Bottom of the ninth for Yankee Stadium
Mr. October bemoans closing of icon: 'I feel like I’m losing an old friend'
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NEW YORK - Even Yogi Berra knew this was the end.
As baseball said farewell to Yankee Stadium, one of the game’s most beloved players stood beneath the stands in a full vintage uniform. Now 83, the man who coined the phrase “it ain’t over till it’s over” put his own stamp on the day.
“I’m sorry to see it over, I’ll tell you that,” Berra said.
The goodbye completed an 85-year-old run for the home of baseball’s most famous team. What began with a Babe Ruth home run on an April afternoon in 1923 was likely to end with Mariano Rivera pitching on a September night.
All the greats were remembered during a 65-minute pregame ceremony that included 21 retired players, six of them Hall of Famers.
“I feel like I’m losing an old friend,” Reggie Jackson told the crowd.
Bob Sheppard, the 90-something public address announcer who started in 1951, read the opening welcome. He missed this season because of illness but recorded his greeting and the introduction of the Yankees starting lineup.
The 1922 American League pennant, the first to fly in the ballpark, was unfurled in the black batter’s eye beyond center field. Young men and boys were introduced representing the opening-day lineup in 1923.
Then came the living Yankees who make the stadium a standard for excellence.
Willie Randolph slid into second base when he was announced. Fan favorite Paul O’Neill pointed to the Bleacher Creatures in right field. Bernie Williams, back at the ballpark for the first time since the Yankees cut him two years ago, received the longest ovation, which lasted nearly 2 minutes. Don Larsen scooped up dirt from the pitcher’s mound in a plastic cup, assisted by Whitey Ford.
No mention was made of Roger Clemens, whose legacy has been clouded by accusations he used performance-enhancing drugs.
Julia Ruth Stevens, 92-year-old daughter of the Babe, threw out the ceremonial first pitch before a crowd of 54,610 — bringing the stadium total to 151,959,005.
“I’m very, very sad to think that the Yankee Stadium is not going to be in existence any longer,” she said. “I wish it could have remained as a New York landmark, but I guess like all things it has come to its final days as we all do.”
Derek Jeter received a crystal bat for breaking Lou Gehrig’s record for hits at Yankee Stadium earlier in the week. There were so many cameras popping when Andy Pettitte threw the real first pitch, Brian Roberts seemed startled and didn’t even try to swing.
Outside the stadium, the marquee that usually has the day’s start time and opponent said: “Thanks for the Memories.”
When Johnny Damon hit a three-run homer in the third inning, the ball was caught by Brian Elmer, salesman from Trenton, N.J. — and a Mets fan.
“This is my first time here,” he said.
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Jose Molina put the Yankees ahead 5-3 with a two-run homer in the fourth. Then, when Andy Pettitte left in the sixth, the four-time World Series champion received a prolonged ovation and came out for a curtain call.
Fans wore a collection of jerseys that could fill a Hall of Fame. On one subway car alone, there were shirts with Jeter’s No. 2, the Babe’s No. 3, Mickey Mantle’s No. 7, Phil Rizzuto’s No. 10 and Don Mattingly’s No. 23.
The crowd was allowed on the field starting at 1 p.m. and entered through the left-field seats not far from where Aaron Boone’s pennant-clinching home run landed five years ago.
Basketball coach Bob Knight and actors Matthew Modine and Val Kilmer were among those spotted in the seats.
Glenn Bartow and his 13-year-old daughter arrived more than 12 hours before New York played Baltimore in a game that began at 8:36 p.m., and were the first ones into Monument Park.
“We come every Sunday,” Emily Bartow said.
This Sunday was the very last.
Visitors touched the 24 plaques and six monuments, posed next to them for family photos. Under the kind of cloudless sky that made people recall summer days of yore, they slowly circled the warning track.
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Those who could not walk were pushed along in wheelchairs. Parents brought strollers to make sure toddlers got to experience the great ballpark before it is dismantled.
Moses Del Rio, a 32-year-old from Brooklyn, held his 11-month-old son, Ryan, who started walking only in the past week.
“I brought him here to take pictures of him in the stadium,” the father said.
Jeter, likely to get a plaque of his own years from now in the new Yankee Stadium, said Saturday was the first time he looked around and tried to soak in the memories — the three big decks filled with fans, the sign in the tunnel from the clubhouse to the field with the Joe DiMaggio quote: “I want to thank the Good Lord for making me a Yankee.”
“Just driving in, I think it really starts to hit you, that this is the last time,” he said. “When you take the field, you’re constantly reminded of the history that’s been here before you.”
With the Yankees nearly out postseason contention for the first time since making the playoffs in 1995, there was plenty of time to join the crowd.
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