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.
