Mike's Musings

My sister recently posted this to her blog:

I grew up on Long Island as a New York Yankees fan, taking after my father (and his father before that.) I first went to Yankee Stadium in 1967, right at the conclusion of Mickey Mantle’s career. I think I was at Reggie’s first game as a Yankee. I loved Thurman Munson and cried when I heard that he had died in a plane crash. I was at the Stadium the day before Dave Righetti threw his no hitter. Don Mattingly (same age as me by the way) was my hero and I still regret that injuries kept him from putting up the final stats needed for election into the Hall of Fame. I took my son to the Stadium for his first baseball game.

I have mixed feelings about a New Yankees Stadium. I understand that Yankee Stadium was old and lacking amenities, but it was historic. You can move the name to the new stadium, you can keep the facade, and you can keep the same field dimensions but it will never be the same. Now, it’s just another new stadium, but one with a famous name. I think something special has died.

http://tinyurl.com/cqqog5

This got me to thinking, and about a lot more than just the stadium. As a child, I remember living in an apartment in Flushing, Queens, for a while, then in a house my grandparents owned , and formerly used as a summer home, on Connecticut Ave. in the West End of Long Beach, NY. I actually remember both, even though I can’t have been more than 4 when left Flushing, but I do still vaguely recall that apartment. I remember that house, where we lived until I was nearly 8, a lot better, of course, but I don’t look back at it as home.

The house we moved into, in February, 1965, on Vinton St. in the East End of Long Beach–now that was home. That’s where I did most of my growing up, where I lived year round until I left for college in the fall of 1975, where I still spent summers and winter breaks until I graduated and then moved away for good in the fall of 1979, and where I came to visit as often as possible until my parents finally moved out, not only of the house, but out of Long Beach entirely, in September, 1997. Some of the furniture changed over the years, of course, the kitchen had a major remodel, the master bathroom had a minor remodel, and the familiar lightly whitewashed shingles were replaced with much darker wood clapboard, all at the same time, and through it all, it still was the same old house, my home.

When my father broke the news to me that he and my mother were moving to Olney, MD, where my sister and family had previously moved several years earlies, I went dead inside. The thought of never going home again was overwhelming. Then an interesting thing happened–they actually moved, and the new house immediately felt like home to me. The floor plan of the main level is similar to the house on Vinton St., all of the same furniture was there, all of the familiar artwork, knickknacks, and tchotchkes, and of course, most important of all, my parents–and it almost instantly felt like home. It was strange and yet familiar, and it felt like home. Now when I visit, which I do about three times a year, I feel like I’m going home–to a house and city in which I never lived. It’s as if the memories somehow moved there.

Which brings me back to Yankee Stadium. My first game there was in 1968 (sorry, sis, but I’m pretty sure it was then, not 1967), and of course that was the old, original Yankee Stadium, the House That Ruth Built, where Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle, and all the others made all that history. Of course, what we remember as the  original Stadium was already fairly different from the place that opened in April, 1923 (all of the changes are chronicled quite nicely in Clem’s Baseball Blog). But for me, of course, that was THE Stadium. And I spent a lot of time there. In addition to occasional games with the family, in junior high my friend Larry and I went there all the time. The Yankees were pretty bad in those years, the only sellouts were Bat Day and Oldtimer’s Day, and general admission seats were cheap and readily available. We figured out the cheapest way to get from Long Beach to the Bronx, all the way by subway from Rockaway (lord, did that take forever!) and went whenever we could through out much of junior high and beyond. We were there for the last game in 1973, before they closed it for renovation (we’d bought actual reserved seat tickets ahead of time for this one), and I even still have the seat part of the seat I, um, acquired that day. I have a lot of fond memories from the old Stadium, which felt like another home to me.

We’ll skip by the Shea Stadium years, other than to say YUCKKKKK, and point out that it never was home. Back in remodelled Yankee Stadium in 1976, things looked almost completely different. They’d basically gutted the whole place, with very little of the remaining structure other than the outside walls remaining intact. The famous facade was around the roof was gone, along with the roof, although they put a replica of it above the outfield scoreboard. This was NOT the House That Ruth Built by any means, not the Yankee Stadium where Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle, and all the others made all that history. Oh, it was in the same geographic location, all right, but, technically the 1976 and beyond Yankees weren’t even playing on the same field–as part of the renovation, the field was lowered by some seven feet, so all the recent history has been made below where Ruth, etc., made theirs.

And, yet, it was still home for me. Now the Yankees are playing in the new Yankee Stadium, just across the street from the old one(s), still at 161st St. and River Ave., and this one has been carefully designed to closely resemble it’s predecessor(s) (which includes putting the facade back where it belongs!) while adding all the modern facilities anyone could want, and quite possibly more. I haven’t been there, may not get there for quite some time, but for me, from just having watched several games on TV, it already feels like home from. It’s strange and yet familiar, just as it was across the street in 1976, and it feels like home. And, to paraphrase Derek Jeter, I’m sure the ghosts have found their way there.