Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Sunday Morning

Garrick Utley reports on the history of events at Yankee Stadium

Aired September 23, 2001 -   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: A live picture, again, as the sun continues to rise here on a Sunday morning. Yankee Stadium about seven hours away from a much anticipated prayer service that will begin later.

This afternoon throngs of New Yorkers will fill Yankee Stadium to remember and mourn the loss. As CNN's Garrick Utley now reports it is yet another historic event for this city's noble landmark.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

GARRICK UTLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It stands there -- an urban temple in the big city, a shrine to sports, a Mecca that draws the New York faithful on their secular pilgrimages.

Drawn to 30 championship fights at Yankee Stadium -- none more memorable than on that warm night in 1938 when Joe Lewis disposed of Max Spelling (ph) of Nazi Germany in 124 seconds. Two Popes have come to Yankee Stadium to celebrate their faith just as the faith and the courage of an individual were celebrated when Nelson Mandela came in 1990 shortly after his release from prison in South Africa.

NELSON MANDELA: You now know who I am -- I am a Yankee.

UTLEY: There have been concerts -- pop and rock.

BILLY JOEL, ENTERTAINER: Pressure.

UTLEY: And, yes, there has been baseball -- 26 World Series Championships, Yankee fans like to boast and Mets fans try to forget.

Like all stadiums built for sports this one is not only about who won or lost but truly how they played the game. As when Lou Gehrig, terminally ill in 1939, said farewell.

LOU GERHIG, BASEBALL PLAYER: Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. UTLEY: For New Yorkers there's no better place to live on the face of the earth than here and yet there has always been a price -- there's always been an awareness that living here means taking risks -- confronting hidden dangers.

For some New Yorkers the terror -- the long days and nights of searching have recalled how that danger was foreseen by the New Yorker, E.B. White, that Manhattan Island would always be a target.

In 1949 he wrote, "A single plight of planes no bigger than a wedge of geese can quickly end this island fantasy, burn the towers, crumble the bridges, turn the underground passages into lethal chambers, cremate millions. The intimation of mortality is part of New York now in the sound of jets overhead -- in the black headlines of the latest edition. In the mind of whatever perverted dreamer might loose the lightening, New York must hold a steady, irresistible charm."

Fifty-two years after E.B. White wrote that vision of the future the charm of life here has been assaulted -- violated. New Yorkers have come together -- first friends and families grieving, then in larger groups until a city of eight million turned into one enormous and yet intimate support group.

And now that support continues in that place which reaches beyond sports to welcome the heart and the spirit of the city. Garrick Utley, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com