Yankee Stadium's Final Season

I love baseball, and I'm a fan of both New York teams, both the National League Mets, and the American League Yankees.

One of my biggest thrills as a child was receiving this autographed photo from Yankee great, Mickey Mantle, after I wrote a fan letter to him!

Since this will be the final season the New York Yankees play in the present Yankee Stadium my husband and I, and my daughter and her friend all went to an afternoon game this past Sunday where the Yankees played against the Oakland Athletics. Yankee Stadium is located in New York City in the borough of the Bronx. Yankee Stadium is one of the most famous sports venues in America, having hosted a variety of events and hundreds of historical moments in its existence. Its primary occupants, the Yankees, have won far more World Series championships than any other major league club.

If you are a fan of American baseball you will know that the All Star Game was recently played at Yankee Stadium. Dana, of The Stone Rabbit blog was surprised I didn't go to the game. I told her I would have loved to have attended, but we heard the package price to see the home run derby and All Star Game was $1,200! It seems the $5 bleacher seat went the way of the 5 cent hot dog .... long time ago and just a memory these days!

Some views of the outside of the stadium as we wait on line to be admitted.

In the distance we can see a small part of the brand new billion dollar stadium being constructed nearby. Once the new stadium opens, most of the old stadium, including the above-ground structure, is to be demolished to become parkland.

As soon as we enter we watch a little of batting practice from the field level and have lunch.

The Yankee team dugout.

My ticket! Sorry it's a little blurry, but if you click on to enlarge the photo you can see it says "final season." Even though we are pretty far up in the top tier our seat cost $55 a person! We've heard the price for all the tickets in the new stadium will be very expenisive. I'm a little sad about that as it will become so expensive for a family to attend a game.

A view of the whole stadium ... nostalgically known as "the house that Ruth built," after the iconic Babe Ruth, the baseball superstar whose prime years coincided with the beginning of the Yankees' winning history.

We picked up a copy of the very special stadium retrospective yearbook as a souvenir.

Also a pennant for my son and grandson to be.

And of course a little Yankee pinstripe outfit for our little future "All Star"!

It was a hot and humid day but the stadium was almost full, with approximately 55,000 people in attendance

Notice the wet towels many heads as they tried to keep cool!

My daughter's favorite Yankee, Andy Pettite, was pitching. He was superb that day! He had ten strike outs!

My favorite Yankee player, Derek Jetter, at bat! He got a double and scored the first run after
Alex Rodriguez hit a sacrifice fly ball.

Jason Giambi hit what proved to be the game winning home run!

We were excited to see "Freddy Sez" in the stands near us. Freddie is an 83 year old fan of the Yankees, who attends almost every game, and roots them on by roaming the stands and having fans in the stadium hit his "lucky frying pan" with a "lucky spoon," which he says "Brings 'em luck."! It's a thrill to be able to do this if you are a Yankee fan!

Freddy also carries a number of colorful hand-painted signs adorned with messages to encourage the team and the fans.

It was good to see Freddy still enjoying being the unofficial best Yankee fan!

Oh, Oh! The manager of the Athletics did not like that call at third base! He got the official "Bronx Cheer" from the crowd, which is a loud and long and noisy boo! Luckily for him the umpire did not throw him out of the game for questioning his call.

The field crew has been dancing to the song "YMCA" for many years now. It's become part of the tradition of the team. As the famous Yankee, Yogi Berra, once said: "Everyone wants to get into the act"!

The ninth inning is up and the Yankees lead by one run. Relief pitcher Mariano Rivera comes in to pitch! Tradition here is that the band Metallica's song "Enter Sandman" plays on the stadium PA system, and the crowd goes wild! He is supposed to send the opposing team to "never never land'!

Mariano does his job!

The Yankees win 2-1!

The Yankee players shake hands on the field and congratulate themselves for another good game!

As the crowd leaves the stadium there is a tradition is to sing along with the Frank Sinatra song "New York New York" that is playing over the PA system!

A nice mural painted on a wall across the street from the stadium of some of the all time Yankee greats ...Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle , Maris and Munson.

We say our goodbye to the old Yankee Stadium and dream about next year when the brand new stadium begins new traditions and welcomes new stars!

Who knows, maybe our future little grandson might play there one day as a Yankee great himself!