Yankee Stadium quite a site
Tonight, when the fanfare is complete and the final pitch is thrown, either to or by an Oriole, the light standards towering above Yankee Stadium in the Bronx will go dark.
And 85 years of baseball – starting with Babe Ruth’s three-run homer in the park’s opener, April18, 1923, and finishing with an anticlimactic regular-season contest between two American League East also-rans – will come to an end.
Tonight’s Orioles- New York Yankees game is likely the last sporting event to be held in the old stadium at the corner of East 161stStreet and River Avenue, a sports cathedral that also hosted legendary NFL and college football games and prizefights.
“There is a lot of history there,” said former Yankees pitcher Don Larsen, whose perfect game in the 1956 World Series might be Yankee Stadium’s greatest moment. “I saw football games there, and they had boxing matches, the pope visiting. I think it is too bad it is [closing]. It’s a shame, but that is the way things go, I guess.”
baltimoresun.com
9/21/08
Magnolia Tribune
