Babe Ruth joined the Yankees baseball team in 1920, after his contract was sold by the Boston Red Sox to the New York Yankees. Babe Ruth’s popularity drew huge crowds to the Polo Grounds, the field that the Yankee’s had shared with the New York Giants since 1913. In fact, the Yankees became the first professional baseball team to draw more than one million fans in a single season. Facing eviction by the indignant Giants, the owners of the Yankees decided to build a spectacular ballpark of their own.

In 1921, the Yankees purchased ten acres of land that had been part of the estate of William Waldorf Astor, famous capitalist and author. The land was located in the west Bronx, directly across the Harlem River from Polo Grounds, and cost the team $675,000. After a year of construction costing $2.5 million, Yankee Stadium opened for its inaugural game on April 18, 1923 against the Boston Red Sox.

Reportedly, 74,200 baseball fans packed Yankee Stadium for a first glimpse of baseball’s grandest facility. Thousands more milled around outside after the fire department finally ordered the gates closed. During the inaugural game, Babe Ruth christened his new home with the first home run in the stadium. Since it was widely recognized that Ruth’s tremendous drawing power made the new stadium possible, it would immediately become known as “The House That Ruth Built”. Later in that season, Yankee Stadium hosted the first of 33 World Series and the Yankees won their first World Championship over their former landlord, the Giants. To date, the Yankees have won a staggering 26 world titles, thus the Stadium also became known as “The Home of Champions”.

The new stadium greatly favored left-handed hitters. Under the original configuration, the outfield distances were 295 feet from home plate to the right field foul pole, 395 feet to left field, 460 ft to left center, and 490 ft to straightaway center. Left-center field became known as Death Valley for hitters, and the term “Death Valley” would be commonly used for the outfield areas of baseball parks where it was difficult to hit a homerun.

Many of baseball’s greatest players have called Yankee Stadium home including Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Phil Rizzuto, Yogi Berra, Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris. Monuments to past Yankee greats were placed deep in Death Valley. The first monument honoring manager Miller Huggins was unveiled in 1932, and Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth followed with plaques in 1941 and 1949, respectively. Another monument was dedicated for Joe DiMaggio in 1999, and other plaques commemorate Yankee greats such as Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford, Lefty Gomez, Roger Maris, Mickey Mantle, Don Mattingly, Phil Rizzuto, and Casey Stengel.

Following the Stadium’s 50th-Anniversary season in 1973, the Yankees moved to Shea Stadium for two seasons while the aging Yankee Stadium was closed and virtually demolished and then rebuilt. The newly modernized stadium reopened on April 15, 1976. Improvements included the removal of the numerous, obstructive steel columns which supported the second and third decks as well as the roof, which improved sight lines of the fans.

Yankee Stadium has also been the home of scores of other sports, entertainment and cultural events. While the Yankees were on the road or out of season, Yankee Stadium opened its gates to college and pro football, soccer, political assemblies, religious conventions, concerts and even the circus.

Plans are underway for a new stadium across the street from the old one. The Yankees officially broke ground on August 16, 2006, and plan to open the new stadium in 2009. If the new stadium is built on schedule, 2008 will be the final season at Yankee Stadium.

Teresa Frady is webmaster of several art and entertainment sites including Posterlovers.com, where finding your favorite poster, photo or art print is easy.

Buy Yankee Stadium and New York Yankees posters, photos and art prints at PosterLovers.com.

These articles are written in an entirely serious fashion and are not meant as any sort of joke. The people documented in this series are in no way connected with the ridiculous television show ‘Who Wants To Be A SuperHero’.

In part one of this series, which I might add is exclusive to Powers&Morrison.com (partly due to the giggle factor), we took a look at Jack from Oceanside, a day time Super Hero, with no actual paranormal super-powers. Jack fights with technology, in a rather ‘bat-man’ approach to heroism. In Jack’s case, he displayed not only the absence of amazing powers, but the absence of a cool super-hero costume. Perhaps we’ll be able to locate a hero for Part 3 of this series with the threads to match the persona.

In Part 2 (and I am completely serious here people), I’d like to introduce you to an actual super human, perhaps two of them.

The Amazing Powers of Ben Underwood

(Ben is Pictured Examining His Prosthetic Eyes)

While Ben Underwood from Sacramento, California has yet to show signs of actual heroism, (which Jack from Oceanside has in spades) he has clearly exhibited signs of super human ability. In fact, Ben is the first human being in the history of our race to actively use echo-location to navigate his surroundings. Ben was born sighted, but lost his sight at the age of 3 due to the impact of Retinal Cancer.

Now 14, Ben runs, fights, plays sports, and avoids Sacramento traffic, by ‘seeing’ with sound. How can he do it? Ben makes a clicking noise, in fact several different clicking noises to create the sound waves. He picks a click, and sends out a stream of that click, listening all the while intently to hear the click echo back to him. Ben can determine the density and shape of materials using clicks, and can identify objects like cars and people.

Echo-location is found in many parts of the Animal Kingdom, in Dolphins, Sharks and Whales, and also in land animals like Bats. Ben Underwood’s case marks the first time a Human has been able to successfully use the technique in locomotion.

There was a comic book hero once, who exhibited this power. His name was DareDevil, and I recommend the original comic, as opposed to the Ben Affleck version, if you’d like to see what Ben Underwood just might be capable of.

The Interesting Case of Natasha Demkina

There have also been articles out of Russia for the past several years of a girl named Natasha Demkina, who it is alleged can see through objects. Natasha has successfully demonstrated her abilities on live television, and has been featured in several national newspapers. The Discovery Channel has developed a special on her unique abilities. Natasha is apparently able to see into people’s bodies, and to accurately diagnose these people’s ailments. While without the education of formal medical schooling, Natasha’s assessments of what she sees is naturally not word for word the diagnosis of medical physicians, she is able to achieve a stunning degree of accuracy in each instance where she has been subjected to testing. Her ‘worst’ score, widely cited by scientists to discredit the possibility of her gift, was a four out of seven. In this test she was able to correctly diagnose 4 of 7 patients placed in a room with her in a ‘cold’ (meaning she had not met the patients prior to the experiment) study.

There are Super Heroes among us ladies and gentlemen. Silently they pass themselves off as everyday humans, but do not be fooled. This author, in all seriousness, predicts a time when those like Ben Underwood, Natasha Demkina (if her power is indeed real), and others will come to understand their gifts, as Jack from Oceanside has.
In times where it seems our nation is falling apart, when our Constitution is attacked and our way of life is put in jeopardy, those with the power to fight, will fight. All of us will do so in different ways, and on different fronts. Some, like Jack, will fight as normal humans, clothed in anonymity and fully blended among the citizenry at large. Some will fight with pen or keypad, in the virtual theatre of war called the internet. But there may be some, readers, there may be. There may indeed be some who choose to stand and fight for the citizens, who are not ‘just’ human…

In any case, these brave men and women are in my view, actual Super Heroes, and as such, will be documented in this column.

A highly detailed article (including video footage of Ben using his clicks) on Ben Underwood can be found here:
http://people.aol.com/people/article/0,26334,1212568,00.html

The most accurate account of the acclaimed powers of
Natasha Demkina (with linked sourcing) can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natasha_Demkina

The image at the top of this article comes to us from:

http://www.andrewsmcmeel.com/press_releases/archive/pr_superheros.html

At this site you can find an interesting and humorous book on this subject, titled:
‘The Government Manual For New Super-Heroes’

Look for Part 3 of this series to come in the months ahead, and keep your eyes open citizens. There is as yet no limit to human evolution, and Ben Underwood is a living example.

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For Further Information on this Article, or on Any Article viewed on this page, please contact:
Nathan Morrison, Morrison@PowersAndMorrison.com
http://www.LibertyInChaos.PowersAndMorrison.com

Part 1 of this series was written on:
03/06/06- 1:39 PM California Time, and can be found here:

http://www.powersandmorrison.com/MorrisonArchives/Blogs-Morrison-March-06.html