Saying Goodbye

I was among the millions who watched the ceremonies last night marking the final game at Yankee Stadium.

Like so many traditions in baseball, the practice of bringing back Old Timers for one more curtain call was established by the Yankees. However, the tradition of closing a stadium and moving to a new one began with the Orioles in 1992 when they closed Memorial Stadium and moved to Camden Yards. That ceremony brought back many veteran Orioles who one by one ran out to their old positions in the field.

Of course the Yankees were closing the most hallowed venue in baseball history, the biggest stage in a city filled with them from Broadway to the Bronx. They could also bring back or evoke the memories of some of the game's most legendary names.

Watching the survivors among those ancient diamond heroes, one could not help noticing the uniforms of Yogi Berra, Bobby Richardson, Don Larsen, Whitey Ford et al were tinged with yellow compared to the cool white of the contemporary players. Though bent with age and wrinkled from the many day games common to their era, these septuagenarians and octogenarians ambled out to their positions unassisted. Don Larsen, a journeyman player whose one moment of glory remains among the Stadium's and sport's most revered games, bent over on the mound to scoop up and pocket a fistful of dirt. No one had to tell him where history, his and every baseball fan's, was made.

For this charter member of the Yankee-haters club, baby-boomer division, the highlight of the evening occured when Berra and Ford joined Jon Miller and Joe Morgan in the broadcast booth. The quartet clearly enjoyed themselves. Ford even recalled facing Morgan in an exhibition game in Houston when the latter was just coming up. Morgan, still awed by these Yankee great, could not recall whether or not he got a hit. The two batterymates have always been known for enjoying themselves, some times at each other's expense, and last night was no exception as they told stories about each other, the team in general and the personalities they met along the way. One always hears players and managers say they "just want to go out there and have fun." Ford and Berra lived that maxim.