Happy Birthday to us. Yankee Stadium opened this day, as the Yanks beat the Boston Red Sox 4-1 on April 18, 1923, behind the pitching of Bob Shawkey over Howard Ehmke, and on Babe Ruth‘s three-run home run. It must have been some party; 74,000-plus were in attendance. It was a particularly poignant anniversary in 2008, and was so again in 2009. Continue reading →
It’s hard to imagine a much bigger day in Yankee history than April 17, 1951. Sure, Babe Ruth certainly performed some pretty historic feats years earlier. But on this day, as the Yankees opened at home and Vic Raschi shut out the Red Sox, 5-0, Mickey Mantle played his first Yankee game, had one hit and scored a run. And if that’s not enough, it was also the debut of Stadium public address announcer Bob Sheppard, The Voice of God to Yankee fans. Unfortunately, we finally lost Mr. Sheppard in 2010. Continue reading →
Although DJ LeMahieu gets props for having driven in both runs (with a hit-and-run single and a home run), the April 16, 2023 2-0 victory over visiting Minnesota on April 16, 2023, belongs solely to Yankee ace Gerrit Cole, who used 108 dominant pitches to turn in the 2-0 complete-game shutout. His eighth-inning strike out of Donovan Solano gave him 23 double-digit strike outs with the Yankees, tying him with Ron Guidry for that mark. Continue reading →
In another big game for struggling youngster Jasson Dominguez on April 15, 2025, the left fielder crowned a four-run sixth inning with a three-run, bases-loaded double. The big hit gave ace Max Fried the 4-2 victory over the Royals, as he pitched seven complete innings. Continue reading →
Righty starter Carlos Carrasco pitched just long enough (five innings) for one of his two Yankee wins on April 13, 2025, over the Royals because Trent Grisham, Ben Rice, and Austin Wells hit singleton home runs in the home fifth off KC righty Seth Lugo. Jazz Chisholm accounted for the first Yankee run in the 4-1 victory with a fourth-inning homer of his own. Continue reading →
Up 3-1 over visiting San Francisco through five behind Carlos Rodon on April 13, 2025, it all came crashing down on Jung Hoo Lee‘s three-run home run in the sixth. The Giants prevailed by a 5-4 final score. Continue reading →
Sitting in a 2-2 tie with the visiting Giants through four innings on April 12, 2025, the Yankees used a five-run fifth inning to cash in an 8-4 win. Four straight hits got the frame started, and following a walk and two outs, Jasson Dominguez crowned the inning with a two-run single. Ben Rice added a homer, and Cody Bellinger got the scoring started with a first-inning RBI triple. Continue reading →
On April 11, 1907, Roger Bresnahan became the first player to wear shin guards playing for the Giants in the Polo Grounds.
On April 11, 1912, the Yankees wore the pinstripes for the first time in the opener against the Red Sox at Hilltop Park. The locals (playing on the “Hilltop,” they were the “Highlanders”) took a 2-1 lead in the first against Smoky Joe Wood, but two of the four tallies Boston pushed across in the ninth scored on Wood’s single in the 5-3 New York loss. Continue reading →
The Yankees fell 5-2 to Miami in the Stadium on April 10, 2024, after Jake Burger (on his 28th birthday) crowned a four-run third inning with a three-run jack off Marcus Stroman. Both Yankee runs came late, from a Giancarlo Stanton home run and a Juan Soto rbi single. Continue reading →
There are plenty of Yankee- and baseball-related events to talk about that happened on April 9, including the death of a Hall of Famer. But the most significant item in this Yankee fan’s experience on that day occurred on 1996 Opening Day at Yankee Stadium. The Opener is an event that is longingly awaited every year, but the uplifting and exciting, then excruciating, five-game loss to the Seattle Mariners in the 1995 ALDS had left Yankee fans hungry for big-time winning baseball. So 50,000-plus suffered and froze their way to a 7-3 victory over Kansas City behind the gritty Andy Pettitte through a nonstop snowstorm that day. None realized that the day would have a second highlight with the almost offhand Yankee offer of a free ticket to one of three upcoming games to all who had suffered through the conditions. Continue reading →
