Last Trip to Old Yankee Stadium Winds Up Being FIRST Trip INSIDE New Yankee

While I have a hard time recalling my first visit to Yankee Stadium, I remember almost everything about my final trip to the Yankees Iconic home. It was July 9th this summer, and little did I know that not only would it be my last visit to the current stadium, but my first visit to the new one. 

It was a Wednesday. I parked across from John Mullayly Park, above 165th Street about a quarter 'til noon.  I quickly made my south on River Avenue for the 1:05 start with the Tampa Rays. The construction of New Yankee Stadium dominated my view as I strode beside the park on the west side of the street.  Within three blocks, I was passing the construction entrances on the backside of New Yankee Stadium’s right field. I stopped and loitered for a moment, hoping to catch a view inside the new arena.

As I stood there gazing at welders on a framework outside of and above center field, the lunch whistle sounded and a few moments later, workers started pouring out of the construction site and onto the sidewalk. Most of them turned north and began to trudge toward 164th Street, where a string of lunch trucks were double parked. Within a few minutes, two security guards stepped out from behind the fence and briefly conversed. 

One of the guards was young, late 20s, the other much, much older; I made him to be 75-plus. The younger guard looked at his watch and spoke to the other man without really looking him in the eye. He pointed up the street toward the makeshift cafeteria and shuffled a half step in that direction. As he turned to walk away, he shouted something over his shoulder and then took a full stride up the street and then with a half trot, he was gone, disappearing into the lunchtime crowd.  

The older guard, now alone next to the open entrance to the site, leaned against the wall. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a cigarette, which he fingered nervously, as only a nicotine addict can. It was obvious he was more than a little peeved that he was catching the late lunch shift, if only because he desperately need a nicotine fix. He looked past me toward his younger boss, and I watched as he mouthed an expletive.

I suppose it was a combination of curiosity and impulsivity that made me approach him.  The other reason is I figured I had nothing to lose and that my hair-brained scheme, conceived in that instance of observing him, might actually have a chance of succeeding. I took a deep breath, rehearsed in my mind what my first words to him would be and approached the guard with a singular intent: begging or buying my way inside the perimeter to gain a view of the Yankees new confines.

As I stepped toward him he looked up and I said, “Well, I don’t guess he’s ever heard the phrase ‘age before beauty.’” 

“Beauty was a horse,” he quipped. 

“Say, you can probably tell by my accent I’m from the deep south. I’m a huge baseball fan, a Yankee fan, and I was wondering, is there any way on earth you could lead me in there for about a 30 second glance at the new stadium?"

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