Yankees Have Homecoming After Stadium Opens Anew

Hard hats replaced baseball caps for some fans as Yankee Stadium reopened for baseball.

The New York Yankees returned home Friday for a game against the Detroit Tigers Friday, 11 days after a 500-pound concrete-and-steel joint broke off the upper deck before batting practice and crashed onto empty seats below.

“With the Yankees swinging all this heavy lumber, fighting the Tigers on the field and bricks falling down on us, we need all the protection we can get,” fan Randy Bless of Brooklyn said as he banged his fist on a friend’s white hard hat.

Hundreds of construction workers and engineers worked, some around the clock, to repair the damage and make sure the stadium was safe for Friday’s game.

Jerry Hauer, director of the Mayor’s Office of Emergency Management, threw out the first pitch.

Stadium announcer Bob Sheppard introduced Hauer, who coordinated the multiagency effort to get the stadium ready, as “the man who made it possible for the Yankees to return home to their fans.”

As part of their inspection, workers checked hand rails and seats, got rid of all lose concrete and replaced the broken beam. City officials promised the stadium, closed for its 75th anniversary last weekend, would be able to stand at least a few more years.

“It’s all ready and it’s very safe,” Hauer said. “We checked this place top to bottom, inch by inch.”

The metal fell just hours before the Yankees were to have played the Anaheim Angels, landing in the middle deck behind third base, on seat 7 in row B of section 22.

While workers and inspectors worked at their own ballpark, the Yankees postponed two games against the Angels, shifted the series finale to Shea Stadium as part of the first-ever AL-NL doubleheader, then moved last weekend’s series against the Tigers from the Bronx to Detroit.