Yankee Stadium [Hardcover]

Ray Robinson (Author), Christopher Jennison (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Forget the bleak news about Yankee Stadium falling down and the Bombers slipping across state lines to New Jersey. Yankee Stadium was there long before George Steinbrenner took over, and, says the smart money, it will remain there, the most famous of all sporting cathedrals, long after the Boss is gone.

Since its opening in 1923, the stadium has been storied ground. The Yankees became a dynasty there. Tunney, Louis, Marciano, and Ali all fought for the heavyweight title there. Two of the greatest games in football history--the Army-Notre Dame scoreless tie of 1946 and the Sudden Death victory of the Colts over the Giants for the 1958 NFL Championship--chewed up the grass there. Pele scored goals there, two Popes offered mass there, Nelson Mandela was adored there, and Billy Joel, U2, and Pink Floyd all rocked the House that Ruth Built there.

If ever a ballpark deserved to be venerated, it's this particular green patch of the South Bronx, and its 75th anniversary is duly noted and celebrated in this richly illustrated appreciation of the park, the players, the events, and the team that gave the place its hallowed name.

It's an evocative volume. Interspersed throughout its historical text are lovely observations and reminiscences from such luminaries (on and off the field) as poet Marianne Moore, novelist James T. Farrell, violinist Itzhak Perlman, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, comic Billy Crystal, Yogi Berra, Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, and Mickey Mantle. It features stunning archival photos of the stadium's construction, a particularly haunting image of DiMaggio watching its reconstruction in the '70s, hosts of action and publicity shots that span the decades, and a beautiful essay by Pete Hamill on Babe Ruth's farewell.

But it's Mel Allen, whose honeyed voice became synonymous with the Yankees from the late '30s through Casey Stengel's juggernauts and on into the '60s, who seems to capture the ethos of the place most clearly: "Suddenly," he remembers, "here I was, a guy supposed to practice law, broadcasting Yankee home games on radio from this mecca of baseball. This was the place, the number-one place in baseball. The stadium was like the Empire State Building or the Grand Canyon of baseball, and every time I stepped inside of it I had to pinch myself!" In its own way, Yankee Stadium--dazzled as it is by its dazzling subject--manages to pinch itself pretty good as well. --Jeff Silverman

From Library Journal

This book is about all the great sporting events?including great boxing matches such as Joe Louis's 1938 demolition of Max Schmeling?and some nonsporting events (such as papal visits and religious revivals) that have occurred at Yankee Stadium over its three-quarters of a century. Baseball does predominate, however, in this tale of "The House That Ruth Built." Longtime baseball writer Robinson, biographer of Yankee great Lou Gehrig (Iron Horse: Lou Gehrig in His Time, LJ 7/90) and Jennison have done a superb job in producing an easy-to-read text with a cornucopia of striking photos. Reminiscences by journalist Pete Hamill, broadcaster Bob Costas, and a few Yankee greats add an extra dimension. A solid hit for New York region libraries.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Studio (April 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670870935
• ISBN-13: 978-0670870936
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 8.7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,279,144 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Every True Yankee Fan's Second Home, August 16, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Yankee Stadium (Hardcover)

This book is an absolute must for every Yankee fan. It leaves no doubt that Yankee Stadium is the single most prestigious piece of real estate in the history of American sports. To tell the history of the Yankees and Yankee Stadium is to essentially tell the history of baseball itself.

More importantly, book appropriately emphasizes the non-baseball events that took place there, thus adding to the vast and diverse amount of memories that burn forever in the minds of those who have walked through its gates.

The only blemish within the book are the panoramic pictures of the remodeled Stadium on pages 130-133. They are inverted. Otherwise, the rest of the pictures and drawings are spectacular.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Nice Picture Book But Short On Content, September 17, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Yankee Stadium (Hardcover)

Good pictures but not too much about the players, no stats, and not many pictures of surrounding areas. Not a great deal about Mickey Mantle, DiMaggio, etc

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ruth built it, Robinson wrote an entertaining book about it, September 15, 2004

By 

Rocco Dormarunno (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Yankee Stadium (Hardcover)

Ray Robinson's, "Yankee Stadium: 75 Years of Drama, Glamor, and Glory" is a great primer into one of the most historic holy lands of sports. While it's undoubtedly famous for the team whose namesake it adorns, Yankee Stadium was also home to the New York (football) Giants for years, and it was the site for countless boxing matches and non-sporting events. But, of course, it's all about the Yankees and, exactly as Mr. Robinson puts it in his subtitle, the Drama, Glamor, and Glory.

While not a comprehensive, exhaustive research style book, there is ample information and anecdotes to go along with the countless photographs, some of which are familiar and others which are quite unique. I hope that one day, when Mr. Robinson gets around to it, a newer edition will add one more important event that occurred at the Stadium: the resumption of the World Series in 2001, just weeks after the devestation of 9/11/2001.