Requiem for a friend

The ghosts of baseball greats roam every inch of a stadium steeped in greatness. The aura of this hallowed ground is such that standing on the field gives you the feeling that no matter how many big league ballparks you play in, you will never experience that particular feeling again.

On July 15, 2008 we as a baseball community gather to honor those legends and say good bye to an old friend. Yankee Stadium will play host to this year’s crop of All Stars, as it presents a backdrop for the game that will never be witnessed within those walls again.

The 79th annual MLB All Star game will be played on the outfields once roamed by Ruth, DiMaggio, and Maris. It will be contested on the infields once fielded by Gehrig, Munson, and Rizzuto. The distinction; however between this game and games of the past is that for this incarnation of Yankee Stadium, it will be its swansong.

Yankee Stadium opened on April 18, 1923 to provide a home for the New York Yankees. Fans of the Yankees refer to the stadium as “the house that Ruth built”, due in large part to the fact that the Yankees winning ways coincided with Babe Ruth playing his greatest baseball in pinstripes. Coincidentally the year the stadium opened it would house in it’s inaugural year what many consider to be the greatest Yankee team in history; the 1923 Yankees would go on to win the World Series that year. This would be only one of 37 World Series that would be held there.

Over the years many fans have had many opinions about the New York Yankees. Over the course of those same years, however, the New York Yankees have done one thing consistently; Win. There is a mystique about this organization that is hard to match due in large part to the 26 championship banners hanging from the rafters of their home. Whether you love them or hate them there is no denying that some of the greatest players in the history of the game have played in this stadium.

So now we come to the time where it will once again be dressed up for the nostalgic eyes of a nation to bid farewell. The National Pastime will never be the same after this season, for one of the Cathedrals of the game will be lost to big business and luxury suites. Eighty Five years have come and gone since Babe Ruth hit the game winning homerun in the first game of Yankee Stadium, come the end of the season we will be left with nothing but the memories of events that took place in this most sacred of baseball landmarks.

Listen closely, and you can hear, in the distance the crack of the bat, and the roar of the crowd. As you listen ever closer you can hear from somewhere in the heart of Yankee fans…

Yankees win! The Yankees win!