This is where Notre Dame beat Army in 2010

Yesterday I met my brother Tom for a tour of Yankee Stadium.  But first we got lunch at John's in Times Square around 11:45.  John's has the best pizza I've had in the city.  I hadn't been there in four years and then I went twice in four days.  Before going with my brother, I met my former roommate/Notre Dame football legend Kyle for dinner on Saturday night.  It's right up there with Little Vincent's for the best pizza I've had.

Tom's hippie vegan slices are on the right.

After John's, we killed a little time by walking around Times Square.  As we were walking, we came across Sardi's, which I only know from Seinfeld.

KRAMER: So listen, I'm going to grab a bite to eat at Sardi's. You wanna go?
JERRY: Are you taking the Tony to Sardi's?
KRAMER: The Tony is taking me to Sardi's.

Then we took the subway to the Bronx for our 1:40 tour.  I've done five stadium tours at four different stadiums now (Dodger Stadium twice) and this was the best tour because it was the first time I did the stadium tour with the team on the road.  The tour begins in the Great Hall, which has some banners of Yankee legends, but not much else going on.  Tom said it was like "the Yankees' basement."

The Great Hall

From the Great Hall, you go to the Yankees Museum, which I had never been to before.  It's not that big, but it's pretty cool.  In the middle were statues of Don Larson and Yogi Berra with lots of signed baseballs in between them.  There was also a case with every Yankees World Series ring.  Around the outside of the room were displays on Mickey Mantle, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and George Steinbrenner.  They had Thurman Munson's locker stall and a replica of the current clubhouse locker stalls.  They also have the original model of the new stadium and the World Series trophies.  There are only five trophies because as I learned on the Dodger Stadium tour, they used to give the team that won the World Series a bat (the Dodgers have two trophies and four bats for their championships).  The Mantle display was the biggest, but I think they change things up in there from time to time.

The greatest player of all time and possibly the most underrated player of all time.

You can see that the World Series trophy changed in 2000.

Next on the tour was Monument Park.  Monument Park is really cool, but it's also one of my biggest issues with the stadium.  It's placed in a terrible spot.  It's like a cave down there.  At the old stadium, it was in left center and you could see it on TV or at the stadium when you were watching the game.  Now it's in center field below the restaurant or whatever it is they have out there and you can only really see it when you're in there.  They should have just put it in the same spot as the old stadium.  It would have pushed the left field bleachers back a little, but that's the way it was at the old stadium and it was fine.  Anyway, in Monument Park, you have the five monuments for Lou Gehrig, Miller Huggins, Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, and Mickey Mantle.  You also have all the retired numbers and lots of plaques for the players and some other people such as Bob Sheppard (the voice of God).  The worst part of Monument Park is the George Steinbrenner plaque.  Big Stein definitely deserves a plaque in Monument Park, but there's no way it should be bigger than Babe Ruth's monument.  It's right by the five monuments and it just stands out so much.  Steinbrenner just isn't as important as Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle, and Huggins.

This gives you a good look at three of the monuments with Steinbrenner's ginormous plaque in the backround.

The greatest player ever.

Steinbrenner's ridiculous plaque.

He beat the Yankees in the 1955 World Series.

The manager of the Dodgers.

They also had plaques for masses said by Paul VI and Benedict XVI.

September 11 memorial.

After Monument Park we went to the Yankee dugout.  The dugout has been standard on the stadium tours I've done and that's usually the highlight of the tour, but not this time.  Because the Yankees were on the road, we got to go into the Yankee clubhouse.  Unfortunately, we couldn't take pictures.  We also didn't get to see where Alex Rodriguez keeps his steroids.  Derek Jeter had an extra locker stall for all his fan mail.  As we were leaving the clubhouse, Tom noticed the traveling secretary's office right next to the clubhouse.  Unfortunately we didn't see the assistant to the traveling secretary's office (there might not actually be an assistant to the traveling secretary), but somebody did mention George Costanza.  Our tour guide said he used to get more questions about George Costanza.  He said that the traveling secretary wanted to change his title because of Seinfeld.  Fortunately, the Yankees said no.

Me and Tom in the dugout.  I had to wear my Brooklyn Dodgers hat.

While it's not the old stadium, there's still something about Yankee Stadium.  The tour guide did less talking than the tour guides I've had on other tours.  You can let the Yankee Museum, Monument Park, and the Yankee clubhouse speak for themselves.  It's a shame Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter won't be playing there much longer.