May 22 -- THE HOUSE THAT GEORGE BUILT

BY SCOTT LAUBER

NEW YORK -- OK, full disclosure time: I grew up in Central Jersey, and when I was 5 or 6, my dad took me to my first baseball game at Yankee Stadium. Soon after, we went to another game and another and another. Through the years, I saw more games there than I could count. So, when I got off the 4 train today at 161st Street & River Avenue, I naturally walked to my left.

Everyone else went right.

Yankee Stadium, the one that I know, is still standing, although nobody pays much attention to it anymore. It's impossible to fathom, really. So many memorable games were played there. It's the place where Reggie Jackson hit three homers in Game 6 of the 1977 World Series and where George Brett charged out of the visiting dugout, eyes bulging and arms flailing, to accost umpire Tim McClelland in the Pine Tar Game in 1983. It's where Don Mattingly edged Dave Winfield for the AL batting crown in 1984 and where a 12-year-old kid named Jeffrey Maier leaned over the right-field fence and stole a home run for Derek Jeter in the 1996 AL Championship Series (Pat Gillick, then the Orioles GM, is still bitter about that, by the way.) It's where David Wells and David Cone threw no-hitters in 1998 and 1999 and where Roger Clemens boomeranged a broken bat at Mike Piazza in the 2000 World Series. It was the House That Ruth Built and the House That Reggie Rebuilt. And, now, it just sits there, like some aging beauty queen, while the fancy new palace next door gets all the adoration and attention.

The new place is nice (for $1.4 billion, it better be). I just took an abbreviated tour to the Yankee museum along the first-base line and the new Monument Park in center field. In many ways, it looks the same as the old place. Same blue seats and blue outfield fence. Same opening in right field where the elevated subway rattles by. Same white frieze, only larger and ringing the stadium instead of merely spanning the outfield. And if you can afford it (a ginormous "if," considering the exorbitant ticket prices here), it's worth taking a trip and looking around for yourself.

It just isn't quite the same, though. Not to me. Not after all of those days during my childhood that were spent across the street.