Phil Hughes was seven years old the last time the Yankees were eliminated during the regular season. Tonight he’ll be the first pitcher to start a game for an eliminated Yankee team since Sterling Hitchcock took the Camden Yards mound on September 28, 1993. Like Hughes, Hitchock was a well-regarded 22-year-old pitching prospect at the time, but he never fulfilled his potential due to a combination of injuries and ineffectiveness. Here’s hoping Hughes, who pitched well though inefficiently in his last start, won’t meet the same fate.

Fittingly, tonight’s matchup of Hughes and Yankee killer A.J. Burnett should conjure up a fair bit of hot-stove conversation. Burnett is all but certain to opt out of his contract this fall as he’s set career highs in games, starts, innings, strikeouts and wins this season and could finish with 19 victories by beating the Yankees tonight. His 1.78 ERA in four previous starts against New York has certainly piqued the Yankees’ interest, but they’d do well to notice that Burnett’s season ERA is barely above average and dips below average when you take away his dominance of the Bombers. He’s also going to be 32 on Opening Day next year and has a very sketchy injury history. In fact, all of those career highs this year are the result of the fact of that, at age 31, Burnett has been healthy enough to start 30 games for just the second time in his career this year. Burnett has better stuff than former Marlins teammate Carl Pavano, but the Yankees would do well to remind themselves of the similarities between the two pitchers when contemplating the free agent Burnett.

Phil Hughes’ one quality start in the majors this season came back on April 3 against the Blue Jays. Another one in this, his last start of the season, would go a long way toward building both his confidence and the team’s confidence in him heading into next year, and would reduce the chances of the Yankees making a desperation move for an expensive injury-prone veteran like Burnett or Ben Sheets. In that way, Hughes beating Burnett tonight would be a tremendous victory for the future of the franchise. But, hey, no pressure.

By Charles Euchner

I’ve seen a lot of great players at Yankee Stadium — Munson and Jackson, Catfish and Guidry, Jeter and A-Rod — but my most memorable moment came at my first game in the Bronx. The Tigers came to town in 1971, just a few weeks after my family moved to Long Island from Iowa. I was a Mets fan but wanted to see any baseball game. My dad got tickets from his job at Con Ed, one of the team’s sponsors. So off we went.

My most enduring memory is how empty the stadium was. About 12,000 went to the game, a quick check of Retrosheet.org tells me. Foul balls did not set off a mad contest of reaching, grasping hands. Foul balls bounced around empty seats while fans raced to retrieve them from other sections. Since it was a blowout — a 9-1 Yankee victory, which improved their record to 68-71, good for fourth place, 18 1/2 games behind the Baltimore Orioles — most people who came left early. Those who stayed sat around looking bored. I tried to convince myself I was watching something special. I wasn’t. The Yankees had only one superstar, catcher Thurman Munson. Roy White and Bobby Murcer were decent. Not much else.

In the next couple years, I experienced some real Yankees excitement during promotions like Bat Day that filled the stadium. I have always been amazed how great it feels to be in a stadium with 55,000 other people. Even when the team is out of the race, it can still feel like a playoff atmosphere. I also experienced how rowdy things can get during bad games. I never smoked pot, but I inhaled plenty when I went to Yankee games in the 1970s. At every game, fights broke out and fans got high and drunk. Then, in the late 1970s, the Yankees started winning. I guess George decided he could set some standards for fan conduct. Whatever happened, things didn’t get so ugly in the stands.

I have a funny kind of nostalgia for those bad old Yankee teams. I went to the stadium because baseball was fun, not because the team was the best. The Yankee dynasty teams of later years were obviously better “products,” as the number-crunching GM’s say these days. But I miss the bygone days when winning more than you lost was good enough, before failure was defined as not crushing everyone every day. I’d love to get in a way-back machine and watch that 1971 Yanks-Tigers game again. Maybe I missed something.

Charles Euchner is the author of The Last Nine Innings.

With one out in the bottom of the third inning of last night’s game against the Blue Jays, Toronto’s rookie left fielder Travis Snider hit a comebacker that ricocheted off Mike Mussina’s pitching elbow and shot into foul territory, allowing Snider to reach base with an infield single. The ball hit Mussina flush on the head of his radius, and when trainer Gene Monahan and manager Joe Girardi ran out to attend to their veteran ace, the conclusion to Mussina’s terrific comeback season was clearly hanging in the balance. The Yankees had a 1-0 lead at the time, but Mussina needed to finish the third and pitch two more innings without giving it up in order to qualify for his nineteenth win and keep his hopes for his first twenty-win season alive.

Mussina asked the assembled group to let him throw a few pitches, and after tossing a fastball and a sharp curveball, he declared himself fit to pitch. He was right. Despite a large red welt on the outside of his elbow the size of a golf ball, Mussina allowed just one more hit before being pulled after going the minimum five innings required for the win. By then his lead had doubled to 2-0 thanks to Jason Giambi’s 32nd home run of the season.

The Yankees added a third run in the seventh when Robinson Cano doubled off Blue Jays starter Jesse Litsch, moved to third on a wild pitch, and scored on a passed ball. Never mind that Cano was actually out at home as the ball bounced right back to catcher Gregg Zaun, who tossed to Litsch, who made a great play sliding across the opposite side of the plate and tagging the sole of Cano’s foot as it came down to touch home. Home plate ump Larry Vanover blew the call and spent the rest of the game calling strikes in a manner that found the middle ground between a sea lion and the Swedish Chef (strike one: “BORK!” strike two: “BORK!” strike three: “ARF! ARF!”).

The Jays got that run back in the bottom of the seventh when lefties Adam Lind and Lyle Overbay singled and walked against Damaso Marte and Scott Rolen greeted Joba Chamberlain with a single that scored Lind. With two out and none on in the eighth, the Jays loaded the bases against Chamberlain thanks to some sloppy defense by Cody Ransom, who replaced Derek Jeter and his sore left hand at shortstop just before game time (Jeter said after the game that he couldn’t swing), and an intentional walk, but Chamberlain won a seven-pitch battle with Lyle Overbay on a slider breaking down and away for a called strike three (ARF! ARF!). Otherwise Phil Coke, Brian Bruney, and Mariano Rivera were perfect in relief, nailing down the 3-1 win and giving Mussina his nineteenth win.

Hard Times Befallen The Soul Survivors

Unfortunately, the Red Sox also won, putting up a five-spot against likely Cy Young award winner Cliff Lee at Fenway to squeek out a 5-4 win behind Tim Wakefield and a quintet of relievers. The decisive run was scored by Dustin Pedroia on a two-out single by Jason Bay in the fifth (“sweet things from Boston, so young and willing”). With that, the Yankees have been eliminated from the postseason for the first time since 1993, the last year before the Wild Card was introduced.

That year it was Toronto that won the AL East, though the Yankees avoided being eliminated head-to-head by beating Todd Stottlemyre and the Jays behind Jim Abbott in their final game at SkyDome that season. The Yankees won again the next day, beating Rick Sutcliffe and the Orioles 9-1 behind Scott Kamieniecki (playing right field in place of an injured Paul O’Neill, Jim Leyritz homered in both games), but the Jays clinched anyway by beating the Brewers 2-0 behind Pat Hentgen and a trio of relievers that included Mike Timlin. The Jays would go on to win their second consecutive World Championship that October with Joe Carter delivering the Series-ending home run off Phillies closer Mitch Williams.

Please take me along when you slide on down.

Though the Yankees are still alive with just six games left to play, a single loss or a single Red Sox win will eliminate them from the postseason for the first time since 1993. Elimination is all the more likely because the Yankees will be facing both A.J. Burnett and Roy Halladay yet again in this series, having already gone 2-7 in games started by those two this season. Of the Yankees’ 18 games against Toronto this season, 11 will have been started by Halladay or Burnett. The Yanks are 5-1 against Toronto this year in games started by other Blue Jay pitchers.

Fortunately, Mike Mussina has drawn Jesse Litsch tonight as he goes for this 19th win of the season. Mussina, who will start the final game of the season in Boston, has won 19 games in a season twice in his career, but never for the Yankees. The Yankees are 21-11 in Mussina’s starts this year, the fourth time in his eight years with the Bombers that the team has won 20 or more of the games he has started.

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By Maury Allen

This was in 1972 in the old Yankee Stadium, the one where Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio and Mantle had played, long before the 1974-75 refurbishing and a dream location across from The House That Steinbrenner is building for 2009.

I walked on that green grass again as I had for a dozen years or so as a sportswriter, looked out at those monuments, examined that façade above the third deck and waited for my pitching pal.

Fritz Peterson, the left-handed anchor of the bad Yankee pitching staff of the late 1960s and early 1970s, was on the field now, a smile on his face as always, his baseball cap tipped back, his eyes wide with glee and amusement.

“I got another Tugboat post card,” he said, with that wry smile. “I put it in his locker.”

Peterson had a habit of collecting post cards of big boats or even bigger women and dropping them off in the locker of Thurman Munson, the best Bronx Bomber catcher since Yogi. It irritated the surly Munson no end.

Sparky Lyle, another laughing teammate, had once described Munson as not really moody.

“Moody is when you can smile some of the time,” Lyle once said of his unfortunate batterymate, later to lose his life in a 1979 plane crash.

We chatted a while about Peterson’s next start in another strong season (17-15 in 1972 after 20 wins in 1970) and then I asked him if he was available on the next Yankees off day for a barbecue at my suburban home.

“Sure,” he said. “Can I bring Kekich?”

He had become pals with another Yankee lefty, Mike Kekich and the two couples, Fritz and Marilyn Peterson, Mike and Suzanne Kekich had spent a lot of time together.

The four of them arrived at my home on a beautiful summer night. My wife Janet had gone all out with her best cooking, our best dishes and a beer-filled refrigerator. A good time was had by all.

Soon, the information was out. Peterson and Kekich had arranged that night to swap wives, kids, cars, dogs, houses and hearts.

Marilyn and Mike never lasted as a couple. Fritz and Suzanne are going on some 35 years together.

Some people will always remember the giant home runs at the Stadium hit by Mickey Mantle or the clutch World Series shots by Yogi Berra or the brilliance of Whitey Ford on the mound and Elston Howard behind the plate.

Me? I just remember standing on that famous green grass and simply asking Fritz Peterson to join us for a barbecue. Who knew what evil lurked behind that question.

Maury Allen, a veteran newspaperman and author, writes for The Columnists.com.

Seven Layer Chocolate Cake

By Jane Leavy

May 18, 1962 was a raw spring night in the Bronx. A mean chill filled Yankee Stadium suppressing attendance at the Friday night game between the Yanks and the Minnesota Twins. A forgotten tributary of the Harlem River, on whose banks the stadium was built, runs on a diagonal from left field toward the hole between third and short—like a cut off throw. The ancient waterway, Cromwell’s Creek, buried deep beneath the sedimentary rock of urbanization, asserted itself in the dew and chill of that otherwise fine Friday evening. Mist enveloped the scalloped copper frieze that ringed the upper deck of the Stadium. I remember thinking: if Mick hits one tonight nobody will ever see it again.

That was the thing about Mantle: you never knew what might happen when he stepped to the plate or what might happen to him.

My father, who grew up on the other side of the Harlem River cheering for the Giants from a rocky perch on Coogan’s Bluff, had gotten box seats behind the dugout along the third base line. It was the best seat I would ever have in a ballpark until I went to work as a sportswriter fifteen years later.

I was ten years old that sweet evening. What could be better-a visit to see The Mick and a sleepover at my grandmother’s? Her apartment was just up the street in a building called The Yankee Arms, a long, loud foul ball from home plate.

Mickey was my guy but I was grandma’s girl, her favorite, I thought (as did all her grandchildren). I knew this because although she loved frilly things and rose sachet, because canasta not baseball was her game, because in the 20 years she lived in the shadow of the ballpark she was never once tempted to step inside, despite all this she put on her mink stole and open-toed shoes and took me to Saks Fifth Avenue to buy my first baseball glove. It was an odd place to go in search of a mitt but she only wanted the best for me.

Providence intervened–a mannequin in the front window had a Sammy Esposito glove on her hand. “We’ll have that one,” my grandmother told the flummoxed salesman, who pointed out it was not for sale. He was no match for a Jewish grandmother, mine anyway. I took Sammy home; I took Sammy everywhere, including the stadium on May 18, 1962.

My grandfather, a manic-depressive immigrant tailor, had made me two identical wool, plaid skirts, one in tones of beige, brown and gold, the other in red and green, Christmas-tree green, perfect for Hanukah. They were reversible and indestructible. A whole wardrobe, these skirts. They went with everything and nothing. He was in a manic mode when he sewed them; their oscillating hems reflected his ups and downs.

In an act of filial devotion (and parental betrayal), my mother had made it a condition of attendance that I wear one of these atrocities. I chose the more muted tones and an overly generous straw-colored Irish cable knit sweater over a white turtleneck. I looked like a pre-pubescent haystack.
In an act of solidarity for which I remain grateful five years after his death, my father went to the concession stand and bought me an adult-size Yankee cap, large enough to hide most of my embarrassment.

I knew it was going to be Mick’s year. It had to be after the disappointment of 1961. God owed him after allowing Roger Maris to claim Babe Ruth’s title as home run king. Being second fiddle made him more loveable to the masses, but not to me–I couldn’t love him anymore than I did already.

“In 1961 I became an American hero because he beat me,” he would say later. “He was an ass and I was a nice guy. He beat Babe Ruth and he beat me so they hated him. Everywhere we’d go I got a standing ovation. All I had to do was walk out of the dugout.”

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By Ed Alstrom

I’ve been to a lot of great and wacky games at the Stadium, like everyone else: the Chambliss home run, several other playoff and World Series games, some crazed comebacks, and some of those insane asylum games from the early 90s with people running onto the field at random (one game against the Red Sox, there were seven of them at different intervals, in the rain).

And, of course, auditioning for the organist position at the Stadium (with Eddie Layton himself standing in the doorway requesting song snippets!) was priceless, and fulfilling my childhood dream of playing the organ there is very special, every single time I do it.

But for my part, I’d have to say that my lasting memory of the Stadium after it’s gone will be a little different from most, and that is having gotten to hang out with Bob Sheppard.

Mr. Sheppard (that’s what all of us in the Press Box call him) has his public address booth right next to mine at the organ. Only a pane of Plexiglas separates us. Sometimes I’ll knock on his door, sometimes he’ll tap on my window and motion me in, and we chat, sometimes during the game. He’ll be talking, and then point his index finger in the air mid-sentence, to say ‘wait a minute,’ step on a pedal to activate the mike, announce the next player (in the same exact tone of voice he’s speaking to me in), and then continue where he left off. When a Yankee makes an error or a bad play, he’ll look at me and very slowly point his palms skyward and shrug his shoulders.

His end of game routine is really beautiful: with 2 out in the ninth and Mariano on the hill, he’ll slowly don his cap and coat, salute me, lock his door, and wait in the runway. If the game ends then and there, he is off like a shot, walking so briskly I can barely keep up with him (and I’ve tried it!). If that batter reaches base, though, he’ll unlock the door, come back in, give me that same shrug, step on the pedal, announce the next batter, and repeat the procedure. His determination to beat that traffic (and his success rate, I’m sure) is admirable indeed.

Several times, I’ve gone down to the press lunch room and broken bread with him at ‘his table,’ which is the one in the corner of the room with a cardboard handwritten sign with his name on it. He surely deserves a gold plaque or something more dignified (well, he does have a Monument in the Park), but everyone knows anyway that that’s his domain.

You’ve probably heard what a class act he is, and he exceeds all expectations on that count. I’ve spoken to him many, many times, but oddly it’s almost never about baseball: usually music and theater. In fact, he usually changes the subject to music when I try to engage him about baseball.

He loves the music of the 40s, and the big bands. He told me once he was especially fond of the great singer Jo Stafford, so I went home and found a bunch of her recordings and put them on CD for him, and he was delighted and talked about her at length, and about how he was stationed in Aruba during World War II, and they used to get her 78s shipped to them, and play them at their bar in the ‘Quonset hut’ (you can just hear Shep saying ‘Quonset hut,’ right?).

He loves poetry, so he is quite enamored of the lyrics of Hart, Hammerstein, Gershwin, Porter, et al., and we’ve spent quite a bit of precious pre-game time analyzing those. And I’ve spent some time (at his behest) trying to explain the merits of rock and roll, or any music recorded after 1955 (with limited success, I think).

At times, he’ll approach me with some handwritten poetry he’s composed, which is invariably literate, funny, and sometimes biting. He once wrote a concise and venomous little masterpiece about Kevin Brown’s bout with a cinderblock wall, and showed it to me; I am not at liberty to disclose it, but lemme tell you, it’s incredible. I said to him, "You must have a lot of these." He said, "Oh, hundreds." I said, "You should get these published," to which he replied, "Oh, no, Mr. Steinbrenner would fire me!"

One Saturday afternoon, it was Military Day at the Stadium, and the formalities were to begin with the Golden Knights parachuting onto the field. It was about two minutes before the ceremony was to begin, and Mr. Sheppard was nowhere in sight.

I knocked on the control room window, got the director’s attention, and pointed to myself and then to Shep’s booth. He said, "Yeah, go ahead." So, I gave the script a speed read, got the cue, stepped on the pedal to activate the mike, and very deliberately said… "Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen; welcome to Yankee Stadium!"

Now, I didn’t have time to think about it, but my instinct was to not attempt my Shep imitation, because I felt it would be disrespectful somehow, but I did try to phrase it as he might have, veer a course somewhere down the middle vocally, and create the illusion that it was him.

It was a very long script, about two pages, and it was a real roller coaster moment. Toward the end of it, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Mr. Sheppard was standing behind me! I finished with the read, released the pedal, and looked at him gingerly, feeling somewhat like a child about to be scolded. Instead, he grinned broadly, and said very slowly, "Were you trying to imitate me?" Imagine that thrill!

But the best of all was when he approached me one day, and said, "You know, I wrote a song many years ago." Of course, I wanted to hear it, so he showed me the lyrics and sang it to me. I told him the next day I was coming back with a recorder, and he sang it again for me, acapella, and then I got him to talk into the recorder for about 15 minutes about it. I then went home and created a musical track for his melody, chopped his vocal track into pieces and flew it in over the accompaniment, and presented him with a finished product worthy of Sinatra. He was very touched, and I was touched to be able to do that for him. He wrote a handwritten note of thanks, which is more valuable to me than any piece of memorabilia could be. Believe me, Mr. Sheppard, the pleasure was all mine.

Whatever our collective vignettes are of Yankee Stadium, Bob Sheppard’s narration to that soundtrack is a thread that runs through all of them, and an essential component of it. His humanity, wit, and warmth are every bit as momentous as that voice, and I am honored to have shared some time on this Earth with him. He is Yankee Stadium, in a lot of ways.

Ed Alstrom will be playing the organ from the early afternoon until late tonight at Yankee Stadium.

It was a near perfect afternoon in the Bronx yesterday as the Yankees and Orioles played the final day game at Yankee Stadium. Amid sharp shadows and under a cloudless sky, the Stadium gleamed, the cool early autumn air adding a crispness to the day. The Yankees and Orioles played scoreless baseball for eight-plus innings, but the lack of action on the field mattered little as most everyone on hand and watching at home was more concerned about drinking in the doomed ballpark, which has rarely looked more welcoming or more vibrant.

Afredo Aceves got things started off in style in the first inning. Following a Brian Roberts lead-off double, Adam Jones popped up a bunt in front of the mound. Aceves, who has shown himself to be a solid infielder, caught the ball on a lunge before tumbling forward to his knees. He then spun to double Roberts off of second, but Roberts had been running on the pitch and had actually rounded third base slightly, so rather than throw to Cody Ransom covering second base, Aceves, with a big grin on his face, jogged the ball over to second for an unassisted double play, a play rarely turned by a pitcher (paging Bob Timmermann).

Aceves wouldn’t allow a runner past second base all day, and after six innings and 92 pitches, he was replaced by Brian Bruney, Damaso Marte, and Mariano Rivera, who kept that streak intact. The Yankees didn’t do much better against lefty spot-starter Brian Burres. With two outs in the first, Bobby Abreu doubled and moved to third on a wild pitch, but Alex Rodriguez popped out to strand him, and the Yankees didn’t get another man past second until the bottom of the ninth.

Though it would ultimately prove a fitting conclusion to a beautiful day, the bottom of the ninth started off ominously when a 1-1 pitch got away from rookie reliever Jim Miller and hit Derek Jeter on the back of his left hand. Jeter spun to avoid the pitch, but it caught him flush and sent him skipping toward the visiting batting circle in obvious pain. Joe Girardi and trainer Gene Monahan quickly attended to Jeter, who was the DH yesterday to give him a breather before today’s final game at the Stadium, and almost immediately pulled Jeter from the game. Jeter didn’t make a fist with the hand when Monahan was checking him out on the field, and as he headed into the tunnel toward the clubhouse, Jeter slammed his batting helmet on the dugout floor. Fortunately, post-game x-rays were negative and Jeter is expected to be in the lineup for the Stadium’s finale . . . of course.

Brett Gardner ran for Jeter at first base and stole second base easily on Miller’s first pitch to Abreu. After Miller fell behind Abreu 3-0, Orioles manager Dave Trembley decided to make use of that empty base and pass the buck to Alex Rodriguez. Rodriguez took two strikes then hit into a near double play, but managed to beat out the relay to put runners on the corners with one out for Jason Giambi. Trembley called on veteran lefty reliever Jamie Walker to pitch to Giambi, and Walker responded by striking Giambi out on six pitches. Rodriguez stole second on strike three, so Trembley had Walker put Xavier Nady on base and pitch to fellow lefty Robinson Cano. Cano, who still holds the distinction of having hit the last home run at Yankee Stadium, jumped on Walker’s first pitch, delivering a line-drive single just to the right of second base, plating Gardner with the winning run.

So in the final day game at Yankee Stadium, the Yankees beat the Orioles 1-0 on a walk-off single by Robison Cano. Mariano Rivera got the win, and the Yankees staved off elimination for at least one more day. The day was so close to perfect that, in some peverse way, I almost wish yesterday’s game was the last ever at the Stadium. The only way tonight’s game could be better would be for a Yankee to hit a home run and for Jeter to be somewhere other than the trainers’ room when the game ends.

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By Pete Abraham

There is not one in particular moment I remember.

I’ve attended roughly 200 games at Yankee Stadium since I started covering the team in 2006 and they all seem to blend in. The best part of the day is walking from the elevator on the loge level, down the concourse, into the press box and sitting down in my seat in the front row.

I always pause a minute to look around and soak it in. When they’re playing a big game, the skies are clear and the fans are buzzing, it’s intoxicating.

I became a sportswriter when I was 17 because I loved the idea of communicating the details of something that matters to people. Baseball always drew me in because it was the one sport people had passion for all year.

Yankee Stadium is the front office of baseball, the best venue in the game. Where else does baseball matter more? I feel tremendously fortunate every time I sit down and look around. At that moment, there is nowhere else in the world I would rather be. That’s my favorite memory, no matter how many times it repeats.

Pete Abraham covers the Yankees for The Journal News.

The just-completed series against the White Sox had some interest beyond the impending closing of Yankee Stadium thanks to Chicago’s fight for the AL Central, Mike Mussina’s still-active quest for 20 wins, the return of Phil Hughes to the Yankee rotation, and the major league debuts of three Yankee prospects last night. This weekend’s series against the Orioles has none of that. These last three games will be about Yankee Stadium and nothing else. With that in mind, here are the three other opening and closing dates in the Stadium’s 86-year history:

April 18, 1923 – the first game at Yankee Stadium, Yankees beat the Red Sox 4-1 behind Bob Shawkey, who scored the first run at the new park on a single by third baseman Joe Dugan in the fourth inning. Ruth followed Dugan with a three-run homer, the Stadium’s first. Second baseman Aaron Ward had picked up the park’s first hit in the previous inning.

Sept. 30, 1973 – the final game at the original Stadium, Yankees lost to the Tigers 8-5 as Fritz Peterson and Lindy McDaniel combined to allow six runs in the eighth inning. Backup catcher Duke Sims, in his only start of the year, hits the last home run at the old park in the seventh. Winning pitcher John Hiller gets first baseman Mike Hegan to fly out to center fielder Mickey Stanley to end the game.

April 15, 1976 – the first game at the renovated Stadium, Yankees beat the Twins 11-4 with Dick Tidrow picking up the win with five shoutout innings in relief of Rudy May and Sparky Lyle getting the save. May gave up the first hit and home run in the remodeled Stadium to Disco Dan Ford in the top of the first. Twins second baseman Jerry Terrell, who led of the game with a walk, scored the first run ahead of Ford. The first Yankee hit was delivered by Mickey Rivers in the bottom of the first. The first Yankee home run at the redone park would come off the bat of Thurman Munson two days later.

The relocated St. Louis Browns first played at the Stadium as the Baltimore Orioles on May 5 and 6 of 1954, losing to Eddie Lopat and Allie Reynolds by scores of 4-2 and 9-0. The O’s first visit to the renovated stadium came in a three-game weekend series starting on May 14, 1976. The O’s took two of three in that series, beating Catfish Hunter in the opener. The first batter in that game was Ken Singleton, who struck out looking, but the next six Orioles delivered hits off Hunter, among them a two-run homer by O’s center fielder Reggie Jackson (!) as the O’s cruised to a 6-2 win behind Ross Grimsley.

For the curious, the action depicted in the Merv Rettenmund card pictured here occurred on August 9, 1970 in the seventh inning of the first game of a Sunday doubleheader. With the O’s leading 1-0 behind Jim Palmer, Rettenmund led off the seventh with a double off Fritz Peterson. Andy Etchebarren then hit a hot shot to third base that Jerry Kenney either booted or bobbled, allowing Etchebarren to reach and Rettenmund to advance. The photo on the card freezes the action as Kenney, ball in hand, checks Rettenmund at third base. The O’s would go on to score three unearned runs in that inning, but the Yanks got two in the eighth and two in the ninth to tie it, the latter two on a single by Roy White after Earl Weaver had replaced Palmer with Pete Richert. White would later end the game in the 11th with one out and Horace Clarke on first base by homering off Dick Hall to give the Yankees a 6-4 win.

Finally, here’s an account of the last game at the original Stadium from Glenn Stout’s outstanding Yankees Century:

The Yankees ended the season on September 30, closing down old Yankee Stadium to accommodate the scheduled renovation. In the final week of the season, the Hall of Fame hauled away a ticket booth, a turnstile, and other memorabilia. Anticipating souvenir takers, the club had already removed the center-field monuments and a hoard of equipment scheduled to follow the Yankees to Queens.

The club hired extra security to head off bad behavior, but the crowd of 32,328 arrived at the Stadium in an ugly mood and packing wrecking tools. Disappointed at the late season collapse, banners urging the Yankees to fire [manager Ralph] Houk ringed the park.

The game was only a few innings old when it became clear that souvenir hunters weren’t going to wait. In the outfield and the bleachers fans turned their backs on the game and started demolishing the park. The Yankees took the lead over Detroit but lost it in the fifth [sic]. When Houk came to the mound to change pitchers, exuberant fans waived parts of seats over their heads like the angry they had become.

As soon as Mike Hegan flied out to end the 8-5 loss, 20,000 fans swamped security forces and stormed the field. The Yanks had plans for objects like the bases, but the mob had other ideas. First-base coach Elston Howard scooped up the bag for a scheduled presentation to Mrs. Lou Gehrig, but he had to fight his way off the field, clutching the base like a fullback plowing through the line. Cops stood guard at home plate to make sure it went to Claire Ruth, but a fan stole second base, and third was nabbed by Detroit third baseman Ike Brown. Some 10,000 seats ended up being pulled loose.

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By Brian Gunn

I went to my first and only game at Yankee Stadium earlier this year, a Sunday game in April against the Rays. As I took my seat behind home plate I drank in the stadium – the green lawn, the Facade running along the bleacher billboards, the retired numbers out in Monument Park – and I tried to imagine all the greats who made the stadium come alive. I tried to imagine Babe Ruth circling the bases with his little birdlike feet, or Joe DiMaggio gliding in from center to snag a fly ball.

I tried.

And I tried.

And I just couldn’t do it.

I was so goddamn cold I could barely concentrate on anything but the weather. I know, I know – just what you’d expect from a Californian. But I swear I wasn’t the only one. A cold wind whipped in from left field and had the sparse crowd huddled together for warmth. Whenever the Yanks retired the side or scratched out a hit the fans would let out a perfunctory clap or two before sticking their hands back in their pockets. Sometime around the 4th inning a fan sitting behind us accidentally spilled his beer all over my four-year-old nephew. It was about as far as you could get from my first-ever baseball memory – seeing Reggie Jackson, on TV, go deep three times in a row against the Dodgers. I can still remember how the air looked in Yankee Stadium that night (at least as it came across our Zenith television): thick with pitch and moment, steam from 56,000 fevered bodies rising into the October night.

My experience with Yankee Stadium was nothing like that. There was no momentousness, no steam, no October magic, and certainly no Babe or Joe D. It was, instead, a pretty ho-hum experience – a stiff reminder that Yankee Stadium isn’t, after all, a vending machine. Its wonders aren’t available on demand.

Brian Gunn is a screenwriter living in Los Angeles.

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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By Allen Barra

My father took me to Yankee Stadium for the first time in 1961. It was a game scarcely anyone remembers – I do remember Arnold Hano mentioning it in, I think, the Willie Mays book he wrote in the Sport magazine series, or perhaps it was the special Mickey Mantle-Willie Mays issue that Sport magazine did in the spring of 1962.It was a charity game played between the Yankees and the San Francisco Giants, and it was Willie Mays’s return to New York after three seasons.

I’ll never forget my first look at Yankee Stadium: it seemed like the inside of New York City. And I’ll never forget the crescendo that built up when Mays stepped out of the dugout and into the on-deck circle. Mantle, batting left-handed, hit a home run that day. (I could follow the arc of the ball perfectly as we were seated in a box seat on the third base line.) But Mays won the game with a single that drove in two runs.

One of the most vivid memories of my life was the afternoon of Monday, September 30, 1963, when my father came home from work – we were living in Old Bridge, New jersey, and my father and al our neighbors commuted effortlessly to Manhattan – and held up two tickets for the opening game of the 1963 World Series. I never though to ask how he got them, though I think he said something years later about it being a business friend he met at Toots Shor’s saloon.

1963 was one of the few years I didn’t root for the Yankees; I was so excited about Sandy Koufax that I was ready to begin studying the Kabbalah. If you don’t remember what the World Series was like back then in the days before prime time then it’s hard to describe. It seemed to be on everywhere you went – TVs blaring out open windows, car radios at full blast, people walking the street and riding buses listening to transistor radios. I was told by my friend Jane Levy that the Koufax Series — 1963, 1965 and 1966 – were the highest rated ever. I’m not surprised.

Our view was perfect, a box seat along the first base line. In the first inning, Whitey Ford struck to the first two Dodgers and took a tapper back to the mound for the third out. I recall my father saying “Well, Koufax is going to have to go some to top that.” He did, of course, striking out the first five Yankees on route to a 5-2 victory.

I have on other strong recollection of Yankee history in the early sixties. My father knew a Westchester cop who was later indicted for taking huge amounts of money in the “Prince of the City” scandal. On New Year’s Eve eve, he asked us if we wanted to join him and his son, a Fordham student, at the 1962 NFL Championship game between the Green Bay Packers and New York Giants. All I can recall is that it was the coldest day I could have imagined, and bundled up inside a hooded parka, I had my first shot of brandy from the cop’s silver flask.

No, actually, as I write this a few other things come back to me: the way Green Bay’s fullback Jim Taylor and Giants linebacker Sam Huff kicked bit and gouged each other and had to be separated after each play, and the way some of the punts would hit a wall of wind and flutter down to the concrete-like turf. The Packers’ punter, Mac McGee, I think it was, had one blocked for the Giants only touchdown.

Oddly, I did not feel that I was in the same stadium I had been in just two months earlier watching the Yankees and Giants play in the World Series. (My only memory of that game was how hyped everyone was about Mantle and Mays playing against each other.) I do not now recollect if I actually heard this or read about it afterwards: someone yelled out when Mantle came out to bay, “Hey Mickey, we came to se who is the best, you or Willie. Now we’re wondering who’s the worst.” Mantle popped up. As he walked back to the dugout, the man yelled, “Hey, Mantle, you win.”

Bob Costas told me that he was also at the game and saw the same play from the same angle; we must have been seated right near each other.

For the life of me, I can’t now recall whether you could see the Polo Grounds from the bleachers at Yankee Stadium or Yankee Stadium from the bleachers at the Polo Grounds.

In 1996, when the Yankees beat the Braves in the World Series, Allen St. John and I were out on the field. How this came about, I do not now recall — perhaps credentialed writers were allowed out on the field after games then. Someone in the dugout popped the first bottle of champagne, and the cork landed near us; Allen scooped it up and handed it to me. It now resides in a glass trophy case in my house.

Allen Barra writes about sports and culture for the Wall Street Journal and the Village Voice. His latest book, “Yogi Berra: Eternal Yankee” will be published by W.W. Norton next spring.

Last night, Andy Pettitte had one bad inning, the bullpen couldn’t hold the line, the offense couldn’t break through, and the Yankees lost 6-2. Sing me a new song.

Over the last 14 years, Jeter has helped fill those empty seats behind him.

As early as tomorrow this game will be remembered for just one reason. In the bottom of the first inning, Derek Jeter hit a hard grounder to third base on the first pitch he saw from White Sox starter Gavin Floyd. Sox third baseman Juan Uribe was playing in and dropped to one knee in an attempt to backhand the ball. Instead it shot through his legs. Jeter was awarded a hit, which pushed him past Lou Gehrig as the man with the most hits in the history of Yankee Stadium. It looked like an error to me, but Jeter made that irrelevant with a single in the fifth.

I mocked the attention lavished on Jeter for passing Babe Ruth for second on the Yankees’ all-time hit list, and YES’s coverage of last night’s hit and the hits leading up to it–particularly Michael Kay’s call of the hit (“Hit or error? Error or history?”)–was every bit as over-the-top if not moreso, but I actually think this record is pretty nifty. For one thing, it’s an actual record. For another, as Kay histrionically pointed out on the broadcast, it’s a record that can’t be broken. Sure, Gehrig had far fewer at-bats at the old Yankee Stadium than Jeter has had in the remodeled one, but there’s a purity and an absoluteness to “the most ever” that even applies to Barry Bonds.

Best of all, this is a record that honors not just the man who broke it, but the Stadium in which it was achieved. Yankee Stadium will go dark for good six days from now, but though there will never again be a meaningful game played in the old yard, and the Yankees as an organization have completely punted the opportunity to do something special for the final season of baseball’s most significant ballpark, Jeter was able to give us one last piece of history, and a private kind of history at that. For all of the great performances, accomplishments, and players who have graced the field on the southwest corner of 161st and River Ave over the past 86 years, the player who got more hits on that piece of real estate than anyone else ever has or ever will is Derek Jeter. I think that’s pretty cool.

There are six games left at Yankee Stadium including tonight’s. Last night Alfredo Aceves was the story. Tomorrow night it will be Phil Hughes, but tonight, with Andy Pettitte pitching what amounts to a warm-up for the Stadium’s finale on Sunday, there is nothing else. Yes the White Sox are in a tight race for the AL Central. Yes, Robinson Cano is back in the lineup after his disciplinary benching. Yes, Brett Gardner is finally getting another look in center field and making his fourth-straight start there tonight, but with the Yankees on the brink of elimination (nine games out with 12 left to play), I think we’re finally at the point tonight at which the Stadium will become the primary focus.

The Yankees have a record of 4,128-2,429 at Yankee stadium. That’s a .630 winning percentage. They have to win four of these last six games to avoid dropping below .630. That’s utterly meaningless, but maybe it’s something for them to play for. For a variety of reasons, I’m going to find these last six games very hard to watch, and the six season-concluding road games that follow them will be even harder.

By Scott Raab

I was born and bred in Cleveland, Ohio, and I’ve loathed the New York Yankees and everything they stand for — arrogance, entitlement, and money-worship — for as long as I can recall. Even past the point where I realized that I myself was a smug, spoiled, money-grubbing New York-area-dwelling media hack, I hated the hulking, brutish Yankees.

Yankee Stadium? I’d rather pass a gallstone than put a single penny in any Steinbrenner’s pocket. Sure, I’d been there a few times, those memories frosted over by decades of heavy self-medication. My highlight House-That-Blah-Blah-Built memory was watching on TV when last year’s Tribe clinched the LDS at Yankee Stadium. In that storied house. With Bayonne Joe Borowski, no less, on the hill. Sweet almost beyond words, and I cried like a baby to see the dogpile at the end, then went upstairs to wake up my nine-year old son and start spreading the news.

He hates the Yankees, too. But like me, he loves baseball, so last Sunday we went to see a ballgame, and to pay homage. Because you can love baseball and hate the Yankees, but you can’t walk into Yankee Stadium with a hard heart — not if you’re a baseball fan. We weren’t paying homage to the pinstripes or our bile; we were there to honor 85 years of history, eat some hot dogs, and unwind at a beautiful, battered ballyard.

Who knows what a kid remembers? Hell, I seem to remember admiring Mickey Mantle once upon a time. My boy loved every minute. And so did I. It was hot, brutally hot, so we had to suck it up and buy a couple of Yankees caps — $50 that will surely help sign Grady Sizemore one sorry day — and the upper-deck concession stands ran out of ice by the sixth inning, and yeah, the Yankees won. No problem. A-Rod belted a grand slam, Cano got yanked for dogging it, and Jeter tied Lou Gehrig’s record for hits at Yankee Stadium: great ballgame. Great game.

We gave away the caps on the subway home, but I’ll hold on to the day for a long time — and to old, doomed Yankee Stadium. I don’t know about redemption, and like Woody Allen, old Clevelanders don’t mellow — we ripen and rot. I had an epiphany once: In real life, there ain’t no epiphanies. I don’t want miracles, much less expect ’em. I took my son to see the Yankees play at Yankee Stadium. That’s close enough for me.

Scott Raab is a writer for Esquire magazine.

Alfredo Aceves matched Mark Buehrle for six innings last night. Xavier Nady put the Yankees on top with a two run jack to dead center in the second. Aceves uncharacteristically started the fourth by walking leadoff hitter Orlando Cabrera, his only walk of the night, then was made to pay for it when Dewayne Wise turned on an inside cutter and kept it fair into the left field box seats to tie the game. Otherwise, both pitchers kept the game moving (official time: 2:39) and the opposition at bay.

Aceves was inexplicably pulled after just 87 pitches (69 percent strikes and just two three-pitch counts), but Phil Coke worked a 1-2-3 seventh to set up the Yankees breakthrough after the stretch. With Buehrle out after 101 pitches, Xavier Nady led of the bottom of the seventh by coming back from 0-2 to work a walk off sidearming righty Erin Wasserman. Cody Ransom, starting at second base for the still-benched Robinson Cano, then bunted Nady to second, and Joe Girardi sent Wilson Betemit in to pinch-hit for Chad Moeller. Ozzie Guillen called on Horatio Ramirez to turn Betemit around to the right side. Betemit took ball one from Ramirez, fouled a fastball straight back, swung through another, fouled an outside pitch down the right field line, took ball two, then laced ground-rule double over the wall in the left-center field gap to plate Nady with the go-ahead run. Brett Gardner followed with deep fly that moved Betemit to third, and Johnny Damon drove Wilson in with a single through the right side.

Girardi handed that 4-2 lead to Joba Chamberlain, who pitched around an infield single in the eighth striking out two, and Mariano Rivera, who passed Lee Smith for second on the all-time saves list with a 1-2-3 ninth. Rivera’s reaction to passing Smith: “S’arright.” Pete Abe says, “The closer is furious the team isn’t going to the playoffs. Furious.”

As with Aceves’ first start, it was a nice, quick, clean Yankee win. It also moved the Yankees into a tie for third place with the Blue Jays, for what it matters. Elsewhere, the Red Sox pulled into a technical tie for first place by stomping the Rays 13-5, though Tampa Bay still holds a one-game lead in the loss column.

The Yankees haven’t seen the White Sox since late April, when the Yankees took two of three from the Pale Hose in Chicago. Surprisingly little has changed for the Sox since then. The White Sox had a slim 2.5 game lead in the AL Central when the Yankees left the Windy City on April 24, and arrive in the Bronx tonight holding an even smaller 1.5 lead over the Minnesota Twins. The Sox briefly slipped down to third place in early May (though they were never more than 2.5 games out of first), but otherwise have been battling the Twins for the division lead all season long. The two teams haven’t been more than three games apart since June 19, when the Sox had a four-game lead, and the White Sox haven’t been more than a game behind since May 15.

A year ago, the White Sox stumbled to a surprising fourth-place finish with a mere 72 wins due largely to the impotence of their offense, which fell from third-best in the AL in 2006 (5.36 runs per game) to dead last in the league (4.28 R/G). It should come as no surprise, then, that the Sox’s resurgence this year has been led by their resurgent offense, which has scored 5.05 runs per game, the fifth-best rate in the league.

Leading that charge, and thus throwing his had into the ring for league MVP, has been Carlos Quentin, who was acquired in the offseason from the Diamondbacks in exchange for minor league first-baseman Chris Carter, who was subsequently flipped to Oakland in the Dan Haren deal. Slotted in as the D’backs’ starting right fielder last year, Quentin suffered through an injury-plagued season and struggled mightily in his major league stints, but crushed the ball when rehabbing in the minors. A career .313/.413/.527 hitter in the minor leagues, the 25-year-old Stanford product won the Chisox left field job out of camp this year and proceeded to set the junior circuit on fire with .288/.394/.571 rates and the league lead in home runs.

Unfortunately, the fragile Quentin broke his right wrist when punching his bat during an at-bat on September 1 and is out for the season. Similarly, first baseman Paul Konerko is out indefinitely after spraining a ligament in his right knee during a run-down on September 9. Konerko suffered a decline last year that was part of the offense’s problem and has continued that decline this year. Still, his injury moves Nick Swisher to first base, creating a hole in the lineup filled by minor league veteran Dewayne Wise. The 30-year-old Wise has hit well for the Sox this year, but he’s a career .220/.256/.389 hitter in the major leagues even with his solid 91 plate appearances as a White Sock mixed in. Quentin’s injury makes room for deadline acquisition Ken Griffey Jr. to play full time despite his having hit just .245/.330/.347 since returning to the AL.

That all leaves the Chicago offense in the hands of the resurgent Jermaine Dye. Dye was the World Series MVP when the Sox won in 2005 and an MVP candidate in 2006 (.315/.385/.622), but last year he was one of the main reasons that the offense collapsed as he was barely above league average, and was far worse for most of the season prior to a hot August. This year he’s back to bashing (.295/.348/.555), but with Quentin out, the only other man in the lineup who’s meaningfully above average is 37-year-old Jim Thome, who has been healthier this year than last, but less productive on a game-to-game basis.

The Sox’s postseason hopes are further imperiled by the season-ending Achilles’ tendon rupture suffered by Jose Contreras, which has handed the fifth-starter’s job to rookie Clayton Richard, who has a 7.09 ERA in seven major league starts.

Still, this year the Central has been one of those divisions that no one seems to want to win. The Indians came within a game of the World Series last year, but never got off the mat this year and cashed out early by flipping C.C. Sabathia to the Brewers three weeks before the deadline. The Tigers were the preseason favorites, but have traced a parabolic path this season, starting out poorly, looking unbeatable in June, and since falling back below even the Indians. The Twins have been in the fight all season but took an inexplicably long time to bring Francisco Liriano back up from the minors (he’s gone 5-0 with a 1.57 ERA since returning). In fact, that could have been the difference in the division had Quentin not gotten hurt. Now things are back in flux, and the White Sox will arrive tonight desperate to keep their noses out in front.

They send reliable lefty Mark Buehrle to the mound tonight. Buehrle has made 30 starts in each of his eight full seasons in the major leagues and could pass 200 innings for the eighth-straight season with a strong outing tonight. Buehrle had a rough August (5.86 ERA), but has allowed just one run in 13 1/3 innings in September. He’ll face off against Alfredo Aceves, who aced the Angels in his first major league start his last time out and will make his first start in the Bronx tonight.

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By Repoz

Michael Burke: “That Irish Son of a Bitch” *

Alistair Mundy’s ascot, that’s what it was…Alistair Mundy’s dandy ascot. After all these years I’ve finally been able to pinpoint former Yankee president/owner Michael Burke’s rediculi éclat de mode sense. (Then again it might have been that unfashionable Old Spice/turtlewreck sweater connection of his, so who knows!)

Now, while this discovery might not be as nootropic-poppin’ as finding out that multi-flasking Clu Gulager was in the 60’s kookifried outré folk group Miriam or that Ron Asheton of the Stooges was seriously tight with origi-Stooge, Larry Fine, and traded zany hair-pulling sound effects at the Elisha Cooked Actor’s Home in L.A. with him (Asheton, I believe, was moonlighting at the time for the prestigious National Eye-Goink Monthly)…but it’ll do.

Years before beers started pouring like spit in a schoolyard, before a gangplank of stringy flesh had been constructed between Jonah Hex’s crevisious lips, before the sweet ravages of gutter-twang swept me off my cleats…there was Michael Burke. Punk hero.

Imagine, a Yankee team president hanging with us lowcon lowlifes. His dappy loafers sticking to the same gum globs, that were probably expungiated by a lifetime of Terrence Aloysius Mahoney vs Glimpy McClusky (unknowingly the model for the spiffy George Sherrill Flat Brim Society line of baseball caps yet to come!) chaw wars, as ours. Johnny Ramone was supposedly part of our roving Stadium gang of roar. Isn’t it odd, some sorta mystical pissmit, that with the 1974 closing of Yankee Stadium and their grubby unrestrooms, Johnny’s trained whiffology led him to the aroma shocktherapy of the CBGB’s bathroom by that September? (Hey, let’s just be happy he didn’t end up spoog-a-loo trough riffing at the notorious Zipper Lips Au-Go-Go Lounge in Jersey!).

But Mr. Burke, quite possibly (I haven’t finished researching Paul Krassner’s Realist site or Taylor Meade’s unreal sight, for that matter, yet) was the only former OSS intelligence officer, CIA agent, Hollywood cutting floor movie star, head of Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus, and CBS executive to speak out against the Vietnam War…which he did, when he read the names of war dead from the pulpit at NYC’s Trinity Church. For someone of Burke’s stature to take such a radical stand at the time, happened about as often as a fire in the Everglades, a moonlanding on the sun, or Charlie Chocks and Zestabs having a subhuman tug-o-war over the magical abra-cadaver pitchman services of Ray Oyler.

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By Ken Rosenthal

My favorite memory is the Jeffrey Maier game in the 1996 ALCS. I was a columnist for the Baltimore Sun at the time, but I grew up in New York. My father originally is from the Bronx, and when we would play one-on-one basketball or compete in something else, he would always invoke "Bronx Rules." Which is to say, no rules! So, after that game, I explained to the good people of Baltimore the concept of "Bronx Rules." And I wrote that the only way to fight them would be for the Orioles’ crowd to play by "Bronx Rules" when the ALCS returned to Baltimore. In short, I was trying to incite a riot, basically. But of course, nothing changed.

After coming home to Baltimore, I remember sitting at breakfast with my son Sammy, who was five years old at that time. I asked him if he had heard about what happened to the Orioles in New York, about the kid who interfered with the ball. He looked at me and said, "I hate that kid." And I thought, "Awright!"

Ken Rosenthal covers baseball for Fox.