These are the kinds of days the old place was built for, when there was bunting draped all around her, when even on the coldest April days you could always coax a whisper of summer out of the sky. Opening Day at Yankee Stadium: five words that never grew tired across the generations.
The move across the street seems more permanent now than it ever did last year. The old place is coming down in hunks and chunks — “It looks like ruins,” Yankee manager Joe Girardi said — and soon there really will only be memories where Ruth and DiMaggio and Mantle did their finest work.
No, as much as the new Yankee Stadium saw last year — all those walk-off wins, all those pies to the face, all those postseason victories and that one final, glorious, championship-clinching win against the Phillies — today is when it officially becomes the Yankees’ home for good.
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Today, at 12:30, the Yankees will jog onto the field and receive their World Series rings, they will shake hands with Yogi Berra and Whitey Ford, and a brand-new championship flag will rise high over the outfield. The first 26 championships in the team’s history may belong to the city, and to the fans, but they also belonged to the old place.
This one, No. 27, belongs here. Forever.
“It’s a new year,” pitcher Joba Chamberlain said yesterday, “but this is the one day that we’ll get to celebrate last year.”
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They all come to this day with different perspectives. For the Core Four — Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera and today’s starting pitcher, Andy Pettitte — it is the return of a formerly annual rite of spring that had escaped the Bronx calendar for nine years. For the first-timers — specifically, Alex Rodriguez — it will be final validation of a triumphant autumn.
“I don’t expect Alex will feel like he’s even walking on ground,” Girardi said. “You make that walk like your feet are on the clouds.”
For Hideki Matsui, it will be an odd trot from the third-base dugout, where the visiting Angels will be quartered. Last year’s Series MVP is certain to get a foundation-rattling, thanks-for-the-memories greeting before Yankee fans learn to treat him as the enemy. And for the newcomers — Curtis Granderson and Javier Vazquez, most notably — it will be a far-from-subtle reminder of what’s expected once you don the pinstripes.
“It’ll make you hungrier,” Granderson said. “And thirstier.”
These are the spoils of victory, the April perks of October’s work. The old place seemed to exist for such occasions, always wore the bunting like a nightgown and amplified the cheers to where they could penetrate not only your ears but your heart, too. She lies in state now, the torch officially passed.
Opening Day at Yankee Stadium: five words that still carry the day.