BSN Exclusive: Remembrances of the original Yankee Stadium

They say most of the ghosts are still across the street.

Along with AT&T Sportsnet analyst Cory Sullivan, I tend to agree.

Before the birth of the New York Yankees, the city that never sleeps received its first American League team in 1903. At the time, a team called Hilltop Park in the Washington Heights area of Manhattan was known as the Highlanders.

In part because of the length of space for the team’s name in newspaper headlines, the club changed its nickname in 1913 to the Yankees. Sharing the Polo Grounds with the National League Giants was not an amicable experience, so the team financed and built Yankee Stadium in 1923.

During its 84 years of operations between 1923-2008 (the ballpark underwent major renovation during the 1974-75 seasons), Yankee Stadium witnessed 26 World Series Championships.

Babe Ruth. Lou Gehrig. Joe DiMaggio. Yogi Berra. Mickey Mantle. These are just a few of the legendary players to call the original Yankee Stadium home. Though they’d never see their name on the back of their jersey, a total of 31 legends, not to mention another six more as managers, suited up in pinstripes only to later observe their name on a plaque in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

A cathedral in every sense that Fenway Park and Wrigley Field continue to exist as, the first Yankee Stadium will forever remain one notch above as the greatest baseball stadium ever, according to yours truly.

Former Colorado Rockies’ outfielder Cory Sullivan understands not only the magic contained within The House That Ruth Built, but he felt it. Not in the way millions of fans have felt. His experience was on the field, where all those Hall of Famers and World Championships populated long ago.

“Obviously, growing up you hear stories,” Sullivan began his eulogy on Yankee Stadium. “My dad used to watch baseball constantly. He listened to it when he was young on the radio. He would tell me stories of Yankee greats when I was young. They were ghosts to me at that point when I was young. 

“As I grew up, I started knowing the game a little bit better. Getting my first opportunity to go (to Yankee Stadium) was actually as a fan when I was about 20 years old in my junior year of college when I played in the Cape that summer. I went as a fan. We went to New York City for a weekend. I remember where I sat on the third baseline, second level about four or five rows up. And I can remember watching the game and being there,” he said.

“Going back as a player, I remember getting off the 4 train and walking out onto the street and seeing it. I was like, ‘Oh my God. I’m going to go play there.’ That’s when it washed over me. That’s when I thought, ‘I’m going to put on a major league uniform and be in Yankee Stadium where those guys that my dad used to tell me about played,’” the Wake Forest alum shared.

As Sullivan speaks, his eyes began to stare into an empty space, recalling the details of that holy place and extraordinary time. He continued, “You walk in and you’re in the tunnels and all of that is a stadium. That’s normal. Nothing stood out. Then you get into the clubhouse and I thought to myself, ‘I wonder how many different Hall of Famers or just people I grew up loving the game sat at this locker.’ Because that’s one of those things you don’t think about as a player. Only in that situation.”

“When I was at Shea, I didn’t think about that. I don’t know why. No offense to Mets fans or the Mets, but it really did kind of wash over me like, ‘Wow I’m in Yankee Stadium.’ I walked out of the tunnel. I walked up the stairs. I walk out of the dugout and I see the field for the first time from that perspective and I can vividly remember the smell of the grass and the dirt. I can’t really explain it,” he said. 

As someone who spent the best days of his youth walking past The Big Bat before entering a palace that brought fanatics like myself four more championships to the entire Tri-State Area during the 90’s, Sullivan’s details were coming back to me, too. Yet, for me, I could always detect a faint smell of cigar smoke as well.

“Well, you can always smell the stale beer in older stadiums,” he added. “You always can.”

Sullivan continued to describe what is only a fever dream to anyone not in the exclusive fraternity of professional ballplayers, which to date is still less than 20,000 people.

“So, I walked out to centerfield and I went out into the monuments and everything. I was all alone. I was the only one there. It was so cool just to walk through the legends of Yankee Stadium and kind of feel like you were a part of it. That to me was that special moment because no one was there. None of my teammates and no fans. No one. It was just me, alone, amongst them.”

The ghosts were always there. Good ghosts. Unless you were an opposing player. But usually, the patrons of the park, especially the Bleacher Creatures, took care of that.

“I can remember my first time out in left field,” Sullivan said. “The fans absolutely having at me. Chanting, ‘Sullivan’s a bum.’ I thought it was awesome, honestly. First of all, I’m Irish. I always wanted to play for the Red Sox because of that. And having the Yankees come after me?

“I never felt like I was that good to get that, but there it made it feel special,” Sullivan conceded. “‘I’m here I’m at a big league game and they’re having at me.’ I loved it. I can guarantee I turned around and there was that little smirk. I think that only happened to me twice: my first major league at bat, when the umpire on a 2-0 count called a pitch that was this far (gestures to show six inches) off the plate a strike. I remember stepping out and looking to my parents who were sitting right there (points to the location). I stepped out and smirked and was like, ‘Welcome to the big leagues, Rook.’”

That initial announcement of one’s name and subsequent at bat in a big league stadium is one of the most spectacular moments in a player’s career, one that represents the culmination of years of hard work, decades for some. But that seemingly simple moment in Yankee Stadium rivaled his debut. “It really did. it’s one of those things that all of us as baseball fans, we all dream of that opportunity as a kid. When you realize what you want to do, on that stage and to be there and to be a part of it? Oh, it’s so sweet and it made me more connected to my dad. That’s how I felt about it,” Sullivan added.

Though a new ballpark was erected just across the street from the original one with the same name and layout – albeit much larger in nearly every way possible – not all the ghosts traveled across E. 161st Street into the new Yankees Stadium. “That’s what’s missing from the new ballpark,” Sullivan admits. “No offense. It’s amazing. An incredible ballpark. But all the stories of kids and generations of when my dad took me to the game that’s where I sat and the smell. That what’s missing.”

Yankee Stadium II, as its referred to, opened in 2009 and the club that called it home quickly christened it with a World Series Championship. As impressive as that feat happens to be, the history of Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio and others is gone. “Honestly, that’s what made Old Yankee Stadium so great for me was that no matter where you sat, that conversation happened right around you,” he said. “A dad to his son, a grandfather to a granddaughter. Somebody was telling a story about Mickey Mantle running out on that field or some other Yankees great just doing something on the day they made some unbelievable play on the field.”

But, as Sullivan concludes, sometimes the structures and artifacts disappear and the oral history is the only thing that’s left behind. “At some point they’re all going to go.”

Except the ghosts. They stick around sometimes, too.