It happened Sunday night
in the
The Yankees held off
elimination with the victory, the eighth in their final nine games at Yankee
Stadium. Andy Pettitte,
the winning pitcher, worked into the sixth inning, waving his cap to the fans, who never stopped cheering until he took a curtain call.
“The way I feel
emotionally right now, and just physically so drained,
it feels like a huge postseason win for us,” Pettitte
said, standing on the infield grass after the game. “I kind of feel embarrassed
saying that, because unless a miracle happens, we’re not going to the
postseason. But it was special.”
Manager Joe Girardi
compared it to the seventh game of the World Series, because the Yankees could
not afford to lose, and it felt that way for many reasons. From the bunting
along the upper deck, to the United States Army Field
Band, to the mix of excitement and anxiety bubbling up in the guts of the
uniformed Yankees, there was no doubt this night would be special.
“I feel as nervous as I was
before a playoff game,” said Bernie Williams, back in
pinstripes at last, one of more than 20 former Yankees who returned for the pregame ceremonies.
The Yankees opened the
gates seven hours early, allowing fans to stroll the warning track for one last
walk in the park. Closer to game time, the team unveiled the American League
championship flag that was raised on the first opening day, in 1923.
Bob Sheppard recorded an
introduction, promising to be there to christen the new Yankee Stadium next
April 16. A team of stand-ins, dressed in old-time uniforms, processed into
center field, representing some of the late Yankees legends. They might as well
have come in from the cornfields; the “Field of Dreams” overtone was palpable.
One by one, the living
greats took their positions, all to heartfelt cheers.
The children of other standouts — Randy Maris, Michael
Munson, David Mantle and others — took their fathers’ places.
Willie Randolph slid into his
position, second base, and rubbed dirt on his jersey, reveling in his return to
the Yankees. Whitey Ford pretended to lift out the pitcher’s rubber. The fans
reprised chants that rang through the walls years ago — “Bob-by Mur-cer!” “Ti-no! Ti-no!” and so on.
Many of the stars not
there were shown on the video board in right-center field — Rickey Henderson and Chuck Knoblauch,
Sparky Lyle and Orlando Hernández.
No mention of Roger Clemens.
The bench was so stuffed
that some of the Yankees sat on the dugout roof to watch. Jorge Posada stood on the field,
taking photos with a digital camera, just another fan with rich memories of a
stadium that always seemed to give his team an edge.
“Especially in 2001,”
Posada said. “We were helped by Yankee Stadium, the fans coming here, playing
for something more meaningful.”
The former players
mingled in the clubhouse before the game, in full uniform, right down to Yogi Berra’s stirrups. Current Yankees scurried around collecting
snapshots and autographs.
“It’s remarkable,” said
Phil Coke, a rookie pitcher with three weeks in the majors. “Totally and
completely blows my mind. I turn around and look over and see Goose Gossage walking around our clubhouse. Wow.”
Derek Jeter said he would miss the
walk from the clubhouse to the dugout — down a tunnel, with the Joe DiMaggio sign hanging above.
“I want to thank the good Lord for making me a Yankee,” it says, and Jeter
tapped it before every game. Jeter would not say, but there seems to be a
strong chance the sign will be his.
On Saturday night, Jeter
said, he spoke with
“Make sure you enjoy
this,” Jeter said his parents told him recently. “You don’t want to look back
and wish you’d done something different.”
Jeter’s parents and
sister joined him on the field before the first pitch, as two of George Steinbrenner’s
children presented him with a crystal bat for breaking Gehrig’s
record for hits at the Stadium.
Jeter would get no more
hits on Sunday, going 0 for 5, but he went down as the last Yankee ever to bat
at Yankee Stadium, with a groundout to third in the eighth inning. Girardi pulled him for defense with two out in the bottom
of the ninth, so the fans could give one last curtain call.
It was Jeter who had the
memorable line in 2006, when the Yankees broke ground on the new $1.3 billion
Yankee Stadium, saying that the ghosts from the old place would simply move
across the street. Others are not so sure.
Alex Alicea,
a 37-year-old fan from
“I would have been happy
being 80 or 90 years old and still coming to this stadium,” Alicea
said. “The new stadium is beautiful, but I don’t know if the ghosts are going
to be there. You can feel that, standing here — Babe Ruth, DiMaggio. It’s not
going to be the same.”
There was a sense of
sadness and loss amid the celebration. Berra, who had
dismissed the renovated Stadium as nothing like the original, nearly broke down
at a pregame news conference as he invoked the names
of former teammates who have died.
He made jokes, too,
saying he wanted to take home plate, and complaining that the yellowed, wool
uniform he was given did not quite feel authentic. But Berra,
born two years after the Stadium opened, seemed to feel he was losing a part of
himself.
“It will always be in my
heart, it will,” he said, adding later, “I’m sorry to see it over, I tell you
that.”
The ceremonial first
pitch was thrown by Julia Ruth Stevens, the daughter of the Babe, who beamed as
she bounced her toss to Posada. “To Be Continued ...” it said on the
scoreboard, beneath a photo of a winking Bambino.
In Ruthian
style, the Yankees went ahead twice on home runs. Johnny Damon hit the first, a
three-run shot in the third inning that erased a 2-0
When the Orioles tied it
in the fourth, Molina came up in the bottom of the inning with a man on second
and one out. He had just two homers in 259 at-bats, but he lifted his third
onto the netting above the retired numbers, pumping his fists as he put the
Yankees ahead, 5-3, with the last homer the Stadium will ever see.
“Nobody thought it was
going to be me,” Molina said. “We have A-Rod, we have Abreu,
we have Giambi, we have so many guys that can hit
home runs, and look who it was — the guy that probably
nobody expected.”
After a leadoff single in
the sixth, Pettitte gave way to four relievers, with Mariano Rivera at the end. He
worked a
“Mr. George, he gave me
the opportunity and he gave me the chance,” Rivera said. “The least I can do is
give the ball to him.”
As horses carried police
onto the field, several Yankees and Orioles gathered at the mound to scoop dirt
as souvenirs. Soon, all of the Yankees converged there. Jeter took the
microphone, praising the fans as the greatest in the world.
“And we are relying on
you to take the memories from this stadium, add them to the new memories to
come at the new Yankee Stadium, and continue to pass them on from generation to
generation,” Jeter told the crowd.
Then all of the Yankees
lifted their caps to the crowd and took a final lap around the field, waving
all the way, to the sounds of Sinatra. Not much has gone according to plan for
the Yankees this season, but that worked just right.
“It was more the people
than the stadium,” Williams said. “You talk about the magic and the aura, but
what really made the Stadium was the fans. Concrete
doesn’t talk back to you. Chairs don’t talk back to you. It’s the people that
are there, that root for you day in and day out. That’s what makes this place
magical.”
The legacy of Yankee
Stadium, it turns out, was never the title fights or the N.F.L.
championships, the papal visits or the World Series. It was the fans. In its
final season, the Yankees set a record for attendance, 4,298,543. At the end,
the fans were drawn to Ruth’s house in ways he never could have dreamed.