Reggie Jackson hit the first pitch he saw in the fourth inning for a home run. On the first pitch to him in the fifth, he homered. First pitch in the eighth, he did it again. Three pitches - by Burt Hooton, Elias Sosa and Charlie Hough - and three homers that helped solidify the legacy of Mr. October.
It was Game 6 of the 1977 World Series, and chants of "Reggie, Reggie, Reggie" were heard as the Yankees closed out the Dodgers to clinch another championship.
No wonder Jackson loves Yankee Stadium just the way it is.
"It's sad to see it go," he said during a recent visit to Oakland. "Yankee Stadium is a beautiful place. Yankee Stadium ... just saying it. It's part of our country, an American destination. I don't need to see the new one. I kinda like the old one."
Both New York baseball parks are going out together - replaced by structures that open next season - and the Mets, typically, are in the shadows. They came later. They've won less.
Yankee Stadium has been called baseball's cathedral, and attending games in the Bronx has been called a spiritual experience. Shea Stadium is something erected because an expansion team arrived to replace the departed Giants and Dodgers.
"It's nothing compared to Yankee Stadium," said Jackson, offering a biased but accurate opinion.
Yankee Stadium is where Babe Ruth hit his then-record 60th home run, where Lou Gehrig gave his "luckiest man on the face of the Earth" speech, where Don Larsen threw the only World Series perfect game, where Roger Maris hit his 61st homer to break Ruth's record.
It's also where Knute Rockne gave his "Win one for the Gipper" pep talk, where Joe Louis knocked out Max Schmeling, where the Colts beat the Giants in overtime for the NFL championship in the "greatest game ever played," and where Pope Paul VI celebrated Mass before 80,000.
At least all that happened at Yankee Stadium I, which opened in 1923 and was christened by a Ruth home run. It should be noted that the original stadium was gutted and remodeled in the '70s as the team played two seasons at Shea. Yankee Stadium II opened in 1976.
Nonetheless, the Yankees are calling this the farewell season for "The House that Ruth Built," though Ruth died 28 years before the birth of Yankee Stadium II. Regardless, it's the same name on the same site with some of the same features, so we'll play along.
The difference with Yankee Stadium III is, it's across the street.
Unless the Yankees make a successful playoff charge in the final 2 1/2 months, the stadium's final hurrah in the national spotlight will be Tuesday's 79th All-Star Game. Whether you consider Yankee Stadium dating to 1923 or 1976, its closure still is more momentous than any other park's in recent years.
"It's more disbelief than anything," said Giants general manager Brian Sabean, who worked for the Yankees for eight seasons. "Wrigley Field's still standing. Fenway Park has had its renovations. I guess (the Yankees) were too encumbered to take on a mass renovation or couldn't do it in a feasible fashion."
The Mets will move into something called Citi Field. The Yankees, refreshingly, said they won't sell naming rights to the new $1.3 billion yard, the most expensive in U.S. history.
The dimensions will be identical. Monument Park, which sits beyond the outfield wall and honors the great Yankees, will be moved across the street. A limestone-covered façade, replicating that of the original facility with "Yankee Stadium" inlaid in gold, will serve as the enclosure.
It's expected to maintain some of the old charm. In fact, seating capacity is lower.
But make no mistake: The new stadium will be a far bigger cash cow for baseball's richest team, thanks to 56 private luxury suites (19 at the current place), 410 party suites (none at the current place), 1,800 seats ringing the infield at $500 to $2,500 a pop, gobs of retail square footage, and publicly financed parking garages. Plus, restaurants and drinking holes (including a martini bar) at every turn.
"Everyone's excited about the new stadium," outfielder Johnny Damon said. "It'll be the best one out there."
As Jackson said, the old one's not so bad.
It's not paradise for hitters, however.
"You see the ball really well," Derek Jeter said, "but it's not an ideal place to hit home runs. It's so deep, especially in the gaps, unless you pull the ball."
The gaps are 399 feet to left-center, 385 to right-center. Down the line in left, it's 318. In right, 314. In the old days, the "short porch" down the right-field line was 295, which made for an easy target for left-handed swingers such as Ruth, Gehrig, Yogi Berra, Maris and switch-hitting Mickey Mantle.
Then again, other dimensions were ridiculously vast. When the Babe played, it was 490 to center and 460 to left-center. Just before the '70s renovation, it still was spacious: 463 to center, 457 to left-center.
Through it all, the short porch in right remained inviting, though Jason Giambi isn't convinced.
"I don't think it's as good a left-handed-hitter's park as everyone makes it out to be," Giambi said. "The porch is definitely short in right field, but teams pitch you differently, and they put on that shift. I think it's a really great ballpark for a guy like Alex (Rodriguez, who bats right-handed and has been known to go deep to right). For me, a better park is Boston, where they have the (close) left-field wall. I mean, if I pull the ball, I'll pull it pretty far anyway.
"I'm more pull-conscious because of the dimensions, and I've tried to get away from that."
That's not how Giambi was in Oakland, where he was known as a solid off-field hitter. Giambi implied the Yankee Stadium measurements, particularly down the right-field line, sometimes get in his head.
On the other hand, there's Damon. In his first year as a Yankee (2006), the leadoff hitter had a career-high 24 homers, mostly at home.
"I definitely like that short porch," Damon said. "I know the type of hitter I am. If I need to go the other way, I can. But I naturally pull. I've hit balls (to right field at Yankee Stadium) that I thought I missed on, and they went out of the ballpark."
Ask anyone who played at Yankee Stadium for a memory, and the words flow. Lou Piniella was asked, and he couldn't stop reminiscing.
He mentioned his two titles in the late '70s and Jackson's three-homer game. He mentioned Bobby Murcer's home run and game-winning single to beat Baltimore after the death of close friend Thurman Munson.
"That was special to me," Piniella said.
He mentioned the game in which Ron Guidry struck out 18 Angels, a Yankees record.
"The place was electric."
A's reliever Alan Embree, who pitched on both sides of the Yankee-Red Sox rivalry, said he's saddened that Yankee Stadium will be replaced.
"The history of that ballpark is something none of these new parks (has) to offer," Embree said. "Fenway and Wrigley, those parks are what's left in the history of the game besides the numbers. I view those parks differently because, hey, some of that dirt is the same dirt we played on. They're the same lockers. The same everything from when some of the best players played there. It's a shame to see something like that go away."
The Yankees once shared the Polo Grounds with the Giants. But once Ruth arrived and the Yankees became more popular, John McGraw's Giants wanted the Yankees out. So they moved across the Harlem River to the Bronx, 161st Street and River Avenue, into what's believed to be America's first "stadium."
Before then, teams played in "parks" and "fields."
McGraw said the Yankees were going to "Goatville" and wouldn't be heard from again. Ruth then homered in the first game, and the Yankees picked up their first World Series title that year, beating the Giants, their old landlords.
Now the Yankees have 26 championships and a shrine that's about to be replaced.
Again.
"It's pretty incredible, being part of the final season at Yankee Stadium," Giambi said. "If you're any kind of baseball fan, you have to appreciate it."
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