Image courtesy of mlbroadtrip.com
Yankee Stadium is without a doubt a baseball classic. It has the history, the tradition, the loyal fanbase, so what's not to like? Well, when I visited the stadium in July of 2004, I came away from it with a different perspective. I was in NYC on vacation and wanted to visit the Stadium, so my family and I hopped on the 4 subway from lower Manhattan and rode it up to the Bronx.
When we arrived at the 161st St. - Yankee Stadium stop, we quickly realized we needed to get to the stadium quickly because the Bronx did not look like a place to be in. Lots of very old buildings, worn paint, etc. It was a gray, overcast day, which made the stadium look cold and uninviting. The main color scheme of limestone and dark blue didn't help with the uninviting feel. Since there was no game that day (Yanks were on a long road trip), we took the stadium tour, which I highly recommend for any ballpark. We went all over Yankee Stadium from the press box to the dugouts to the locker rooms to Monument Park (photo below). While some of it was indeed a great experience (being in the dugout, Monument Park) the whole buidling seemed to wear its age and not gracefully. However, Monument Park is one of my favorite spots in baseball and the legends honored here are some of the greatest to play the game (DiMaggio, Mantle, Ruth, Maris, Gherig, Berra, the list goes on). It'll be interesting to see how the new Yankee Stadium turns out when it opens in 2009.
I used to take that same subway to Yankee Stadium, ten or so times a year, back when I lived downstate (as they say up here).
ReplyDeleteSomething I've never forgotten: When you came up from underground (traveling from lower Manhattan; e.g., Grand Central Station), and looked to the left, you got a brief glimpse of the inside of the ballpark, through the gap between the right-field bleachers and the scoreboard. Since, as you say, the surrounding neighborhood tends to be mostly gray, the vividness of the green flash was always intense, and I have never forgotten it.