Two years ago yesterday the Yankees closed out the old Yankee Stadium with a 7-3 victory over the Baltimore Orioles. At the end of the game Derek Jeter gave an emotional speech about how things wouldn't change the next season at the new ball park. That old stadium, where Yankee icons had played for 85 seasons was always called "The house that Ruth built", but in 2009 the Yankees would be playing across the street in "The house that George built".
When George Steinbrenner passed away in mid-July, I remembered reading that ESPN was going to have a documentary about his life later this year. I had forgotten about it completely until this past week, when again it was mentioned in a newspaper article this time talking about the monument Steinbrenner received Monday.
My first complaint about the documentary which was an ESPN 30:30 presentation , was that it aired the same night as the Yankees played the Rays. Most Yankees fans I know would rather watch the two teams face off then to watch the documentary. Lucky for myself the show aired again on ESPN2 at 11pm, after the Yanks had beaten the Rays.
The show starts with the 2009 Yankees championship parade down the canyon of hero's in New York City. It shows the joy of the fans and players, along with some footage of how the 2009 championship was for the boss. But before it gets too in depth about the Yankees championship run it flashes back to September 21st,2008 , the last game ever at the old Yankee Stadium.
Barbara Kopple gets great footage of fans visibly upset that the old building is coming to a close and talks to many sad fans who are sad to see the old park go. During the entire time that the show was being filmed the Yankees gave Kopple complete media access to the players along with access to the old stadium while it was being torn down.
So far most of this review has been about the stadium, and that's because most of the show seemed to be about the old and new Yankee stadiums. Sure they mentioned George Steinbrenner and had the chance to talk with Hal Steinbrenner, but when it came to footage on George , Kopple does a poor job. Most of the interviews seen during this documentary are old interviews that I had seen clips of in the past , nothing that was original or not seen before.
The most enjoyable part of this film was seeing the workers taking down the old Yankee Stadium and how many of them were also Yankee fans who were sad to see the place come down. When it came to footage about the old ballpark Kopple did a great job of talking to fans and filming various parts of the ballpark being dismantled.
Towards the end of the film, Kopple is outside the new Yankee Stadium before the first regular season game interviewing fans. The fans react in different ways, some saying how they love the new park and they thank George for it, while other fans hate the new park and miss the old stadium. A few fans even say that although George wanted to build the new park , that if he was still around and healthy enough the prices would be lower and it would have been more fan friendly.
If you have an extra hour in your life that you want to spare I would recommend watching this. The film does a nice job of getting footage about the two ballparks, including the death of the old one and the birth of the new one. But if you plan to watch this in hopes of learning a little bit more about George and the Steinbrenner family, well then your looking in the wrong area. Kopple had a good idea trying to blend the two together, but for me it didn't work well.
I found a few clips from the show on youtube interviewing Hal Steinbrenner :
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