History of Sport: Yankee Stadium

One of the world’s most iconic sports venues, Yankee Stadium in New York, held its final Major League Baseball game on Sunday 21st September 2008. A capacity crowd of 54,610 fans attended the final match, fittingly a 7-3 victory for the home side over Boston Orioles, including a host of celebrity fans and former players and staff. The game itself was merely a sideshow, however, next to the outpouring of emotion and celebration of the stadium’s 85-year history. And it has been quite a history.

Yankee Stadium was the first dedicated stadium ever built for Major League Baseball and became known as the ‘cathedral’ of the sport in the USA. As the home of one of the most famous sports teams in the world – only European soccer clubs Manchester United and Real Madrid come close to the wide-ranging popularity of the New York Yankees – Yankee stadium became not only baseball’s most famous stadium, but also a genuine New York tourist attraction.

Yogi Berra, one of the most famous players in the team’s history who appeared for the Yankees between 1946 and 1963, was one of the legendary players at the centre of the final night festivities. Now 83, he summed up the mood amongst many Yankee fans when he said: “Well I hate to see it go. I played all my life there, 18 years. I’m really sorry. It’s still Yankee Stadium and everybody who comes to New York wants to see Yankee Stadium. It will always be in my heart.”

Lou Giordano, a fan from Brooklyn, put it another way: “It’s not distinctive in size or architecture and the amenities are terrible. There’s nothing great about it other than the aura and history that surrounds it.”

The story effectively began in 1919 - although the Yankees have existed, in one form or another, since 1901, when the team was based in Baltimore and known as the Orioles. After moving to New York and becoming known as the New York Highlanders in 1903, the Yankees name started appearing in press reports about the team. In 1913 the name-change was made official.

Two years later the team came under the ownership of Jacob Ruppert and Tillinghast L’Hommedieu Huston, both ex-military men. Ruppert was the moneyman, however, and the starting point for the new era that peaked with the construction of Yankee Stadium. Although he was from a military background he was also active in politics as a congressman and in business, running his own family brewery.

In 1919 Ruppert agreed a US$100,000 deal to buy out the contract of baseball’s biggest star of the day, Babe Ruth, from Boston Red Sox. It was a deal that was, ultimately, the catalyst for the new stadium. Ruth was already the biggest star in baseball and, increasingly, in American sport as a whole. His signing galvanised the New York Yankees and raised awareness of the team across the United States. In New York the Yankees immediately reached a new level of popularity.

At the time the Yankees were playing at the Polo Grounds, the stadium owned and run by the New York Giants’ manager John McGraw. At the time the Giants were the pre-eminent New York baseball team (in 1957 the team would relocate to California to become the San Francisco Giants), winning the end-of-season World Series in 1921 and 1922. The ground share agreement was one that, for a time, suited both parties perfectly. The Yankees required a place to play and McGraw worked a deal that meant he received 10 cents per fan that attended Yankee games at the ballpark. Yet the rivalry between the two teams remained intense and McGraw was generally dismissive of the Yankees. Until the arrival of Ruth, thanks to Ruppert’s big pockets and grand ambition, that had never been a problem.

In 1920, however, such was the impact that Ruth made on the Yankees, the team’s overall season attendance was higher than that of the Giants – 1.289 million against 929,609. It infuriated McGraw, who decided he didn’t need tenants anymore, particularly if they were to become big rivals of his team. The Yankees had to find a new home.

There were, by all accounts, several options with the preferred choice being a plot of land in lower Manhattan. However, it soon became clear that many of these sites were unrealistic, and with time relatively short Ruppert decided to buy a plot of 10 acres on the other side of the Hudson River, close to the existing Polo Grounds, in the west Bronx area of the city. The land, acquired from the estate of financier William Waldorf Astor, was purchased for US$565,000 in February 1921. It was at least close to a subway line even if it had little else going for it. McGraw, still seething, was very publicly dismissive.

Ruppert had decided to do what had previously been considered unthinkable and construct a brand new arena dedicated to baseball. He and Huston came to the conclusion that it was a risk worth taking given Ruth’s popularity, plus the winning team that his presence was likely to help foster.

The daring initial plans for the stadium had it as a fully enclosed four-wall arena, which would have been the first of its kind. Ultimately that part of the plan was rejected on account of the fact that daylight into the stadium would be severely restricted. At that time baseball was very much a day game.

The final design, put together by Osborn Engineering Company of Cleveland, was submitted to the construction firm, White Construction Ltd., on May 5th 1922. Ruppert set a budget of US$2.5 million for the three-tiered construction – a first for baseball – and the whole project was completed within 284 days, on-time and under-budget. White Construction used 2,300 tonnes of steel to put the structure together and, given the timeframe, the result was widely considered to be a remarkable feat of engineering.

Such was the scale of the arena, it was the first baseball venue to be described as a stadium as opposed to being given the traditional ‘ballpark’ moniker. What was originally supposed to be called Yankees Field quickly became known in New York as Yankee Stadium.

It also became the blueprint design for a host of other ballparks, even in the second-generation of baseball stadiums that have been built in the last decade, most of which have adopted a very deliberately retro-look. In no other sport is history and tradition prized so much.
The stadium opened on Wednesday 18th April 1923 – described grandly as ‘Opening Day’ in newspapers of the time - when the honorary first pitch was thrown by New York Governor Alfred E. Smith, ahead of the first game of the season against Boston Red Sox. The first event was attended, according to most reliable reports, by a crowd of between 60,000 and 65,000. Some claimed it was far higher, but those present insist it was not the case and someone somewhere had been guilty of more than a little exaggeration. A grandstand seat cost US$1.10 while a game programme cost just 15 cents. The Yankees won 4-1. Predictably and fittingly, given his influence on the stadium construction, Ruth scored the first home run at the stadium.

James Crusenberry, writing in the April 19th 1923 edition of the New York Daily Times newspaper, described the occasion and Ruth’s performance this way: “If the game had been rehearsed it couldn’t have been staged better. It was first of all, the grand opening of the stadium. The biggest crowd of all time was there. The ‘Babe’ came up in the third inning with two men on, and regardless of apparent batting slump in the spring series, he lammed one into the distant right field bleachers.

“‘Babe’ has hit some resounding home runs during his career, but never did he drive a ball into the bleachers with more power behind it than the one he swatted on the epochal occasion of the opening of his new home. He showed that it could be done and there were about 65,000 fans who let loose with an old-time cheer when the blow was struck.”

By the end of that first season in their new home, Ruth made 41 home runs and the Yankees secured the World Series for the first time in its history. That success undoubtedly helped create some of the magic that Yankees fans and players insist surrounds Yankee Stadium.

Aside from baseball the early years of its history saw Yankee Stadium host college football games and top-flight boxing bouts, notably two fights between Max Schmeling and Joe Louis. Two years later, in June 1938, a crowd of 70,043 saw Louis reverse the result after just two minutes of boxing amidst a surge of national fervour, exacerbated because Schmeling was widely considered to be a Nazi supporter.

In all, 30 world title fights were held at Yankee Stadium. The last, in 1976, saw Muhammad Ali, at the end of his career, win on a controversial points decision against Ken Norton. The bout, watched by 30,298 people, had the highest ticket revenue of any boxing staged at the venue – US$2.5 million. That was despite the attendance falling far short of the 80,000 record for boxing when Joe Louis knocked out Max Baer in 1935.

The stadium was widely used for other sports and events over the 85 years. The National Football League team, New York Giants – no relation to the original baseball Giants - played home games there for 17 years between October 1956 and September 1973. ‘The Greatest Game Ever Played’, between the Giants and the Baltimore Colts, was indeed the most notable match to be played at the stadium. The game finished 17-17 before Baltimore won in overtime 23-17 in one of the most dramatic finishes to any championship game the sport has ever seen. The New York Cosmos soccer team, part of the short-lived North American Soccer League, played home games there in 1971 and 1976, featuring Pele, the Brazilian regarded as the greatest player to ever play the game.

Away from sport regular religious conventions were held, most notably including three Papal Masses, in 1965 (Pope Paul VI), 1979 (Pope John Paul II) and in 2008, when Pope Benedict XVI visited and led Mass in front of over 70,000 people. On June 21st 1990 Nelson Mandela, recently freed from prison in South Africa, held a celebratory rally in the stadium. In a bizarre piece of scheduling American singer Billy Joel played at the stadium on the following two nights.

Back with baseball, the stadium had played host to its first All-Star game in 1939, the same year that the Yankees won their fourth straight World Series. Given the innovation surrounding the stadium and its construction it is perhaps surprising to note that the first floodlit game was not until 28th May 1948, in front of a crowd nudging 50,000.

The 1970s brought the biggest change, though. The sale of the Yankees from CBS, which had a troubled ownership period, to a consortium led by George Steinbrenner for US$8.7 million (Steinbrenner contributed US$800,000 of his own money) in January 1973 coincided with the first major refurbishment of the stadium since its opening in 1923.

Although some changes had been made along the way – including the replacement of wooden bleachers (raised, tier stands) by concrete ones in 1936 – the stadium was by then showing its age. CBS had initially hatched a plan to develop the site but due to the lack of agreement to use the city’s other ballpark, Shea Stadium, owned by rival team New York Mets, the plan stalled. The stand-off was resolved when New York’s then-Mayor John Lindsay brokered a deal to buy the stadium for US$24 million and then lease it back to the Yankees, initially on a 30-year deal. It allowed work to commence on developing the stadium and the surrounding area because it freed the way for the Yankees to use Shea Stadium, which was also owned by the city, for the 1974 and 1975 stadiums. The New York Mets had no option but to agree. Yankee Stadium, in its original form, was shut down at the end of the 1973 season – 32,238 fans attended the final game before its temporary closure.
The work, carried out by architecture firm Praeger-Kavanaugh-Waterbury, was extensive and wide-ranging but the plans were carefully devised so that the changes would not affect any of the historical elements of the stadium. Baseball’s first televised scoreboard was introduced – all 560 feet of it. More seats were added and escalators were installed at each of the three entrances. The 118 columns that were a key part of the structure of the grandstands were removed, changing the face of the stadium. Capacity was reduced to 57,545. The renovations cost US$48 million according to some reports, with others suggesting that once debt service had been taken into account it was over US$160 million. The new version of the stadium – which some traditionalists at the time considered an entirely new stadium despite the attempts by the organisation to preserve its history – opened for business on 15th April 1976 when Minnesota Twins visited and were beaten 11-3 in front of 54,000.

The stadium, in all its forms, was marked by significant tragedy and several moments that have passed into wider American folklore. In 1939 Lou Gehrig, a star hitter and holder of the consecutive games record in professional baseball, was diagnosed with an incurable degenerative disease, resulting in his premature and enforced retirement. On 21st June that year the Yankees paid tribute to his life and career, an occasion which the New York Times described memorably as “perhaps as colourful and dramatic a pageant as ever was enacted on a baseball field”. Gehrig addressed the crowd and made one of the most famous speeches in American sports history. In a highly-charged address to a crowd of 61,808 Gehrig proclaimed himself the “luckiest man on the face of the earth” and added: “I close in saying that I might have been given a bad break, but I’ve got an awful lot to live for. Thank you”. He died less than two years later, aged 37.

In 1948 Babe Ruth, by then ravaged by throat cancer, made his final public appearance at the stadium that has become known around New York, and across America, as ‘The House That Ruth Built’. It resulted in one of the most iconic photographs in American sports history, depicting Ruth with his back to the camera, his famous number three shirt visible, leaning on his bat giving a final address to the crowd on the 13th June 1948, the 25th anniversary of the stadium’s opening. The number three jersey was officially retired by the Yankees on the same day. Ruth died aged 53 in August that year. He is still regarded as perhaps the American sporting legend.

In another tragic moment that added to the stadium’s special reputation in baseball and further afield in the United States, the Yankees beat Boston Orioles 5-4 having been 4-0 down on 2nd August 1979, shortly after the team had flown back from Ohio from the funeral of their captain Thurman Munson, who had been killed in a plane crash earlier in the week. Bobby Murcer, Munson’s best friend and team-mate, scored the winning run having given the eulogy at his funeral earlier that day. Munson was 32.

The stadium also became a focal point of New York’s mourning in the days after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in September 2001. The team, riding a wave of emotion, progressed to the World Series that season, before ultimately losing.

By then a new dynasty had begun. In 1996, after years of underachievement, Yankee Stadium saw its resident team crowned World Series champions for the first time since 1978. In 1999 it won its third World Series in four years.

Steinbrenner had been considering moving the Yankees to a new stadium since the mid-1980s, borne out of a desire to move into a more lucrative area of the city. Even though Yankee Stadium was such an iconic venue, he realised sooner than most that it was becoming archaic by modern Major League Baseball standards. There was only so much polishing that could be done. However when the team started winning again, regularly, in the 1990s the plan was put on the backburner. By 2001, with the stadium almost literally starting to fall apart – the team had to relocate for two games in 1998 when a 500lb beam fell from the roof of the stadium on a non-matchday, prompting a major inquiry and inspection of the premises – plans for a new arena started to be set in stone, led by then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

The new stadium, widely known already as New Yankee Stadium, opened on 2nd April, having cost US$1.6 billion to construct. With a capacity of 52,325, it lies adjacent to the existing stadium, which will eventually be torn down.

The Yankees final season in the original stadium was marked by a celebration and recognition of the franchise’s long history but, ultimately, saw little on-field success. The team failed to make the play-offs, resulting in the final game being played a month earlier than had been planned or hoped. Before that, Major League Baseball paid its own tribute by hosting its showpiece All-Star game there on 15th July. That proved to be George Steinbrenner’s final appearance at the stadium. Visibly frail, he made a slow tour of the field on the back of a golf cart. It was his way of saying goodbye; he remained at his Florida home for the final game.

On the final night one of many Yankee managers in the Steinbrenner era, Buck Showalter, attempted to sum up what made Yankee Stadium so special. Now a respected television analyst for ESPN in the United States, having managed the team for three years until 1995, he put it this way: “Standing in the dugout, it felt like the gates were going to open and gladiators and horses were going to charge out, like you were in an ancient coliseum. Nobody puts on a moment like New York. Some days I thought the dugout might crumble, it was so loud – I saw concrete shake.”

In total the stadium hosted 6,581 regular season games and 100 World Series, end-of-season, games. For the record Puerto Rican Jose Molina scored the final home run on the final night, 85 years after Babe Ruth had hit the first.

There was an inevitably sentimental feel about the final season and final night festivities. But the modern day Yankees are effectively a global organisation – and a money-making machine in American sports as evidenced by the amount of Yankee logo merchandise sold around the world – so attention is already turning to what comes next. As Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said: “We’re very happy with the way we were able to send it out tonight. I know everyone is going to miss this place but I can promise you that the next one’s going to be even better and that’s the way we try and run this organisation. As great as this place has been the next celebration is going to be the opening of the new one.”

This article is part of SportsPro's History of Sport series. Click below for the other features in the series:

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History of Sport: Sail of the Century
History of Sport: The Munich Air Disaster

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