Revisionist History

First, it was the last season at Yankee Stadium. Then, it was the last All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium. Now, we finally have the last of the lasts--the last game at Yankee Stadium, ever.

Sad? You bet it's sad. The season-long schmaltz-a-thon aside (if no one cares about the All-Star Game anyway, must we really obsess over The Last All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium Ever?), Yankee Stadium is the unquestioned first among this country's sports venues. It has the look, it has the location (not so much within the city, but the city itself adds to its mystique), and most importantly, it has the history. Yankee fans can have a tendency to think that everyone loves the Yankees as much as they do, but throughout the 20th century, they were right about one thing--the Yankees WERE the American team, and Yankee Stadium was where Ruth, Gehrig, Mantle, and Dimaggio lived and breathed. Sports and American history don't intersect any more closely than that.

The surprising thing, however, is that as Yankee Stadium prepares to close its doors, there isn't more anger to go along with the sadness. Because Yankee Stadium, as glorious as past as it has had, could have gone right on making history. The plans to demolish it came about during a previous era, when the Yankees were irrelevant and attendance (and revenues) were slipping. But that was the past--perhaps you've heard, but the Yankees are profitable again, and--this decade aside--the Pinstripes are completely capable of winning championships with Yankee Stadium as their home. But the team that has the most money in baseball wants more, and it's willing to sacrifice its own history and tradition in order to get it. Say what you will about my beloved Red Sox, but as another of baseball's richest teams, they made a commitment to work with their historic stadium rather than give up on it.

So, to use a morbid but apt metaphor, Yankee Stadium isn't just dying, it's being murdered. Sure, sadness and nostalgia are still appropriate emotions, but so is outrage. This story in today's Boston Globe (of all places), however, is the closest I've seen. The rest of the media is treating Yankee Stadium's passing as something inevitable, as if baseball cathedrals were prone to dying of old age. But that isn't the case; as we all know, baseball history lasts forever. Unless the New York Yankees get involved.