One Final Look At Baseball’s ‘Cathedral’

Sunday night was a sad night in the world of sports. It was the night Yankee Stadium held its last baseball game before being torn down so the team can play in a new and bigger facility across the street.

On Sept. 15, I was able to enter Yankee Stadium for the first and only time and watch the Yankees beat the White Sox. It was special being there, knowing that in a week the Yankees would no longer call the stadium home.

A lot of people hate the Yankees because ownership has unlimited money to spend and people say they buy championships, which is kind of silly because everyone tries to buy championships. But regardless of how you feel about the New York Yankees, if you are a sports fan you have to admit some of the best baseball moments, ever, happened in the cathedral known as Yankee Stadium.

Some of the best players to ever play the game, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Yogi Berra, Reggie Jackson and a current player like Derek Jeter — love him or hate him, he is one of the better clutch players in the last 10 to 15 years — have called Yankee Stadium home. Ruth hit the first home run there and catcher Jose Molina, number 26, hit the last one Sunday night.

After the last game on Sunday, Jeter addressed those in attendance. It was an amazing sight and will always be remembered.

I don’t recall the closing of any other stadium getting this much national attention. People who hate New York (these same people probably have never been there) and hate the Yankees will say the attention is only because it’s the Yankees and the media loves them.Well yes, it is because it is the Yankees.

They have won 26 world titles in that stadium and the best in the history of the sport have played there. Everyone has their favorite memories at Yankee Stadium, or moments they remember watching on television.While I was at the game Sept. 15, I remember when Jeter came up to bat, just one hit away from breaking the record for most hits ever at Yankee Stadium. That was the loudest stadium I have ever been in, everybody wanted to see Jeter get the hit in a lost season. Jeter went 0-4 in that game, and I saw the highlights from the next day’s game, where on his first time up to bat, he rifled a ball into left field for a base hit breaking the record.

But the game I attended was also when Mariano Rivera passed Lee Smith to be second on MLB’s all-time saves list with 479. Sitting in left field, as “Enter Sandman” played, and watching Rivera jog onto the field as I have so many times on television gave me chills.I feel bad for Mets fans because Shea Stadium will also close its doors this year for the new CitiField built across the street. Why is there not a big outcry for the Mets, besides Billy Joel? But I did get to go to Shea Stadium on Sept. 12. Unfortunately, the game never started and was called because of rain. So my time at Shea Stadium was spent sitting in the rain eating a slice of pizza and a very nasty hot dog.

The next day the Mets played a doubleheader, but the tickets to my game were not good during the second contest.

As a fan of baseball you hate to see the old stadiums get torn down, but realize that because of corporate sponsorship it is going to happen. During the Yankee game I began talking to a few New Yorkers who were a little upset about the prices of the tickets to the new Yankee Stadium. (Man, is beer expensive at those games: $8 for a plastic bottle that is 16 ounces.)
It was special to see a game in Yankee Stadium, especially during the last year. What made it extra special was that the White Sox lost!

(Chuck Salvatore is a reporter for the Southwest News-Herald. He may be reached at (773) 476-4800, ext. 241, at chucksalvatore@hotmail.com or at chucksalvatore.blogspot.com. Also, don’t forget to catch him every Thursday on the Linda Padgurskis show from noon to 1 p.m. and every Friday on the Out’N’About show with Ron and Joe from 2 to 3 p.m., both on WJJG 1530 AM, with his weekly sports report.)