The untold story of Babe Ruth's Yankees, John McGraw's Giants, and the extraordinary baseball season of 1923. Before the 27 World Series titles -- before Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, and Derek Jeter -- the Yankees were New York's shadow franchise. They hadn't won a championship, and they didn't even have their own field, renting the Polo Grounds from their cross-town rivals the New York Giants. In 1921 and 1922, they lost to the Giants when it mattered most: in October. But in 1923, the Yankees played their first season on their own field, the newly-built, state of the art baseball palace in the Bronx called "the Yankee Stadium." The stadium was a gamble, erected in relative outerborough obscurity, and Babe Ruth was coming off the most disappointing season of his career, a season that saw his struggles on and off the field threaten his standing as a bona fide superstar. It only took Ruth two at-bats to signal a new era. He stepped up to the plate in the 1923 season opener and cracked a home run to deep right field, the first homer in his park, and a sign of what lay ahead. It was the initial blow in a season that saw the new stadium christened "The House That Ruth Built," signaled the triumph of the power game, and established the Yankees as New York's -- and the sport's -- team to beat. From that first home run of 1923 to the storybook World Series matchup that pitted the Yankees against their nemesis from across the Harlem River -- one so acrimonious that John McGraw forced his Giants to get to the Bronx in uniform rather than suit up at the Stadium -- Robert Weintraub vividly illuminates the singular year that built a classic stadium, catalyzed a franchise, cemented Ruth's legend, and forever changed the sport of baseball.

It’s Opening Day! Yankee Stadium towers grand, gleaming, and ready! On April 18, 1923, the New York Yankees played against the Boston Red Sox in their very first game in the brand-new Yankee Stadium. All the key players were there—future Hall of Famers Babe Ruth, Waite Hoyt, Bob Shawkey, Miller Huggins—and so were the supporters—Eddie Bennett, the legendary Yankee batboy; Jack Lenz, Yankee Stadium’s first public announcer; five-year-old Little Ray Kelly, Babe’s lucky charm; and more than 70,000 fans! Every person in the stadium on opening day was part of this legendary event, and now you can be too. With beautiful, true-to-event illustrations reminiscent of Norman Rockwell, and with facts on every page about the stadium, the teams, and that very first fateful game that christened the original Yankee Stadium, The House That Ruth Built is the perfect book for kids and baseball fans everywhere. Take a step into the past and watch the baseball greats make history!

Throughout the 2008 season, each game played at the world’s most beloved stadium brought “The House That Ruth Built” closer to shutting its gates forever. Players envisioned running off the field one last time. Vendors anticipated selling their last bags of peanuts. Fans readied themselves to raise their voices in one final cheer. In Remembering Yankee Stadium, Harvey Frommer—one of the country’s leading baseball authorities—takes us on a journey through the stadium’s storied 85-year old history, from 1927’s unstoppable Murderers’ Row, to Joe DiMaggio’s unfathomable hitting streak, to Maris and Mantle’s thrilling race for the home-run record, to the hirings—and the firings—of Billy Martin, to Derek Jeter’s rise to greatness. The moments and the magic that filled this great stadium are brought alive again through dozens of interviews, a gripping narrative, and a priceless collection of photographs and memorabilia. As the new stadium steps into the forefront, the old ballpark across the street recedes into memory, taking with it the glory and grandeur, the history and heroics, the magic and the mystique of its nearly nine decade-long life. This book captures that time and is at once an album, a keepsake, and a record of its fabulous run.

Yankee Stadium may be scheduled for demolition at the end of the 2008 baseball season, but the storied ballpark will live on in the memories of all baseball fans. "The House That Ruth Built" examines the legal history of the Yankees in their four New York homes: Hilltop Park, the Polo Grounds, Shea Stadium, and Yankee Stadium. This chapter, which describes a variety of real estate law issues the Yankees have faced, focuses on Yankee Stadium itself. Designed to be baseball's first true showplace, the Stadium was huge, luxurious, and fireproof, which differentiated it radically from the other parks in use in 1923. The chapter examines many of the legal issues the Stadium faced during its life, ranging from construction litigation, public finance, and labor strife, to copyright infringement, access for the disabled, and the rights of fans to wave provocative banners. Along the way, the chapter discusses many of the uses to which Yankee Stadium has been put, ranging from public viewings of Babe Ruth's casket to concerts by Pink Floyd and Billy Joel, from speeches by Nelson Mandela and Pope John Paul II to the memorial service that followed the September 11 attack. The chapter forms a part of "Courting the Yankees: Legal Essays on the Bronx Bombers," a collection celebrating one hundred years of the New York Yankees.

Yankee Stadium faces the wrecking ball after decades of glory that helped define the American Century.

Traces his mischievous childhood in Baltimore before his life-changing enrollment in Saint Mary's Industrial School for Boys, where a strict code of conduct and his introduction to baseball inspired his historic career.