By Marty Appel

As the days of Yankee Stadium wound down in September, there was a lot of talk about the majesty and perfection of the original, 1923-73 ballpark, and talk of how the remodeled park (1976-2008) paled in comparison.

I worked in both ballparks. Let me tell you, when the new one opened in 1976, nobody talked in disappointing terms. The feeling was that the new had captured the grandeur of the old, while adding the touches that made it more fan friendly, not to mention safer. The old place, after all, was no longer structurally sound and needed repair.

What has been largely forgotten over time is the horrible obstructed view seats in the original park, with so many steel poles extending through each deck, causing horrible sight lines. In addition, there were no escalators, the rest rooms were antiquated, the place was developing a seedy quality, and it wasn’t attractive to fans. Barely a million a year were trekking up to the Bronx.

It’s like the nostalgia for Ebbets Field. Few remember how narrow and uncomfortable the seats were. Your knees bounced off your chest. It was a terrible place to see a game.

The new place opened to generally rave reviews, and two million came to see it in year one. It was the first time an American League team had drawn that many people in a quarter century. Baseball was beginning to find its sea legs in the mid ’70s after a decade of lost ground to the NFL. An exciting ’75 World Series set the table. A Yankee pennant in a new Yankee Stadium in 1976 really set baseball into its modern marketing era.

The introduction of luxury suites, a modern marvel scoreboard, and hey – unobstructed views from every seat – turned Yankee Stadium into a fan delight. On top of that, the team began to shine with star after star. They won ten pennants in the new Stadium, and although they won zero between 1982-1996, the team was always competitive, always had star power, and became worthy of Broadway show prices.

Munson and Jackson were followed by Winfield and Mattingly, and they were followed by Jeter and Williams and O’Neill and Rivera. With skilled role players, the roster was finely crafted to produce not only championships clubs – but also a likeable Yankee team – a new concept to a sports culture used to either loving or hating the Yankees.

To me, the only regret about the modernization was that it eliminated the ability to have Yankee Stadium declared a landmark, and to keep the concrete walls standing. I welcome the new stadium. No one ever expected the team to draw four million a year, and they just plain outgrew the current one.

But it would have been nice to see the concrete shell, the one that goes back to 1923, find a way of remaining, no matter what will ultimately come to be on the land itself.

Marty Appel attended his first Yankee Stadium game in 1956, and worked for the team from 1968-92, first in PR and then as TV producer. He now runs Marty Appel Public Relations and is the author of the forthcoming biography, MUNSON: The Life and Death of a Yankee Captain (Doubleday).

The headline on the back cover of the Daily News today reads:

Torre & Manny’s succes in L.A. turns into…YANKS’ WORST NIGHTMARE

They’ve got to sell papers, I get it, but the only nightmare I can see is the Red Sox winning the World Serious again (and even that’s not enough to keep me up at night). I don’t think the Yankees would have made the playoffs if Torre had stuck around, do you? Which is not to say that I don’t hope he wins it all with the Dodgers–the story is just too good to pass up (though I’d rather see Tampa to win it all at this pernt). I would smile from ear-to-ear if Torre wins a Serious in Hollywood.

Of course Manny is the superstar getting the most ink right now, deservedly so. In this week’s Sports Illustrated, Tom Verducci’s article on the Manny and the Dodgers has some good nuggets on Manny’s brilliance on the field.

Dig:

In the signature at bat of the series, in Game 1, Ramirez swung flat-footed at a wicked shoe-top-high 0-and-2 curveball from reliever Sean Marshall and blasted it 420 feet into the Wrigley Field bleachers.

“Just sick,” teammate Greg Maddux says. “Even we look at Manny and go, ‘That’s just on another level.’ It’s like watching Tiger Woods hit an eight-iron a thousand feet in the air and knocking it stiff. Normal people just don’t do that. Guys like Tiger and Manny are out there in a class by themselves.”

…Says L.A. general manager Ned Colletti, “Normally, as a pitcher gets strikes on a hitter, the hitter becomes more and more defensive. But with Manny it’s different. It’s like the more pitches he sees, the more he knows about what the pitcher is doing and where the pitcher wants to go, and the odds swing more to his favor. And the pitcher knows that.

“I’ve been around Maddux, [Barry] Bonds and Manny. Those three guys are the smartest baseball players I’ve ever seen. They’re in a class by themselves. They see and understand the game at a higher level than everybody else. The game slows down for them. It’s like they see everything in a frame-by-frame sequence. It’s different from everybody else.”

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By Joe Sheehan

My set of Yankee Stadium memories is different than those of most fans my age. In 1989, I started college at the University of Southern California, finishing in the spring of 1994. After a brief stint back east, I moved back to the Los Angeles area in January of 1995, where I lived until the spring of 2007.

I missed the dynasty. I missed Mystique and Aura. I missed Charlie Hayes by the tarp and Wade Boggs on a horse and 125 wins in ’98 and four titles in five years. I missed all of it. When I left, we were a national joke, the team that fired managers every few months, the one that traded away all its good young players and never made the playoffs. When I came back, we were the team for which making the playoffs wasn’t good enough.

This is my first full year in New York City since 1988, and to celebrate, the Yankees are missing October for the first time since 1994 and closing down Yankee Stadium. It’s enough to make a guy think about moving back to L.A.

I don’t have a single memory of cold October nights spent cheering Derek Jeter, Bernie Williams or Mariano Rivera. I never saw a dogpile on the pitchers’ mound, never watched a victory lap, never hugged a stranger as my favorite team in sports won a championship. All of my Yankee Stadium memories come from a different era, the 1980s, when New York was a Mets town and seasons ended in September. I went to dozens of games a season back when you could decide at 6:45 to head to the Stadium, grab a gypsy cab from Inwood for six bucks, buy a seat in Main Reserved for $12 and be in it by first pitch at 7:30.

Even that was an expensive night. Tickets were always available, it seemed. I was the kid who loved baseball, so whenever my parents’ friends had extras, the tickets ended up in my lap. I’d get a call at 3 p.m. to drop by a local bar and pick them up, and be at the game that night. Looking back, I took it for granted-who knew there’d be a time when Yankee tickets would be a commodity, bartered and sold like gold bricks?-and looking back, I wonder if I wasn’t just a little bit lucky to grow up in the last era when a lower-middle-class kid could get to 20 or more Yankee games a summer.

The night games were fun, but when I think about the Stadium, the sun is shining on a weekday afternoon and it feels a little bit like stealing. That was my thing; weekday day games. They’re a lot more common than they used to be, but growing up, there’d be a handful each season, and I’d try and get tickets for them when single-game ducats went on sale. For each, I’d strike out around 10:30 a.m. on the M100 to the Bx13, getting there before Gate 6 opened, then rushing to the right-field wall, glove on hand, hoping to catch a ball during batting practice. If you got there right when they opened the gates, you’d catch a little bit of Yankees BP, but mostly, it was the visitors. I would stand up against the wall, beg opposing pitchers playing long toss for baseballs, hold my breath when Fred Lynn or Matt Nokes or Kent Hrbek came to the plate, and never, ever, come away with a baseball.

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A planned concert in early November at Yankee Stadium has been cancelled, according to this item by Mark Feinsand in the Daily News.

Man, it was nice to see Bernie there wasn’t it?

With no games to preview today, I’ve got a piece up on SI.com summarizing five things I took away from the ALDS. The first of them Yankee fans new already: Jon Lester, who was 2-0 with a 1.19 ERA in three starts against the Bombers this year, is the Red Sox’s new ace.

God knows why — I’ve been to dozens and dozens of games over the years — but the very first thing I think of, when I hear the words "Yankee Stadium", is Game 6 of the 2004 ALCS. I couldn’t first remember some nice come-from-behind affair against the Sox, or one of those sharp Andy Pettitte LDS wins over the Twins, or my first game with my dad as a kid, or learning to keep score? No, I go back to a frigid and drizzly night, in the far reaches of the upper deck, sitting by myself because by the time I’d managed to log onto Ticketmaster, they only had single tickets left.

And somehow, it’s actually a nice memory. I was wearing just about every item of clothing I owned in a futile attempt to layer for warmth, topped off with my ancient and oversized Paul O’Neill t-shirt, and using a garbage bag I’d brought from home as a poncho. This was my first Championship Series game ever — I’d seen a few Division Series games, but that was it, I’d never been there for any ALCS or World Series moments in person. And so I was absolutely determined to enjoy myself, no matter what — alone, freezing, damp, broke, watching the Yankees engage in one of the greatest chokes in sports history against that loudmouth Schilling… whatever. I wasn’t about to let anything get me down. (Plus, I was so sure they were going to pull it out the next night. Way too sure).

There was an earnest, attractive young Japanese tourist couple on my left, wearing full-on plush Godzilla-head hats. They didn’t speak much English, but the man did turn to me a few innings in and manage to ask why the crowd was booing Schilling for repeatedly throwing over to hold the runner on first. "That’s his job, yes?" he wanted to know, perfectly reasonably. While I was trying to figure out the best way to phrase my reply, the man to my right, who turned out to be named Joey, leaned over and beat me to it.

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It’s painful to see the Red Sox playing so well, but in a way, it is a tribute to the Yankees’ success in the late ’90s, a run that forced the Red Sox to build a bigger, smarter team.  It’s as if they are the villans in the superhero movie who create a supermonster to defeat the superhero (Though you’d be hard-pressed to find a Sox fan who considers the Yankees the heroes).

As much as I hate to see Boston winning, I do appreciate that they are defending their title so well–at least thus far.

So while we wait for the hot stove to warm up, we are left with our memories–and what a stockpile we’ve got to choose from! I’ve been digging around in the Esquire archives lately, and now offer up Charles Pierce’s 2001 profile on our man, Mariano Rivera:

He is modest and mild. He is neat and quiet. Closers are not. They snarl and spit. They rage and howl. They are wild and unkempt, hooligan cowboys, living and dying with every pitch. One of them still hangs around the Yankees, helping the relief pitchers. The hair’s thin now, and gray. The mustache still droops, and it’s gray, too. He’s the old rancher with a rifle above the door that nobody asks about. Be they as precise as Mariano Rivera or as fierce as this old gentleman, closers make their own special marks, always, as long as they sign in blood.

…His power seems like some sort of physical trompe l’oeil, its source a mystery locked inside the elegant movement of his pitching motion. The power is in there somewhere, coiled and mysterious and remorselessly reliable. Otherwise, he looks as if he’s tossing a tennis ball against the side of his garage. If he has an identity as a closer, it is that he throws the same pitch at the same speed with the same fluid motion every time, impeccable and contained and neat, like his handwriting, like his career.

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Sox give Halos that Peaceful, Easy Feeling.  Actually, I’m sure there was nothing peaceful or easy about it.  The Sox win games like the 90s Yankee teams did, huh?

Let’s Go Rays!

I don’t think the Angels are going to get past Jon Lester tonight, but I sure would like to see one of these two series come down to a decisive Game 5. Think the White Sox can pull another one out at the Cell? My previews are up on SI.com

By Bob Klapisch

Everyone’s got a farewell memory of Yankee Stadium, maybe a personal shrine. I’m no different: as I left the great ballpark for the last time on September 21, I said goodbye to an abstract soft spot in my heart that won’t make it across the street.

I consider it a shrine without shape or form; it’s just a place. Actually, it’s just air-space, the spot right outside the Yankee clubhouse where David Wells was waiting to launch the most bizarre showdown of my career.

I’ve had my share of shoot-outs (see: Bobby Bonilla, 1993), but none that could’ve been reviewed by journalism ethics class. Ok, a little background. In the summer of 1997, when I was still a beat reporter for the Bergen Record and one of the few writers who actually liked Boomer – I always considered him slightly larger than life, if not larger than his uniform – I caught wind of a explosive confrontation between the lefthander and George Steinbrenner.

It occurred in the ninth inning of a game the Yankees were losing to the lowly-Expos, during which Wells had been knocked out. Steinbrenner, embarrassed that the defending world champs were getting punished by one of the National League’s worst teams, was pacing the clubhouse. He was in a terrible mood.

Wells wasn’t happy, either. He started a conversation with the Boss that would soon make headlines.

“Hey, George, you need to get some security out there in right field. Build a wall or something,” Wells said.

He was referring to a fan who’d leaned over the railing and prevented Paul O’Neill from catching Darrin Fletcher’s second inning fly ball. The fan caught the ball and it was ruled a home run.

That was all The Boss Steinbrenner needed to hear. The engine of his rage was now fully ignited.

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When you talk to fans who grew up in the Sixties, many of them chose between Sport magazine and Sports Illustrated in the same way that Rock N Roll fans picked either the Beatles or the Stones.  Sport was a monthly, SI a weekly.  There was no pretense about Sport–the writing was lunch pale, no frills and featured writers from around the country. The photography was wonderful too.  When Andres LaGuerre took over SI, it became literate, the New Yorker of sport magazines.  No matter which you prefer, together, they helped define a golden age of sports magazine writing. 

The launching of the SI Vault earlier this year was a terrific occasion for all of us who love sports writing, although navigating the site is still a painful and frustrating experience.  Sport hasn’t been around in years, but they do have a website and recently, a handful of articles have been posted, including this 1953 profile on Mickey Mantle by Milton Gross:

There have been few more exciting rookies than Mantle was in 1951. Yet Mickey could have become one of the greatest busts simply because he had had so much ballyhoo. Until the end of last season there were many who viewed Mantle with misgivings, be­cause he was a kid who was asked to walk before he could crawl and run before he could walk in baseball. There was question of his maturity for a role so large as the one in which he was being cast and it is entirely possible that what veered Robinson so firmly in his praise of Mantle was not what Mickey did over the entire Series, but his reactions on just one play.

It happened in the third game of the Series, a game the Dodgers were to win to take a two‑games‑to‑one edge, but it is entirely possible that the Series was decided right there in the Yankees’ favor as Mantle met and passed his most severe test. In the eighth inning, Robinson slashed a single to center. As Robinson made a sharp swerve around first base, Mickey fielded the ball on one hop and then was faced with a choice that every National League outfielder has had to make. He could throw to second, forcing Robinson to retreat to first base, or hold his throw until Jackie had committed himself irrevocably when it would be Mantle’s arm against Jackie’s speed, daring and know‑how on the bases. When it is you against Robinson, it is no simple decision to make.

Mantle elected to hold his throw. Whether it was a deliberate or in­stinctive decision, none can say, but Mantle watched Robinson and Jackie, watching the fielder, came as much as 25 feet toward second. He slowed down, pretending to go back and Mickey, meanwhile, came in several steps with the ball before cocking his arm as if to throw to first base.

With that motion Jackie went into high gear for second, yet Mantle still held his throw. Suddenly, it seemed Jackie sensed he could not make the base. The Dodger stopped, stumbled, got to his feet again and then scrambled back to first.

It was a war of nerves on the bases, Robinson drawing on his years of ex­perience and Mantle drawing from some inexplicable well of wisdom that seems to be his despite his youth, and it was a war Robinson lost.

Among the 66,698 spectators at the Yankee Stadium that day were some who sensed the importance of the play as it related to the Series, but at least one among them, Branch Rickey, interpreted Mantle’s reaction to Robinson’s maneuvering in a much broader sense. Rickey brought Robinson to the majors and many times saw how Robinson’s running could kill the con­fidence of one man and, through him, his team. As the play unfolded Rickey turned to his companion and said: "Maturity is something that cannot be measured in years. That young man’s arms and legs and eyes and wind are young, but his head is old. To me it is the final proof of the boy. Mantle has the chance to make us forget every ballplayer we ever saw."

For more on Sport, check out Mark Armour’s 2007 tribute over at The Baseball Analysts.

The Angels got it together and finally beat the Red Sox.  Go Figure that.

Took 12 innings.  The series is still alive with Lackey and Lester going tonight.  Now, that’s worth the price of admission.

All three Division Series could wrap up today, but I think the White Sox will survive the weekend, and am hoping the Brewers will as well so that we can see CC and Cole Hamels face off in Game 5. My preview of today’s action is up over at SI.com.

By Jon Weisman

Mostly, I remember white.

To celebrate my graduation from college in 1989, I went on a mini-ballpark tour with some members of my family. I flew from California to New York to meet my sister, who was living there at the time. A few days later, the two of us would meet up in Boston with my brother and father, and we’d go on to see games at Fenway Park, Skydome and Wrigley Field. But first, it would be New York, New York: Shea and Yankee Stadiums.

At least, that’s what I recalled when I started to write this. But after looking back at Baseball-Reference.com, I realized that I must not have seen the Mets on this trip. It must have been another day in another year that I took the subway out for a hot, sticky day game at Shea and had a lousy hot dog but a good time.

My memory, in some respects, has become just awful. When it comes to my first visits to Yankee and Shea Stadiums, I remember next to nothing about what happened during the games themselves. (By comparison, I distinctly remember that in my first trip to Fenway Park, in 1982, the one-and-only Derek Botelho flirted with a no-hitter in his first major-league game.)

But for my only trip to Yankee Stadium, I couldn’t even tell you who played or who won, without the aid of the Internet. I would have guessed the Yankees won, based on some good vibes I recall feeling among the crowd as we were leaving. I also recall that the game was on the afternoon of Independence Day, and that there was a postgame concert by the Beach Boys that we didn’t end up sticking around for. But I’m not sure you can trust me on any of that.

What I can testify to, two decades later, is the experience of the visit.

We sat high, high behind home plate – it almost felt like a blimp’s-eye view of the action – but I enjoyed the vantage point. I sort of marveled at how much I enjoyed it.

And most of all, I remember white, the dominant color in my mind when picturing Yankee Stadium. Inside the royal blue of the seats stuck out but the outer shell was all white. I had never seen a ballpark that looked like this, and it struck me as so fittingly majestic. I’m a Dodger fan, but I knew I was in hallowed ground. Yankee Stadium had an immediate feel, and that feel was more important to me than anything that was happening on the field. I could be wrong, but I have to think that feel will color the memories of many people as the years go by.

Jon Weisman blogs about the Dodgers over at Dodger Thoughts.

When the Cubs lost the first two games at home against the Dodgers I wasn’t especially surprised. For all of the talk about a new vibe at Wrigley this year, these were still the Cubs after all. They’d need to win at least one round before I started to truly believe.

I called my oldest friend in the world, Lizzie Plummer, whose father, rest his soul, was a long-suffering Cubbie fan. I had been thinking about him for weeks, knowing he would have been reserved about all the good cheer.

"You know what he would say?" Liz told me over the phone. "They’ve come further only to fall farther."

He would not have batted an eye at a first round sweep.  Still, my heart does go out to Cub Nation or whatever they are called.  This one is for you.

At the same time, I’m thrilled for Dodger fans. Yowza La-La Land, pinch yourself–youse one series away from the World Serious.

The Brewers and Cubs try to stay alive tonight. As I write in my SI.com preview, I’m not optimistic about their chances. Here’s how the last 54 best-of-five series to start 2-0 have ended:

By Will Weiss

Part Two of Two: The Personalities

I’m lucky to have my own batch of special memories from my five years covering the team. But the thing I’ll miss most is interacting with the many people who gave the stadium life.

There were a few regular occurrences: the mad rush for positioning in the dugout when Joe Torre would prepare for his pre-game conference with the media; Jim Kaat making a beeline through Brian Cashman’s office to get coffee right before the seventh inning stretch; Bob Sheppard’s sprint to the elevator right after the game (you wouldn’t believe how spry he was) and the way he’d disappear when the elevator reached the lobby. There was also the inimitable way in which official scorer Bill Shannon announced a scoring decision. The first time I heard, “Single, runner takes second on the throw,” or, “E-Five. Error on the third baseman,” I thought it was the ghost of Harry Caray, or at the very least, Will Ferrell’s impersonation of the late broadcaster.

I learned a lot about the press culture and how to act – mainly to shut up and stay out of the way – from Phil Pepe. He covered the team from the early 1960s through the early ’80s, and observed the many internal changes that took place. We would frequently eat dinner together in the press dining room before games, particularly in 2003 and ’04, when he rotated with Bill Shannon, Howie Karpin, and Jordan Sprechman as official scorers.

The press dining room was an interesting place to mingle, network, and get information from “sources close to the situation.” It was routine to see writers chatting up advance scouts from teams both the Yankees and their opponents would be playing within the next week to 10 days. I had some good conversations with members of the A’s staff prior to an Aaron Small start back in 2005, as well as chats with the Twins in 2004 before the playoffs.
It was also a great place to observe the cliquey nature of the New York baseball writers. I found it amazing how they could socialize and be cordial to one another in one setting, but would gouge each other’s eyes out if it came to getting a scoop. You always knew where John Sterling was, based on the level of harrumphing.

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Red Sox play Daddy Dearest once again.  The great K Rod gets pasted. 

The Angels are toast don’t ya know.

Jason Bay hits a three-run bomb as the Sox score four runs in the first inning out in California.

The nightmare continues for the Halos.

My previews for today’s ALDS Games 2 are up on SI.com. Two lefty starters give the Rays-Chisox series a different look, while Daisuke Matsuzaka’s stellar record belies his unimpressive pitching.