Yankee Stadium

NEW YORK - Even Yogi Bera knew this was the end. As baseball said farewell to Yankee Stadium, one of the game's most beloved players stood beneath the stands in a full vintage uniform. Now 83, the man who coined the phrase "it ain't over till it's over" put his own stamp on the day. "I'm sorry to see it over, I'll tell you that," Bera said. The goodbye completed an 85 year run for the home of baseball's most famous team. What began with a Babe Ruth home run on an April afternoon in 1923 ended Saturday, September 20, 2008. -The Associated Press.
And I am sure my dad, Stuart H. Simpson, peering down from heaven, had more than one tear in his eye. My father was born in Brooklyn in 1912 and went to Yankee Stadium as a young boy. He and his "pals" usually couldn't afford a ticket in to see the game, so they would hang around the outside of the ball park until they let the youngsters in to the bleachers for FREE, sometime around the fifth inning. I can still see the look of wonder and excitement on his face as he would tell me of those times. "Barbi," he would say, "can you imagine a bunch of young kids getting to see Babe Ruth, Yogi Bera and Lou Gehrig play? That was great, just great. Those were the days."
For my sisters and I, "the days" were summer days, now in Wisconsin and Michigan, cheering along with dad as we watched the Yankees on television. To this day I am convinced that that was the real reason we owned a TV. And we all grew up to be avid Yankee fans. Thanks dad! Oh, and GO YANKS!!