Was it when it mattered?
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2008 New York Yankees
- Thread starter min0 lee
- Start date
Was it when it mattered?
Pavano expects to make next start
This sucks, this will definitely hurt our chances for the playoffs.
Pavano needs to be euthanized.
This sucks, this will definitely hurt our chances for the playoffs.
Pavano needs to be euthanized.
Wasn't it in the first inning?
Not that it makes a difference, a slam is a slam and I applaud him for it.
Just wish he did this when it mattered.
Just checked it, it was tied....zero to zero in the first inning. Then he hit the grand slam to break the tie.
Derek Jeter makes history at Yankee Stadium, more to come
Derek Jeter makes history at Yankee Stadium, more to come
He is loved here, I love him too.
Derek Jeter makes history at Yankee Stadium, more to come
He is loved here, I love him too.
Posada: More injury risk for Joba in rotation than in bullpen
Associated Press
NEW YORK -- Jorge Posada reignited the debate over Joba Chamberlain's future Monday, recommending the young pitcher be kept in the bullpen and predicting more injuries if the New York Yankees put him back in their starting rotation.
"I think if you start him and he pitches 200 innings in one year, you're going to lose him. He's going to get hurt. I don't see him as a starter," Posada said Monday during a session of "CenterStage," scheduled to air on the team's YES Network starting Sept. 28.
Chamberlain, the hard-throwing righty who turns 23 next week, began the season in the Yankees bullpen, then moved to the rotation in June. The plan was to limit his innings early, then make him a full-time starter.
"He's been around the game and that's his opinion. I'm not going to fault the guy for having an opinion. We all have opinions," Chamberlain said. "We have to sit down. It's going to be what's best for the team in the long run. It's your career and you have to be a part of it. You do what's best for yourself, also, but the end goal is to win a championship. Whether that's in the bullpen or as a starter, time will tell."
He was sidelined from Aug. 4 to Sept. 2 because of rotator cuff tendinitis and went back to the bullpen when he returned.
"A little tendinitis, it just tells you a lot," Posada said after the TV interview. "I think his body is made up for a reliever."
Chamberlain was 3-1 with a 2.76 ERA in 12 starts, striking out 74 in 65 1/3 innings. He's 1-2 with a 2.29 ERA in 24 relief appearances, fanning 34 in 28 2/3 innings.
New York hasn't decided its future plans for Chamberlain.
"We'll discuss whether Chamberlain will be a starter or a reliever, along with everything else, during the winter," co-chairman Hank Steinbrenner said.
Manager Joe Girardi didn't mind Posada voicing his opinion, saying "some players feel more freely to discuss them openly than others." He also said the decision could depend on offseason developments.
"For right now, we still envision him as a starter. We just didn't have a chance to build him up," Girardi said.
He did reject the notion that starting makes Chamberlain more susceptible to injury.
"You can't put your head inside a guy's arm," he said. "People will argue it's better to start every five days from a physical standpoint, where you get four days' rest. Other people say it's better to throw in the bullpen, but what if you have to throw three days in a row? I mean, I think it just depends on the individual."
Chamberlain would like the debate to end at some point.
"At the beginning of the year, we're just going to have to say, this is it," he said. "Then I never want to answer another question about it again."
Posada had season-ending shoulder surgery June 30 and expects to return behind the plate for New York next season, anticipating he can catch 120-130 games.
With the Yankees almost certain to miss the playoffs for the first time since 1993, the 37-year-old says the team must go into the free-agent market to repair its starting rotation. CC Sabathia, Ben Sheets and A.J. Burnett are their chief targets.
"We're pretty much going to be in it, but you don't know if those guys are going to want to come here," Posada said. "I hope they do."
New York figures to have tens of millions of dollars available: Jason Giambi ($21 million), Andy Pettitte ($16 million), Bobby Abreu ($16 million), Mike Mussina ($11 million) and Carl Pavano ($11 million) are all potentially eligible for free agency.
"We're going to do whatever we can to improve, whether it's free agency or trades," Steinbrenner said.
On another topic, Posada voiced anger toward Pedro Martinez for the 2003 brawl between the Yankees and the Red Sox during the AL Championship Series.
"I thought he was going to hit me in the head with a bat, after we had the fight and he pushed Don Zimmer. It was ridiculous. I mean, he throws at Karim Garcia because he's losing the game. I mean, there's no class," Posada said.
It might have been an uncomfortable situation had Posada signed with the New York Mets after the 2007 season. He would have had to catch Martinez.
"You try to forget about the past and look forward," Posada said.
Told of Posada's comments after the Mets' 7-2 loss at the Nationals on Monday night, Martinez said he wouldn't throw at a batter on purpose because he was angry about losing.
Martinez also said Posada insulted Martinez's mother during that game.
"He cursed my mom, which is something I would never do to his mom, because she doesn't play," Martinez said. "She's not in the field. She's someone that you admire and respect. And I didn't like that."
Martinez pointed at his own head during the confrontation.
"It wasn't precisely to tell him that I wanted to hit him in the head," Martinez. "No, he's a human being, and he has a family, and I'm a professional. What I meant from his head was because he cursed my mom. I'll remember that. Because he knows he's Latin. As much as he pretends to be American, he's Latin, both sides, and he knows that cursing your mom in Latin America will get you into a fight. But, it wasn't to try to tell him.
"I actually had done it the inning before to Varitek. I would go like this," Martinez said, pointing to his head, "when there was a sequence or something. I go like this. If you go like this, it's not hit you in the head. It's think about it. That's what I meant to say: I'll remember what you just did."
Associated Press
NEW YORK -- Jorge Posada reignited the debate over Joba Chamberlain's future Monday, recommending the young pitcher be kept in the bullpen and predicting more injuries if the New York Yankees put him back in their starting rotation.
"I think if you start him and he pitches 200 innings in one year, you're going to lose him. He's going to get hurt. I don't see him as a starter," Posada said Monday during a session of "CenterStage," scheduled to air on the team's YES Network starting Sept. 28.
Chamberlain, the hard-throwing righty who turns 23 next week, began the season in the Yankees bullpen, then moved to the rotation in June. The plan was to limit his innings early, then make him a full-time starter.
"He's been around the game and that's his opinion. I'm not going to fault the guy for having an opinion. We all have opinions," Chamberlain said. "We have to sit down. It's going to be what's best for the team in the long run. It's your career and you have to be a part of it. You do what's best for yourself, also, but the end goal is to win a championship. Whether that's in the bullpen or as a starter, time will tell."
He was sidelined from Aug. 4 to Sept. 2 because of rotator cuff tendinitis and went back to the bullpen when he returned.
"A little tendinitis, it just tells you a lot," Posada said after the TV interview. "I think his body is made up for a reliever."
Chamberlain was 3-1 with a 2.76 ERA in 12 starts, striking out 74 in 65 1/3 innings. He's 1-2 with a 2.29 ERA in 24 relief appearances, fanning 34 in 28 2/3 innings.
New York hasn't decided its future plans for Chamberlain.
"We'll discuss whether Chamberlain will be a starter or a reliever, along with everything else, during the winter," co-chairman Hank Steinbrenner said.
Manager Joe Girardi didn't mind Posada voicing his opinion, saying "some players feel more freely to discuss them openly than others." He also said the decision could depend on offseason developments.
"For right now, we still envision him as a starter. We just didn't have a chance to build him up," Girardi said.
He did reject the notion that starting makes Chamberlain more susceptible to injury.
"You can't put your head inside a guy's arm," he said. "People will argue it's better to start every five days from a physical standpoint, where you get four days' rest. Other people say it's better to throw in the bullpen, but what if you have to throw three days in a row? I mean, I think it just depends on the individual."
Chamberlain would like the debate to end at some point.
"At the beginning of the year, we're just going to have to say, this is it," he said. "Then I never want to answer another question about it again."
Posada had season-ending shoulder surgery June 30 and expects to return behind the plate for New York next season, anticipating he can catch 120-130 games.
With the Yankees almost certain to miss the playoffs for the first time since 1993, the 37-year-old says the team must go into the free-agent market to repair its starting rotation. CC Sabathia, Ben Sheets and A.J. Burnett are their chief targets.
"We're pretty much going to be in it, but you don't know if those guys are going to want to come here," Posada said. "I hope they do."
New York figures to have tens of millions of dollars available: Jason Giambi ($21 million), Andy Pettitte ($16 million), Bobby Abreu ($16 million), Mike Mussina ($11 million) and Carl Pavano ($11 million) are all potentially eligible for free agency.
"We're going to do whatever we can to improve, whether it's free agency or trades," Steinbrenner said.
On another topic, Posada voiced anger toward Pedro Martinez for the 2003 brawl between the Yankees and the Red Sox during the AL Championship Series.
"I thought he was going to hit me in the head with a bat, after we had the fight and he pushed Don Zimmer. It was ridiculous. I mean, he throws at Karim Garcia because he's losing the game. I mean, there's no class," Posada said.
It might have been an uncomfortable situation had Posada signed with the New York Mets after the 2007 season. He would have had to catch Martinez.
"You try to forget about the past and look forward," Posada said.
Told of Posada's comments after the Mets' 7-2 loss at the Nationals on Monday night, Martinez said he wouldn't throw at a batter on purpose because he was angry about losing.
Martinez also said Posada insulted Martinez's mother during that game.
"He cursed my mom, which is something I would never do to his mom, because she doesn't play," Martinez said. "She's not in the field. She's someone that you admire and respect. And I didn't like that."
Martinez pointed at his own head during the confrontation.
"It wasn't precisely to tell him that I wanted to hit him in the head," Martinez. "No, he's a human being, and he has a family, and I'm a professional. What I meant from his head was because he cursed my mom. I'll remember that. Because he knows he's Latin. As much as he pretends to be American, he's Latin, both sides, and he knows that cursing your mom in Latin America will get you into a fight. But, it wasn't to try to tell him.
"I actually had done it the inning before to Varitek. I would go like this," Martinez said, pointing to his head, "when there was a sequence or something. I go like this. If you go like this, it's not hit you in the head. It's think about it. That's what I meant to say: I'll remember what you just did."
As somebody who's fascinated by sabermetrics, I find this startling.
A-Rod's Win Probability Added for the last two seasons:
2007: 6.85
2008: 0.40
Going against everything I've been saying, this one statistic basically rates A-Rod at the bottom portion of the league in terms of how well he performs in late/"clutch" situations.
I also included his WPA from 2007 which was one of the highest in all of baseball last season.
What does this all mean?
It means A-Rod, despite leading the American League in slugging percentage and being tied for fourth in on-base percentage has been a considerably worse player in late game situations than he has been in early/"non-clutch" situations.
It also means, that even though he underperformed in the playoffs last year, A-Rod was one of the most effective players in the game in late/"clutch" situations in the regular season last year.
In 2006, he had a WPA rating similar to this season and in 2005, his numbers in late/"clutch" situations shot right back up reminiscent of last season.
I'm not a huge fan of this metric or of the word "clutch" because if somebody is having the kind of season that Alex Rodriguez is having, he's without question helping his team win ball games. Still, to have the MVP caliber season that he's having and to have a WPA so low is telling of just how bad he's performed in high leverage situations this season.
Given these numbers, can you say that A-Rod is an "unclutch" player? Absolutely not, because in high leverage situations last year he was tops in the league.
I'm rambling now, but basically put:
You can't say A-Rod is an unclutch player because he's been as clutch as they come every other year. You also can't say he's a clutch player because he's been as unclutch as they come every other year.
A-Rod's Win Probability Added for the last two seasons:
2007: 6.85
2008: 0.40
The One About Win Probability -- The Hardball Times
Going against everything I've been saying, this one statistic basically rates A-Rod at the bottom portion of the league in terms of how well he performs in late/"clutch" situations.
I also included his WPA from 2007 which was one of the highest in all of baseball last season.
What does this all mean?
It means A-Rod, despite leading the American League in slugging percentage and being tied for fourth in on-base percentage has been a considerably worse player in late game situations than he has been in early/"non-clutch" situations.
It also means, that even though he underperformed in the playoffs last year, A-Rod was one of the most effective players in the game in late/"clutch" situations in the regular season last year.
In 2006, he had a WPA rating similar to this season and in 2005, his numbers in late/"clutch" situations shot right back up reminiscent of last season.
I'm not a huge fan of this metric or of the word "clutch" because if somebody is having the kind of season that Alex Rodriguez is having, he's without question helping his team win ball games. Still, to have the MVP caliber season that he's having and to have a WPA so low is telling of just how bad he's performed in high leverage situations this season.
Given these numbers, can you say that A-Rod is an "unclutch" player? Absolutely not, because in high leverage situations last year he was tops in the league.
I'm rambling now, but basically put:
You can't say A-Rod is an unclutch player because he's been as clutch as they come every other year. You also can't say he's a clutch player because he's been as unclutch as they come every other year.
Also,
the Yankees demise last season had little to do with Alex Rodriguez. The entire team struggled and as much as Yankee fans want to deny this, Derek Jeter was the worst player on that team last year in the playoffs.
IMO, the A-Rod hate stems from the fact that Jeter is such a respected Yankee. Given that A-Rod is twice the ball player that Jeter ever was, given that they played the same position and Rodriguez was better both offensively and defensively when originally coming over, etc. it makes sense that the New York media would (once again) paint Rodriguez as such a villain.
It happened with Maris/Mantle, and the Jeter/Rodriguez situation isn't very different.
the Yankees demise last season had little to do with Alex Rodriguez. The entire team struggled and as much as Yankee fans want to deny this, Derek Jeter was the worst player on that team last year in the playoffs.
IMO, the A-Rod hate stems from the fact that Jeter is such a respected Yankee. Given that A-Rod is twice the ball player that Jeter ever was, given that they played the same position and Rodriguez was better both offensively and defensively when originally coming over, etc. it makes sense that the New York media would (once again) paint Rodriguez as such a villain.
It happened with Maris/Mantle, and the Jeter/Rodriguez situation isn't very different.
Final thing before my class begins.
Looking at Derek Jeter' baseball reference page, the top players that compare to him in terms of numbers are Barry Larkin, Alan Trammell, Ray Durham, Ryne Sandberg and Roberto Alomar.
I'm not trying to take anything away from Derek Jeter, but if he hadn't been drafted by the Yankees, had Jeremy Giambi slid into homeplate in the ALDS years ago, etc. there is not one single chance we're talking about a nine time all-star here.
More than likely he'd be a very dynamic ball player who was tossed from team to team every 4-5 years, never won a World Series and made about half of the $140 million dollars he's made over the course of his career.
Looking at Derek Jeter' baseball reference page, the top players that compare to him in terms of numbers are Barry Larkin, Alan Trammell, Ray Durham, Ryne Sandberg and Roberto Alomar.
I'm not trying to take anything away from Derek Jeter, but if he hadn't been drafted by the Yankees, had Jeremy Giambi slid into homeplate in the ALDS years ago, etc. there is not one single chance we're talking about a nine time all-star here.
More than likely he'd be a very dynamic ball player who was tossed from team to team every 4-5 years, never won a World Series and made about half of the $140 million dollars he's made over the course of his career.
I still prefer Jeter when it matters the most.
You can turn blue and come out with all the stats in the world but when you watch them day in day out, see and hear them you'll learn too appreciate him.
Stats wise A-Rod is a monster compared to Jeter.....
You can turn blue and come out with all the stats in the world but when you watch them day in day out, see and hear them you'll learn too appreciate him.
Stats wise A-Rod is a monster compared to Jeter.....
A-Rod is a great player and we are very lucky to have him, some fans don't deserve him at all.
I was suprised to see him return after all the crap the media and then the fans put him through.
But when people critize a player like Jeter who is well respected around the league, fans and the media.
Who is one of the classiest players around who has proved himself in the playoffs.....I can't just talk bad about him.
Sure he's let me down , but what player hasn't.
Jeter status as the Captain of the NY Yankees is well deserved.
I'm going back to sleep, my other half will take over.
I was suprised to see him return after all the crap the media and then the fans put him through.
But when people critize a player like Jeter who is well respected around the league, fans and the media.
Who is one of the classiest players around who has proved himself in the playoffs.....I can't just talk bad about him.
Sure he's let me down , but what player hasn't.
Jeter status as the Captain of the NY Yankees is well deserved.
I'm going back to sleep, my other half will take over.
No baseball obsessed people?
Damn.
Damn.
I was driving this mourning and heard Mike & Mike make fun of Mr. Clutch, it's not just a NY thing.
Have you seen a Yankee game besides the Yank-Bosox games?
Have you seen a Yankee game besides the Yank-Bosox games?
Stadium farewell rekindles memories of times gone by
By Wright Thompson
ESPN.com
NEW YORK -- Four hours before the last game at Yankee Stadium began, I walked through the low-ceilinged innards of the place, winding past the clubhouse, finally catching the attention of a worker. I asked him if he could show me what insiders call the Gehrig room, one of the many legends that will be lost when the wrecking balls tear down 85 years of baseball history.
He motioned for me to follow.
"Don't tell," he says. "I'm not supposed to show you."
At the end of a hallway is room BS-003, filled with broken seats, miscellaneous chair parts, paper towels and a motorized cart. Once, it had another purpose. When Lou Gehrig was dying, in his last season, he needed a sanctuary. The story goes that he, too, followed the narrow tunnels until he came here, alone, to this room. A small mural is painted on a post near where he used to sit. "Yankee Captains Forever," it says. The mural will die with the ballpark.
The room will be destroyed soon.
All of this will.
*****
No place renews itself like New York, where sentiment doesn't impede commerce. Ebbets Field and the Polo Grounds are both housing projects. Toots Shor's, the nightclub where Mantle and DiMaggio held court, now holds offices. An entire New York, the New York of Frank Sinatra and Jimmy Cannon, has almost vanished forever. Yankee Stadium was one of the last artifacts left.
Fans, most armed with digital cameras, get one last tour of Monument Park.
"There are so many people who get that we've lost something very valuable," says Kristi Jacobson, moviemaker and granddaughter of Shor, the famous saloonkeeper. "I don't think people have ever gotten over those losses."
The classy hotel where the Yankees stayed in the Bronx, the Concourse Plaza -- built the same year as Yankee Stadium -- was abandoned and is now a housing project for the elderly. It is where Don Larsen lived when he threw his perfect game in the World Series. FDR and JFK campaigned here. Now, the grand ballroom has been gutted and turned into a courtyard.
On Sunday afternoon, old men played dominoes where they could see the blue seats of the ballpark.
Nearby, resident Gene Williams stood in the vestibule, where celebrities once walked after stepping out of limousines. He would hang out across the street from the hotel and stare. "Marilyn Monroe slept upstairs," he says. "'The House That Ruth Built' brought 'em all. Mink shawls. Mrs. Ruth herself. Oh, those were the good days. Those were the good days."
That, of course, was why everyone came out Sunday. To remember a time gone by. Fans arrived early, turning the few blocks around the stadium into a zoo. Scalpers congregated on the corner of East 161st Street and River Avenue. A policeman walked through them, putting his arm theatrically over his eyes. The scalpers laughed. So did the cop. On this day, dogs and cats were friends.
A car circled the stadium, the man inside taking it all in. It was Bernie Williams, a Bronx legend who hadn't been back to the park since the team told him he was no longer wanted two years ago. On Sunday, he returned home. Before going inside, he wanted to see and remember. "Concrete doesn't talk back to you," Williams says. "Chairs don't talk to you. It's the people. That's what makes this place magical."
On this day, the fans finally got something in return: pregame access to the warning track and area near the green grass of the field. Dusty handprints covered the outfield wall as people pressed their palms up against it. Richard Gere posed for a photo with Paul O'Neill. A father and son stood in Monument Park, trying to take a picture by the DiMaggio marker. The dad, old and nearing the end, used the granite to steady himself as he slowly inched himself around. Then both men grinned like neither had a care in the world.
Near Gate 6, Rob Kerr walked with his brother toward the entrance. Rob proposed to his wife 22 years ago in parking lot 13.
"This will be the last time that we go in this place," he says. "I may cry tonight."
Willie Randolph raises his hands, but it was a triumphant return for all of the former Yankees.
Beneath the stadium, former players came back one last time. Inside the clubhouse, Goose Gossage talked to Carl Pavano. Hideki Matsui looked up from an autograph he was signing to find Williams standing at his locker. Matsui was genuinely thrilled, putting down the baseball, rising and grinning. Williams bowed. Matsui gave his old friend a hug. Reggie Jackson wandered around. So did Don Larsen, and Whitey Ford, and Dave Winfield.
Some of those who are no longer here were represented by family members. During the pregame ceremony, with the full-throated tribute of the crowd, David Mantle trotted to center field, where he was joined by Kay Murcer, the widow of Yankee great Bobby Murcer, who died two months ago of brain cancer at 62. The fans understood that this was a moment when they could show a grieving family how much it was loved. It began to chant "Bob-by Mur-cer," over and over, louder and louder, until the old ballpark was shaking. David Mantle pulled Kay close and the two hugged. The crowd went nuts.
As the first pitch approached, everyone was emotional. Yogi Berra, wearing his old flannel uniform, seemed to tear up. He's one of the few left. Mantle's gone. Drank himself to death. Billy Martin died in a pickup truck crash. DiMaggio's dead. Maris is, too. So many of Yogi's friends are. This was a place where he could commune with them. Now that's gone, too.
"I'm sorry to see it go," he says. "I really do."
The woman who threw out that first pitch perhaps summed up the mood best. Julia Ruth Stevens is 92 years old, and a hip broken several years ago keeps her in a wheelchair a lot of the time. But she walked out to the field and bounced one to Jorge Posada, connecting with one throw the breadth of Yankee history. To her, Babe Ruth wasn't a fictional character or the genesis of an adjective. To her, he was Dad, and even now, she misses him. Seeing this ballpark torn down is personal to her but, after nine decades, she understands a thing or two about mortality. Nothing lasts forever.
"I guess like all things," she says, "it has come to its final days, as we all do."
*****
When the game began, the crowd settled in to watch the action. The electricity would come later. High up in Tier Reserve 33, Row R, a 33-year-old woman named Elizabeth Duncan sat with her husband, Jon. The people around her had no idea, but she, too, had a special connection with this place. A few stories down, the clubhouse is named for her grandfather, Pete Sheehy. He ran the clubhouse for almost 60 years. He fixed bicarbonate sodas for Ruth, half-cups of coffee for DiMaggio, took care of Mantle and Jackson and Mattingly. It wasn't until he died that his family knew what he meant to so many legends.
Mariano Rivera collects dirt from the mound, where he was part of many memorable moments.
At the funeral Duncan sat next to Billy Martin, who wept the entire time. DiMaggio himself came. In the years that followed, when they'd need a little Yankee magic, she and her sister would call on Pete, whispering "Come on, Grandpa, save us."
"I can definitely feel his presence," she says.
I ask if she thinks his presence will follow the team across the street.
"I hope so," she says.
She doesn't sound convinced.
She returned to her seat, and the action flew by. It seemed like the game had just started when the sound system began to play "Enter Sandman" for the final time, ushering Mariano Rivera in. He made quick work of the Orioles, and at 11:41 p.m. ET, the final game at Yankee Stadium ended.
*****
Only then did it become clear what this night meant. Sinatra's "New York, New York" kicked in; it would play in a continuous loop for nearly the next half-hour. Fans didn't leave. They didn't sit down. They snapped photographs, and cheered for their favorite players. Orioles and Yankees alike began scooping up cupfuls of the dirt.
Then Derek Jeter walked to the center of the field with a microphone. For the first time all day, someone with the Yankees put words to the emotions. He urged those standing in the old ballpark around him not to forget. A building was being torn down, not the events that had happened there. The love, and the joy -- all of that didn't exist in concrete, but rather deep inside a person. "The great thing about memories," he says, "is you're able to pass them along from generation to generation."
The place was quiet.
Derek Jeter and the rest of the Yankees saluted the crowd and bid a fond farewell to the stadium.
"There are a few things about the New York Yankees that will never change," he says.
That's when one lone fan screamed in response: "Boston sucks!"
When Jeter finished addressing the crowd, he led the team on a lap around the stadium, waving to the fans. Everyone seemed to realize this was really the end, and -- as if regressing to the first time they fell in love with Yankee Stadium -- turned into children again.
Mariano Rivera dug a big scoopful of dirt from the mound. He gathered his entire family for a photo atop it.
"I will miss this mound," he says.
Bernie Williams walked with his family toward center field. He's missed it out there, too: the way the grass feels, the way the crowd chants your name. The Bleacher Creatures didn't disappoint. "Ber-nie Will-iams." Over and over again. He waved and pumped his fist. His family didn't stop smiling. They were all there, together, finally. Bernie, like most of the Yankees, took a cup of dirt, too.
The Bleacher Creatures were still hanging around, not wanting to go home an hour after the game.
More than a half-hour after the last out, the public-address system crackled to life once more, asking everyone to leave. Few people moved. Again, the voice boomed out over the stadium.
There have been many, many words spoken in Yankee Stadium. Rockne may or may not have said "Win one for The Gipper." Gehrig said he was the luckiest man on the face of the earth. A sick Ruth broke down after giving his farewell speech and wept in front of a friend, saying "I'm gone." Nelson Mandela stood here after being released from prison and said "I am a Yankee." But after 85 years, these were the last words: "Once again, ladies and gentlemen, please clear the stands. Arrive home safely. We'll see you in the new Yankee Stadium. Good night."
About an hour later, as the Major League Baseball authenticators placed holograms on home plate, the pitching rubber and the final ball, and New York City cops put dirt in popcorn bags and pretended to pitch from the mound, the lights began to go off, row by row, a popping noise accompanying each advancing beachhead of darkness.
*****
Three hours after the last game at Yankee Stadium ended, I walked through the 3 a.m. New York streets. There was one more place I wanted to see. It didn't take long to arrive at West 51st, the sky getting brighter the closer I got to Times Square.
The night was dead. New York had gone to bed, and the only sounds were of pressure sprayers cleaning up Sunday, getting everything ready for Monday. Crossing Sixth Avenue near Radio City Music Hall, with four or five homeless people sleeping in the doorways, I was close.
Then I saw it.
It was a bank now: 51 West 51st Street. A small plaque gave the story -- the original site of Toots Shor's. There were two cars parked on this side of the street. When Yankee Stadium was in its prime, this block would have been packed with taxis and limos. But that was in the past, left for stories in books and the fading memories of those old enough to have lived it.
The players were all somewhere else, and the team's former hotel was a housing project, and Mick and the Clipper and Toots were all gone, and Yankee Stadium was going to be torn down. A block away, a man parked his hot-dog cart on the corner. New York was already waking up. Tomorrow had arrived.
By Wright Thompson
ESPN.com
NEW YORK -- Four hours before the last game at Yankee Stadium began, I walked through the low-ceilinged innards of the place, winding past the clubhouse, finally catching the attention of a worker. I asked him if he could show me what insiders call the Gehrig room, one of the many legends that will be lost when the wrecking balls tear down 85 years of baseball history.
He motioned for me to follow.
"Don't tell," he says. "I'm not supposed to show you."
At the end of a hallway is room BS-003, filled with broken seats, miscellaneous chair parts, paper towels and a motorized cart. Once, it had another purpose. When Lou Gehrig was dying, in his last season, he needed a sanctuary. The story goes that he, too, followed the narrow tunnels until he came here, alone, to this room. A small mural is painted on a post near where he used to sit. "Yankee Captains Forever," it says. The mural will die with the ballpark.
The room will be destroyed soon.
All of this will.
*****
No place renews itself like New York, where sentiment doesn't impede commerce. Ebbets Field and the Polo Grounds are both housing projects. Toots Shor's, the nightclub where Mantle and DiMaggio held court, now holds offices. An entire New York, the New York of Frank Sinatra and Jimmy Cannon, has almost vanished forever. Yankee Stadium was one of the last artifacts left.
Fans, most armed with digital cameras, get one last tour of Monument Park.
"There are so many people who get that we've lost something very valuable," says Kristi Jacobson, moviemaker and granddaughter of Shor, the famous saloonkeeper. "I don't think people have ever gotten over those losses."
The classy hotel where the Yankees stayed in the Bronx, the Concourse Plaza -- built the same year as Yankee Stadium -- was abandoned and is now a housing project for the elderly. It is where Don Larsen lived when he threw his perfect game in the World Series. FDR and JFK campaigned here. Now, the grand ballroom has been gutted and turned into a courtyard.
On Sunday afternoon, old men played dominoes where they could see the blue seats of the ballpark.
Nearby, resident Gene Williams stood in the vestibule, where celebrities once walked after stepping out of limousines. He would hang out across the street from the hotel and stare. "Marilyn Monroe slept upstairs," he says. "'The House That Ruth Built' brought 'em all. Mink shawls. Mrs. Ruth herself. Oh, those were the good days. Those were the good days."
That, of course, was why everyone came out Sunday. To remember a time gone by. Fans arrived early, turning the few blocks around the stadium into a zoo. Scalpers congregated on the corner of East 161st Street and River Avenue. A policeman walked through them, putting his arm theatrically over his eyes. The scalpers laughed. So did the cop. On this day, dogs and cats were friends.
A car circled the stadium, the man inside taking it all in. It was Bernie Williams, a Bronx legend who hadn't been back to the park since the team told him he was no longer wanted two years ago. On Sunday, he returned home. Before going inside, he wanted to see and remember. "Concrete doesn't talk back to you," Williams says. "Chairs don't talk to you. It's the people. That's what makes this place magical."
On this day, the fans finally got something in return: pregame access to the warning track and area near the green grass of the field. Dusty handprints covered the outfield wall as people pressed their palms up against it. Richard Gere posed for a photo with Paul O'Neill. A father and son stood in Monument Park, trying to take a picture by the DiMaggio marker. The dad, old and nearing the end, used the granite to steady himself as he slowly inched himself around. Then both men grinned like neither had a care in the world.
Near Gate 6, Rob Kerr walked with his brother toward the entrance. Rob proposed to his wife 22 years ago in parking lot 13.
"This will be the last time that we go in this place," he says. "I may cry tonight."
Willie Randolph raises his hands, but it was a triumphant return for all of the former Yankees.
Beneath the stadium, former players came back one last time. Inside the clubhouse, Goose Gossage talked to Carl Pavano. Hideki Matsui looked up from an autograph he was signing to find Williams standing at his locker. Matsui was genuinely thrilled, putting down the baseball, rising and grinning. Williams bowed. Matsui gave his old friend a hug. Reggie Jackson wandered around. So did Don Larsen, and Whitey Ford, and Dave Winfield.
Some of those who are no longer here were represented by family members. During the pregame ceremony, with the full-throated tribute of the crowd, David Mantle trotted to center field, where he was joined by Kay Murcer, the widow of Yankee great Bobby Murcer, who died two months ago of brain cancer at 62. The fans understood that this was a moment when they could show a grieving family how much it was loved. It began to chant "Bob-by Mur-cer," over and over, louder and louder, until the old ballpark was shaking. David Mantle pulled Kay close and the two hugged. The crowd went nuts.
As the first pitch approached, everyone was emotional. Yogi Berra, wearing his old flannel uniform, seemed to tear up. He's one of the few left. Mantle's gone. Drank himself to death. Billy Martin died in a pickup truck crash. DiMaggio's dead. Maris is, too. So many of Yogi's friends are. This was a place where he could commune with them. Now that's gone, too.
"I'm sorry to see it go," he says. "I really do."
The woman who threw out that first pitch perhaps summed up the mood best. Julia Ruth Stevens is 92 years old, and a hip broken several years ago keeps her in a wheelchair a lot of the time. But she walked out to the field and bounced one to Jorge Posada, connecting with one throw the breadth of Yankee history. To her, Babe Ruth wasn't a fictional character or the genesis of an adjective. To her, he was Dad, and even now, she misses him. Seeing this ballpark torn down is personal to her but, after nine decades, she understands a thing or two about mortality. Nothing lasts forever.
"I guess like all things," she says, "it has come to its final days, as we all do."
*****
When the game began, the crowd settled in to watch the action. The electricity would come later. High up in Tier Reserve 33, Row R, a 33-year-old woman named Elizabeth Duncan sat with her husband, Jon. The people around her had no idea, but she, too, had a special connection with this place. A few stories down, the clubhouse is named for her grandfather, Pete Sheehy. He ran the clubhouse for almost 60 years. He fixed bicarbonate sodas for Ruth, half-cups of coffee for DiMaggio, took care of Mantle and Jackson and Mattingly. It wasn't until he died that his family knew what he meant to so many legends.
Mariano Rivera collects dirt from the mound, where he was part of many memorable moments.
At the funeral Duncan sat next to Billy Martin, who wept the entire time. DiMaggio himself came. In the years that followed, when they'd need a little Yankee magic, she and her sister would call on Pete, whispering "Come on, Grandpa, save us."
"I can definitely feel his presence," she says.
I ask if she thinks his presence will follow the team across the street.
"I hope so," she says.
She doesn't sound convinced.
She returned to her seat, and the action flew by. It seemed like the game had just started when the sound system began to play "Enter Sandman" for the final time, ushering Mariano Rivera in. He made quick work of the Orioles, and at 11:41 p.m. ET, the final game at Yankee Stadium ended.
*****
Only then did it become clear what this night meant. Sinatra's "New York, New York" kicked in; it would play in a continuous loop for nearly the next half-hour. Fans didn't leave. They didn't sit down. They snapped photographs, and cheered for their favorite players. Orioles and Yankees alike began scooping up cupfuls of the dirt.
Then Derek Jeter walked to the center of the field with a microphone. For the first time all day, someone with the Yankees put words to the emotions. He urged those standing in the old ballpark around him not to forget. A building was being torn down, not the events that had happened there. The love, and the joy -- all of that didn't exist in concrete, but rather deep inside a person. "The great thing about memories," he says, "is you're able to pass them along from generation to generation."
The place was quiet.
Derek Jeter and the rest of the Yankees saluted the crowd and bid a fond farewell to the stadium.
"There are a few things about the New York Yankees that will never change," he says.
That's when one lone fan screamed in response: "Boston sucks!"
When Jeter finished addressing the crowd, he led the team on a lap around the stadium, waving to the fans. Everyone seemed to realize this was really the end, and -- as if regressing to the first time they fell in love with Yankee Stadium -- turned into children again.
Mariano Rivera dug a big scoopful of dirt from the mound. He gathered his entire family for a photo atop it.
"I will miss this mound," he says.
Bernie Williams walked with his family toward center field. He's missed it out there, too: the way the grass feels, the way the crowd chants your name. The Bleacher Creatures didn't disappoint. "Ber-nie Will-iams." Over and over again. He waved and pumped his fist. His family didn't stop smiling. They were all there, together, finally. Bernie, like most of the Yankees, took a cup of dirt, too.
The Bleacher Creatures were still hanging around, not wanting to go home an hour after the game.
More than a half-hour after the last out, the public-address system crackled to life once more, asking everyone to leave. Few people moved. Again, the voice boomed out over the stadium.
There have been many, many words spoken in Yankee Stadium. Rockne may or may not have said "Win one for The Gipper." Gehrig said he was the luckiest man on the face of the earth. A sick Ruth broke down after giving his farewell speech and wept in front of a friend, saying "I'm gone." Nelson Mandela stood here after being released from prison and said "I am a Yankee." But after 85 years, these were the last words: "Once again, ladies and gentlemen, please clear the stands. Arrive home safely. We'll see you in the new Yankee Stadium. Good night."
About an hour later, as the Major League Baseball authenticators placed holograms on home plate, the pitching rubber and the final ball, and New York City cops put dirt in popcorn bags and pretended to pitch from the mound, the lights began to go off, row by row, a popping noise accompanying each advancing beachhead of darkness.
*****
Three hours after the last game at Yankee Stadium ended, I walked through the 3 a.m. New York streets. There was one more place I wanted to see. It didn't take long to arrive at West 51st, the sky getting brighter the closer I got to Times Square.
The night was dead. New York had gone to bed, and the only sounds were of pressure sprayers cleaning up Sunday, getting everything ready for Monday. Crossing Sixth Avenue near Radio City Music Hall, with four or five homeless people sleeping in the doorways, I was close.
Then I saw it.
It was a bank now: 51 West 51st Street. A small plaque gave the story -- the original site of Toots Shor's. There were two cars parked on this side of the street. When Yankee Stadium was in its prime, this block would have been packed with taxis and limos. But that was in the past, left for stories in books and the fading memories of those old enough to have lived it.
The players were all somewhere else, and the team's former hotel was a housing project, and Mick and the Clipper and Toots were all gone, and Yankee Stadium was going to be torn down. A block away, a man parked his hot-dog cart on the corner. New York was already waking up. Tomorrow had arrived.
that game shouldn't have even been on prime time TV...how boring!
Seriously...who the fuck cares! The yanks aren't in the playoff picutre. they sucked this year and they were playing baltimore. Why even put that shit on TV? just because it is the skankees....i hate that team.
Seriously...who the fuck cares! The yanks aren't in the playoff picutre. they sucked this year and they were playing baltimore. Why even put that shit on TV? just because it is the skankees....i hate that team.
They knew no one would be watching anyway. I mean seriously... the cowboys and packers were on.
This is the closest the Indians will ever get to the World Series. 
Ok....guess thats it...
Last one out turn off them lights..........
Last one out turn off them lights..........
OOps....Before I forget....Congrats on the Bosox, Rays and the Angels.
Hank yet again:
Do a little more research Hank, you fucking dope.
Do a little more research Hank, you fucking dope.
This team is screwed.
This looks like they are over reacting.
They always are, but they will be there....trust me.
This is not the end of the Yankees despite what the doom sayers say
One more thing before we end this season
Mike Mussina wins 20 games for first time as Yankees beat Red Sox, 6-2
Mike Mussina wins 20 games for first time as Yankees beat Red Sox, 6-2
