I recently watched House of Steinbrenner, one of ESPN’s 30 for 30 documentaries directed by Barbara Kopple. It wasn’t remotely as powerful as Kopple’s Harlan County U.S.A., which is a bit of an unfair comparison, since the latter is a chronicle of a bloody clash between Kentucky mine workers wanting to unionize and Big Coal’s hired thugs, and one of the most gut-wrenching docs you’ll ever see. And yet, I was surprised by how affected I was by House of Steinbrenner.* Early in the film, you see fans walking around Yankee Stadium during its last game, knowing this will be their last trip there, tears in their eyes. I was moved by it, and not just in an empathic way. I was surprised by how much of Yankee Stadium, as seen in the movie, was familiar to me.

* I was also baffled by why Kopple seemed to be given a hard time by the Yankees brass in the film, particularly Hal Steinbrenner, even though her movie was basically a love letter to the team and the stadium. Perhaps because, despite being a devoted Yankees fan, she dared to admit that Hal’s dad drove the team into a ditch in the 80s.

I don’t talk about it too much, but my mom became a Jehovah’s Witness when I was a kid. Aside from making you go to “Kingdom Hall” three times a week, there are also two small, local conventions a year that take up a weekend, and another ginormous convention once a year. For many years, this ginormous convention was held at Yankee Stadium. In the summer. This stems from the Biblical precept that being even slightly comfortable is sinful.

Somehow, we always managed to snag seats in the shady mezzanine. Pity the poor folks stuck with upper deck seats for three days of biblical reenactments and two-hour speeches on what the prophet Ezekiel means for us today. At the time, my favorite book was The Sporting News’ Take Me Out to the Ballpark, a collection of the history of various stadiums past and present, each one preceded by a detailed illustration of the park and its notable heroes. So rather than take notes on the sermons, as I was supposed to do, I’d sketch the outfield wall of Yankee Stadium. All of its ads for French’s Mustard and Utz potato chips, the scoreboard, and even the 4 train as it zipped past the gap between the right field stands and the bleachers.

At lunchtime, we’d wade through the sweltering stadium corridors to get chicken sandwiches and juice, the food tables smashed against shuttered concession stands and dusty ads for un-Christ-like products like Budweiser and the New York Lottery. Then we’d stroll the local streets, browse through the sports shops on 161st Street (a real treat for a budding baseball nerd), and get some ice from one of the Bronx’s ubiquitous Coco Helado carts.

So as I watched House of Steinbrenner, and saw fans filing through the royal blue hallways, a melancholy feeling washed over me. Seeing the goopy, pitted paint, those cramped, low-ceilinged corridors behind the stands, those slatted metal windows, and knowing they weren’t there anymore–the absence really hit me.

I saw this just before visiting the new Yankee Stadium. I went there expecting to have one of two reactions: either to be turned off by its ostentation and the team’s huge monuments to themselves, or to be grudgingly impressed. I didn’t expect the reaction I wound up having, which was basically: Oh, this again?
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