Pinstripe Empire (88 page)

Two days later, SI.com posted her story. A-Rod had not been named on any previous lists, and baseball was poised to promote him heavily as the ultimate successor to Barry Bonds for the lifetime home run record. This was a blow not only to A-Rod but to the Yankees and MLB.

Moving quickly to control the damage, A-Rod did an interview with Peter Gammons on ESPN on February 9. He said, “When I arrived in Texas in 2001, I felt an enormous amount of pressure. I felt like I had all the weight of the world on top of me, and I needed to perform, and perform at a high level every day. Back then, it was a different culture. It was very loose. I was young. I was stupid. I was naïve. I wanted to prove to everyone that, you know, I was worth being one of the greatest players of all time. And I did take a banned substance. You know, for that I’m very sorry and deeply regretful.”

He reported to Tampa on February 17, and the Yankees set up a press conference in the tent outside the third-base side of Steinbrenner Field. Cashman, Girardi, and his teammates attended.

He didn’t change his story about using the steroids only with Texas, leaving some wondering why he didn’t feel the same pressure coming to New York. He mentioned a cousin who had administered the substance. “It was pretty evident we didn’t know what we were doing,” he said, but to another question he replied, “I knew we weren’t taking Tic Tacs.”

Cashman sighed. “We’ve got nine years of Alex remaining … And because of that, this is an asset that is going through a crisis. So we’ll do everything we can to protect that asset and support that asset and try to salvage that asset.

“This story is going to be with Alex for a long time. It’s going to be with him forever.”

As it happened, it had its time on the nation’s front pages and faded. Baseball’s fan base was pretty much exhausted with steroid revelations at this point, although Hall of Fame voters will ultimately have the last word. As long as he produced on the field, the hometown fans cheered him. A-Rod, the Yankees, and MLB would have to move on. There was not much of an alternative.

IN PREPARATION FOR the new stadium, and after missing the playoffs, the Yankees made four key additions to the 2009 team.

Two were pitchers who went by their initials: CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett. They were introduced at a joint press conference on December 19, the last one in the old stadium. During this month, the offices were being moved, and the media showed employees carrying trophies across the street. These would be two more, and they crossed 161st Street for photos in the new park.

Sabathia, twenty-eight, was a bear of a man, over three hundred pounds on a six-foot-seven frame, and he liked to wear his uniform baggy. He was the heaviest Yankee since 295-pound Walter “Jumbo” Brown in 1936, although David Wells may have weighed in on that debate. In eight seasons with Cleveland and half a year with Milwaukee, he had won a Cy Young Award and established a reputation for being able to pitch deep into games. (When he pitched a complete game in May 2011, it was the first for the Yankees in two years, a record streak of 341 CG-less games.) He signed a seven-year, $161 million contract with the choice to opt out after 2011.

Burnett, thirty-two, a beneficiary of Tommy John surgery, had been in
the majors since 1999 with only one season better than three games over .500. He’d gone 18–10 with Toronto in 2008—his option year. He signed for five years and $82.5 million.

Next came Mark Teixeira, signing for eight years and $180 million. His press conference, with the now traditional donning of a pinstripe jersey, came on January 6. It was the first event in the new stadium. “Tex” proved to be a brilliant defensive first baseman with a great Yankee Stadium swing. He met the challenge in his first year with a .292/39/122 season, leading the league in RBI and total bases, tying in homers, and finishing second in MVP voting. It didn’t take fans long to embrace the Georgia Tech product, who had broken in with Texas in 2003 and continued to improve as his career matured.

The fourth acquisition was outfielder Nick Swisher. His signing wasn’t the big news the others had been; no press conference followed. He was coming off a .219 season with the White Sox and was thought to be a fourth outfielder. Only when Xaxier Nady had a season-ending injury did he find himself a starter.

The gregarious Swisher was the son of a major leaguer: His father, Steve, was a catcher for nine seasons starting in ’74. So Nick grew up around the game, and then became a star at Ohio State. Michael Lewis’s bestselling book
Moneyball
, which looked into how Billy Beane went about building the Oakland A’s on a small budget, paid special attention to Swisher. Lewis related how much Beane coveted Swisher, how much he hoped he would last in the 2002 draft until Oakland could pick him. “Swisher has an attitude,” said Beane. “Swisher is fearless. Swisher isn’t going to let anything get between him and the big leagues. Swisher has presence.” He wound up getting his man in the first round, the sixteenth pick, as compensation for the loss of Johnny Damon to the Red Sox.

Over his time with Oakland, Swish did not become the big star that Beane had hoped, but a good player who reached highs of 35 homers and 95 RBI in 2006. When he tailed off in ’07, he was traded to Chicago. And there, Swisher slumped and became available again.

“We saw the .219, but we were able to tell that he was better than that,” said Cashman. “Our stat-analysis department was a manifestation of how we were now going about doing our business. We realized that there was a lot more going on in this game than met the eye.

“The difference in Swisher’s .219 in 2008 compared to his years in Oakland was largely bad luck. He had the third-lowest batting average in the
majors on balls put in play, a statistic that varies greatly with luck. He had many fewer hits than he should have had. He still had great patience at the plate—4.5 pitches per at-bat. There was no decline in home runs, despite hitting only four in his first 185 at bats. Nineteen of his 24 homers came in home run friendly parks, as Yankee Stadium figured to be. I thought he was a great low-buy opportunity and a huge bounce-back candidate.”

Cashman’s homework paid off. He got him in a trade for Wilson Betemit and two minor league pitchers. All he believed proved correct, as Swisher found a new life in the Yankee outfield and turned into a clutch performer. He hit 29 home runs in each of his first two Yankee seasons, got his average up to .288, and restored his OPS—on-base plus slugging—from .743 in Chicago to .870 in New York. By his second year with the Yankees, he was on his first All-Star team, and although the switch-hitter’s strikeouts were high, he would use up a lot of pitches getting them, helping to wear out pitchers.

OLD YANKEE STADIUM could fit into new Yankee Stadium. The difference wasn’t in the seating capacity, which was actually smaller, but in the footprint of the park, which allowed for wider pedestrian paths and for a magnificent Great Hall—thirty-one thousand square feet along the first-base side, in which long banners hung honoring past Yankee greats.

The concourses behind the seating were festive, with a wide variety of concession booths and a clear view of the field. In the old park, the bleacher fans were cut off from the rest of the stadium; here they could walk the full 360. Weather-resistant cushioned box seats were a new amenity.

The outfield fences—318 to left, 408 to center, 314 to right, with the power alleys at 399 and 385—replicated the 1976–2008 stadium, although the fifty-two feet from the catcher to the backstop was a reduction from the original eighty-four.

Construction proceeded right up to the last minute. One unplanned interruption was the revelation that a worker—a Red Sox fan!—had buried a David Ortiz jersey in the concrete to cast bad luck on the team. The section was drilled apart and the jersey removed. No chances were taken.

The monuments were relocated to dead center field (as opposed to left center), where they were hidden by the fence lest they reflect in the batter’s eye. Thus the best view of them came from the upper deck, not the lower seats.

The video board was breathtaking, both for its size—59’ × 101’—and for the quality of its high-definition images. A 24’ × 36’ board was placed in the
Great Hall. A crew of twenty-five, led by Mike Bonner, elaborately planned in-game entertainment.

The player clubhouses were huge, along with all the requisite trappings of the modern game: indoor batting cages, video screening areas, state-of-the-art training facilities, and even secure, indoor parking to get the players in and out without concern over crowd control. That was one daily ritual that ended—fans greeting the players as they walked from the player lot to the player entrance at the old park.

The stadium was decorated with historic Yankee photographs from the archives of the
Daily News
, and the luxury suites, now wrapping end to end around the park, were branded with uniform numbers, with every player who ever wore the corresponding number listed on a plaque outside the suite. (Suite 4 had only one name, Lou Gehrig; fifty-two players had worn number 22, and still counting.) Those who feared the memory of the old Yankees would fade were relieved to see the homage to the old days. Even replica medallions, bearing eagles, went into holes in the concrete over the entrance gates, replicating the look of the 1923 park.

Auxiliary scoreboards showing the line score went back up at field level in right-and left-center fields, a reminder of the post-1947 stadium.

Nothing, however, made it more “Yankee Stadium” than the frieze that topped the upper deck. On the most important thing, the public was in agreement: It still felt like Yankee Stadium. The ability to connect the two parks was crucial, and it succeeded. It would still be the park visiting players wanted to play in, still be part of the reason free agents wanted to be Yankees, and it seemed to rightfully carry the history of the franchise with it. After all, it was still at East 161st Street and River Avenue. It was just across the street. And for the 2009 season, the two parks were up side by side, as demolition of the outer concrete at the old place did not begin until late in the year.

The first section of sod from DeLeo Sod Farms in Pilesgrove, New Jersey, was installed on October 15, 2008, giving the playing surface plenty of time to knit together. The front office moved in on January 23, retaining the phone number that it’d had since 1952.

Over the years, the demographics had changed for the ticket-buying public, with a more affluent crowd now, and often businesses prepared to pay well over Broadway-show prices for three hours of live baseball featuring a star-laden team.

Ticket prices were set between $500 and $2,500 for 4,397 premium
seats. People in those seats would also receive access to restaurants under the stands, which gave the appearance of unsold seats, since many were “down below” during the games, indulging their appetites for shrimp and prime rib.

But then something unexpected happened: a stock market crash late in the 2008 season.

So bowing to the new reality, the team announced in late April that they were lowering prices, with the $2,500 seats halved, and the $1,000 seats along the base lines dropping to $650.

In the last year of the old stadium, the top ticket price had been $400, which covered the first eleven rows of the seats closest to home plate. There were sixteen different price points, all the way down to a $14 bleacher seats.

In the new park, bleacher seats were still $14 (and $5 for some partially obstructed views). Field-level box seats were $325, but then lowered to $235. There were $100 and $75 tickets as you moved toward the outfield, reaching down to $23 for the upper grandstand.

THE FIRST GAME in the new stadium, Friday, April 3, was an exhibition game against the Cubs, managed by Lou Piniella. In the spirit of 1923, bleacher seats sold for twenty-five cents and grandstand seats for $1.10.

The official opener would not come until April 16, a Thursday-afternoon game against the Indians, with Sabathia pitching against Cliff Lee.

There was no Bob Sheppard to announce this time, as he had now officially retired at ninety-eight. The job went to Paul Olden, a former Yankee radio broadcaster who had once famously asked Tom Lasorda what he thought of Dave Kingman’s three-home-run performance against him, a hilarious audio tape that lives on in blooper compilations.

It was sunny and 56 degrees for the opening game. I arrived early and sought the exact spot outside the park where a photo would replicate the best-known opening-day photo of 1923, the one with cars driving by the first-base side. Satisfied that I had the shot, I joined one of my PR successors, Jeff Idelson, in a right-field, foul-territory section in time to catch the opening ceremonies. Jeff was now the president of the Baseball Hall of Fame and interested in what artifacts might be donated to the Hall from the game.

George Steinbrenner was in attendance and appeared on the giant video screen with a wave to the fans. He had lived to see the magnificent new ballpark open, although travel back and forth to Tampa had become very
difficult. As he left after the game, he responded to a shout-out from Anthony McCarron of the
Daily News
by saying simply, “It’s beautiful.”

A statue of Steinbrenner was placed in the Yankee office lobby near gate 2, and a replica of it appeared outside Steinbrenner Field in Tampa prior to 2011 spring training. That one cited eleven pennants and seven world championships during his time of ownership. He might have vetoed mention of the eleven pennants, since it reflected four lost World Series.

The field ceremonies featured the West Point Marching Band performing John Philip Sousa songs, such as “Stars and Stripes Forever,” to recall the ’23 opener. John Fogerty performed “Centerfield” from center field on a baseball-bat-shaped guitar (later claimed by Idelson), and then Bernie Williams did a soulful acoustic guitar version of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” to great cheers of “Ber-NIE, Ber-NIE, Ber-NIE.” A huge flag was unfurled, and a military flyover accompanied the national anthem, which was performed by Kelly Clarkson, an
American Idol
winner. This was especially ironic when the Indians were introduced, for there was the “American Idle” himself, Carl Pavano, to a chorus of boos. No one thought to take their picture together.