Yankee Stadium

It's never nice to speak ill about the ill, especially when death is apparent. With that in mind, I'll be kind and just say this: Yankee Stadium can't collapse fast enough. Unfortunately, the Grim Reaper won't swing the wrecking ball until sometime in October 2008, depending on when Alex Rodriguez kills another playoff run. That's 21 long months from now, or roughly the time between Carl Pavano starts.

Bo Jackson came thudding back to earth Saturday in his first major league appearance at Yankee Stadium. There was nothing halfway about his flop, either, as the Kansas City Royals lost to the New York Yankees, 7-6. In his first visit to the House That Babe Ruth built, Jackson tied a major league record by striking out five times in five trips to the plate. "I got one thing to say, boys," the Heisman Trophy winner said. "I stunk. That's baseball.

The two stacks of mail on the floor of his locker make it all official, for as long as this all lasts. Suddenly, the letters are addressed to "Derek Jeter, Yankee Stadium." Everything is happening fast for him these days, even the mail. It was not so long ago that his grandmother brought him with her from New Milford, N.J., to the Stadium on summer weekends.

One day away from Yankee Stadium was more than enough for Joe Torre. After watching the New York Yankee home opener on his couch with his daughter, Torre made his first appearance Saturday at the stadium since undergoing prostate cancer surgery. "It was strange not being here yesterday [for the opener]," the Yankee manager said from his office in the team's clubhouse. "It was fun to watch, but I felt detached not being a part of what went on."

One willful and weird man with a power saw, socket wrench and crowbar could do the work in the wee hours of night. He could rent a cherry-picker to lift him to the underside of Yankee Stadium's upper deck. There he could hack away plaster covering steel-beam joists. Then it's a matter of loosening a few rivets. And . . . CLANG! Down falls a 500-pound beam into empty seats of Section 22 on the loge level. No one is hurt. But the incident sets off a metropolitan panic. Yikes!

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.

If you want to get a double take from a Manhattan cab driver, climb into the back seat when snow and slush cover the streets in February and ask him to take you to Yankee Stadium. That's what my husband and I did with our 4-year-old T-ball player in tow, and after telling the driver our destination a second time, we were off for the Bronx.

When it comes to the Boston Red Sox-New York Yankee rivalry, anything can happen. On the field, or in the stands. In a game interrupted when a fan fell from the upper deck onto the screen behind home plate, the Red Sox beat the Yankees, 4-1, Friday night at Yankee Stadium on the pitching of Ramon Martinez. "I've never seen anything like that before," Martinez said after a man tumbled onto the netting. "Only in the movies." The fan, identified as Stephen Laurenzi, 24, of Yonkers, N.Y.

The biggest star in the 94th World Series has a foul mouth, poor hygiene, ragged clothes, no manners. But what a heart! On a breezy Friday afternoon, stooped Eddie Manheim is standing in that heart, just beyond the center-field fence between the bullpens. The bleachers above it are cold and hard, but the heart is soft and sweet, with its brick walkways, its green grass, its red and yellow mums. The people sitting above hurl beer and invective, but the heart is spotless.

If managing was this easy, Billy Martin wouldn't have been fired four times by George Steinbrenner. The New York Yankees made it look simple Tuesday, opening the season by routing the World Series champion Minnesota Twins, 8-0, on Rick Rhoden's three-hitter. The Twins, just 29-52 away from the Metrodome last year, continued to have road problems.