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Hey, Daily News

AG/DC Apr 01 2008 09:20 AM

Yankee Stadium is 32 years old. Shea is 44. Deal with it.

Benjamin Grimm Apr 01 2008 09:24 AM

Nobody seems to understand that simple fact! It's become more and more frustrating as the years have gone by. What really kills me is that the Yankees have 15 years to work on the next falsehood so that they can celebrate the Stadium's 100th Anniversary in 2023. And THEN, twenty years after that, they'll complain that they're playing in a 120-year-old ballpark and need something new.

AG/DC Apr 01 2008 09:29 AM

It took about three years to make it clear to my brother. He came around in his own time. But he isn't in the fact business.

seawolf17 Apr 01 2008 09:30 AM

ESPN had one of those fucking pop-up timeline "HISTORY OF THE HOUSE THAT RUTH BUILT" pieces of crap the other day, and if you look in the mid-70s, there's a two-year period where it says that they demolished most of the old stadium. Fucking hell, man! If you're going to acknowledge that the reconstruction happened, then that's a new stadium! Sickening.

metirish Apr 01 2008 09:33 AM

Yeah it's all pure bollox. Lupica yesterday and today with sill articles on the place , I'll sound very petty here but I am happy that they didn't get to have opening day yesterday, yeah they'll have it tonight but it's not the same, Steinbrenner had a bunch of hotshot friends over and even had silly commemorative baseball caps made up for it.

Benjamin Grimm Apr 01 2008 09:35 AM

seawolf17 wrote: Fucking hell, man! If you're going to acknowledge that the reconstruction happened, then that's a new stadium! Sickening. Usually the word I hear is "refurbished." Which, I assume, means knocked down and rebuilt. I mean, just look at photos of the original stadium and the current one. It's clearly a different building. On the UMDB, when the time comes, I'll be referring to the current stadium as "Yankee Stadium II" and the new one as "Yankee Stadium III." It will be a small voice of sanity amid all the misrepresentation. I wonder if I'll get any (or many) complaints about it?

attgig Apr 01 2008 09:36 AM

who cares? it's going to get demolished soon all the same...

AG/DC Apr 01 2008 09:38 AM

From the tone of the posts, I'm pretty sure I care. seawolf, irish, Grimmy, they seem to care also.

soupcan Apr 01 2008 09:57 AM

It has always been the same playing field in the Bronx though hasn't it? Or at least on the exact same spot.

SteveJRogers Apr 01 2008 09:58 AM

Benjamin Grimm wrote: On the UMDB, when the time comes, I'll be referring to the current stadium as "Yankee Stadium II" and the new one as "Yankee Stadium III." It will be a small voice of sanity amid all the misrepresentation. I wonder if I'll get any (or many) complaints about it? Interestingly the Yankees Media Guide do make a distinction between Yankee Stadium I (1923-1973) and Yankee Stadium II (1976-2008) in terms of records, accomplishments, etc. So this is probably more of a media issue than the Yankees PR department. Yes I know the Yankees did have the 75th Anniversary thing and all, but for the most part the Yankees do officially acknowledge that Yankee Stadium is two seperate buildings.

Fman99 Apr 01 2008 09:58 AM

Seriously, I almost never read any commentary from the NY Papers anymore. The pro-MFY bias is too palpable. I'll take my commentary from national outlets and bloggers, thanks.

Frayed Knot Apr 01 2008 11:20 AM

I'm usually the first to caution fans against citing mainstream press outlets as being anti-[their team] and pro-[the other guys] as it always sounds just so childish. But the Daily News and the Yanx have become so inter-twined with cross-promotions in recent years; between the in-booth radio presence at each game; the in-paper contests and give-aways; to Torre and all his commercials for the NYDN; or columnists like Bondy openly wearing his bleacher bum status on his sleeve, and it all becomes too much to ignore. Simply from a journalistic/conflict of interest standpoint there's no way a paper should agree to that sort of stuff but, considering the state of newspapers these days, they probably just justify it as a survival tactic at this point.

Benjamin Grimm Apr 01 2008 11:25 AM

It has been over the top with the Daily News and the Yankees. (Those "our greatest Yankees" photo inserts go directly into my recycling bin.) But recently there's been a "Take Your Kids to Shea For Free" promotion on the front page of the News. I thought I had picked up a copy of the wrong newspaper.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Apr 01 2008 11:40 AM

The News today devoted nearly all of Page 3 -- that's like the best real estate in the whole paper -- to a story about a wine expert comparing the Yankee wines to the Red Sox wines (you know the ones with Posada & Abreu on the label) without even mentioning the company also has Met ones available. That the wine expert preferred 2 MFY wines was the hook of course; a call of even-steven would not have been a story at all.

AG/DC Apr 01 2008 11:45 AM Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Apr 01 2008 11:57 AM

Talk about advertorial. My God, Magnum.

Benjamin Grimm Apr 01 2008 11:47 AM

We need a few years of the Mets winning pennants and the Yankees in third or fourth place. I don't really care much about tabloid attention anymore, but it would still be nice to see the Yankees relegated to being the second team in town. They were solidly in that spot when I started rooting for the Mets in 1971. It seemed to me to be the natural order, which was then restored in the mid-80's. I wish those last four championships hadn't happened. (Especially the fourth one!) The Mets lost this town by sucking so badly in the early 90's. Even though they were starting to emerge from it by 1996, it was too little too late to avoid getting rolled over by the Jeter Renaissance.

Nymr83 Apr 01 2008 11:48 AM

Just pick up The Post instead, Johan Santana Front AND Back pages. When were the Mets last on the FRONT page?

Benjamin Grimm Apr 01 2008 11:50 AM

Santana's on the front page of today's Daily News.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Apr 01 2008 11:51 AM

I much prefer the Snooze to the Post, and pay an xtra 25 cents daily to get one, tho the post did include MBTN along with a Pulitzer winner in their Required Reading column this weekend. And as far as I know, no money changed hands to make that happen. [url]http://www.nypost.com/seven/03302008/postopinion/postopbooks/required_reading_104119.htm[/url]

Nymr83 Apr 01 2008 11:53 AM

it was upside down at my newsstand this morning so i didnt notice, needless to say i dont buy it. as for yankee stadium anyone with a brain knows this building is only ~30 years old. But the Mets are 1-0!! who cares about the fantasies of yankee fans

AG/DC Apr 01 2008 11:58 AM

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: I much prefer the Snooze to the Post, and pay an xtra 25 cents daily to get one, tho the post did include MBTN along with a Pulitzer winner in their Required Reading column this weekend. And as far as I know, no money changed hands to make that happen. [url]http://www.nypost.com/seven/03302008/postopinion/postopbooks/required_reading_104119.htm[/url] Great Scot!

Frayed Knot Apr 01 2008 12:01 PM

It's not the attention or amount of ink that bothers me. The Yanx earned the attention by winning four times in five years and consistently being on top for over a decade. The problem is one where a media outlet has allowed themselves to enter into such a near total symbiotic relationship with a team that it purports to cover that all claims of credibility are - at best - called into question and at worst totally out the window. That the current stadium is barely 3 decads years old and not the 80+ y/o 'shrine' they're selling as is being ignored because it doesn't satisfy the mutual back-scratching relationship that both halves hope will bring up lots of profit this year.

Benjamin Grimm Apr 01 2008 12:02 PM

The Daily News isn't the only entity pushing the 85-year thing though, are they?

Nymr83 Apr 01 2008 12:04 PM

NY Post wrote: Mets by the Numbers by Jon Springer and Matthew Silverman (Skyhorse) Baseball is a game of numbers and as the Mets open their 46th season (tomorrow in Florida), devoted fans can spend the team's off days soaking up the heaps (Danny Heep's number was 25) of information in this happily obsessive, 303-page book subtitled "A Complete Team History of the Amazin' Mets by Uniform Number." One example of trivia Required Reading didn't know: Two players with the same first name wore No. 18 - Darryl Strawberry and Darryl Hamilton

Benjamin Grimm Apr 01 2008 12:05 PM

George Vecsey in the New York Times gets it right: ]Monday’s rainout at Yankee Stadium, for example, figures to be the last rainout of the actual opening day at the intermediate Yankee Stadium (1976-2008), not to be confused with the original Yankee Stadium (1923-1973). Maybe they should have had Vecsey vet that John McCain expose a few weeks ago.

Benjamin Grimm Apr 01 2008 12:06 PM

The Associated Press gets it wrong: ]Christened by Babe Ruth with a home run on opening day in 1923, the big house in the Bronx is set for its final season.

Benjamin Grimm Apr 01 2008 12:08 PM

And this article on MLB.com is full of gag-worthy material: http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article_perspectives.jsp?ymd=20080311&content_id=2418522&vkey=perspectives&fext=.jsp

Nymr83 Apr 01 2008 12:13 PM

Its hard to blame MLB.com though, I'm sure they are simply parroting each club's PR department. The AP should really be above that.

metirish Apr 01 2008 12:38 PM

Ian O'Connor gets all mushy , does mention the massive renovation so points for that. [url=http://www.northjersey.com/sports/Stadium_deserves_better_fate.html?c=y&page=1]I'll Miss You[/url]

AG/DC Apr 01 2008 12:53 PM

It wasn't a renovation.

Benjamin Grimm Apr 01 2008 12:57 PM

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

soupcan Apr 01 2008 01:00 PM

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

G-Fafif Apr 01 2008 04:20 PM

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.

themetfairy Apr 01 2008 04:34 PM

This isn't exactly Baseball Digest, but [url=http://ballparksofbaseball.com/]Ballparks of Baseball[/url] is a nice resource about the different parks (past and present).

AG/DC Apr 01 2008 07:00 PM

soupcan wrote: They didn't exactly raze the old stadium either though.. Mmm, Kool-Aid.

metsguyinmichigan Apr 01 2008 09:01 PM

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

soupcan Apr 02 2008 07:35 AM

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 Apr 02 2008 08:20 AM

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.

AG/DC Apr 02 2008 08:31 AM Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Apr 02 2008 08:39 AM

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 Apr 02 2008 08:37 AM

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 Apr 02 2008 08:44 AM

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 Apr 02 2008 08:59 AM

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 Apr 02 2008 09:04 AM

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

MFS62 Apr 02 2008 09:09 AM

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 Apr 02 2008 09:12 AM

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 Apr 02 2008 09:17 AM

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 Apr 02 2008 11:21 AM

="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 Apr 02 2008 01:38 PM

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 Apr 04 2008 06:30 AM

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 Apr 04 2008 11:22 AM

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 Apr 04 2008 11:27 AM

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

Frayed Knot Apr 06 2008 07:14 PM

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 Apr 06 2008 07:44 PM

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

AG/DC May 20 2008 11:49 AM

Now that's a freaky configuration.