Yankee Stadium

The Longest Single

by jscape2000 on Apr 15, 2008 11:17 AM EDT in Yankee Stadium

For you history buffs, a Mickey Mantle walk-off.

It doesn't really surprise me that one of Mantle's drives is the longest single in baseball (and therefore, Yankee Stadium) history. But for 52 years the written record of the August 10, 1956 game has been incorrect. From the NYTimes:

"With Billy Martin on third and two out, Mantle hit a towering 450-foot drive to center. The ball landed on the running track and bounced some 15 feet up into the centerfield bleachers for a ground-rule double."

Ernie Harwell was the radio broadcaster (no Gameday?) for the Orioles, and 52 years later he's straightening things out.

It was a double, at least for a while. But it was changed to a single, in accordance with the scoring rules [since Martin was on third].
...
In my effort to verify my memory of the hit as a single, I encountered a few surprises. Ken Hirdt at Elias Sports Bureau, the official statistician of Major League Baseball, located the game and the precise date. His check of the official scorer's report showed a double and a single for Mantle, not two doubles.

Ken's info was confirmed by Dave Smith of Retrosheet. Dave sent me the game's play-by-play and photo copies of the Yankees and Orioles scorebooks. These proved that Mantle's first double came in the third inning, in which the Yankees failed to score. That meant his one RBI came on the ninth-inning hit and had to be a single. Also, the official play-by-play of that final inning said: "Mantle singled to centerfield and Martin scored."

The Yankees scorekeeper also noted in his ninth-inning entry that Mantle's hit "bounced once into cf bleachers."

There is no doubt the hit was a single. Yet, my fellow researchers and I have never been able to find a correction of the original story. In printed material, it is always a double.

It's a beautiful thing that we get so worked up about this game that there are people spending their days tracking down 50 year old box scores to figure out if a particular hit was worth one base or two.

h/t Baseball Think Factory

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Scoreboard unveiled for New Yankee Stadium

by anaconda on Apr 1, 2008 4:31 PM EDT in Yankee Stadium

Newyankeestadiumdisplay040108_medium

(Source: Engadget HD)

Here's the press release and a description of the massive piece of technological eye candy:

The Diamond Vision™ scoreboard has 8,601,600 LED lamps and is nearly 101 feet wide and 59 feet tall, producing 5,925 square-feet of brilliant, high-definition display area. The display will be driven by Mitsubishi Electric’s state-of-the-art DSC2 Digital Display Controller, providing picture-in-picture type technology with the flexibility to show one large 1080 HD image, several HD images, messages, scoring or other data simultaneously. By comparison, the scoreboard in use today at Yankee Stadium measures 24.9-inches X 32.8-inches with 486,400 LED lamps. The new Diamond Vision will be flanked by matrix signage supplied by Daktronics, Inc.

Hat tip to RAB

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The Hidden Yankee Stadium

by anaconda on Mar 30, 2008 9:46 AM EDT in Yankee Stadium

On the eve of the final Opening Day at Yankee Stadium, Tyler Kepner gives us fans an extremely rare glimpse of some hidden secrets inside the most famous cathedral in all of sports.

Be sure to check out the “The Hidden Yankee Stadium” slideshow which Kepner also narrates. Pretty cool stuff.

Speaking of ballparks, I’m really looking forward to watching the Nationals’ home opener tonight to see the christening of Nationals Park. ESPN has a sneak peek inside that new yard.

Okay, sue me. I’m a sucker for cool ballparks.

First pitch just over 27 hours away.

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