The Last Days of 'The Cathedral'

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If you're a sports fan — not just a baseball fan — you have to feel something in these, the final days of Yankee Stadium.

Yankee Stadium opened 85 years ago, in 1923, and it's been the home of baseball's New York Yankees ever since — except for the 1974 and 1975 seasons, when the stadium was closed for renovations.

Yankee Stadium has played host to college and pro football games, as well as some noteworthy boxing matches. Outdoor venues rarely host fights anymore, but it happened frequently at Yankee Stadium. Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney both won fights there in the 1920s, and Joe Louis beat Max Schmeling in Yankee Stadium in the 1930s — in a symbolic victory for America over Nazi Germany.

Tony Zale beat Rocky Graziano there in 1946, and Sugar Ray Robinson lost there in 1952.

In the final fight at Yankee Stadium — the only fight held there after the renovation — Muhammad Ali defeated Ken Norton in 1976.

It is as the home of the Yankees that the stadium will always be remembered. So many of baseball's greats have played there — Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford, Reggie Jackson, the list goes on and on.

And, because the Yankees have won so many world championships, it follows that there have been more postseason games played in Yankee Stadium than any other ballpark.

A total of 16 World Series championships have been clinched with victories at Yankee Stadium — nine by the Yankees, seven by their opponents.

Other than the Yankees, the St. Louis Cardinals are the only team to wrap up more than one world championship at Yankee Stadium.

Unless a miracle happens and the Yankees sneak into the playoffs, Sunday night will be their final game at Yankee Stadium. The Baltimore Orioles will be the opponent. ESPN will be there to present the final game — and I'm sure there will be some nostalgic film clips from the stadium's 85-year existence.

The game "will be an open-casket funeral for the House that Ruth Built, with no shortage of eulogies, tears and fond remembrances," writes Jeremy Olshan in the New York Post.

"Though some 40 former Yankee greats are expected to pay homage to the Stadium," Olshan writes, "more notable perhaps are the two biggest absences: Yankee boss George Steinbrenner and public-address announcer Bob Sheppard, who are both too ill to attend."

Of the two, I would say that Sheppard's absence is the more significant. His distinctive voice has announced the players at Yankee Stadium since 1951. Reggie Jackson called him the "Voice of God." It's hard to imagine the final Yankee game at Yankee Stadium without the 97-year-old Sheppard at the public address microphone. But that's the way it will be on Sunday night.

Nevertheless, it should be a memorable day for the folks who are fortunate enough to be there. For three hours on Sunday afternoon, fans will be allowed to walk around on the field, reports the Associated Press.

Can't be there? Tune in that evening.

If you need something to help you get in the mood, ESPN Classic will be showing films of some of the great sports events that have occurred there in the last 85 years — including some of the noteworthy fights.

There's a slight chance of showers in New York Sunday night, but it doesn't look like it will be enough to dampen the occasion.

Among the many for whom the final Yankee game at Yankee Stadium will be a bittersweet experience is famed songwriter Paul Simon, who reminisces in the New York Times about a lifetime as a Yankee fan.

For those who are old enough to remember Simon and Garfunkel's classic songs in the film "The Graduate," there is a special poignance in the reflections of the man who wrote the lines, "Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio/Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you."

And, in Simon's words, it's time to say "so long" to the House that Ruth Built.