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The New York Yankees have been Major League Baseball's most successful franchise with 26 World Series championships and 39 American League Pennants. They have also won the most titles of any franchise in professional sports history, passing the Montreal Canadiens' 24 in 1999.

Yankee Stadium 1923-2009

From 1923 to the present, the Yankees permanent home has been Yankee Stadium. Yankee Stadium is one of the most famous sports venues in the United States, due to its primary occupants having won more World Series championships than any other team. Its nickname, "The House that Ruth Built", comes from the iconic Babe Ruth, the baseball superstar whose prime years coincided with the beginning of the Yankees' winning history.

Yankee Stadium is famed for the "short porch" in right field, which started out over 100 feet shorter than left field, which allows short home runs, although changes over the years have made the difference less.

New Yankee Stadium 2009

In 2006, the Yankees began construction on a new $1.3 billion stadium in public parkland adjacent to Yankee Stadium. It is being built on the current site of Macombs Dam Park in the New York City borough of the Bronx, across the street from the current Yankee Stadium, which it will replace. The Yankees are expecting to open their new home in 2009. Once the new stadium opens, most of the old stadium, including all of the above ground structure, is to be demolished to become parkland. The new ballpark will retain the Yankee Stadium moniker held by the current stadium.

Groundbreaking ceremonies for the stadium took place on August 16, 2006, the 58th anniversary of Babe Ruth's death. The new facility has a planned 2009 opening, coinciding with the opening of Citi Field, future home of the New York Mets. At a total cost of $1.3 billion (US), it is roughly 500 times the cost of the original Stadium in 1923, and the most expensive stadium ever built in the United States as well as the second most expensive stadium ever built in the world.

The new stadium's design, by HOK Sport, consists of two separate structures. The exterior will be a wall circling the perimeter of the Yankees' new property, and will resemble the pre-renovation exterior of the original Yankee Stadium. The interior will be a modern ballpark, with increased modern amenities that have become a staple of every new ballpark since Oriole Park at Camden Yards opened in 1992. It will feature a replica of the copper frieze (facade), that lined the inner wall of Yankee Stadium's upper deck until 1973. This lining was torn down during the 1974-75 renovations. A replica of this frieze lines the portion of the original structure that was removed during those renovations, beyond the outfield wall. It is above the bleachers and faces River Avenue. The Yankees use this frieze as a marketing tool on television and in print, and have allowed the sporting-goods chain Modell's to use it, too.

Between the perimeter and the stadium will be an area that those in the Yankee organization are calling a "great hall," which would feature more than one million square feet of retail space, a significant increase from Yankee Stadium.

The field's dimensions will be identical to those at the current Yankee Stadium and at George M. Steinbrenner Field spring training/minor league baseball facility in Tampa, Florida (although not the same dimensions used when Yankee Stadium reopened in 1976). The new stadium will seat 51,000 fans, with a total capacity of approximately 53,000 (including standing room), compared with 57,545 in Yankee Stadium (although that number does not include seating in luxury boxes). The new stadium's seating will be spaced outward in a bowl, rather than upward in stacked tiers, placing most fans further back but lower to the field compared to tier seating. Lower level seats will be near 30,000, compared with 20,000 in Yankee Stadium, with about 20,000 seats in the upper deck. The stadium has a split upper deck design seen in new stadiums such as Citizens Bank Park, with seating sections above and below the upper concourse and a view of the field from the concourse itself. While nothing has been announced, these two sections are expected to be priced differently, much like the current Tier Box closer to the field and the Tier Reserve. There will be half as many bleacher seats as Yankee Stadium's 7,500, but 1,000 standing room spots will be added. In addition, there will be 60 luxury boxes between the second level and the upper deck. Yankee Stadium has 16 luxury boxes, around both sides of the press box, which is directly behind home plate.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia articles New York Yankees, Yankee Stadium, New Yankee Stadium, Comparison between cricket and baseball, and Baseball park.