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But even if undomed, the new Yankee Stadium has more character than those sterile, round, modular units that have sprung up across the sports landscape like mushrooms in a glen. It is basically the same looming, irregularly laid-out structure whose vast inner space Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle roamed heroically. Only it is clean, shiny and for the first time comfortable. The "Telescreen" on the scoreboard that was to flash messages like "Charge!" to the crowd was not working, and some box-seat spectators complained that their view of home plate was blocked by the dugout roof. But the ugly poles that screened the vision of generations of fans have been removed, and the seats are now wide enough—22 in. instead of 18—to accommodate America's middle-age spread. This bow to our hippy culture reduced the stadium's capacity from 65,010 to 54,028.
The distinctive, swag façade that once hung from the roof of the stands has been reproduced atop the new $3 million-plus scoreboard—only in concrete, not painted copper. Because the value of copper has risen almost as drastically as ballplayers' salaries since 1923, the original façade was melted down and sold. Perhaps it is now plumbing in a renovated brownstone. The playing surface is still alive: Merion blue grass, in texture irregular enough to promise a few historic bounces and in color a nice uneven biological green.
On April 18, 1923, close to 65,000 fans* flocked to New York's $2.5 million house of baseball. New York Governor Al Smith threw out the first ball. The first one hit into the stands—fittingly—was a game-winning home run by Babe Ruth that beat his old Red Sox teammates 4-1. Ruth's astonishing home-run hitting and his $50,000 salary had made baseball a different game and caused many to say the new stadium should have been called Ruth Field.
At last Thursday's reopening, sold out eight days in advance, Bob Shawkey, the starting pitcher in the 1923 opener, threw out the first ball. Five of his and Ruth's teammates from the 1923 Yankees (World Series winners that year) were on hand—Waite Hoyt, "Jumping Joe" Dugan, Hinkey Haines, Whitey Witt and Oscar Roettger. The youthful crowd greeted the old heroes with no more than polite applause and saved the biggest ovation for Mickey Mantle, the most nearly contemporary demigod introduced. Even Joe DiMaggio failed to produce much of an explosion among the watchers. Because of his recent television commercials, many of them probably identify him more with coffee and a savings bank than with baseball.
But DiMaggio looked good—slim, dignified, younger than his 61 years, very classy. When DiMaggio was in kindergarten, the other kids probably came up to him and said, "Joe, you look good." When DiMaggio visits the Louvre, if he does, the Venus de Milo probably waits until they are alone and whispers, "Joe, you look good." "Welcome back, Joe," said several fans who happened to run into him and to remember back to the '40s, when he was making impossible catches with the poise of Charles Boyer stealing jewels. After DiMaggio had thanked them and moved away, the fans said to each other, "Don't he look good?"