Yankee Stadium

Fans are set to return to Yankee Stadium tonight for the first time since a 500-pound steel joint crashed onto seats along the third-base line on April 13. No fans were in the ballpark at the time and no one was injured, but the stadium was closed. Repairs were made to the stadium, and city inspectors gave the building a thorough check and were scheduled to make a final pass over the 75-year-old Bronx stadium before this evening's game against the Detroit Tigers. The Yankees played a home game last week at Shea Stadium - home field of the New York Mets - and a series against the Tigers was moved to Detroit.

Despite George Steinbrenner's agreement to meet with the Rev. Jesse Jackson next week, picket lines will still go up this weekend outside Yankee Stadium over racially charged statements made by a team executive. While the New York Yankees are in California to play the Angels, demonstrators will march outside the Bronx ballpark today and tomorrow, said Charles S. Farrell of the National Rainbow Coalition. The flap was set off by comments attributed to Yankees vice president Richard Kraft in the current New York magazine.

A deal has been completed to bring the first fight to Yankee Stadium in more than three decades. Promoter Bob Arum told the Associated Press last night that WBA junior middleweight champion Yuri Foreman will fight former welterweight champion Miguel Cotto on June 5 at the new ballpark in the Bronx. The ring will be set up in right-centerfield with seating around the ring, in the rightfield bleachers and along the first-base line. Arum expects 30,000-35,000 ringside seats will go for $400 with the least expensive tickets priced at $50. Arum promoted the final bout at the old Yankee Stadium across 161st Street when Muhammad Ali fought Ken Norton on Sept.

The flags hung at half-staff, and the tears flowed. The familiar No. 7 covered Yankee Stadium's huge video screen, along with these words: "With Us Forever. " Mickey Mantle, 63, one of the greats of a team that has produced more great ballplayers than any other, who patrolled center field like no one else and who crushed some of the most monstrous home runs this grand old ballpark has seen, had died. And Yankee Stadium was holding a wake. "This is a very sad day for the Yankee organization," manager Buck Showalter said after the Yankees' 4-1 victory over the Cleveland Indians yesterday.

On the day Joe DiMaggio died, there were no crowds gathered outside Yankee Stadium. There was no unusual activity of any kind, not unless you counted the television satellite trucks arrayed around the perimeter of the property like sentinels outside a fortress. Or, as the TV producer-type said, a bit forlornly, "More reporters than people, huh?" The flags outside the stadium flew at half-staff in honor of DiMaggio, who died yesterday morning in Florida following a very public few months of illness.

A monument to Mickey Mantle is being added to the area of Yankee Stadium known as Monument Park. The monument will be unveiled and dedicated during a ceremony Aug. 25 before the Yankees' game against the Oakland Athletics. The Mantle monument will be the fourth in the area behind the left-field fence, placed alongside granite and bronze memorials to Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Miller Huggins, a former Yankees manager. Mantle, a Hall of Fame centerfielder, died Aug. 13, 1995.

On Tuesday night, Yankee Stadium will host the 79th All-Star Game. The famed home of the New York Yankees, which was the site of All-Star Games in 1939, 1960 and 1977, will close its doors for good after the season and be replaced by a modern baseball palace, which is rising up next to the original in the Bronx. The Yankees have won 26 World Series, all since moving into Yankee Stadium in 1923, and greats such as Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe McCarthy, Casey Stengel, Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra, Mickey Mantle and Derek Jeter have called it home.

NEW YORK - It had been 223 days since the Phillies last stepped into Yankee Stadium, since Shane Victorino grounded out to second to set off a Yankees celebration, and since Charlie Manuel met with a silent group of 25 players in the visitors' clubhouse. "We didn't play our best baseball," Manuel told his players then. "We owe them one. " Leaning against the dugout railing before Tuesday's 8-3 loss to the Yankees, Manuel remembered the conversation. What stuck out, the manager said, was the silent clubhouse after experiencing the ultimate failure for the first time in more than a year.

One-time Chicago Cubs wonderkid Kerry Wood went out the way he came in on Friday - with heat. In what he said would be his final game, Wood struck out Dayan Viciedo of the Chicago White Sox on three pitches - the last one a swing and a miss - in an eighth-inning relief stint. After he was lifted, his teammates joined Wood on the mound to congratulate him and he walked off the field to a rousing ovation, retiring at the age of 34. You don't have to be Cubs fan to get a bit choked up as Wood ends a career that started in dazzling style, but was hampered by injuries.

EVEN KEVIN Millwood was caught up in Andy Pettitte's return to the big leagues. Still, he was happy to play the spoiler. Millwood pitched three-hit ball for seven innings and Casper Wells and Justin Smoak each hit a two-run homer, lifting the visiting Seattle Mariners past Pettitte and the New York Yankees, 6-2, Sunday to avoid a three-game sweep. "I was watching him," Millwood said of Pettitte, who hadn't pitched since retiring after the 2010 season. "I think everybody was kind of curious.

NEW YORK - It was three hours before game time and Raul Ibanez was hacking away. In the batting tunnel underneath Yankee Stadium, Ibanez was taking one swing after another. For somebody who turns 40 on June 2, or even somebody much younger, this looked like an exhaustive exercise. The swings came off a tee at first and then Ibanez faced a pitcher. Each swing had a purpose, all 100 of them, or so it seemed. This is a routine Ibanez insists he does every day. In his mind, it's not too much to ask, doing a pre-batting practice workout, before getting more swings on the field.

MARIANO RIVERA stood by himself, in the center of the diamond at Yankee Stadium. For once, the great closer wasn't sure what to do next. So he smiled, blew a kiss to the crowd, and then doffed his cap as cheers washed over him following the record 602nd save of his career. "Oh, my God, for the first time in my career, I'm on the mound alone," Rivera said. "It was priceless. I didn't know it could be like that. " Rivera pitched a perfect ninth inning, striking out Chris Parmelee on what appeared to be his signature cut fastball to end the New York Yankees' 6-4 win over the Minnesota Twins yesterday.

EVEN THE man who sang the national anthem before the game at Yankee Stadium doesn't remember much about it, but it was played almost 50 years ago exactly, on Aug. 20, 1961, and was the final game of the Negro Leagues. It was an all-star contest between East and West teams, held a year after their league had folded and sponsored by the Improved Benevolent and Protected Order of Elks, which was having its national convention in New York. More than 30,000 members attended the convention, but only about 7,000 fans were at the game.

Former New York Yankees pitcher Hideki Irabu was found dead, apparently of a suicide, on Wednesday evening in the Los Angeles suburb of Rancho Palos Verdes, authorities said Thursday. Other details were not immediately released. The righthander starred in Japan for nearly a decade before the San Diego Padres purchased his contract from the Chiba Lotte Marines in 1997. But Irabu declined to join the Padres, insisting he would only play for the Yanks. Signed a few months later to a four-year, $12.8 million contract, he made a memorable debut at Yankee Stadium against the Tigers on July 10, 1997, fanning nine in 62/3 innings for the win and a standing ovation.

IT WAS another amazing moment in New York Yankees lore. On Saturday, Derek Jeter stepped to the plate at the new Yankee Stadium, only one hit from reaching 3,000. With one majestic swing, Jeter sent a ball over the wall to become the first Yankee ever to get 3,000 hits and the second player ever to reach the milestone on a home run. Only 27 other major leaguers have reached 3,000 hits. It almost did not happen. After 15 years as the Yankees shortstop, Jeter became a free agent after the 2010 season.

Mariano Rivera, Bronx Dreams, Pinstripe Legends, and the Future of the New York Yankees By Charley Rosen Harper. 384 pp. $25.99 Reviewed by Joelle Farrell As a title, Bullpen Diaries isn't bad. The author, Charley Rosen, an analyst for FoxSports.com and author of 11 sports books, spends 2010 watching the Yankees bullpen, using his extensive baseball knowledge to dissect every game from a reliever's point of view. The book reads at times like one big scouting report, explaining who threw what and how the game turned out. The subtitle, on the other hand, seems to offer a promise that the book never keeps.

NEW YORK - Because he had not yet officially signed with the New York Yankees, Brian Gordon had to throw a bullpen session on a field adjacent to the new Yankee Stadium upon his arrival Wednesday afternoon. It was on a patch of Bronx real estate where Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, and Mickey Mantle once played the game, and a bystander was impressed by the anonymous righthander getting his work in on the hallowed ground where the original Yankee Stadium once stood. "No one recognized me, but one guy said: 'Hey, you have a good arm,' " Gordon recalled.

Derek Jeter limped off the field with a sore right calf four innings after getting his 2,994th hit, and Carlos Carrasco escaped early trouble to pitch the Cleveland Indians past the Yankees last night in New York, 1-0. Jeter went to the hospital for an MRI exam. There was no immediate word on the severity of his injury. "I'm worried about him," Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. "Just keep our fingers crossed and hopefully it's not too serious. " Jeter was noticeably hurt as he jogged toward first base on a flyout in the fifth and left the game, stalling his pursuit to become the 28th big leaguer to reach 3,000 career hits.