I grew up in Middletown a Yankee, Giants, Knicks and Rangers fan primarily because I was a Yankee fan and my parents took me to a couple Yankee games every year and I adopted all the City's teams. We did go to Fenway a couple times but to me it was a dump compared to Yankee Stadium.
I'll never forget the feeling the first time I walked in from behind home plate and looked out at that expanse of grass. It looked impossible to hit a ball far enough to reach the bleachers in left center and center. Edit to add: Yankee Stadium was built in 1923 at a cost of $2.4 million ($33 Million in 2016 dollars according to a website I looked at). Imagine how long it would take to build today and at what cost.
Back then left center's wall was 457 feet and center 461. Mickey Mantle hit a lot of 457 foot doubles in his time and as a huge fan of Mantle I always wondered how many home runs he would have hit in a place like Atlanta where I went to a number of games in the early 70's. When Davey Johnson went to Atlanta from Baltimore, for example, he hit 43 home runs his first year whereas he'd never hit more than 18 in Baltimore.
