It's Gone! Goodbye! (cont.)

The Babe had 60 home runs in 1927. AP RIP Yankee Stadium   Tom Verducci: My personal memories Alex Belth: Old Timers say goodbye Alex Belth: Ballpark defined an NYC era William Nack: Yankee Stadium's legacy Photos: Stadium Memories | GigaPan CNN iReport: The Stadium's last at-bat

Sam Rice played within my walls. Sam was an outfielder with the Washington Senators who kept a secret up until his death. In the 1925 World Series against the Pittsburgh Pirates, Rice jumped over a short rightfield wall in Washington's Griffith Stadium and into the bleachers to catch a long fly ball. He and the ball fell out of sight for a moment behind the wall and amid the fans. After a moment or two, Sam emerged with the ball in his glove. The umpires ruled the batter out. The Pirates argued for a home run, the chain of custody, so to speak, being left to doubt. Rice refused to tell anyone, including his own family, whether he had actually caught the ball or not. He said he would explain himself only by way of a letter he wrote that was to be unsealed upon his passing. When the letter was opened 49 years later, Sam Rice, from the grave, confirmed that he had caught the ball.

I thought about Sam and his secret, given my own impending death. What I decided is that I should tell you my secrets now, before the wrecking ball hits and I am gone for good. In about 13 months, after the scavengers and four or five demolition companies are done with me, a park will stand in my place. I want you to know what is being lost forever. As one of my final acts, I will show you the unseen places. I will separate fact from myth, though I have inspired so much embellishment and storytelling that even for me that is not always possible.

In a dying state, you don't worry about offending people. So let me just come out with the truth, even if this one might hurt: The original Yankee Stadium has been gone for 35 years. Derek Jeter doesn't stand in the same batter's box as Joe DiMaggio did, because home plate was moved forward some 10 to 20 feet in the renovation. Leftfield doesn't "get late early out there" anymore, as Yogi Berra famously observed, because the layout of the field changed; Death Valley, the infamous leftfield gap where titanic blasts went to die, became only a near-death experience, its deepest point chopped from 457 feet to 430 in 1976, to 411 in '85 and finally to 399 in '88. The frieze, made of copper, was sold for $75,000 to a guy in Albany, N.Y., who promptly melted it to sell for piping and other pedestrian uses. The foul poles were sold to a baseball team in Osaka, Japan, for $30,000. One-hundred-eighteen steel pillars, which were either a distinct structural element or a nuisance, depending on whether you ever sat behind one, were removed.

Indeed, short of Thomas Alva's concrete, there is almost nothing you can see from your seat today that somebody in that same spot could see in 1973. And even the concrete looks different. That's another story. In the mid-'60s the sand-colored concrete facade and the green patina frieze were painted white. When George Steinbrenner bought the Yankees, he made sure I was covered in fresh coats of paint. That's because in '73 graffiti artists tagged everything that didn't move, like me, and even some things that did, like subway cars. "It was disgusting," says Marty Appel, the Yankees' assistant public relations director at the time, "but that was New York City in the early '70s. You would walk around the Stadium, and it was gross."

Steinbrenner, who would stop to pick up gum wrappers on my concourse, was a stickler for cleanliness. In 1973 he demanded every day that his workers paint over any graffiti on the Stadium. This was war, and Steinbrenner knew he would win. Why? "We can buy more paint than they can," Steinbrenner said. He was right. The graffiti guerillas eventually surrendered.

In 1973 you would find the Yankees bullpen in right centerfield, where the pitchers threw on a slope toward the field. Today you find an elaborately landscaped, multitiered bullpen in left centerfield. Ironically, this is where you will find any graffiti. Bored relief pitchers, like cave dwellers, have adorned my bullpen bench area, which is encased by a glass wall and is air-conditioned. A switch plate has been decorated with a comic face that has the switch serving as a Cyclops-like eye and the name MENDOZA at the top, a reference to former Yankees reliever Ramiro Mendoza. One plastic cover over a fluorescent wall light has a football grid doodled over it, and another is festooned with an undersea montage, replete with a submarine that has the interlocking NY.

In the back corner is a door with the identification plate of GD 021. Open the door and you will find a small bathroom. There is a toilet bowl, a sink and no mirror. It hardly meets the Steinbrenner standards of cleanliness. This is where you would have found Mariano Rivera in the eighth inning of one of the greatest games I have ever hosted. This was the night of Oct. 16, 2003, Game 7 of the American League Championship Series against the Boston Red Sox. Rivera had been warming up on the bullpen mound when the Yankees, who had been down three runs to Pedro Martinez of the Red Sox with five outs to go, tied the game on a double by Jorge Posada. Overcome by emotion, Rivera ran off the bullpen mound, up a flight of stairs, into the enclosed area and into the tiny bathroom and slammed the door behind him. Then, alone, he cried.

"Just wait," Jeter had told new teammate Aaron Boone that summer, "when the ghosts come out here."

Boone remembered Jeter's prophecy after he hit the game-winning home run that night. Rivera was the winning pitcher. It was the 17th time I saw the Yankees win the clinching game of a postseason series. It would be the last time.

"People believe in myths and ghosts about this place," Rivera says. "I don't. We are blessed by the Lord. That's how I explain it. All of us players who have come through here have been blessed, and you see those blessings."

Rivera occupies a special place in my history, quite literally. During spring training in 2007, as it became apparent that veteran outfielder Bernie Williams would not be returning to the Yankees, clubhouse manager Rob Cucuzza told Rivera one day, "The Corner Locker. It's yours."

As you walk into the rectangular Yankees clubhouse, the locker in the near righthand corner is far bigger than all the others. A little farther south, say in midtown Manhattan, it could sublet for $5,000 a month. Here you get it only by invitation after acquiring enough service time and stature, and only when its occupant leaves the team. Starting with the 1976 renovation, it has passed from Sparky Lyle to Graig Nettles to Ron Guidry to Dave Righetti to Don Mattingly to Bernie Williams to Rivera. It will not be relocated across the street. There will be no corners in the next clubhouse. It is oval.

The clubhouse, like most everything else, looks nothing like it did before 1973. For my first 20 or so years, in fact, the Yankees dressed on the third base side. The players used red metal lockers with swinging doors full of holes to allow air to circulate. The players' names and, after 1929, uniform numbers were painted in white across the doors. It was in that locker room on Nov. 12, 1928, that Rockne, with his Notre Dame team tied 0-0 with Army at halftime, told the story (likely apocryphal) of former Fighting Irish star George Gipp, who on his deathbed asked that Rockne, if ever in need of inspiration, implore his team to "win just one for the Gipper." They did, winning 12-6.