Mum’s the Word

When it opened, 74 springs ago at River Avenue and 161st Street in the Bronx, it was The House That Ruth Built. It has since become America’s most famous stadium.

This spring, as the New York Yankees fly their first new World Series flag in 18 years, the question is: Will Yankee Stadium soon become The House That George Left?

Owner George Steinbrenner asserts that parking, access and crime make the city-owned stadium an unacceptable home for his team after its lease runs out in 2002.

Steinbrenner won’t discuss publicly where he would like the Yankees to play, but he has done nothing to squelch debate over potential sites at New Jersey’s Meadowlands complex and Manhattan’s West Side. A study commissioned by the city, state and team last year said a multipurpose stadium with a retractable dome, built over Manhattan’s rail yards between 30th and 34th streets, would cost at least $1 billion.

In the months after Yankee third baseman Charlie Hayes gloved the foul ball that clinched the World Series on Oct. 26, it was widely expected that Steinbrenner and Mayor Rudolph Giuliani--a lifelong Yankees fan--would use the championship afterglow to settle the stadium issue.

But with Giuliani seeking re-election ‘How can you imagine tearing down a shrine to baseball like The House That Ruth Built . . . ?’ and polls indicating a Manhattan stadium is unpopular with voters, the mayor and owner are keeping quiet on the team’s future.

The result has been a stadium debate without any input from those with the power to make decisions. If negotiations are going on, nobody involved is talking.

There is little danger the team will actually leave Yankee Stadium in 2002, given the litigation that would probably surround any stadium project. But the prospect of the Bronx Bombers--the team of Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle--moving to Manhattan or the swamps of Jersey is a nightmare for many fans.

“How can you imagine tearing down a shrine to baseball like The House That Ruth Built, and converting it to another use?” Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer asked at a recent forum on the stadium’s future at the Hofstra University School of Law.

The Cleveland Browns’ move to Baltimore last year showed once and for all that tradition and fan support will not keep today’s sports franchises from moving to take advantage of a lucrative stadium deal. But Smith College economics professor Andrew Zimbalist, who writes on the business of baseball, argues that a Yankees move to New Jersey would make less sense than Browns owner Art Modell’s decision to abandon decrepit Municipal Stadium.

“It’s one thing to leave the town,” said Zimbalist, an occasional consultant to baseball’s players’ union. “It’s another to leave the town and the most famous facility in the sport.”

Ferrer, who is running to unseat Giuliani, is pushing a $488 million plan to renovate Yankee Stadium and make it the centerpiece of a shopping and entertainment complex he calls Yankee Village. Of that figure, $372 million would be paid by the city, Ferrer said, with the rest from federal, state and private sources.

Ferrer’s plan includes more luxury boxes and club seating--two key amenities that Yankee Stadium now lacks in significant numbers and which have been cash cows at new ballparks in Baltimore, Cleveland, Denver and Arlington, Texas.

Those fields were part of a baseball construction boom that also has seen new stadiums approved or under way in Detroit, San Francisco, Seattle, Milwaukee and Phoenix. Teams seeking approval for new parks are Boston, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, San Diego, Pittsburgh, Houston, Montreal and Minnesota.

Even the New York Mets reportedly are moving ahead with plans to build a successor to Shea Stadium next to the old one, in Queens.

Few dispute that Yankee Stadium, last renovated in 1974-75, needs a major overhaul to allow the team to compete in the luxury-box revenue wars. The question is whether the team should also abandon the South Bronx--especially for a Manhattan stadium that, as presently conceived, would be a departure from the retro-style, open-air, baseball-only stadiums that have been so successful in Baltimore, Cleveland, Denver and Texas.

The Yankees’ attendance correlates more closely with the team’s on-field fortunes than with parking spaces or muggings, Ferrer said, citing statistics that show 94% of crime committed around the stadium is ticket scalping.

“That’s baseball generating crime!” he said. “At the end, it’s not about parking--it’s about pitching.”

Last year’s attendance of more than 2.2 million, buoyed by the Yankees’ dramatic run to their record 23rd World Series title, supports the point: If you play well, New Yorkers will come.

Still, despite being in the nation’s biggest city and No. 1 media market, Steinbrenner does face financial pressures.

With a high payroll, the Yankees will be hurt by baseball’s new luxury tax and could face a decline in local TV revenue when their $486 million, 12-year cable contract with the Madison Square Garden Network expires in 2001.

A strong sign of the Yankees’ nervousness is the recent 10-year, $95 million sponsorship deal the team signed with sports equipment maker Adidas, which has plastered its three-stripes insignia all over Yankee Stadium.

City officials, including ex-deputy mayor for economic development Fran Reiter and the executive director of the city’s Economic Development Corp., Charles Millard, declined to comment or did not return phone calls about Yankee Stadium’s future. The Yankees also would not comment.

The absence of real debate has given rise to talk of conspiracy. Ferrer predicts a pre-election “surprise,” in which Giuliani and Steinbrenner announce a short-term extension of the stadium lease to fanfare. If Giuliani is re-elected, the challenger predicted, city and team will then announce plans for a Manhattan stadium tied to the city’s proposed bid for the 2008 or 2012 Summer Olympics.

“The Olympics bid is a beard for moving the Yankees to the West Side,” Ferrer said.

With no real stadium offer on the table in New Jersey--Gov. Christie Whitman has said her state isn’t actively courting the Yankees--the city must not “fold like a cheap wallet every time George Steinbrenner talks about moving,” Ferrer said.

Zimbalist, the economist, said a Yankees move to New Jersey would bring baseball’s owners a lot of bad publicity.

Most baseball owners, however, say they don’t care where the Yankees play, as long as it’s in the New York area.

Zimbalist’s own allegiance is clear. “My starting point is that Yankee Stadium is one of the most appealing venues in baseball today and it’s absolutely crazy to leave it.”