Baseball Museum 10: Yankee Museum

Yankee Museum is located on the 2nd level of the new Yankee Stadium right above the Hard Rock Café. It is a simple one-room museum. It is worth stopping in at when you go to see a game at Yankee Stadium, but there actually is not much to it. The fact there is not much to it is actually quite sad considering the team is rich in baseball history. At least they do have stuff related to all 26 of their World Series Championships.

The bulk of the museum is the World Series display. This display has a little bit of info on each of the World Series the Yankees have won. It includes a signed team ball by each Yankees World Series Championship team. There is also a variety of other related memorabilia, such as jerseys and bats. The last six World Series win displays also include the World Series trophies. The other 20 World Series wins by the Yankees were before they gave out the trophies.

The centerpiece of the museum is a wall of balls between a statue of Don Larsen pitching and Yogi Berra catching, which commemorates the perfect game Don Larsen pitched in the 1956 World Series. By the way it is the only perfect game or no-hitter ever pitched in the post season to date. The ball wall has various balls signed by past and current Yankees. There is a computer directory nearby to help locate players on the ball wall or identify the signatures on the balls.

The museum also has an interesting section with ballpark seats and a model of the New Yankee Stadium. This area has a display case with a seat and a photo of the old Yankee Stadium as it was in 1923. Then there is a seat from the box seats circa 1926 of Yankee Stadium. Next is a display with a seat from the 1976 remodel of old Yankee Stadium. Lastly there is a seat like the ones in the new Yankee Stadium where the museum is located.

There are a few other small displays in the museum. This includes one with Babe Ruth memorabilia. There is also a display on the Negro Leagues, which played some in old Yankee Stadium. Lastly there is Thurmon Munson’s locker brought over from old Yankee Stadium just as it has been kept since he died in 1979.

Overall it is not a bad museum, but it is surprisingly that it is so small. With a team like the Yankees there is so much history that deserves a bigger museum more like the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame. Perhaps it is small because it was one of the final projects of the new stadium and they did not have as much time to put it together into something bigger, but I kind of doubt more space than what it now occupies was allocated for it in the stadium. Anyways still a great museum in terms of World Series memorabilia. For better general Yankee history, though, the Yogi Berra Museum we went to several days later turned out to be way better. I will get to posting on that within the next day or so, I hope.