On Sunday, 21
September 2008, Yankee Stadium hosted its
last baseball game. The Stadium — considered
by some to be the greatest and most storied
sports arena in the world — is being torn
down to make way for a new Yankees venue.
The figures from the sporting world who
played there — great players of American
baseball, of course, but also Pele of
soccer, Muhammad Ali of boxing, Vince
Lombardi from American football — were
joined over the years by figures from
culture and politics, such as John Philip
Sousa, Nelson Mandela, and Pope John Paul
II.
Engineers, it
turns out, can be proud of Yankee Stadium,
too — and not just the civil and
architectural engineers who worked on its
construction. Electrical engineers can also
take pride of place.
It begins, of
course, with the Edison concrete used to
construct the Stadium in 1923. Edison was an
inventor whose range defies categorization,
but the IEEE claims him as a founder and one
of our own. The concrete industry was an
area where he also innovated and enjoyed
commercial success. But there are direct
electrical landmarks at Yankee Stadium as
well. The original electronic scoreboard was
the first of its kind. The later addition of
a replay video board was also a first. (The
application of the police radar gun to
baseball cannot be credited to the Yankees —
that honor goes to Earl Weaver of the
Baltimore Orioles.)
So, as you bid
on eBay for memorabilia from Yankee Stadium,
remember that it was temple not just of
sports and music and politics, but of
innovation as well.
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