the final game at Yankee Stadium.
At least it was a win (7-5 over the Orioles) in an otherwise bad season from the death of Bobby Murcer to being third in the AL East and the chance of post-season ball being so slim even Yogi would probably admit “it’s over”.
Andy didn’t exactly pitch they way he had done in the past, well the distant past anyway it was close to resembling his recent past in the last few games, there was no A-bomb from A-Rod, the captain didn’t slap a homer over the right field wall in the bottom of the ninth to win it as he went hit less, Mo didn’t break a bat or save the game with a cutter for a strikeout, though he did get the final three outs.
No none of that instead it was Jose Molina with the final home run hit in the stadium, wonder how many had him in the pool and screwed up their ticket, Cano with the final RBI, which Gardner ran in. Peter Abraham has a run down of all the lasts at “the big house in the Bronx“.
OK so I don’t take the idea of it being the most important stadium in the western hemisphere as I heard it called last night but it certainly had it’s moments in history, a lot of them – Sweeny Murti has his run down of his top 25 Yankee Stadium moments 25-21, 20-16, 15-11, 10-6, 5-1, and not all to do with the Yanks, Louis v Schmeling is one of the great sporting events in history even at only 124 seconds.
Been some good posts around teh interweb about peoples’ lasting memories of the stadium, especially over at Bronx Banter and Cliff Corcoran over there has some great pics and a run down of his visit for yesterdays final game. Just wish my over riding memory wasn’t that Bo Jackson three run dinger heading into the right field upper deck, after which the ball was thrown back onto the field and I can still hear my uncle say “now that’s a true Yankee fan”.
The new stadium isn’t going to have the ghosts and memories to fall back on until the current team help make them, will it be the same though when the opposition knows this isn’t the place where the Babe, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Yogi, Reggie Jackson, Derek Jeter etc etc made history, that place is the car park next door?