Yankee Stadium (1923)

The original Yankee Stadium was a stadium located in the Bronx in New York City. It was the home ballpark of the New York Yankees, one of the city's Major League Baseball franchises, from 1923 to 2008, except for 1974–1975 when the stadium was renovated. It hosted 6,581 Yankees regular season home games during its 85-year history. It was also the home of the New York Giants National Football League (NFL) team from 1956 through September 1973. The stadium's nickname, "The House That Ruth Built", is derived from Babe Ruth, the baseball superstar whose prime years coincided with the stadium's opening and the beginning of the Yankees' winning history. It has often been referred to as "The Cathedral of Baseball".

The stadium was built from 1922 to 1923 for $2.4 million ($34.4 million in 2022 dollars). Its construction was paid for entirely by Yankees owner Jacob Ruppert, who was eager to have his own stadium after sharing the Polo Grounds with the New York Giants baseball team the previous ten years. Located only a half-mile (0.8 km) north of the upper Manhattan location of the Polo Grounds, Yankee Stadium opened for the 1923 season and was hailed at the time as a one-of-a-kind facility in the country. Over the course of its history, Yankee Stadium became one of the most famous venues in the United States, having hosted a variety of events and historic moments during its existence. While many of these moments were baseball-related—including World Series games, no-hitters, perfect games, and historic home runs—the stadium also hosted boxing matches, the 1958 NFL Championship Game (referred to as ''The Greatest Game Ever Played''), college football, concerts, Jehovah's Witnesses conventions (see record attendance), and three Papal Masses. The stadium went through many alterations and playing surface configurations over the years. The condition of the facility worsened in the 1960s and 1970s, prompting its closure for renovation from October 1973 through 1975. The renovation significantly altered the appearance of the venue and reduced the distance of the outfield fences.

In 2006, the Yankees began building a new $2.3 billion stadium on public parkland adjacent to the stadium, which included $1.2 billion in public subsidies. The design includes a replica of the frieze along the roof that had been part of the original Yankee Stadium. Monument Park, a Hall of Fame for prominent former Yankees, was relocated to the new stadium. Yankee Stadium closed following the 2008 season and the new stadium opened in 2009, adopting the "Yankee Stadium" moniker. The original Yankee Stadium was demolished in 2010, two years after it closed, and the site was converted into a public park called ''Heritage Field''.

History

Planning and construction

The Yankees had played at the Polo Grounds in upper Manhattan since 1913, sharing the venue with the New York Giants. However, relations between the two teams were rocky, with the Giants harboring resentment towards the Yankees. The Yankees had been looking for a new and permanent venue since at least 1909. The local papers had periodic announcements about the Yankees acquiring and developing land in the Kingsbridge neighborhood for a new ballpark northeast of 225th and Broadway, and wrote about the park as if its construction was already in progress. The Kingsbridge pipe dream continued with new owners Ruppert and Huston, but nothing came of it. The Yankees would remain tenants at the Polo Grounds for ten years, the same length of time they had spent at Hilltop Park.

For the 1920 season, the Yankees acquired star slugger Babe Ruth and in his first year with his new team, the Yankees drew 1.3 million fans to the Polo Grounds, outdrawing the Giants. By the middle of 1920, the Giants had issued an eviction notice to the Yankees, which was soon rescinded. In 1921, the Yankees won their first American League pennant (but lost the then-best-of-nine 1921 World Series to the Giants in eight games, all played at the Polo Grounds). This exacerbated Giants owner Charles Stoneham's and manager John McGraw's resentment of the Yankees and reinforced their insistence that the Yankees find another place to play their home games. McGraw, always ready with a pointed quote for the sportswriters, derisively suggested that the Yankees relocate "to Queens or some other out-of-the-way place".

Tillinghast L'Hommedieu Huston and Jacob Ruppert, the Yankees' owners since January 1915, finally decided to put the club's dream into reality and build their own stadium. The owners did so at considerable financial risk and speculation. Baseball teams typically played in 30,000-seat facilities, but Huston and Ruppert invoked Ruth's name when asked how the Yankees could justify a ballpark with 60,000 seats. The doubt over the Yankees' lasting power was amplified by baseball's sagging popularity after the 1919 Black Sox Scandal, in which eight Chicago White Sox players were expelled for conspiring with gamblers to fix that year's World Series. Many people also felt three baseball teams could not prosper in New York City, but Huston and Ruppert were confident the Yankees could thrive amongst the more established New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers of the National League (their gamble eventually paid off: Both National League teams relocated to California following the 1957 season). The total bill for construction of the stadium was $2.5 million.

Huston and Ruppert explored many areas for Yankee Stadium. Of the other sites being considered, the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, at Amsterdam Avenue between 136th and 138th streets in Manhattan, nearly became reality. Consideration was also given to building atop railroad tracks on the West Side of Manhattan (an idea revived in 1998) and to Long Island City, in Queens. The area Huston and Ruppert settled on was a lumberyard in the Bronx within walking distance from and in sight of, Coogan's Bluff. The Polo Grounds was located on the Manhattan side of the Harlem River, at 155th Street and Eighth Avenue. Huston and Ruppert purchased the lumberyard from William Waldorf Astor for $600,000, equal to $ today. Construction began May 5, 1922 and Yankee Stadium opened to the public less than a year later. The stadium's walls were built of "an extremely hard and durable concrete that was developed by Thomas Edison", with a total of of concrete used in the original structure.

1923–1973

Yankee Stadium officially opened on Wednesday, April 18, 1923, with the Yankees' first home game, against the Boston Red Sox. According to the ''New York Evening Telegram'', "everything smelled of ... fresh paint, fresh plaster and fresh grass". At 3 pm, the composer-conductor John Philip Sousa led the Seventh ("Silk-Stocking") Regiment Band in playing ''The Star-Spangled Banner''. After a parade of the players and dignitaries, Babe Ruth was presented with a case containing a symbolically big bat. New York Governor Al Smith threw out the first pitch directly into the glove of catcher Wally Schang rather than the customary couple of feet wide. The Yankees went on to defeat Ruth's former team, the Boston Red Sox, by a score of 4–1, with Ruth hitting a three-run home run into the right-field stands. Asked later for his opinion of the stadium, he replied, "Some ball yard."

Upon opening, Fred Lieb of the ''New York Evening Telegram'' dubbed it "The House That Ruth Built". The Yankees also won their first World Series during the Stadium's inaugural season. Future Yankee manager Casey Stengel hit the first post-season home run in stadium history while playing with the opposing New York Giants. The only other team to do so prior to the 2006 St. Louis Cardinals in (the new) Busch Stadium had been the Pittsburgh Pirates, who won the 1909 World Series in Forbes Field's inaugural season; and the Boston Red Sox, who won the 1912 World Series in Fenway Park's first year. The Yankees accomplished this feat yet again in the New Yankee Stadium in the 2009 World Series.

The Stadium was the first facility in North America with three tiers, although the triple deck originally extended only to the left and right field corners. The concrete lower deck extended well into left field, with the obvious intention of extending the upper deck over it, which was accomplished during the 1926–27 off-season. As originally built, the stadium seated 58,000. For the stadium's first game, the announced attendance was 74,217 (with another 25,000 turned away); however, Yankees business manager Ed Barrow later admitted that the actual attendance was closer to 60,000. Regardless of what the figure was, it was undoubtedly more than the 42,000 fans who attended game five of the 1916 World Series at Braves Field, baseball's previous attendance record. However, during the 1920s and 1930s, the Yankees' popularity was such that crowds in excess of 80,000 were not uncommon. It was referred to as "the Yankee Stadium" (with the "s" in "stadium" sometimes lowercase) until the 1950s.

Yankee Stadium underwent more extensive renovations from 1936 through 1938. The wooden bleachers were replaced with concrete, shrinking the "death valley" area of left and center substantially, although the area was still much deeper than in most ballparks; and the second and third decks were extended to short right center. Runways were left between the bleachers and the triple-deck on each end, serving as bullpens. By 1938, the Stadium had assumed the "classic" shape that it would retain for the next 35 years. In April 1945, Yankees president Larry MacPhail announced that after the War, the Yankees would install an additional tier of bleachers to increase stadium capacity to 100,000. In addition to the bleachers, he also planned to add 2,000 additional box-seats by lowering the field and shortening the distance from the backstop to home-plate from . However, the plans fell through and the expansion did not take place.

Many sources incorrectly state that prior to the 1955 season, Yankee Stadium's Ballantine Beer scoreboard was sold to the Phillies for use in Shibe Park. Although the two scoreboards possessed some superficial resemblances, they differed in many details and the Yankee Stadium scoreboard remained at Yankee Stadium until 1959 when it was replaced, two years after a different Ballantine scoreboard was installed at Shibe (by then renamed Connie Mack Stadium).

The stadium was owned by the Yankees until December 17, 1953 when the ballclub's co-owners Dan Topping and Del Webb sold it and Blues Stadium for $6.5 million ($57,676,180 in 2016 dollars) to Arnold Johnson, who also dealt the land under the ballpark to the Knights of Columbus for $2 million ($17,746,517 in 2016 dollars). After he purchased the Philadelphia Athletics and transferred the franchise to Kansas City on November 8, 1954, Johnson sold Yankee Stadium to John W. Cox on March 22, 1955. Cox, a 1927 graduate of Rice University, donated the ballpark to his alma mater on July 19, 1962.

In the 1966–67 offseason, during the period in which Rice owned the stadium, the concrete exterior was painted white, and the interior was painted blue. The metal frieze circling the upper deck was painted white.

1974–75 renovations and beyond

In 1970, newly reelected Mayor John Lindsay approached team president Michael Burke of CBS, which owned the Yankees, with an offer to spend $25 million on improvements to Yankee Stadium. (Six years earlier, the Mets' new home, Shea Stadium, had opened in Queens at a similar public cost.) By this time, it was obvious that the stadium had significant structural issues; concrete chunks were seen falling from the stands.

Burke floated two proposals to build a new stadium on the same site in the Bronx; one included a dome. CBS also asked for 10,000 additional parking spaces and road improvements to alleviate traffic. In August 1971, the New York Giants football team announced that it would leave Yankee Stadium for a new football-only stadium in the Meadowlands Sports Complex under development in New Jersey. In 1971, the city of New York forced (via eminent domain) Rice to sell the stadium for a mere $2.5 million (equivalent to $ today). That December, after significant lobbying by Lindsay, the New York City Board of Estimate approved $24 million ($140 million in 2014 dollars) for the city to renovate Yankee Stadium. The figure included $3.5 million for the purchase of the stadium and the piece of land from Rice University and the Knights of Columbus. At the time, New York City was on the brink of bankruptcy. In January 1973, CBS sold the Yankees to a group led by George Steinbrenner for $10 million. Yankee Stadium closed for renovation on September 30, 1973. The Yankees played their home games in 1974 and 1975 at Shea Stadium (The NFL Giants played their last Yankee Stadium game on September 23 (a tie), then went to the Yale Bowl through 1974, Shea in 1975, and the new Giants Stadium in 1976). When the renovated stadium opened in 1976 on April 15, the cost had ballooned to $160 million ($ in dollars); originally borne by New York City, it is now being paid off by New York State.

The outside shell of the stadium remained the same, with its original concrete walls painted over. Among the more noticeable changes after the renovation was the removal of 118 columns reinforcing each tier of the stadium's grandstand. The stadium's roof, including its distinctive metal frieze, was replaced by the new upper shell and new lights were added. A white painted concrete replica of the frieze was added atop the wall encircling the bleachers. The playing field was lowered by about and moved outward slightly. Escalators and ramps were added in three sections to make the upper deck more accessible. The original wooden stadium seats were replaced with wider plastic ones and the upper deck expanded upward nine rows, excluding the walkway. A new upper concourse was built above the old and original concourse exits were closed in by new seating. A new middle tier was built featuring a larger press box and 16 luxury boxes. About one-third of the bleacher seats were eliminated, their middle section converted to a blacked-out batter's eye. A wall was built behind the bleachers blocking the views from Gerard Avenue and the elevated subway platform above River Avenue. On this wall, the Yankees erected the first instant replay display in baseball, referred to in literature as a "telescreen". All told, the Stadium was reduced to a listed capacity of 57,545. The Stadium's playing field was drastically altered. "Death Valley" was reduced by more than while the right-field home-run porch was moved out. Monuments once in play were moved to a newly created Monument Park. In 1985, the left field fence was moved in and the stadium assumed its final dimensions in 1988. Although it was essentially the same structure, the renovations were significant enough that some sources consider them two different stadiums. The ESPN Sports Almanac, for instance, calls the original stadium "Yankee Stadium I" and the renovated stadium "Yankee Stadium II".

On April 13, 1998, an long beam fell onto a seat before a scheduled game causing the postponement of two games and the relocation of a third to nearby Shea Stadium while the stadium was inspected.

Replacement, closing, and demolition

After years of speculation that the Yankees would build a new ballpark to replace Yankee Stadium, construction on a new facility began on August 16, 2006, with a groundbreaking ceremony across the street in Macombs Dam Park, the site of the new stadium. The Yankees played their final two seasons in the stadium in 2007 and 2008 while the new venue was being built.

After the final game in the Stadium's history was played on September 21, 2008, public tours of Yankee Stadium continued until November 23, 2008. November 9, 2008 was the last day the public tours included Monument Park and the retired number area. On November 12, 2008, construction workers began removing memorials from Monument Park for relocation to the new facility. On November 8, 2008, former Yankees Scott Brosius, Paul O'Neill, David Cone

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