We're actually losing 'second' Yankee Stadium

NEW YORK - Thirty-four games left.

Well, not necessarily. The Yankees could make the playoffs.

But whether it's the last regularly scheduled game against Baltimore Sept. 21 (what kind of bizarre scheduling has the Yankees finishing up this particular season on the road?), or on some unspecified October date, the final game in the history of Yankee Stadium will be played this season. And, yes, attention is being paid.

It should be. Yankee Stadium isn't the oldest ballpark in the major leagues. That honor belongs to - aw, shucks - Fenway Park, our own lyric little bandbox of a ballpark, which opened for business in 1912. Wrigley Field (nee Weeghman Park) opened two years after that.

But when Yankee Stadium came into being in 1923, the House that Ruth Built was something entirely new and majestic. The name "Stadium" itself ushered in a new era of grandiosity. Previous structures were always known as "Parks" or "Fields," or, as in the case of Yankee Stadium's across-the-river neighbor, "Grounds." But "Stadium," taken from the Greeks, carried with it a connotation of grandeur never before attached to a place where baseball was played. In sheer size it was unlike anything baseball ever had seen; the 1923 Opening Day crowd was listed by the Yankees as 74,200.

The rest, as they say, was history. The Stadium was constructed because the Yankees already were a baseball power (winning the 1921 and 1922 pennants, but losing both World Series to the New York Giants, their Polo Grounds landlords). The Yankees needed, and deserved, a place of their own. Appropriately, they won both the pennant and the first of their 26 World Series that maiden year.

It would be foolish for anyone to deny that a place we know as Yankee Stadium is the most famous of all American playing venues, indoors or outdoors, or to deny that more memorable moments in 20th century domestic sports history took place there than anywhere else.

I just have one little problem with the current celebration.

I'm rather insistent that there have been two distinct ballparks known as Yankee Stadium. I believe we are saying goodbye to the second one. We already paid our respects to the first one 35 years ago.

Yankee Stadium I was shut down following the 1973 season. The Yankees were dispatched to Shea Stadium for the 1974 and 1975 seasons while the structure was gutted and completely remodeled, changing the outfield dimensions dramatically while reducing seating capacity by at least 16,000.

Yankee Stadium II is a fine ballpark, replete with notable landmarks. It is a great place for players and spectators. It has had its share of baseball history. It is a good, old-fashioned honest-to-God ballpark, and it will be missed.

But the Yankees are perpetuating a fraud. They are attempting to con people into thinking that there has been a continuum since 1923, that this is the same ballpark where Ruth took aim at the inviting right-field fence, the Great DiMaggio roamed Death Valley to corral would-be doubles and triples, and where The Mick switch-hit tape-measure home runs.

Nope.

It's the same land mass, the same architectural "footprint," but it's not the same ballpark. The Babe, DiMag, The Mick, The Iron Horse, The Scooter, The Chairman of the Board, and the estimable Yogi never played in this ballpark. Lou Gehrig declared himself to be "The luckiest man on the face of the earth" in the original, not here.

Alex Rodriguez? Yes. Roger Maris? No. Shane Spencer? Yes. Horace Clarke? No. Casey Stengel never set foot in the new ballpark. He died six months before it opened.

So what's the big deal?

The big deal is that Yankee Stadium I was special; that's what. For people coming of age in the '40s, '50s, and '60s it was baseball. The Yankees were the Yankees, participating in the World Series 18 times between 1941 and 1964. Every true baseball fan in America had the contours of the ballpark firmly fixed in his or her mind. No other park had three decks. No other park had 118 columns holding up each tier of the grandstand. No other park had a spacious enough left-center and center to enable the placement of monuments to Ruth, Gehrig, and Miller Huggins on the actual playing field (and, yes, an occasional catch was made behind them). No other park was so completely unfair to righthanded power hitters while rewarding any lefthanded hitter who could loft the ball. Yankee Stadium was utterly sui generis.

Everyone has a particular only-in-Yankee Stadium anecdote. Mine is the sight of Harmon Killebrew one-hopping the 457-foot sign in left-center for a mammoth ground-rule double.

For better or worse, Yankee Stadium II is different. The columns are gone, and so, of course, are the poles creating obstructed views. They still refer to "Death Valley" in left-center, but the difference between this version and the original is laughable. What was 457 feet when Killebrew hit that 1965 ground-rule double is 399 feet today. It's 314 to the right-field line now, not 296 as it was when Messrs. Ruth, Gehrig, Mantle, Berra, and Maris took aim. It's a big, impressive ballpark, but it lacks the sheer awe and majesty the old one had.

The Yankees have won six World Series with Yankee Stadium II as a home. "Reggie! Reggie! Reggie!" took place here. David Cone and David Wells each threw perfect games here. Aaron Boone hit a memorable 12th-inning home run you may recall right here. Derek Jeter has put together one of the great Yankee careers here. Dubya threw a perfect strike here.

Just don't tell me The Babe hit that Opening Day home run back in '23 here. I'm not buying it.

Bob Ryan is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at ryan@globe.com.