the house that Steinbrenner demolished

Of all the classic stadiums, Yankee Stadium is the least classic. Fenway Park retains its Green Monster, the awkward field dimensions and the traditional, non-technological scoreboard that gives it character. Wrigley Field remains an icon, embedded in the Chicago community. With it's brick and ivy, the instantly recognizable exterior facade, the apartments in the outfield and the view of the city. Yankee Stadium, however, does not resemble its original. Because of its massive 1970's, donut-stadium renovation, the current Yankee Stadium is all advertisements and luxury suites, enclosed away from the city.

The Original Ball Park

The bland, renovated stadium

When I see sketches of the new ballpark, it's hard for me to understand the nostalgia and sense of history connected to Yankee Stadium. Nothing from the original has been retained in the current stadium - which exudes and ethos of a cheap amusement park.

I wonder, though, if the Yankee fan reaction has something to do with the larger sense of losing geography. We're a nation in love with change, with progress, with shifts toward the modern. Even post-modernism seems to be more about demolition than construction - tearing down the arrogant edifice of absolute truth and blurry the categories created by intellectuals. In an era of globalization and rapid technological change, our sense of geography, of place and space and time seem to diminish by the minute. It's not a stadium that Yankee fans miss, it's the sense of place that accompany the legends of childhood. Yankee Stadium is where Mr. October dominated and Babe Ruth pointed to his home run and Lou Gherig called himself the luckiest man in the world.

Baseball seems to be a cleansing of sorts, a Mecca of nostalgia, where the lost can search for a common strand of history, practice in the rituals and collectively sing the chorus of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." It sounds so sentimental, but in a culture of cynicism, baseball is one of the last places a man can be sentimental - where his eyes water as his three year old son asks him about the pitcher and the backstop and the scoreboard.