Bronx, N.Y., October 29, 2008 — Of immigrant stock, I date my family’s arrival in the United States from the day my father and his family arrived in New York in the mid-1920s. They immediately gravitated to the Bronx, arriving around the same time the House That Ruth Built opened for business. Dad fought in World War II, married Mom and had four Baby Boomer children (I’m “the baby”), and moved us into a house in New Jersey.

I attended my first professional baseball game on a bus trip to Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia in the late 1950s. Then my two older brothers and I attended my first game in Yankee Stadium in 1960. Despite the cavalcade of stars the Bombers fielded, we were able to get seats behind the plate. My lifelong love of Mickey Mantle was kicked up a notch, the Yanks won, and we got to exit the ballpark by walking across the field to the bullpen exits. Who knew then that would ever change?

Looking back to that time, I reckon that I’ve attended about 1,000 games in the venerable old ballpark, most of them after it was closed and reworked in time for the 1976 AL East champion season. We attended a few games every year both before and after the renovation though, and my first musical memory is of “Pomp and Circumstance” being played as closer Sparky Lyle was delivered to the infield in the early seventies in a bullpen car.

Ray Charles doing “Hit the Road, Jack” comes next. It was blared from the loudspeakers anytime the improving Yankees managed to drive an opposing pitcher from the mound. Eventually, of course, my musical appreciation of pitching changes would come full circle. I’ve now been cheering for more than 10 years while “Enter Sandman” heralds the arrival of the greatest closer major league baseball has ever known.

I’d love to say that the gradual improvements in Stadium loudspeaker technology have just increased the music-inspired joy the ballpark has given me over the last few decades, but there has been one huge drawback. Someone affiliated with indoor arena marketing, I believe, advanced the theory some time ago that if your fanbase was not filling the seats, a high-decibel sound system would give the impression of a lively and packed venue to attendees and TV watchers (and commercial buyers) alike. As with all bad ideas, it was sadly just a matter of time before outdoor stadia adopted similar policies. As my attendance increased throughout the eighties while we fans awaited the string of championships that were sure to follow the glorious years of Thurman, Graig, Gator, Reggie, Bucky, Catfish, and Sweet Lou, the attendance slowly dipped while the decibels went up. The Yanks have certainly managed to solve the problem of empty seats. As late as the 2004 and 2005 seasons even, I see my scorecard notations peppered with attendance figures of 30- and 40-something-thousand payees, but I can’t remember the last time a crowd of under 50,000 attended in 2008.

So keep in mind that at least to my perception much of the booming noise that has engulfed me in Yankee Stadium the last 25 years or so has been just that, noise. Still, there have been fun associations over the years, and poignant ones too. Until very recently and since 1950, the ballpark has had a personality, several of them in fact, represented by the people that greeted us, entertained us, and assured us that we were in the right place. Numero uno is the one and only Bob Sheppard, whose return to the mike as Stadium emcee is awaited eagerly by all Yankee fans. Approaching the century mark in years, there is still hope that Bob can make an appearance in the new Stadium in 2009, although the only “Sheppardian” tones that lofted over 2008 Yankee fans was his taped voice announcing each coming at bat of Captain Derek Jeter.

Famously, Bob used to lead the entire stadium in a chorus of “Let Me Call You Sweetheart” every time the club played at home on Mother’s Day. We missed nothing this year, because not only did that day honoring Moms in 2008 occur while the team was on the road, the game itself was rained out in Detroit. In addition, Bob has been the unmatched master at the poignant remembrance. He has brought many a tear every Old Timers Day when players lost in the last year are remembered, and also when New York is mourning the loss of heroic members of city services including firemen and police officers. All of this culminated, of course, in the long celebrations marking the reopening of the Stadium following the events of September 11, 2001. The combination of the “voice of God,” Yankee style, and the playing of “Ave Maria” always evokes a poignant moment.

Of course there are any number of “player’s choice” songs, the ones they play as Yankee players come to the plate or appear on the mound. I won’t go into these. There are too many players, too many songs, too many genres, too many older songs I know, too many newer ones I don’t.

A no-brainer for a fan mini-celebration is when visiting pitching issues walks, and the loudspeakers have entertained us with an impressive list of songs over the years as Yankee players stride to first. Here’s a comprehensive, though probably not complete, list: “Walk This Way,” “Walking on the Sun,” “Walk the Line,” “Walk Like an Egyptian,” “These Boots Were Made for Walking,” “Walk Don’t Run,” “Walking in Sunshine,” “Walk Like a Man,” “I’m Walking (Yes Indeed, And I’m Talking),” and finally, a few that don’t include the word “walk” in their titles: “Free Ride” and “Wild Thing.”

Then there are the celebratory notes, stanzas, and whole tunes, some of which may be linked with a player, but the inherent reason for their use is to encourage the crowd to at least momentarily bask in the glow. In the doldrums between the late-seventies championships and the ones that would follow in the mid-nineties, the moments were few and far between, and one Memorial Day stands out, in 1991. Danny Darwin of the Red Sox fashioned a 5-3 lead over (current pitching coach) Dave Eiland and the home-standing Yankees over eight frames, and Jeff Reardon came on to close. But bottom-of-the-ninth singles by Hensley Meulens and Kevin Maas set it up, and Mel Hall homered for a 6-5 Yankee win. The loudspeakers blasted “Shout” for a full 15 minutes, and the 25,000 throng danced like crazy the whole time.

The jump-up-and-dance selection has included “Bern, Bay Bern,” “Baba O’Reilly,” “Black Betty,” and “Rocketman,” along with the theme from The Natural more recently. When the opposition suffers a miscue, “It’s a Mistake” is played now, though “How Bizarre” was popular several years back. And of course. Mr. Sinatra’s “New York, New York” has owned the Stadium, the borough, and the city as the (hopefully) celebratory postscript to games for some time. I, for one, am glad that Liza Minelli’s version is no longer dragged out of the vault after losses.

And then there are the songs through which one keeps up with business as usual. A stadium icon whom we’ve recently lost is Metropolitan Opera star, Yankee fan, and number 1-1/2 Robert Merrill, who often before games sang the National Anthem, but who also had an impressive win streak years ago when he would substitute “America the Beautiful” instead. More recently, we’ve been bombarded with Kate Smith’s “God Bless America,” perhaps in the manner Irving Berlin had in mind when he wrote it, but in an interpretation I think most feel has long has oulived its usefulness. One listen to the plaintive strains of Ronan Tynan’s interpretation render it clearly a better tribute to the thousands who died in Lower Manhattan, Washington, and Pennsylvania seven years ago, and to others who have given their lives since. In this millennium, we plead for the lives and well-being of Americans, but not because we think they are more valuable and important than those of others.

The Yankees initially brought out “YMCA” in the middle of the fifth inning as they opened their major-league Spring Training facility in Tampa in March 1996. George Steinbrenner was even on the field helping as they dragged the infield during it. As we all know, it made the trip north to the Bronx, and it has gone a long way toward extending the shelf life of one of the least likely seventies songs to survive that era. But it was a big hit right away. Am I tired of it? Yes, but fans still thrill to its inclusion every single game, I can pay witness to that. The team tried to substitute another hand-move-heavy dance tune in “The Macarena” in August 1996, but it was abandoned as the team promptly lost the first three games at which it was played. “Cotton Eye Joe” came along shortly thereafter. I don’t get the countrified tune 120 blocks north of Broadway, but it gets people up and dancin’ between innings, so I like to call it the anti-wave.

Thin Lizzie’s “The Boys Are Back in Town” commemorates the first game of a homestand, welcoming the team back from the road, and the Evil Empire music from Star Wars pounds throughout the park as the dastardly members of the opposing lineup are announced. “Welcome to the Jungle” is often played around this time too, and all these game intro tunes are keyed by the Rolling Stones and “Start Me Up.” We often hear the Moody Blues and “Tuesday Afternoon” on the week’s second day, while Saturday (“Saturday in the Park,” “Saturday Night’s All Right for Fighting”) and Mondays (“Monday Monday,” “Manic Monday”) have two songs apiece. As someone who has hardly missed a Sunday home game in 25 years, however, my favorite is “New York on Sunday.”

That about covers it for the usual stuff, with just three special days (and songs) left to mention. As the final year of the Stadium wound down during hurricane season, the unlikely events of September 6, 2004, come to mind. With Tampa locked in at home by Hurricane Frances even though they were slated to play a Labor Day Weekend series in New York, the Friday game was shelved. The opponents were then scheduled to arrive at 1:00 pm Saturday for a double header, and the Yanks opened the gates early, and entertained the crowd with literally hours of batting practice while the concession stands distributed free hot dogs and cokes. The time for arrival slipped to 3:00, then it was to be one game at 7:00 pm. As the Rays players first emerged from the visiting dugout, the organist played, “If It Takes Forever, I Will Wait for You.”

Back in 1995, a whole generation of fans were forced to confront the humanity of one of their all-time legends, as Mickey Mantle passed away on August 13, one year and one day after the beginning of the 1994 baseball strike. A sad subplot played out as Phil Rizzuto sadly traveled to Boston with the team to fulfill his broadcasting duties as younger coworkers Bobby Murcer and others refused and flew to Texas to attend the funeral service. When the team returned home, they held a special pregame service on August 29. Later, I would have the privilege to meet and interview longtime Yankee organist Eddie Layton, another of the personalities that framed the Stadium experience during his 30-plus-years playing there. Agonizing over how best to memorialize this Yankee great, Layton played what he said Mantle had told him was his favorite song. His inspired rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” shook the crowd to its core. “Was Mickey thinking of the rainbow as something he could clear with one of his prodigious blasts?” is a thought I have fought (not very successfully) to resist ever since.

But my favorite moment came four years later. I was lucky enough to be in Tampa at Spring Training the March 1999 day that the “Greatest Living Ballplayer,” Yankee legend Joe DiMaggio, died. Those in New York had nowhere to go to express their grief when the news hit the wires, what with the Stadium in the Bronx not yet open for business. But we in Tampa could pay our respects at Joe’s plaque in the southern version of Monument Park. Five or six weeks later, we shared our thoughts and feelings with the rest of Yankee land. We stood at our seats in Yankee Stadium as Paul Simon, seated with his guitar in center field, left not a dry eye in the place as he sang,

“Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?
Our Nation turns its lonely eyes to you.”

And now I’m left to wonder with Jim Morrison of the Doors what to do when “the music is over.” We will attend games in the new Stadium, I’m sure. We’ll thrill to games and players, and listen to many of the same tunes, and new ones too. There will be wins and losses, good times and bad. The Yankees could always throw a party, and old and new players will be feted as the years go by. But in this September when my family’s sojourn in the United States and the greatest ballpark on earth each approached a 90th anniversary, I couldn’t help feeling that I was hearing that old Ray Charles taunt, directed at me this time, in my seat in Box 622:

Hit the Road, Jack.

YANKEE BASEBALL!!!