Giving up the ghosts at Yankee Stadium

[estranged4life]

Giving up the ghosts at Yankee Stadium
by Kevin Kernan, New York Post

Even the ghosts will cry tonight.

The final game will be played at Yankee Stadium. The House That Ruth Built opened on April 18, 1923, and is home to 26 world championships. This is baseball's most hallowed ground, and tonight the curtain comes down.

Bringing down the House So many years, so many memories. As they prepare to play the final game at Yankee Stadium, it's hard to pick out the greatest moment at the House that Ruth Built. Hard. Not impossible. Here's Dayn Perry's list. Eighty-five years of glory will come to an end when the Yankees play the Orioles. Bang the drum slowly for Yankee Stadium. It never was supposed to end like this, it was supposed to be an October sendoff, but this season the Yankees could not make it to October.

"It's going to be sad, Babe would not like to see his House come down," his granddaughter Linda Ruth Tosetti said yesterday. She placed a wreath of flowers on Babe's monument and made a presentation to Derek Jeter before the Yankees' 1-0 win over the Orioles.

Babe is not alone.

A roster of Yankees legends or family members representing those legends will be here for a magnificent pregame farewell party.

"I'm scared," said Goose Gossage, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame two months ago. "I just cannot believe we're not playing baseball in Yankee Stadium again. The finality of it is scary, something I can't comprehend. There are no words."

Noted Tino Martinez, "I think when that last out is made (tonight), it's going to be pretty sad."

It's sad, too, that George Steinbrenner will not be here because of failing health.

Derek Jeter admitted this will be an emotional night and that he "still can't picture being over there," at the new Yankee Stadium.

Yankee Stadium isn't just a ballpark. It's baseball heaven and is loved worldwide. One of the saddest Yankees is Hideki Matsui , who said that when the lights go dark on Yankee Stadium, "It's going to be a very lonely feeling. To me, this is the world's No. 1 stadium. To not be able to play again on this field is going to be very sad."

Everywhere Gossage has gone this year he has heard from fans who have told him how much Yankee Stadium means to them.

"Oh my God, I feel sorry for the fans," he said. "I can't tell you how many fans, men and women, have come up to me and said, 'You know, Goose, Yankee Stadium is where my dad first took me to a game.' Yankee tradition is greater than anything, words can't describe it. You hear about Red Sox Nation, let me tell you, they're Little Leaguers compared to Yankees Nation."

Fans like Tony Cangialosi, who first came to this ballpark with his father Anthony in the early '70s, said he will never forget the sound of Yankee Stadium.

"When there was a big game against the Red Sox or a game in October," Cangialosi said, "the roar of the Stadium was incredible. The entire Stadium shook."

This will forever be Babe's House. Babe's granddaughter is trying to get his No. 3 "retired" so it can be put on the wall of every Stadium, much like Jackie Robinson's number, but she said MLB and commissioner Bud Selig have not agreed to such a move.

Joe Girardi said he was going to take his family out for one last look at Monument Park. He also will "walk over to where Charlie (Hayes) caught the baseball and then walk to the mound where we celebrated in '96."

That was world championship No. 23, the first of Joe Torre's four titles. Andy Pettitte , tonight's starter, will collect dirt from the mound. He wanted the pitching rubber, but that will not be available.

"The new stadium is going to be phenomenal," Gossage said. "The perfect scenario would be to put it on rollers and plop it down right where Yankee Stadium sits, but that's not going to happen. Sure it's going to be a beautiful stadium, but it's never going to be the same."

Never, there's only one Yankee Stadium.