Description

The home of a record 37 American League championships and 26 World Series Championships, Yankee Stadium opened April 18th, 1923 with a pitch thrown by the Yankees Bob Shawkey to Chick Fewster of the Boston Red Sox. The Yankees would win that game by a score of 4 to 1 behind Babe Ruth’s 3 run homerun. Besides 83 years of Major League Baseball games (the Yankees played their 1974 and ’75 home games at Shea Stadium while Yankee Stadium was being renovated) the House That Ruth Built has been the host of 161 postseason games, most in Major League Baseball history and 4 All Star Games. The endless list of other famous events that have occurred at Yankee Stadium includes: NFL – the New York Giants- Baltimore Colts 1958 Championship game, and college football – notably Army v. Navy games in ’30 and31, championship boxing matches featuring, among others – Dempsey, Louis, Marciano, Patterson and Ali, masses said 3 different Popes – Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, soccer games – the New York Cosmos in 1971 and again in 1976, rock concerts – Billy Joel, U2 and Pink Floyd among the many, a rally for Nelson Mandela and that famous Notre Dame football game featuring the Knute Rockne “win one for the Gipper” speech. Here you see the last official pitch in the Bronx Ballyard’s history from Mariano Rivera being thrown to Brian Roberts of the visiting Baltimore Orioles on September 21st, 2008. This pitch will result in a ground ball to the 1st baseman, who’ll step on the bag to complete the 7 to 3 win and pull down the final curtain on the world’s best known sports stage.