...and so it ends

[mikeylikesit]

As a member of Red Sox Nation I shouldn't feel this sad: the Damn Yankees played their last game in the House Ruth Built.
The final (almost unreadable ) lineup cards as posted last night.

[Gutenberg]

The new stadium offers lots in the way of skyboxes and corporate perks but very little in the way of good architecture or goodies for fans. It is uninspiring and bland and the exterior looks like the New York Public Library.

I hated giving up Memorial Stadium where Brooks and Frank and Eddie and Blade and Cakes and Boog and all the rest played and Earl managed, but at least we got Camden Yards in return. And tearing down Memorial Stadium exorcised the ghost of the Colts.

[mikeylikesit]

The Colts have actually been exorcised? How about the Irsays?:wall:

[mrbigstuff]

I fall into the Luddite category on new stadiums; I think they're unnecessary monuments to excess (although it can be argued that any new stadium is just that) by agreeing with what Gutenberg says above. The new Yankee stadium is demolishing all that history (it can be argued the most history of any sports team in the nation - if not the world (and this from a Red Sox fan)) to justify payroll. If that were the only thing that could be said about it, I wouldn't really care that much, but the taxpayer is paying the price. Big time.
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/bron..._sa-3.html

[estnyc]

I only went sporadically in recent years, out of disgust at the way fans were treated somewhere between serfs and cattle by Steinbrenner, especially after 9/11. Yankee Stadium was a cathedral. Would they tear down St. Patrick's to build a ritzier on next door? (Let's not bring Rockefeller Center into it.)

I used to go once a year on a sunny afternoon, always surprised I could remember how to keep a scorecard. We all have moments we'll never forget. Some of mine were Ken Singleton hitting a home run deep into the center field bleachers (back when that really meant something), Reggie Jackson winning a game against Baltimore with a home run in the bottom of the ninth that every single person in the stadium (including, I'm sure, the Baltimore pitcher) knew he was going to hit.

My last visit was a few years ago, and I had the privilege of taking my father, then in his late seventies, and my two sons. It was a nondescript game, and I can't remember who was visiting, or even who won, but I'll always treasure the pictures of my family from way, way upstairs with that beautiful emerald diamond in the background.

I never wanted to go back after that, not even Yankee Stadium was worth the casual humiliation of having to carry one's belongings in a plastic bag.

I can't even begin to write about the money grubbing venality of it all.

One day this will be looked back upon as an act of barbarism equal to the destruction of the old Penn Station. This ripped out another piece of this city's heart.

New York is well on its way to becoming a playground for the rich, and nobody else except, perhaps, the people who clean their toilets, and our mayor never met a millionaire he didn't like. He's made New York a terrific place to live, if you're wealthy. Now he's done the same for baseball.

Sorry, I don't often wax so philosophical and bitter, but this just another depressing insult.

[papercup]

Pano: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/...O2.html?th&emc=th

[OWC Jamie]

let's play American Pie over and over and over and over and over again for a decade.

[wowzer]

Bah...Ruth's spirit has finally left us. The Red Sox won a World Series...the curse of the Bambino is gone. The House that Ruth built will also be gone.

It's in the Bronx, so whatta I care? I'm a Brooklynite.

[N-OS X-tasy!]

Gutenberg wrote:
The new stadium offers lots in the way of skyboxes and corporate perks but very little in the way of good architecture or goodies for fans. It is uninspiring and bland and the exterior looks like the New York Public Library.

Have you seen the exterior of Yankee Stadium first hand? The exterior of the NYPL is definitely an improvement over the bland concrete facade of the stadium.