementary school teachers on Long Island and my father is a basketball coach at Queens College. People would be hard pressed to find a family that is more willing to give back to the citizens of New York. Several things have remained constant in our lives over the years; our family loyalty and bond, our love for New York and supporting the Yankees.
My father grew up in St. Albans, NY where everyone was a Brooklyn Dodgers fan. Nuns at his Catholic school would turn the radio on during school hours for the duration of the Dodgers’ playoffs. Millions of hearts broke when the Dodgers left New York and fans were forced to align their loyalties with another team. Eventually my father ended up a reluctant Yankee fan, but his kids grew up die hard Yankee fans. Ironically my father’s first experience at Yankee Stadium was a New York Giant football game against the Cleveland Browns and the great Jim Brown.
Years later we wanted to give my father Yankee season tickets for his birthday, but who the heck could afford them? We settled on a package for all Saturday home games with seats in the bleachers. All I can say is thank God alcohol had already been banned from the bleacher creatures, as my father rarely drinks and my mother has never uttered a curse word in the 34 years I have been alive. At some point that season all of us attended a game with my father and participated in Roll Call with the rest of the creatures out in Section 39.
My brother is still trying to recover from a broken nose suffered at the hands of his best friend Eddie, when the Yankees played the Mets in October 2000. (First subway series since 1956). The Yankees won that night, so of course Eddie had no choice but to lock Pat out of the house. Undaunted Pat attempted to climb in his bedroom window, where Eddie promptly slammed the window on his head. Team loyalty knows no bounds.
My sister once spent $400 for two tickets (second to last row in the stadium) to take my dad to a Yankee/ Red Sox game to celebrate his birthday. She and my dad got a lot more then they ever imagined after all this was July 1, 2004, the game that Derek Jeter dove into the stands for a foul ball by Trot Nixon in the 12th inning. Thirteen innings and a win later, my dad and sister walked into the late summer night with a memory for the ages.
When my future husband flew into New York in May 2005 to meet my family, we enjoyed a wonderful day with enough family interaction to last him forever. Fortunately he was saved from any other family torture because we had tickets to the Yankee- Red Sox game. Unfortunately the Yankees lost 7-2 that night, but at least he got to experience his first Yankee game with the love of his life.
For so many people it is hard to rationalize tearing down a stadium that signifies the history of baseball. So much greatness is housed within the confines of Yankee stadium that it can not be appropriately described, but the old stadium will always be the House that Ruth built and that can never be altered. What we have to understand is that records are made to broken, history is intended to be made and it is time for current players and coaches to be given the opportunity to create new magic for future generations.

For now since I couldn’t be home in New York to witness the final game at Yankee Stadium the following verse comes to mind: “We’ll I’m NYC born and raised, but now a days I’m lost between two shores, L.A.’s fine but it ain’t home, New York’s home but it ain’t mine no more” from I AM I SAID Neil Diamond