Hawthorne has given us a tradition that some people refer to as Yankee Magic Realism, and I do think there is a certain quality to the landscape that definitely leads into the dark woods.

The Greatest Living Yankee is Whitey Ford, who came out of Aviation High School, which was then in Manhattan, and helped pitch the Yankees to victory in the 1950 World Series when he was 21.

Madison Square Garden to any New York kid is the center of the universe. Even going there as a fan is like stepping up to the plate at Yankee Stadium. You know you're in the grand cathedral.

Yankee caps pop up all over the world, not as a statement of loyalty to that team, but as a symbol of - what? Winning 27 so-called World Series? Much of the world doesn't even play that sport.

Our citizens never hesitate to take sides against one another, whether it's Democrats versus Republicans, Coke drinkers opposed to Pepsi enthusiasts or Yankee loyalists against Red Sox aficionados.

Around New York, I used to hear that expression, 'Once a Dodger, always a Dodger.' But how about, 'Once a Yankee, always a Yankee?' There never was anything better than that. You never get over it.

Oil has become the principal wealth in the hands of the great Yankee transnationals; through this energy source, they had an instrument that considerably expanded their political power in the world.

I remember one game when I pitched in Yankee Stadium and gave up five runs in the first inning. It would have been easy to quit, but I shut 'em out the rest of the way, and we came back and won the game.

We strove for more than 60 years to give Joe DiMaggio the hero's life. From his debut at Yankee Stadium in 1936 until his death in 1999, DiMaggio was, at every turn, one man we could look at who made us feel good.

Every day I went to the ballpark in Yankee Stadium as well as on the road people were on my back. The last six years in the American League were mental hell for me. I was drained of all my desire to play baseball.

If you look at professional baseball in New York, you can get all 162 Yankee games on television anytime you want. But people still go to the ballpark because they are two different experiences. It's the same with film.

Many of the people who are most considered anti-American would love to partake of the American dream: the unspoken slogan of many protesters outside U.S. embassies abroad is really: 'Yankee go home, but take me with you.'

The fascists in most Latin American countries tell the people that the reason their wages will not buy as much in the way of goods is because of Yankee imperialism. The fascists in Latin America learn to speak and act like natives.

I always appreciated the ex-players. Being a Yankee, you get spoiled. Old-Timers Day, all these guys coming back, spring training, being around them, you get a chance to get to know them. So I always think you learn a lot by listening.

You used to be able to identify Sox fans in Yankee Stadium. They sat, slump-shouldered, with the same panicked expectation nervous motorists have looking in the rearview mirror at the 16-wheeler behind them on Interstate 95 near New Haven.

General Giap was one of the most brilliant military strategists of our era, who in Dien Bien Phu was able to place missile launchers in remote, mountainous jungles, something the yankee and European military officers considered impossible.

Yankee Stadium is a natural venue for another lesson: You won't succeed all the time. Even Ruth, Gehrig, and DiMaggio failed most of time when they stepped to the plate. Finding the right path in life, more often than not, involves some missteps.

That's why you can't be a true Yankee without winter: because all the best pleasures are earned - the fire, the fried oysters; the warmer seasons, too. Who knows the real worth of summer at the beach without a good taste of the seaside in winter?

Whether or not anybody had invented the category in his lifetime, Babe Ruth was surely the Greatest Living Yankee almost immediately upon lofting home runs at the Polo Grounds, allowing the Yankees to build their own palace across the Harlem River.

I know I wouldn't be a New York Yankee if it wasn't for my mom: the guidance she gave me as a kid growing up, knowing the difference from right and wrong, how to treat people and how to go the extra mile and put in extra work, all that kind of stuff.

For thousands of years, the most physically imposing buildings on earth were temples, churches, and mosques. But in the 20th century, new houses of worship came to dominate the landscape. Yankee Stadium is the most storied of these contemporary shrines.

Maybe we've been brainwashed by 130 years of Yankee history, but Southern identity now has more to do with food, accents, manners, music than the Confederate past. It's something that's open to both races, a variety of ethnic groups and people who move here.

I'd like to think my brand shares some of those characteristics we like to think of as classically American - a certain straightforwardness, honesty, a sense of humor, inclusiveness, practicality - all those great Yankee traits. And I don't mean the baseball team.

Your man Daddy Yankee, some black and white people who know what's going on in the 'hood and the clubs are supporting him and loving him. But he's speaking Spanish, and he's speaking directly to the Latino people, and the people who know the language really dig it.

I was a Yankee fan in Brooklyn because my father was a Yankee fan. And my father was required to live in Brooklyn with my mother's family, who were all Dodger fans. So he was surrounded by Dodger fans. He was a Yankee fan. So his revenge was to make me a Yankee fan.

Twain's 'A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court' made me long to wake in an era when my Casio wristwatch would strike folks as sorcery, and Martin Amis's 'Time's Arrow' wrecked my assumption that all narratives had to proceed from Then to More-Recently-Than-Then.

When I was with the Yankees in 1978, we were playing Baltimore at Yankee Stadium, and the score was 3 - 3 going into the bottom of the ninth inning. I led off against Tippy Martinez - a little left-hander who always gave me trouble - and the count went to three-and-oh.

When I became the manager of the New York Yankees, it was an opportunity to realize my lifelong dream of winning the World Series. We were fortunate enough to succeed in our first season in 1996, and in the years that followed, we wrote some great new chapters in Yankee history.

I remember, my first job when I got my working papers at 13 was as a vendor at Yankee Stadium - the old Yankee Stadium, with very steep stairs in the upper decks. It was all commission-based. And I think a soft drink was 25 cents, and I think you got a 10 percent or 11 percent commission.

I was in Puerto Rico going to school, and it was very jarring for me. 'Traumatic' is the only way that I can say it. Kids were making fun of me: 'Oh, you're a Yankee.' And I acted out a lot. A lot. But looking back, and through a little bit of therapy, everything I am has to do with that time.

When Basquiat was hanging out with Madonna and Fab Five Freddy, and all those worlds were colliding, people have to realize hip-hop and the arts were like this 'cause we both were outcasts: we wasn't allowed inside the galleries or inside Yankee Stadium. We were writing in the street and making music.

When the Revolution triumphed in 1959, our island was a true Yankee colony. The United States had duped and disarmed our Liberation Army. One couldn't speak of developed agriculture, but of immense plantations exploited on the base of manual and animal labour that in general used neither fertilizers nor machinery.

In 1946, the year I was born, Yankee Stadium was only 23 years old. But from my perspective as a boy, it had been around forever. At age seven, I saw it for the first time. As I grew older and was allowed to navigate the city's subway system on my own, I went to Sunday doubleheaders with friends on a regular basis.

What happened with reggaeton is that many artists kept recycling the same sound. But there are a lot of reggaeton artists that are still in their prime - like Daddy Yankee - because they've chosen to continue growing, to offer people more than just reggaeton. That's where I learned to always be able to try something new and not be afraid.

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