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The New Stats Explained
by Ryan T. Campbell
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Johanna quoted in the Chicago Tribune about Fan Safety.
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This Month
Michael Street reviews
Harvey Frommer's Remembering Yankee Stadium: An Oral and Narrative History of the House that Ruth Built
Friday, Nov. 27, 2007 6:00pm
A friend of mine visited New York City last month. "Anything I can bring you back?" he asked me before he left.
"Yeah," I told him. "Get me a piece of Yankee Stadium."
I didn't have to explain what I wanted or why I wanted it, and he returned with a one-inch square chunk he'd chiseled off the facade. It now sits on my shelf among my other prized baseball possessions.
So, when I got a chance to review Remembering Yankee Stadium, I leapt at the chance, and the book did not disappoint. A handsome hardcover packed with classic photographs, RYS is a perfect Christmas gift for the Yankee fan in your life. Harvey Frommer, a renowned and prolific baseball historian, intersperses Yankee Stadium history with quotes from famous Yankee fans and players, establishing an extremely readable account of the Cathedral of Baseball.
When Yankee Stadium opened in 1923, it was twice the size of any other ballpark, and was the first one to be called a "stadium." Stories abound in RYS of spectators and ballplayers who saw this magnificent spectacle for the first time, walking into the stands or onto the field to face the 58,000 fans. Construction photographs show not only the magnificence and grace of the stadium, but also how much it dwarfed other buildings in the area. One long shot shows the once-mighty Polo Grounds across the river, looking like a meek shoebox in comparison.
Surprisingly, many were skeptical that a team could survive in the Bronx, including John McGraw, who said, "They are going up to Goatville. And before long they will be lost sight of." Some called the stadium
"Ruppert's Folly," after the wealthy owner with the gall to build it off of Manhattan Island. But Ruppert was also the owner who brought Babe Ruth over from the Red Sox and built the team (if the not the stadium) around the world-famous slugger.
Had the team performed poorly in their new digs, McGraw and the other critics might have been vindicated, but the Yankees instead began the pennant-winning ways that would make them the winningest franchise in professional sports. Mixed in with the accounts from famous Yankees, broadcasters, and prominent fans, the book becomes a loving history of the team as well as their ballpark.
Frommer divides RYS into chapters by decade, listing the team's record, manager, attendance and finish of each season, so it's easy to see how well they fared and how they changed. They played in six of the ten World Series in that first decade, winning three of them, all after they moved into the House that Ruth Built. They also drew more than a million fans eight of those ten years. The awful 1925 team was an anomalous nadir, finishing in seventh with a 69-85 record. This result dropped their attendance by almost half, and hints at McGraw's alternate universe that would have sprouted around a losing franchise.
They were not such a franchise, of course, and soon hit their winning stride in the Thirties as the team of excellence, one which could be counted on for ninety wins (achieved eight of ten years), a first-division finish (one third place finish, four seconds, and five firsts ending in World Series titles), and the maddening record of excellence that drives Yankee haters crazy.
Only World War II would break up the Yanks of the Forties, as they went from three straight Series victories in '41-'43 to the middling war years of '44-'46. Once 1947 arrived, so did the tradition of winning, which carried over into the fifties -along with attendance numbers routinely surpassing a million, and sometimes two.
In the fifties, the Yanks of DiMaggio, Mantle, Ford, Berra, and other Hall of Famers would finish first eight of ten years, winning World Series in six of those years. In the other two years, they finished second and third, which seemed like the end of the world to Yanks fans. This fall from grace was felt so much that when they made the Series in 1960, but lost to the Pirates, Casey Stengel retired (or was fired, depending on whose version you believe).
Frommer's history helps trace the more modern Yanks, who excelled in the first half of the Sixties, winning two World Series, before collapsing into second-division finishes through the mid-Seventies. An indifferent CBS ownership, who bought controlling rights to the club in 1964, didn't seem to care as the once-proud franchise wallowed in mediocrity. Not even the beloved, but aging, Mickey Mantle, could carry the team, and everything seem to be lost when he retired in 1965, the same year Yogi Berra was fired for losing an amazingly close Series to Bob Gibson and the Cardinals.
Seeing this kind of lull in a tradition of excellence makes it clear why Yankees fans embraced (and, more or less, continue to embrace) the Steinbrenner ownership. George bought the team in 1973 and refurbished the Stadium into today's familiar form, with a steel upper deck free of obstructive columns and a giant scoreboard in the outfield (at first showing plays in state-of-the-art "nine shades of gray"). Steinbrenner started the great Yankee pennant machine again, too, with the great 1977 and 1978 teams and Reggie's "Mr. October" performances.
Then the Yanks faltered again under his erratic micromanagement in the 1980's, about the time I really became aware of baseball in general and the Yanks in particular. In spite of the workmanlike Don Mattingly, the explosive Dave Winfield, and a rotating pack of managers and high-priced free agents, the Yanks peaked in their 1980 ALCS loss to the Royals; they never again finished higher than third the entire decade. Regardless, they still won more games than any other franchise in the Eighties, which shows at least a consistent also-ran status, a bit like Oakland fans must feel today.
My claim to Yankees' fandom goes back to my physical association with the team, living in New York City in the early 90's. The decade began with Steinbrenner suspended "for life" for his dirt-digging on Dave Winfield in 1990-his "life" ban lasting only three years, a quick forgiveness that Pete Rose can only dream of -and would end with three World Series in four years. I became a fan during the early rebuilding years of the 1990s, in particular when Paul O'Neill joined the team from the Reds.
I lived in a studio on the East 90th and 2nd Avenue, blocks from the "4" train that would take me to Yankee Stadium. For less than $10 I could get bleacher seats-never a problem in those days-and round-trip subway fare, and get to see O'Neill or a young and portly Bob Wickman, who always seemed to win in middle relief. I watched the last half of the one-armed Jim Abbott's no-hitter on broadcast TV, a scarce privilege in these days of YES cable-only coverage. Perhaps more significantly, I left town before the 1994 strike that might have quashed my ardor forever. When the Yanks ascended to their familiar throne in 1996, I rejoiced with the City's fans.
Even if it's become like cheering for Darth Vader in the Star Wars movies, I continue to root for them. Living halfway across the country, my allegiance has been diluted by distance from New York and proximity to the Mariners, as well as the problem in supporting the franchise many consider to be The Evil Empire.
Frommer's book beautifully reminded me of all these things, not only showing their championship history, but allowing me to hear it through the voices of other fans and players. The beautiful photographs of this classic stadium, now in the process of being slowly dismantled, will allow it to remain forever in my memory. That's not quite as cool as an actual chunk of the concrete, but it's as close as you can get without visiting with a hammer and chisel.
If there's a Yankee fan-past or present, active or fallen-in your life, there are few better Christmas gifts you can get for him (or her) than Remembering Yankee Stadium. From the striking photographs in dramatic spreads to the repertorial and first-person accounts of moments famous and infamous, this book will occupy a treasured spot near my hunk of Yankee Stadium, every bit as tangible, and even more stirring in its evocation of baseball's most successful baseball venue and the amazing teams that have played within its walls.
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