Home > Baseball > MLB Stadiums > Yankee Stadium

Yankee Stadium

One word can describe Yankee Stadium, historical. Since its opening, Yankee Stadium has been home to more Hall of Fame players and more than two dozen World Championship teams than any other stadium ever built. The New York Yankees, then known as the New York Highlanders, began playing at 16,000 seats Hilltop Park in 1903. The team played at Hilltop Park until after the 1912 season when their lease expired. They then accepted an invitation to play at Polo Grounds, where the New York Giants played. With the move to Polo Grounds, the Highlanders changed their name to the Yankees.

Immediately the Yankees began looking for land to build a new ballpark on. A ten acre site, less than a mile from Polo Grounds in the Bronx was bought to build the stadium on. Designed by Osborn Engineering, originally the plan was for a triple-decked stadium with grandstands circling the entire field. However, because the stadium seemed to foreboding the original plans were scaled back.

The triple decked grandstand extended behind home plate and up the base lines. The lower deck continued until it met the wooden bleachers behind the outfield fence. A 15-foot copper facade was erected to adorn the stadium's third deck that became one of its most recognized and grandest features. The scoreboard was located beyond the bleachers in right field. Given the name Yankee Stadium, it was completed in only 284 days, opening on April 18, 1923.

Renovations to Yankee Stadium began immediately after the 1973 season. While Yankee Stadium was renovated the Yankees played at Shea Stadium, home of the New York Mets. Parts of Yankee Stadium were completely demolished. Changes were made to eliminate posts and columns that supported the upper deck. The copper facade atop the upper deck was removed and replicated at the top of the scoreboard that runs from center field to right field.

Over the past five years, the Yankees have been looking to build a new ballpark to replace Yankee Stadium. In June 2005, the team announced plans to construct a new Yankee Stadium adjacent to the current one that will open in April 2009. Plans call for most of the shell of Yankees Stadium and the field to be preserved. The city and state will help build a hotel, convention center, a high school for sports medicine and sports management, a museum and other offices in and around the current stadium.

Back to MLB Stadiums