Hey, Daily News

[Benjamin Grimm]

The words "renovation" and "refurbishment" are key components of the big lie.

[soupcan]

They didn't exactly raze the old stadium either though..

[G-Fafif]

I'm sorry I gave away my collection of Baseball Digests years ago because, from the mid-'70s on, whenever they listed ballparks by year they opened, Yankee Stadium was snug between Royals Stadium and Olympic Stadium. It was a stunner to me in the late '90s when the narrative was rewritten to make it all one long seamless romp in the playground from 1923 on. I have a Sporting News book of ballparks from around 2000 which features illustrations of each then-current park and the events that took place in them. YS is drawn to 1976 scale yet there are denotations for where Joe DiMaggio played and other such inaccurate rot.

It's not like a lot hasn't happened there since '76. All animus aside, 33 seasons with six world championships is pretty impressive. Why that can't be enough for them, I have no idea.

[Guest themetfairy]

This isn't exactly Baseball Digest, but Ballparks of Baseball is a nice resource about the different parks (past and present).

[Guest AG/DC]

soupcan wrote: They didn't exactly raze the old stadium either though..

Mmm, Kool-Aid.

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

I like how the patch they're wearing shows part of the building that hasn't existed since the early 1970s, either!

[soupcan]

AG/DC wrote: ="soupcan"]They didn't exactly raze the old stadium either though.. Mmm, Kool-Aid.

Hey, they didn't.

It was never completely 'torn down.'

I'm pretty sure that the playing field is the same - or at least still in the same spot - and the skeleton of YSII is still made up of a large portion of the original place.

Remember a few years ago when that huge chunk of concrete or whatever it was fell from an overhang and crushed a couple of seats (unfortunately the Yankees were not playing at the time)?

That piece was part of the structure of the original stadium. That's all I'm saying.

[HahnSolo]

A renovation is what the Dodgers are doing to the concourses at Dodger STadium. A renovation is adding seats to the Monster at Fenway Park. When it takes two years, and a whole new stadium is built, that's not a renovation.

Chicago Bears built new Soldier Field right on site of old Soldier Field. The columns are still there, with the shell of the new stadium constructed inside. The team, on its site, calls its home "New Soldier Field", opened 2003.

[Guest AG/DC]

As part of that rebulid, the Yankees sold the property to the city, so they could become tenants and make the city responsible for everything. Including the rebuild.

I'm still not entirely believing that the concrete collapse wasn't staged.

Agreed on the two-year thing. The original Yankee Stadium went up in 284 days.

That stie Fairy links to perpetuates the renovation position. They also come up with this logical puzzler.

However New York City Mayor John Lindsay announced that the city would buy and renovate Yankee Stadium, purchasing it for $24 million in 1972. The same year George Steinbrenner bought the team. The Yankees played in Yankee Stadium one more year before drastic changes were made.

And later.

After two years of renovations Yankee Stadium reopened on April 15, 1976. The stadium went from being known as "The House that Ruth Built" to "The House Steinbrenner Rebuilt".

The Yankees sold the stadium property so the building could be rebuilt by the city. Steinbrenner nonetheless gets credited for it. And the nickname calls it a rebuild even as the essay calls it a renovation.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Are there any photos online of the "refurbishment" while it was in progress? P

Photographs of the Ruthian Rubble have probably been destroyed, but maybe one or two have survived. It's worth a quick Google. (I'll see what I can find.)

A better source might be for anyone with Wayback access to see what may have been printed in the newspapers in 1974, at the point between demolition and reconstruction.

[Benjamin Grimm]

This page seems to support the argument that it's the same stadium:

http://www.baseball-fever.com/showthread.php?t=58009&page=2

[G-Fafif]

I have a 1976 MFY program and the party line appears to want it both ways. Much talk of celebrating "new Yankee Stadium" and welcoming you "to the 'new' Yankee Stadium," one "reconstructed" between October 1973 and April 1976 and "can now boast of the greatest features in comfort and enjoyment for fans while still retaining the historic character..."

In one sentence it is referred to as "the same ballpark [from 1923] -- with the added benefit of playing in a park built for the fans' comfort." As for Opening Day, at which "the beautiful 'new' home of the Yankees" was dedicated, it "truly was an historic day as all remembered the events in the old Stadium, and it was made even more memorable by the 'new' Yankees christening the 'new' stadium with a win." Quotes around "new" seem to indicate ambivalence. Why stadium isn't Upper Cased on the final reference implies rare humility.

I have a picture of Joe DiMaggio (not easily scanned) watching the renovation take place. The field is gone, the stands from roughly first to third are stripped down to their skeleton.

[Benjamin Grimm]

The page linked in my post above yours, G, includes the same photo you describe.

[MFS62]

soupcan wrote: I'm pretty sure that the playing field is the same - or at least still in the same spot

Soupy, that's basically true.

The location is the same. But it has been changed. IIRC the field itself was changed in elevation by 10-15 feet. I don't recall which, but raising it to install better drainage seems to be logical.

And, of course, the outfield dimensions were changed to be longer down the immediate foul lines and in right field and shorter in left and center.


Later

[G-Fafif]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: The page linked in my post above yours, G, includes the same photo you describe.

Not so difficult to scan! And the stands do extend further than I said.

I'd put Angel Stadium in the same category as YS. It wasn't completely torn down but it appears to be a completely different place post-renovation that it was before. Of course they did AS over in one offseason, but the overhaul seems far more thorough than what was done in St. Louis when they made the previous Busch a little more baseballish between '95 and '96 and the way they've humanized New Comiskey, a.k.a. The Cell in this decade.

I still vote for 1976 over 1923 as birth date for the "new" Stadium.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Yes. Even if some of the original superstructure does remain, the fact is that the current Yankee Stadium is a very different place, one that Ruth and Gehrig probably wouldn't recognize.

[Frayed Knot]

="MFS62"]IIRC the field itself was changed in elevation by 10-15 feet. I don't recall which, but raising it to install better drainage seems to be logical.

My recollection is that they dropped the field 3 feet or so.
One thing that accomplished was that it, in effect, raised the OF wall to a reasonable height. The old one, in addition to being Little League distances in the corners, was only 3 or 4 feet high.

]And, of course, the outfield dimensions were changed to be longer down the immediate foul lines and in right field and shorter in left and center.

Bringing in the fences was relatively easy since they just put up new fencing well in front of the 'shell' of the stadium which, except for the corners, was one deck in most places and didn't need the extensive reconstruction.
They also moved in the fences several times; once during the remodeling, then again the year they signed Winfield, then again when they signed Jack Clark ... all, of course, while denying that they were doing it in response to just having signed another RH slugger.

[MFS62]

At least the Pirates were honest about it when they shortened the left field dimensions at Forbes Field by 30 feet. They installed a low wire fence in front of the bullpens in left field and named it "Greenberg Gardens" for newly-acquired Hank Greenberg.
The name was later changed to honor another slugger. It was "Kiner's Corner".

Later

[Benjamin Grimm]

This letter appeared in the "Voice of the People" section of this morning's Daily News:

]Good riddance Alexandria, Va.: As a baseball fan with the utmost respect for the game's history, I would be distraught if Yankee Stadium really were being lost. But the American treasure Voicers seem to be mourning was torn down in the mid-'70s. Honestly, I'm happy the House That Lindsay Built will no longer be passed off as the real thing. Ted Shipp

It may be interesting to see what kind of a response this gets.

[nymr83]

most likely none. The News and The Post are both very good about letting opinions they don't like be voiced in their letters to the editor section, but they don't really respond to them.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I don't know about the Post, but the News often publishes rebuttals from other readers. It can get quite entertaining sometimes.

[Frayed Knot]

Most of you will be happy to know that (Boston Globe writer) Bob Ryan teed off on this subject on ESPN's 'The Sports Reporters' this morning.
This weekly roundtable show gives each reporter a minute or two long segment at the end for an op-ed kind of piece and Ryan came down decidedly on the idea that the current building is NOT where Ruth, Gehrig & DiMaggio played and that this should be considered the end of the line for a 30-some year old pretender that barely resembles the original.

[seawolf17]

Yeah, but Ryan's a Boston guy, so Yanqui fans will disregard everything he says anyway.

[Guest AG/DC]

Now that's a freaky configuration.