Yankee Stadium 
“The House That Ruth Built.” The Yankees bought Babe Ruth’s contract from the Boston Red Sox in 1919. Back then, the Yankees didn’t have their own home park. Instead, they played at the Polo Grounds. But the Yankees’ rivals, the New York Giants, owned the Polo Grounds. Starting in 1920, huge crowds came to see Babe Ruth hit home runs for the Yankees. The Yankees became more popular than the Giants. That made the Giants’ owner mad. In 1921, he told the Yankees to leave. Two years later, Yankee Stadium opened.
Babe Ruth, Hot Dogs, and Horsing Around. Babe Ruth liked to set baseball records. He set a career home run record (714) that wasn’t broken until Hank Aaron hit number 715 in 1974. But Ruth also liked to break the rules. Many times he acted like a kid. He was often more interested in having fun than in doing what he was supposed to do. Sometimes Ruth wore the same underwear for days because he didn’t feel like changing it. He claimed he could burp louder than a tractor, and he liked to prove it to anyone who would listen. Ruth also ate and drank too much. His midnight meals were larger than most people’s dinners. He would eat six hot dogs and drink six sodas for a snack!
A First. Yankee Stadium was the first baseball park to be called a stadium. It was much larger than other ballparks. Yankee Stadium often had crowds of 70,000 people or more. It opened on April 18, 1923. On opening day, the Yankees played the Boston Red Sox. They beat them 4–1. The stadium was also the first triple-decker. That meant it had three seating levels.
Secret Room. The original Yankee Stadium had a secret. For years, there was a fifteen-foot-wide room hidden below second base. The room wasn’t used for baseball or storing treasure. It was used for boxing. Yankee Stadium used to host boxing matches sometimes. The hidden room held the electrical and telephone equipment needed for the matches. The Yankees removed the room in 1976. It doesn’t exist in the new Yankee Stadium.
Lots of World Series. Yankee Stadium has hosted more World Series than any other stadium—over thirty-five so far.
New and Improved. When it was built in 1923, Yankee Stadium was the best stadium around. But by the early twenty-first century, it was getting old. The team decided it needed a new home. So it spent over $1.3 billion to build a brand-new version of Yankee Stadium directly across the street. The first official game in the new stadium was on April 16, 2009. The following year, the old stadium was torn down and the land was turned into a park.
Pinstripes. The New York Yankees uniforms are famous for the thin black stripes running up and down the pants and shirts. The Yankees first wore pinstripes in 1912.