Inside Yankee Stadium

For a TV reporter, Yankee Stadium is an interesting place, at least in my personal experience.  For starters, just to get there from the hotel feels like a small life win after battling NYC traffic.  

Once you get there, you get off the bus at the TV compound and walk down a few flights of stairs and into the bowels of the stadium.   You walk through a tunnel, passing the prep cooks getting everything ready for the game time crowd along with a view of the ballpark from behind the centerfield wall.  Pretty neat thing for a ballpark geek like myself.  

The ballpark itself is a neat place, with a big video board, a “roll call” that will make any baseball fan’s head spin when you see it in person and a place beyond centerfield with a TON of tradition – Monument Park – which reminds me of a neat story.   

One afternoon before a night game in September of 2022, we set up a feature to run in the pregame show and turn into an in-game “hit” during our broadcast later that night.  The story that day was a neat one, featuring former Pirates pitcher Wil Crowe and his great-great uncle, Charles “Red” Ruffing.  Ruffing played 22 big league seasons, won six World Series titles, made six all-star teams and entered baseball’s hallowed halls in Cooperstown in 1967.  

Kevin Kane is a cameraman whose career has spanned close to three decades, and is well-loved all around the sports he covers.  He will also kick your ass in any bar game you can name, and it drives me f&$@ing crazy for well over a decade now!  Wait, where was I?  Oh yeah, Monument Park.   

Crowe and his wife, Hilary, brought their infant son, Koa, to Monument Park and allowed Kevin and I to bring a camera to tell their story.   Koa’s middle name is Ruffing, named after the all-time Yankee great!

Later that evening, Crowe entered the game in the 9th inning and gave up a leadoff homer to Aaron Judge, who someday will have his own plaque in Monument Park.  That homer was Judge’s 60th of the season, which tied him with Babe Ruth’s 1927 single-season home run mark, and also made him just the sixth player in the history of Major League Baseball to hit 60 bombs in a season.  

Pretty wild to see it happen in real time from a few feet away and the symmetry of a story like that is why we love the game of baseball, especially at places like Yankee Stadium that, while being built in 2009, still carries as much baseball lore as any other around the game.  

Monument Park is open to the public, and I highly recommend you pay a visit there and see the plaques of the greatest players to ever wear the pinstripes.  

A scenic shot of Yankee Stadium from the highest point behind home plate that includes the famous “ornate frieze” that adorns the top of the ballpark.  Serving no functional purpose, the original frieze was made from copper and lived at the original Yankee Stadium from 1923 to 1973 before being taken down and sold for the price of copper when renovations began in 1974.  It has been recreated at the current home of the Yankees since 2009.  

During batting practice, the “NY” logo is roped off, but makes for a nice shot of the stadium behind the “turtle” that players enter to take their pre-game practice swings. 

The home bullpen at Yankee Stadium.  This picture was taken just after former Yankees pitcher Jameson Taillon threw a bullpen session.  

Nathan’s Hot Dog stand along the concourse at Yankee Stadium. Founded in Coney Island in 1916 by Polish immigrants Nathan and Ida Handwerker, Nathan’s Hot Dogs are synonymous with games at Yankee Stadium.  

The tunnel that leads to the clubhouses at Yankee Stadium.  Visiting players, coaches and staff walk through this tunnel to get to work each day.  

The Great Hall at Yankee Stadium, which serves as the main entrance for most guests, which features huge banners of Yankee greats, is 31,000 square feet.  It also hosts events up to 1,500 guests on a non-game day. 

The sides of the of the end seat of each row are pretty neat, and of course we photographed row 3 in honor of “The Babe”.

The plaques and retired numbers in Monument Park, beginning with Lou Gehrig’s #4.  Note there are two Yankees who wore #8 - catchers Yogi Berra and Bill Dickey. 

The “Welcome to Monument Park” sign as you enter the shrine for the greatest to ever wear the Yankees pinstripes.

The memorials (from left to right) of Lou Gehrig, manager Miller Huggins, who won three World Series, including the famous 1927 “Murderers Row” team, and Babe Ruth in Monument Park.  

The plaques and retired numbers in Monument Park. Note #42, which was retired in 1997 by all 30 teams in honor of Jackie Robinson.  Yankees closer Mariano Rivera was the final player to wear #42 in Major League Baseball.