Yankee Stadium opened 100 years ago with epic proportions, massive crowds and a Ruthian swat — and changed baseball forever.
The great man stepped onto the field for the first time around 2 o’clock on the afternoon of April 17, 1923. It was a clear and cool day in New York City, and normally the baseball season already would have been underway for a week. The grounds on which Ruth stood was the reason for the delay.
In its infancy, the new baseball park was referred to as “Yankee Field,” mostly because that’s what baseball venues always were: parks or fields or grounds.The Red Sox had taken the field for a workout at noon that Tuesday afternoon, the day before the grand opening, and to a man they marveled at the vast stretches of open field; center field was nearly 500 feet away from home plate. That’s all anyone could talk about.
Ruth knew all of this, which is why he grinned when he stared at right field one last time before leaving the box. Later, back in the Yankees clubhouse behind the third-base dugout, he confided something to his closest friend on the team, Jumpin’ Joe Dugan, a line he would repeat to a few trusted newspapermen the next day, when Yankee Stadium was set to open its doors for real.
In 1912, the Yankees were 50-102-1, dead last in the American League. They drew 242,194 fans, and their lease was expiring. There was brief talk of possibly finding a new city, but instead they were offered a new home: the Polo Grounds. The Giants would be their landlords, returning a favor the Highlanders had provided a few years earlier, when the Giants played at Hilltop following a fire that destroyed the Polo Grounds.
Still, Stoneham wasn’t the only owner in town who knew he had to protect his market share. Ruppert, the beer baron, had taken notice when, in 1917, an elevated subway station was constructed in The Bronx, at 161st Street and River Avenue. Though it was assumed the Yankees would try to build a ballpark in Manhattan, the team chose to take advantage of the space and subway access The Bronx afforded them, as this 1921 drawing of the project demonstrated.At last, in February, the Yankees announced they had paid the estate of the Astor family $650,000 for a 10-acre plot of land that was being used as a lumberyard. It previously had been a farm granted by the British before the Revolution to a man named John Lion Gardner.
The Yankees did make the World Series, overcoming Ruth’s “sluggish” 1922 of .315/35 homers/96 RBIs in just 406 at-bats. But the stadium wouldn’t be available to them. It all had cost a tidy $2.5 million. Factoring inflation, that’s $44,128,070 in 2023 dollars — or 5 percent of what the building that replaced it would cost 86 years later.
“Thirty thousand unreserved box seats and 20,000 bleacher seats will not be placed on sale until the day of the game,” Yankees general manager Ed Barrow said. “There will be plenty of room for all and plenty of chance for the fans to buy their seats at the park on Wednesday. The Yankees fans can now go to the games on big days with the assurance that they will not only be able to get in the ballpark, but will also be able to get a good seat.
At first, Barrow and his bosses were worried. Peering out of their offices high above the stadium, they saw a modest crowd of 500 people milling around the front when the doors opened at noon. But their fears were soon allayed. By 1:00, each of the three dozen ticket booths were swarmed with fans eager to plunk down $1.10 for grandstand seats and 50 cents for bleachers. By 2:00, even the third deck was packed. And by 2:10, Inspector Thomas Riley ordered the main gates closed and padlocked.
The NYPD made two arrests for ticket speculation: Detective Andrew M. O’Connor of the Fifth Inspection Division caught Abraham Cohen, 28, of Brooklyn trying to scalp a $1.10 seat for $1.25 and 35-year-old Sebastian Calabrese asking for $1.50. Both men were arrested and held overnight in lieu of $500 bail.
The crowd roared. And did so again at 3:31 when Yankees pitcher Bob Shawkey threw ball one to Red Sox leadoff hitter Chick Fewster before retiring the Sox 1-2-3. Sox pitcher Howard Ehmke returned the favor in the bottom of the first, including inducing Ruth — already identifying his preferred Stadium target — to fly out to right.
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