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The Madness of King George
Posted: Tuesday October 27, 1998 11:49 AM
I'm
not from New York. I don't live in New York. It wouldn't
bother me if much of New York was attacked by a sex-crazed
giant sloth.
But I love Yankee
Stadium.
Yankee Stadium is the single most important place in the
history of U.S. sports.
No? Name me another stadium that gave America the best
college football game (Army 0, Notre Dame 0, 1946, starring
four past or future Heisman winners), the best pro football
game ('58 NFL championship game, Baltimore Colts 23, New
York Giants 17, OT, ushering in the modern era of the NFL),
the best single-game major league baseball performance (Don
Larsen's perfect
game in the '56 World Series) and the most important prizefight
(Joe Louis's knockout of Hitler's Aryan model, Max
Schmeling, in
'38).
I could go on and will. Win one for the Gipper. Two popes.
Reggie's three. Thirty-five pennants. Ruth, Gehrig,
DiMaggio, Mantle. John Philip Sousa. Grambling football.
The Chesterfield sign with the smoke swirling out. The Old
Professor. Thurman's
locker. Nelson Mandela. Billy Graham.
Pelé.
It's not just me. Roger Clemens once scooped up a handful
of dirt from the Yankee Stadium mound and took it home. One
of the first things Tony Gwynn said after the San Diego
Padres qualified for the World Series was, "I get to
play in Yankee
Stadium!"
Now Curious George wants to kill
it.
Don't believe this Shinola that people are writing during
this Series about the
New George Steinbrenner. A nicer guy.
Doesn't meddle. So he listens to Metallica before games
with David Wells. So he's run out of pink slips. It's all a
setup. This is Eddie Haskell holding the chair out for
you.
Never forget this: George Steinbrenner is a card-carrying
greed beast. He's being good only because he's saving up
for his slimiest deed ever. He wants to put Yankee Stadium
on the prestigious list of America's Most Historic Dirt
Piles.
You can guess what George says he wants: luxury boxes.
George, you're going to end up in a one-man luxury box for
all eternity. What's your
hurry?
Of course, what George really wants is more money. George
needs more money like Manute Bol needs lifts. This is a man
who paid
$10 million for the Yankees 25 years ago and could now sell
them for at least
$750 million. George, how much lobster bisque can a man
eat?
Steinbrenner is like an aluminum-siding salesman. If his
lips are moving, he's lying. He says the Bronx is
dangerous. (Not on game days it's not. You can't throw a
bucket of M&M's in any direction and not hit six cops
and a police horse. A few bases get
stolen, tops.) He says people are afraid to go there.
(Well, that's true, except for the more than
three million that went this year.) He says there's no place to
park, access roads are lousy, and the stadium is falling
down. (For
$535 million the Bronx's Safe at Home plan would fix all that,
plus give him all the luxury boxes he can sit his lardass
in.)
George won't listen. He either wants to move the Yankees to
New Jersey or have the city build him a
$1 billion complex on the west side of Manhattan. "I would think
he would need to make a decision in the next four or five
months," says New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani,
who doesn't much care whether the Yankees play in the Bronx
or at 34th and 10th—just
that Curious George doesn't move the team to the other side of
the Hudson
River.
But how do you move history? How do you move the spot where
rightfielder Paul
O'Neill stands and thinks, Babe Ruth stood here? How do you
move the giddy, wild mix of race and class and life a
Yankees game attracts now? How do you move somebody like
85-year-old ticket-taker George
Kasoff, who
started working at the stadium 50 years ago? "He
[Steinbrenner] hardly even nods at me," says Kasoff.
"Yet he's taking something away that I
love."
As the Yankees, with their 2-0 Series lead, were packing up
for the flight to San Diego on Sunday night, coach Willie
Randolph, who played more games at second base than any
other Yankee, was stewing about the Stadium. "I
understand business and
prosperity and luxury boxes," Randolph said, "but some
things are sacred. Some things you don't mess with. I mean,
there are
ghosts bouncing around this
place."
May they all have George's home phone
number.
Tell us what you think. Sound off on the CNN/SI Message Boards.
Past Editions of Life of Reilly
Issue date: October 26, 1998
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