New York, NY (WFAN) -- 15. Joe Louis vs. Max Schmeling (June 22, 1938) and Muhammad Ali vs. Ken Norton (September 28, 1976).
There was a time when the Heavyweight Champion of the World not only deserved capital letters in the title, but was also the most recognizable face on the planet. And during their reigns it was true of both Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali.
Between 1923 and 1976 there were 30 championship fights held at Yankee Stadium. Boxing historian Bert Sugar puts the Louis-Schmeling bout at the top of the list, and not just among those at Yankee Stadium. "Probably the most famous and important fight in terms of sociological significance in the history of sports," said Sugar recently. "It transcends the 2 minutes and 4 seconds it lasted."
This bout was fought with a political and racial backdrop, the black American champion against the white German machine, all at a time when the Nazis were racing through Europe. One month before the fight comments were attributed to Schmeling that the black man would always be afraid of him. After the fight Louis was quoted as saying, "I was a little bit sore at some of the things Max said. Maybe he didn't say them, maybe they put those words in his mouth, but he didn't deny them, and that's what made me mad."
Louis's first round knockout was the biggest headline in the next day's New York Times, described this way by James P. Dawson:
The exploding fists of Joe Louis crushed Max Schmeling last night in the ring at the Yankee Stadium…In exactly 2 minutes and 4 seconds of fighting Louis polished off the Black Uhlan from the Rhine, but, though the battle was short, it was furious and savage while it lasted, packed with thrills that held three knockdowns of the ambitious ex-champion, every moment tense for a crowd of about 80,000…Emphasizing the savagery with which Louis went after this victory was Schmeling's feeble effort at retaliation. The German ex-champion threw exactly two punches.
Louis would go down as the one of the greatest, if not THE greatest heavyweight of all-time. His greatest challenger to that title would probably be Muhammad Ali. The self-proclaimed Greatest of All-Time made his only Yankee Stadium appearance in 1976 for a bout with Ken Norton. Among the spectators that night was returning Olympic Gold Medalist Sugar Ray Leonard. "It was amazing to see how artistic he was out there," says Leonard in the coffee-table book Yankee Stadium: The Official Retrospective. "He was beautiful to watch. To see a man that big who had the agility to slide and glide was unlike anything I could have imagined. And Yankee Stadium was a historic place to see him fight. That made for a spectacular event."
The fight itself wasn't one of the all-timers. It was a controversial 15-round decision that went to the champion Ali. In that coffee-table retrospective the bout barely made Bert Sugar's top 10 of the fight nights at the Stadium (it ranks #8). But it would be hard to argue that a bigger figure in this world than Muhammad Ali ever stepped in front of the crowd at Yankee Stadium. This was also the last boxing match ever held at the ballpark in the Bronx.
Naturally, the Louis-Schmeling fight ranks first on Sugar's list. Incidentally, #2 is Tony Zale vs. Rocky Graziano on July 16, 1946. "It was a war, probably one of the greatest fights of all time," said Sugar.
14. Mickey Mantle's 500th HR (May 14, 1967) and Alex Rodriguez's 500th HR (August 4, 2007).
No matter what people think of the significance of the number these days, 500 home runs is still an enormous accomplishment, a magical number that clearly puts a player into the game's elite. Two players have hit the number in pinstripes, Mickey Mantle in 1967 and Alex Rodriguez forty years later.
Mantle hit all 536 of his home runs in a Yankee uniform and 18 more in the World Series. In 1956 Mantle hit a ball off Washington's Pedro Ramos that missed going out of the Stadium entirely by just a couple feet and hit one in nearly the same spot in 1963 off Kansas City's Bill Fischer. Mantle hit a blast to dead center field that measured 502 feet on August 12, 1964 (that game was the major league debut of Mel Stottlemyre, who still remembers that home run before many other things about that first game).
In 1967, Mantle was way past his prime but "still awful powerful" according to Stottlemyre. He entered the season with 496 career home runs. Only 5 other players had reached the 500 mark when Mantle faced Baltimore's Stu Miller on May 14th. Before a crowd of 18,872 Mantle joined the club with a home run into the lower deck in right field. The solo home run in the 7th inning was the difference in a 6-5 win over the Orioles.
When Mantle retired before the 1969 season with 536 career home runs, only Babe Ruth and Willie Mays had more. While Mantle almost literally limped toward the 500 mark, Alex Rodriguez shattered the number in full stride with his sights set even higher.
A-Rod came to the Yankees with 345 home runs already in his pocket. There has been little doubt that if he stays healthy he will leap over every other name on the career home run list and add a few to grow on.
A-Rod joined the 500 HR club on a sunny Saturday afternoon last August. His 3-run home run off KC's Kyle Davies in the first inning landed just over the left field fence and at 32 years and 8 days it made A-Rod the youngest player ever to reach that mark. And that's what actually makes Rodriguez reaching the number a little less magical than Mantle.
A-Rod could conceivably reach 600 home runs by the end of the 2009 season, perhaps giving the new Yankee Stadium a major milestone in its first year of existence. And with Rodriguez signed for 8 more years after that, numbers 700 and 800 could be launched in the new building as well.
13. Babe Ruth's 60th home run (September 30, 1927) and Roger Maris's 61st home run (October 1, 1961).
For most of the 20th century the single-season home run record was kept under lock and key at Yankee Stadium. Until 1998 only two men had ever reached 60 home runs in one season, both left-handed Yankee sluggers.
Here is how Ruth's 60th was described in the New York Times:
Babe Ruth scaled the hitherto unattained heights yesterday. Home run 60, a terrific smash off the southpaw pitching of (Tom) Zachary, nestled in the Babe's favorite spot in the right field bleachers…the Babe took a viscious [sic] swing at the third pitched ball and the bat connected with a crash that was audible in all parts of the stand. It was not necessary to follow the course of the ball. The boys in the bleachers indicated the route of the record homer. It dropped about half way to the top. Boys, No. 60 was some homer, a fitting wallop to top the Babe's record of 59 in 1921.
While the crowd cheered and the Yankee players roared their greetings the Babe made his triumphant, almost regal tour of the paths. He jogged around slowly, touched each bag firmly and carefully and when he imbedded his spikes in the rubber disk to record officially Homer 60 hats were tossed into the air, papers were torn up and tossed liberally and the spirit of celebration permeated the place.
There was not much else to the game. The 10,000 persons who came to the Stadium were there for no other purpose than to see the Babe make home run history. After each of the Babe's visits to the plate the expectant crowd would relax and wait for his next effort.
The only unhappy individual within the Stadium was Zachary. He realized he was going down in the records as the historical home run victim, in other words the goat. Zachary was one of the most interested spectators of the home run flight. He tossed his glove to the ground, muttered to himself, turned to his mates for consolation and got everything but that.
Thirty-four years later, Roger Maris broke the Babe's record, reported by the New York Times this way:
The 27-year old Yankee outfielder hit his sixty-first at the Stadium before a roaring crowd of 23,154 in the Bombers' final game of the regular campaign. Maris hit his fourth-inning homer in his second time at bat. The victim of the blow was Tracy Stallard, a 24-year-old Boston rookie right-hander. Stallard's name, perhaps, will in time gain as much renown as that of Tom Zachary, who delivered the pitch that Ruth slammed into the Stadium's right field bleachers for No. 60 on the next to the last day of the 1927 season.
Along with Stallard, still another name was bandied about at the Stadium after Maris' drive. Sal Durante, a 19-year-old truck driver from Coney Island, was the fellow who caught the ball as it dropped into the lower right-field stand, some ten rows back and about ten feet to the right of the Yankee bull pen.
For this achievement the young man won a $5,000 award and a round trip to Sacramento, Calif., offered by a Sacramento restaurant proprietor, as well as a round trip to the 1962 World's Fair in Seattle.
For many who are still unsure how to rank the monster home run seasons of Bonds, McGwire, and Sosa there are still these two epic seasons. One was so off the charts it was the very definition of Ruthian. The other was a tale both heroic and sad, the whole production enveloping a quiet superstar. Both culminated at Yankee Stadium.
12. Brooklyn Dodgers win their only World Series-October 4, 1955.
The history of Yankee Stadium was written by one Yankee victory after another. As the World Championship banners flew year after year, and the legends passed the torch-from Ruth to Gehrig to DiMaggio to Mantle-the aura of the field they shared in common grew by leaps and bounds. There aren't many days the Yankees lost that could be considered one of the Stadium's greatest moments. This is one of them.
Brooklyn began fielding baseball teams in 1884 and had never won a championship. Seven times they won the pennant before coming up short. Five times between 1941 and 1953 the Dodgers lost in the World Series to the Yankees, twice in a deciding Game 7. Every time there was a Subway Series, the party was on the train to the Bronx, the countdown to next year began on the train to Brooklyn.
In 1955 it was Brooklyn's turn to celebrate. And they did it on the legendary field at Yankee Stadium. This is how the victory your Dodger fan grandparents still talk about was described in the New York Times:
Brooklyn's long cherished dream finally has come true. The Dodgers have won their first world series championship.
The end of the trail came at the Stadium yesterday. Smokey Alston's Brooks, with Johnny Podres tossing a brilliant shutout, turned back Casey Stengel's Yankees, 2 to 0, in the seventh and deciding game of the 1955 baseball classic.
This game the National League champions the series 4 games to 3. As the jubilant victors almost smothered their 23-year old left-handed pitcher from Witherbee, N.Y., a roaring crowd of 62,465 joined in sounding off a thunderous ovation. Not even the stanchest [sic] American League die-hard could begrudge Brooklyn its finest hour.
Tucked away deeper in the sports section that day was this nugget:
Borough President John Cashmore was moved to florid utterance about the Dodgers. He promised in an official statement (after municipal working hours) to order a survey for a new Dodger stadium at Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues. He orally challenged upstart communities outside the city that have tentatively offered a new playing field for the team.
"They must never leave Brooklyn," he said.
Two years later the Dodgers played their last game in Brooklyn. They have spent the last 50 years in Los Angeles and have won five World Series titles there. They won only one for the fans of Brooklyn. And they did it at Yankee Stadium.
11. George W. Bush's ceremonial first pitch-October 30, 2001.
When the Yankees made their run through the playoffs in 2001, it was hard to think of them as an underdog. They were, after all, aiming for their fourth straight World Series championship. But this time it was different and it was all because of 9/11. Just weeks after the horrific events of September 11th, the Yankees became a symbol of New York for people around the country. And it was against the backdrop of Yankee Stadium and the World Series that President George W. Bush made a statement for the whole country.
The World Series started in Arizona and the Yanks fell behind two games to none. The series shifted to New York for Game 3 and the President was coming to the Bronx to throw out the ceremonial first pitch. The President was going out to the mound at Yankee Stadium in full view of the fifty thousand plus in attendance and the rest of the world watching on television. A simple but important message was being sent: we will go on.
The security at the ballpark had been amped up even before the President's arrival, but now it got serious. Areas of the stadium were blocked off as "frozen zones" with Secret Service agents lining the hallways. Even the teams were held in their clubhouses, unable to exit. Bomb sniffing dogs were brought in to patrol every nook and cranny. There were snipers atop Yankee Stadium.
Now, there have been celebrities and dignitaries of all kinds invited to throw out ceremonial first pitches over the years. The actual throw never seems all that important, so there is little reaction when a ball goes flying in the wrong direction or takes four or five hops to home plate. This one was a little different and everyone knew it. The President spent several minutes warming up in the batting cages underneath the Stadium when Derek Jeter strolled by and only half joking warned him not to bounce it or else he'd get booed. Yes, this pitch was going to be that important.
When the moment arrived, another Yankee became part of the story more or less by accident. Normally Yankee starting catcher Jorge Posada would receive the first pitch. But the duty this time fell to backup catcher Todd Greene.
"Jorge was supposed to catch him, but Rocket (starting pitcher Roger Clemens) was warming up in the bullpen and took forever that night," said Greene recently. "About 15 or 20 seconds before (the pitch) someone looked out and said 'we don't have a catcher,' so I just grabbed my mitt and went out there."
The President ran out to the top of the mound to a huge ovation from the Stadium crowd. With the ball in his left, the President thrust his right thumb into the air to salute the crowd and the cheers grew louder.
Greene crouched behind the plate and had just one thought. "Without time to even think about it, I said to myself 'I can't drop this pitch! I have to jump as high as I have to or dive if I have to. I'm not gonna let a bad throw embarrass President Bush.' Obviously I didn't have to worry about that."
That's because the President delivered a strike on the fly and the crowd noise reached a crescendo rarely matched by anything else that has occurred on that celebrated field before or since.
Greene still remembers the event as a personal highlight. "My biggest moment in baseball, no question. I played 12 years in the big leagues and people still ask me about that before anything else."
The lasting image in Greene's mind is the one that stands out for most Americans too, because it's the message that was delivered to a city and a country. "I just remember," Greene said, "how big it was for him to be there, just kind of saying 'we're not afraid of anybody and we're going to go on and live a normal life as best we can.'"
You can purchase the commemorative coffee-table book Yankee Stadium: The Official Retrospective by visiting www.yankees.com or by calling 1-800-GO-YANKS.
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