Give Me the Old (Old) Yankee Stadium

NEW YORK -- While making one of those decades-old World Series trips on the subway from Manhattan to the Bronx, the New York Yankees' official theme song kept rattling my bones as much as the D-train.

Start spreading the news
I'm leaving today
I want to be a part of it
New York, New York

Then, all of a sudden, when I arrived at the corner of East 161st Street and River Avenue, another Frank Sinatra song popped into my head. It got louder and louder, especially the closer I got to an 86-year-old structure whose distinctive roar during every summer and most Octobers was gone. So were its seats. So was nearly everything else in the place, including its pinstriped monuments.

More striking, the whole place was surrounded by a blue wall of construction, its version of yellow police tape, which actually was appropriate. The old Yankee Stadium was dead. That's because the new Yankee Stadium was across the street with those pinstriped monuments preparing to host its first World Series.

The old Yankee Stadium hosted 39 of them, but it finished its run last season without the storied home team even reaching the postseason.


No wonder it almost never stopped raining on Wednesday. The baseball gods were upset, because since the old Yankee Stadium ended its first year with a World Series (and the Yankees winning it all), it should have closed with a World Series. So Bud Selig should use his authority as commissioner to do the following in the best interest of the game: He should declare that the rest of the American League portion of the World Series between the Yankees and the Philadelphia Phillies will take place at the old Yankee Stadium.

Oh, that's right. It's gutted. It's history.

In the words of that other Sinatra song I keep hearing ...

And there used to be a ballpark
Where the field was warm and green
And the people played their crazy game
With a joy I'd never seen
And the air was such a wonder
From the hot dogs and the beer
Yes, there used to be a ballpark, right here

Now before I continue, it's not as if the old Yankee Stadium was Tiger Stadium or something. It wasn't. It lacked overwhelming charm, and except for the tiny clubhouses, you rarely had the feeling that anything about the place was putting you back into a magical time of baseball. For the most part, the 21st century edition of the House That Ruth Built was a dump, and it needed to go, which is an amazing statement since I've rarely met a storied ballpark or arena I didn't like.

In contrast to such classic places as Wrigley Field, Fenway Park and Dodger Stadium, you couldn't see the field while walking around most of the concourses at old Yankee Stadium. They were too cramped and too dingy. There weren't enough rest rooms. And here's the worst thing: It wasn't close to the 20th century edition of the House that Ruth Built. It wasn't even a good imitation. Weather, time and neglect ruined the original Yankee Stadium by the end of the 1960s, and after renovations during the early 1970s, the next Yankee Stadium was a different animal.

A dog, perhaps, because it went woof, woof compared to the other.

Among other horrors, the copper frieze was removed from the roof when preparing the new Yankee Stadium. The field was lowered and shifted forward. A slew of bleachers were eliminated. The distances to the outfield fences were altered, most prominently in center, where it was reduced by 40 feet. Those pinstriped monuments were moved from the playing field and thrown behind the fence in left-center field.

Still, this basically was the same spot for Jackson, Winfield and Jeter as it was for Gehrig, DiMaggio and Mantle.

And there used to be rock candy
And a great big Fourth of July
With fireworks exploding
All across the summer sky
And the people watched in wonder
How they'd laugh and how they'd cheer
And there used to be a ballpark, right here.

The new Yankee Stadium is fabulous, by the way, and not just because it has all the modern goodies (a Hard Rock Cafe, underground parking and a swimming pool for Yankee players, etc.) you would expect from something built for $1.5 billion. The frieze is back along the upper deck of the roof. As in the original Yankee Stadium, you can see the subway zipping beyond the outfield bleachers, and you have manually operated scoreboards built into the walls in left and right fields. Plus, the outside of the structure is almost an exact replica of its grandfather as opposed to its father.

But it's not the grandfather or the father.

Now the children try to find it
And they can't believe their eyes
Because the old team just isn't playing
And the new team hardly tries
And the sky has got so cloudy
When it used to be so clear
And the summer went so quickly this year.
Yes, there used to be a ballpark, right here.

It's still there. It's just ... there.

Terence Moore is a national columnist and commentator for FanHouse. He is a frequent panelist on "Rome Is Burning," an ESPN show hosted by Jim Rome, that is seen Monday through Friday at 4:30 PM ET. Moore spent more than three decades working for major newspapers, including 26 years as an award-winning sports columnist for the San Francisco Examiner and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He resides in Atlanta.