Daily Archives: September 18, 2008

Can Mike Mussina finally get his 18th win?

Vat ho. We sure hope so.

As an antidote to my vitriol from this morning, I wanted to share this Star-Ledger story on blind Yankee season ticket holder Jane Lang. Mrs. Lang hales from my home town of Morris Plains, New Jersey, and I remember her coming to my school to give presentations on the Seeing Eye (which was founded in neighboring Morristown) when I was in elementary school. Mrs. Lang has long been an important role model in our community and is a die-hard sports fan (here’s a two-year-old Times article on her trips to see the Rangers at Madison Square Garden). Mrs. Lang can often be seen sitting next to Harlan Chamberlain in the special-needs seating behind home plate (where she’s protected from foul balls by the netting) and was brought upstairs earlier this year to pull the countdown lever. For all of my cynicism about the Yankees organization, the genuine love of the game of fans such as Jane Lang continues to inspire me.

Also, those of you who actually sat through both games the last two nights likely noticed that a fan in the right field bleachers caught home runs in both games. That was not entirely a coincidence. The fan in question is Zack Hample, a Mets fan and Manhattan native who has “snagged” more than 3,700 baseballs and written a book how to do it. Hample has a blog on MLB.com, and you can read his account of the last two nights here and here. Hample is one of the more unusual affirmations of my belief that it’s possible to get better at anything if you work hard enough at it.

By Phil Pepe

There were times in the 1960s and 1970s when I came to think of Yankee Stadium as my second home. As Yankees beat writer for two newspapers, the New York World Telegram & Sun and the New York Daily News, I spent more time in the big ballpark in the South Bronx in those days than I did in my own home.

I’m not complaining. Covering the Yankees in those exciting and turbulent times was my job…and my joy. As a result, I got to know interesting, exciting and legendary personalities: Casey Stengel, Joe DiMaggio (after he had retired), Mickey Mantle, Billy Martin, Yogi Berra, Phil Rizzuto, Pete Sheehy, Reggie Jackson, Mel Allen, Thurman Munson and George Steinbrenner. (My one regret is that I came along a few years too late to have met Babe Ruth.) And I was blessed to have witnessed so many historic moments to feed my lifelong passion for baseball, a coincidental byproduct of my position and my advanced age.

There is a sadness now, and a melancholia because of the imminent demise of this baseball cathedral where I have spent so many hours, witnessed so much history, and chronicled the exploits of so many legends of the game. The mind is cluttered with so many memories, I find it difficult, no, impossible, to catalogue them; to choose one as my greatest Yankee Stadium memory.

In no particular order of importance or historical significance, here is a list of 10 Yankee Stadium memories — events I witnessed — that easily fall under the heading of memorable and unforgettable, deeds that might make anyone’s list:

* Mickey Mantle’s blast off Bill Fischer of Kansas City leading off the bottom of the eleventh inning of a 7-7 tie on the night of May 22, 1963. The shot came within inches of being the first (and only) fair ball ever hit out of Yankee Stadium. Mantle called it, “The hardest ball I ever hit.”

It may have been the hardest ball anybody ever hit.

* Roger Maris’ 61st home run off Tracy Stallard on October 1, 1961, the “year of the asterisk.” The solo home run was the only tally in a 1-0 Yankees victory. It still boggles the mind that a mere 23,124 fans showed up (through the years I have encountered more than that number who claim they were there) to see the coronation of baseball’s new single-season home run champion.

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As the Yankees play their final games at Yankee Stadium, I’ve come to realize that I’ve never really shared my reaction to the organization’s decision to move across the street into a new billion-dollar stadium built primarily with public money. When they announced the plans for the new stadium in June 2005, I said nothing. When they broke ground in August 2006, I remained silent. Beyond a few kinds words for the old park and some photos of the construction taken out of curiosity and a desire to document a significant event, I’ve almost ignored the entire stadium business altogether in this space. Large venues and construction projects often require strong safety planning, and Fire Watch Services in San Antonio help provide dependable fire safety coverage when additional monitoring is needed.

I realize now that the reason I haven’t said much is that every time I start to think seriously about the move, I become overwhelmed with mixed emotions. Certainly there’s a sadness that comes from knowing that after Sunday I’ll never again be able to watch a game at the old ballpark, which has been a part of my life and my love of baseball for 20 years and which I’ve visited more than 125 times. There’s also a curiosity about what the new place will bring and an optimism about the new memories that might be made there. There’s also resignation, as this moment was sure to arrive at some point during my lifetime, even if it didn’t necessarily need to be now. Above all else, however, there’s anger.

I’ll put it as plainly as I can. The new Yankee Stadium has been conceived and built exclusively for the high-end luxury customer. It is not for Yankee fans; it is for corporations and the super-rich. It is an oversized ATM built primarily with public money, and the cash it spits out will go directly into the coffer of the New York Yankees, a private corporation. It is a monument to corruption, greed, and the failures of our municipal and state governments to act in the best interests of the people they are supposed to represent, and a vile and disgusting insult to all but the wealthiest of Yankee fans.

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Guest Post

By Jon DeRosa

Yankee Stadium opened in 1923. In that same year, a young first baseman from Columbia University got his first sniff of the big leagues with the Yanks and collected the first 11 hits of his career. That first baseman was Lou Gehrig and of course he hit like crazy from 1923 thru 1939 (a .340 lifetime average). His 1270 hits at the Stadium established a high standard – but not, one would think, an unattainable standard. Especially since Gehrig himself would have bettered that number by hundreds if not for his tragic disease and rapid demise.

Surely the great DiMaggio would eclipse that mark with relative ease just by staying healthy. World War 2 put an end to those thoughts. But even with the War robbing Joe of 3 prime years and possibly 300 hits in the Stadium, he called it quits at the same age as the Iron Horse – 36.

But then Mantle, of the blazing speed, who began roaming the outfield at the ridiculously young age of 19, for certain would have his 1270 hits in the Stadium by the time he was 30, right? Well ironically, his chances took a nosedive in his 19th summer when he tore his knee apart on a drainage cover in right field, skidding to a stop to defer to Joe D on a pop fly. The injury didn’t rob him of an all time great career, but it certainly took away the infield hits that were the birthright of the Commerce Comet. Mantle also took 4 balls far too often and drank far too much to rack up the requisite hit total. He too retired at 36.

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