Yankee Corner

East 55th Street and Lexington Avenue became my unofficial Yankees Corner. It was there, down the block from my office on Park Avenue, I said hello to Johnny Damon (twice) and Shelley Duncan. I could have greeted George Steinbrenner but reacted too sluggishly when our paths crossed about 10 years ago as he was crossing north and I walked south along Lex. He was wearing his signature white turtleneck sweater under a blue blazer, but what surprised me at the time of our fleeting encounter was his height. I had always envisioned Steinbrenner as a giant of a man, equal in size to his ego. He was a larger than life character, but he stood just six feet tall. My height.

George, King George, The Boss, will be missed, but, in truth, he hasn’t been around for at least three years. I’m not talking about his body. I’m referring to his presence. His ability to control a dynamic. It’s a testament to him that the Yankees won their 27th and most recent (it would be wrong to call it their “last”) championship adhering to the principles he espoused.

I started going to Yankee games back in the 1950s. One of my father’s sales representatives, Mr. Schaineman, with offices in the Empire State Building, would give my brother and me tickets to games. We’d take the subway up from Brooklyn to The Bronx. Back then, after the final out, you could walk across the outfield grass as you exited the Stadium through the gates behind the center field monuments of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Miller Huggins. One year we went to the Mayor’s Trophy Game, an exhibition game between the Yanks and the Dodgers (I can’t remember if Da Bums had already moved to Los Angeles). Gil Hodges hit a ball that landed behind the monuments, 468 feet from home. Hodges lumbered around the bases, but he was a slow runner and was nailed at the plate as he attempted an inside the park home run.

I attended perhaps one or two games during my teenage years through my late 20s, until I returned to New York to work for Lebhar-Friedman in 1977, the year of the first championship won by the Yanks under Steinbrenner. Like Steinbrenner, Roger Friedman, the L-F president, had attended Williams College. Roger was an avid Yankees fan; until the devastating economic downturn of the last few years the company purchased season tickets to four box seats some 12 rows behind the Yankee dugout. They were great seats. I was lucky enough to secure those tickets to one and sometimes two games a season for almost 30 years. I was supposed to take clients, but in truth I mostly took family and friends. I took Dan and Ellie to their first baseball games.

I never ventured out to Monument Park in the old stadium, and have yet to enter the new Yankee Stadium. I’m sure that when that time eventually comes, a sixth monument honoring George M. Steinbrenner III will join in grace those of Huggins, Ruth, Gehrig, Mickey Mantle and Joe DiMaggio.