NEW YORK – Chris Wingert doesn’t remember specifics about all the times he has gone to Yankee Stadium.
But the New York City FC defender knows he was with his dad, Norm, and that’s what mattered.
“It was a day for us to go to the ballpark. The baseball games I’ve gone through over the years have been more about the experience,” Wingert said. “Spending a day at Yankee Stadium with my pops was really special.”
Like many his age, Norm Wingert was a huge Mickey Mantle fan. He has a baseball signed by Ty Cobb and another signed by the 1966 Baltimore Orioles team from a foul ball he caught at Yankee Stadium.
That was the old stadium, though. Until Wednesday, Chris hadn’t stepped foot in the new incarnation. One of the first things he saw as he arrived for NYCFC’s inaugural Media Day was a Mickey Mantle mural.
“This is awesome,” Wingert said.
Like Wingert, Jason Hernandez hadn't been to the new stadium before. But the New York native, who grew up in northern New Jersey, has been to countless Yankees games at the old stadium. One that particularly stands out in his memory is a late September game in 2004 against the Minnesota Twins that he attended with some college buddies from Seton Hall University.
“I just remember Bernie Williams hit a walk-off, and I remember throwing my soda everywhere and walking out drenched,” Williams said. “To hear, ‘New York, New York’ as I walked out was definitely a good memory.”
Starting Sunday, Wingert and Hernandez will call Yankee Stadium their office, when NYCFC play their first home game against the New England Revolution (5 pm ET, ESPN2).
Among the anticipated crowd of 40,000 will be Norm Wingert, the lifelong Yankees fan – Chris purchased four season tickets for his parents for Christmas. There were more than a few other ticket requests for the Long Island native.
“I’ve sorted probably over 100 already,” Wingert said.
For the foreseeable future, NYCFC will share the stadium with the Yankees, and that has raised concerns about the wear and tear the field will undergo when it is converted back and forth between baseball and soccer arrangements.
“It’ll definitely cause an issue, but it’s nothing that we can control, so we can’t worry about it,” Yankees slugger Mark Teixeira said in a Wall Street Journal article. “It’s terrible for a field.”
NYCFC sporting director Claudio Reyna does not share those concerns, though he understands them. He said the Yankee grounds crew will be able to turn the field over and prepare it each time with a 72-hour span between games.
“Players always need to be respected in how they see their playing fields,” Reyna said. “But the conversations I’ve heard and been part of in terms of the Yankees and the grounds crew turning the [field] over back and forth, they were really confident that the 72 hours on both ends would get it back and ready for both teams.”
New York City FC coach Jason Kreis is, naturally, most concerned about how the field will affect his players, and he is looking forward to the natural playing surface.
“I don’t know what it means for the grass to be a certain way in baseball,” Kreis said. “I certainly know what it means to want the grass a certain way for soccer. We want the field to be as pristine as we can. Natural grass surface with a tightly mowed grass can be one of the most enjoyable surfaces to play on.”
