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Tuesday, July 15, 2008
All-Star Game at home of Babe & Mick
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
New York — When that No. 4 train comes rumbling out of the ground and the iconic structure comes into view, it gives you goosebumps the first time you see it.
I remember that experience when I initially viewed Yankee Stadium, where we’ll squeeze in tonight for an All-Star Game that should be special regardless of who wins or who does what between the lines.
Even jaded sports writers can get a tinge of excitement when they see iconic buildings that still stand, including baseball’s Fenway Park, Wrigley Field and Yankee Stadium.
After this season, only Fenway and Wrigley will be open for major league ball.
The dozens of living Hall of Famers who’ll attend and the special presentations they have planned are going to make tonight’s last All-Star Game at The House That Ruth Built one to lock away in the memory banks.
“Win, lose or draw, we’ll all be taking a ton of memories away from here,” Chipper Jones said yesterday, when he took his parents, Lynee and Larry, out to The Stadium for a tour of Monument Grove, where dad got his picture taken next to the one that honors his hero, the late Mickey Mantle.
Multiple renovations and a clutter of advertising have detracted a bit from the charm and nostalgia of Yankee Stadium, but it remains a special place with an aura all its own.
Last night after putting on an epic power-hitting display for the ages during the Home Run Derby, Josh Hamilton gushed, “My backyard used to be Yankee Stadium, and I used to be Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio and all those guys. Now I’m looking at the [preserved] tops of their lockers.
“I mean, just an awesome feeling.”
On the broadcast tonight, they’re going to hammer you with history, try to convince everyone that this has been the site of more historical moments and big games than any other ballpark in America.
And this time, they’re not going to need to exaggerate to make the case. It’s true.
“I hit a ball off the façade of the upper deck,” said Jones, recalling his 1999 homer, the first of four he hit in 14 regular-season games at Yankee Stadium. “I could just remember rounding first and thinking that my dad would be saying to my mom at that point, ‘Our son just hit a home run in the same park as Mickey Mantle did.’”
Brian McCann has already made the All-Star team three times in his first three full seasons in the majors, but this Midsummer Classic is one the Braves catcher said he won’t forget, regardless of how many others he might have the good fortune to participate in.
“Yankee Stadium — there’s not a better setting for an All-Star Game,” he said. “It’s probably going to be one of the best days of my life.”
OK, I want to know how many of the denizens (and others reading this) have been to Yankee Stadium and what’s your favorite memory of the place. Or just your impressions.
It’s not as charming a place as Fenway or Wrigley, in my view. Not close, really. But the joint is special, no question. Just wish they’d preserved it at near its original state, or tried to keep the same aesthetic, the way they did when they renovated Fenway.
Big day in The City: The game’s in the Bronx, of course, but the big stuff starts this afternoon in Manhattan with the Red Carpet Parade down Sixth Avenue.
They’re closing off streets and most living Hall of Famers will walk down the avenue alongside current All-Stars. Should be pretty cool, though I doubt I’ll get to see it.
We’ve got meetings today, including a BBWAA (Baseball Writers Association of America) officers meeting this morning with baseball union officials to discuss the flap over our organization’s request for them to stop putting in contract clauses that include incentives for receiving votes in BBWAA awards.
Our association’s stance was that we wanted it stopped because of the appearance it gave/gives when players like Curt Schilling talks openly about the fact that he’ll get $50,000 if he gets votes for the Cy Young Award and jokes that he’ll pay a writer to vote for him.
As you can imagine, that opens a can of worms. Thanks, Curt, for complicating things unnecessarily.
Doesn’t look like the union is going to work with us on it, though. They’ve got a bit of power, you might have heard, and they’re probably going to Bigfoot us into backing away from the demand that they remove and cease putting in such clauses in the future or risk their clients not being eligible.
Anyway, after that meeting we’ve got the general BBWAA members meeting, after which Bud Selig will sit at the table with us and take questions from writers in an informal setting. It’s usually pretty interesting.
We’ve got another officers meeting after that one, so it’s going to be a busy day, and I’ll be hacking away trying to make deadline on a couple of stories between those meetings and the start of the game tonight.
Oh, and chasing down Braves rumors, of course. I’ll see a bunch of guys today and talk to some about what they’re hearing regarding the Braves and particularly the dangling of Mark Teixeira in potential trade talks.
Talk to you folks a little later.
A quick tune: Here’s one from an underrated genius - that’s not hyperbole in this case — songwriter from Athens, Ga.
”ESTRANGED” by Jack Logan
I’m hidin’ in the lounges
Of the immigrant-run motels
I won’t pick up no receiver
Can’t you tell?
What’s got me acting this way?
I’m estranged
The very sound of her voice
Is like a blow to my head
I don’t want her alive
And I don’t want her dead
What’s got me talking that way?
I’m estranged
