Yankees move dirt from old plate, mound to new home

NEW YORK — With the help of a few legendary players and Bronx teenagers, the New York Yankees carried pailfuls of dirt taken from home plate and the pitchers’ mound at their old home to a new one Saturday.

Under a steady rain, 15-year-old Gabriel Nieves shoveled about 5 pounds of dirt from Yankee Stadium’s home plate into a blue and white pail, while his mother, Audrey, watched with tears streaming down her face.

“This is just awesome,” Audrey Nieves said. “This is a big deal. This is the end of an era.”

Nieves joined Yankee legends David Cone, Paul O’Neill, Scott Brosius and Jeff Nelson to move pieces of history from the original ballpark to the new one being built across 161st Street. Nieves, one of dozens of Bronx High School students in a Yankees-affiliated engineering and architecture program, walked the dirt from one mound to another, while construction workers carried the home plate and pitcher’s rubber coverings.

Cone, a 1998 World Series champion who pitched a perfect game at the Stadium a year later, stared Saturday at the hole in the ground after a worker pulled up the rubber.

“This piece of rubber is special, because this is how we made our living, on this piece of rubber,” Cone said.

The 45-year-old was also attached to the original bleachers.

“That’s where the ‘Bleacher Creatures’ would yell our names, and the bleachers shook during games,” he said.

The Yankees played their final game at the 85-year-old stadium on Sept. 21, winning 7-3 over the Baltimore Orioles. The new, $1.3 billion stadium is set to open in April.

At the new stadium, the 15-year-old Nieves helped set down a new home plate, and dreamed about the future.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. It’s something you remember forever,” he said. “And maybe I’ll help build the next Yankee Stadium.”