June 10, 1975
Has it really been 33 years? Well, it will be in 6 more days.
I was just trading e-mails with someone regarding some past “happenings” in Yankeeland and it triggered a memory for me…of this game.
Actually, it’s not about the game, itself; but, rather, about what happened before it.
That night, the Yankees held a pre-game ceremony honoring the United States Army’s 200th birthday. Keep in mind, this was 1975 – so, they were playing at Shea Stadium. During the ceremony, they had a gun battery from Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn fire off a twenty-one gun salute. But, after the smoke cleared, they found out that the 75mm artillery batteries blew a five-foot-wide hole in the outfield field fence around left-center. (The noise also broke some windows at Shea as well).
You just don’t see that kind of stuff at the ballpark any more, do ya?
I was at that game. I wasn’t looking towards the OF when the celebration took place and it scared the heck out of me. I remember parts of the cushioned padding swaying left and right as it was held on at one corner.
Basura – I had no idea you were a fellow old-timer!
My brother and I were watching the whole thing on television. We still chuckle at the tought of it. The hole, the smoldering wood. Shea is burning!
Another Shea memory from television, albeit of the Mets, was around the same era, banner-day doubleheader (remember those). The Mets were dreadful, some kid marches out with his banner decrying the awful Mets, and is promptly removed from the field.
Good one Don. I remember that too.
As much as I hated the Mets when I was a kid – and I did, with a purple passion – I always had green eyes over that banner day thing.
If the Yankees had done that when I was a kid, I would have been down there on the field with one, for sure.
The Mets were usually more “fan friendlier” than the Yanks, I don’t know if it was a byproduct of them being so bad
You know what I’d like to see more of? Footage from when the Yanks played at Shea.
I know it’s the ‘final season’ of our own grand ol’ ballpark and all, but as someone too young to witness any of those games in person or on TV, it’s like a piece of Yankees history that doesn’t even exist. Not in books and certainly not on YES.
I wouldn’t mind seeing more games from pre-renovation Yankee Stadium.
That they have the same games in rotation makes me think that there may be some kind of “rights” issue with the games. Which may be a bit odd, because I remember seeing a rebroadcast of Munson’s last game in Chicago.