Yankee Stadium — THE Yankee Stadium — played its last game yesterday after a stellar 85-year run that now leaves “The House that Ruth Built” to fall into demolition rubble.
How does something like this happen where history and merit are tossed in the trash bin as worthless and aged while the “bigger is better” and “newer is neater” mantras push the agenda of America’s national pastime?
There can never be another “House that Ruth Built” and so the greatest heroes of that stadium remain in the ghostly mist that gave context to their greatness.
The rest of us are left to mourn the memory of a stadium that could have been saved if the wretched Steinbrenner family had the guts to invest in history in the same way they obnoxiously dump money into the temporary stardom of their ancient players.
Not only are the Steinbrenners to blame, but so is Major League Baseball and the City and State of New York. Why did they choose new skybox suites over the integrity of the where the Yankees play ball?
Money may be everything, but it cannot make history. Changing the moral character of a city in situ breaks the spirit and the intention of its people, and we must not blindly abide change for the sake of change.
They can build a whole new “Yankee Stadium” — but it will never be the real Yankee stadium — because that stadium, even shining from its grave, will be more alive and cheering than any shallow replacement.
