NEW YORK (AP) -Someday, young and old will come here and marvel.
They will point over to a particular patch of green in a Bronx public park and say this is the very field where the Babe once swatted his prodigious home runs.
And that brown spot over there? Well, of course, that’s where the Iron Horse guarded first base every game for all those years.
A little farther away will be the wide expanse where Joltin’ Joe and the Mick patrolled center. And someone will recall that area near the trees, where Derek Jeter dived face first into the stands to catch a popup one summer night.
Some precocious young boy will study a book, then drag a friend over and say Roger Maris’ 61st home run landed over here. A bright young girl will point out where Chris Chambliss’ famous shot wound up and where Reggie Jackson’s three came down one unforgettable World Series night. Some trivia buff will walk across to where Aaron Boone’s home run landed in what many will consider the final moment of greatness.
David Cone and David Wells pitched perfect games. Perhaps they’ll try to recreate the final pitches, jumping into each other’s arms the way the pinstriped heroes did to applause that stayed with them for the rest of their lives.
One day they might see Jackson himself, walking around and staring at where the great building once stood.
“I’ll come look and dream,” Mr. October said. “I’ll drift and enjoy.”
From April 18, 1923, until Sunday night, history was created on this oddly shaped, five-sided parcel of land in the Bronx near the Harlem River, so much that players and fans treated mere soil and grass as if they were hallowed ground. Now the momentous events have stopped. The playground of the greats is no more.
If not quite a wonder of the world, Yankee Stadium was the awe-inspiring envy of baseball. And now it will be torn down – dis-Mantled?
So much of our history has been scrapped: The Polo Grounds and its steps to the clubhouse in center field, Crosley Field and the terrace in left field, Tiger Stadium and the overhang in right.
Much of Yankee Stadium’s distinctive grandeur disappeared in the 1974-75 renovation, with the copper frieze removed along with the wooden seats. When it reopened in 1976, it was as if Big Ben had gone digital.
of the Eiffel Tower, with wider walkways and 20 restaurants instead of two.
Bigger is better, at least in the minds of the planners. The years overtake everything. No one prays at the Parthenon these days, and there are no Pharoahs to lord over the pyramids.
Next year, this building will follow elevated railways and streetcars into oblivion.
“I think a lot of people will want to come by here, tourists, come by here and say this is where Yankee Stadium was,” Yogi Berra said. “I think it will be like a monument here.”
But from now on, the games will be across the street, at the new playpen. Who knows if the Yankees will christen their new home with a World Series title, the way they did in 1923.
New York won so often here and achieved such success that some opponents quivered under the pressure of playing here. The took on not just nine Yankees, but the whole lot of retired numbers, too.
“The ghosts will show up eventually,” Jeter told Aaron Boone during Game 7 against the Red Sox in 2003.
But will the poltergeists make a supernatural stroll to the new ballpark, ready to spook opponents when the Yankees need to conjure them up?
“Why wouldn’t they?” Jeter asked.
And maybe in 80 or 90 years, Yankee Stadium 3 will rise here, after next year’s latest vision becomes obsolete. Nothing lasts forever. Not even Yankee Stadium.
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