Note: Scott covered the Yankees game vs. the Orioles last Friday, and submitted his experience as working press at Yankee Stadium for the first time.

50 East 161st street is the address of the most famous stadium in all of sports. Yankee Stadium, the hallow grounds in which the names Mantle, Ruth, DiMaggio and Gehrig have had their fame masterpieced into world wide events. It is not just a stadium, but a landmark.

And while heaven has its pearly gates, Yankees Stadium has its gates too, only they're lettered A-through-D.

Going behind the scenes at Yankee Stadium is a hard task. On game days there is more security than a small army. But, if you have the right credentials you will be nodded at, greeted and welcomed into the sacred underground where all of the greats have stepped foot.

When you first walk into the “Yankee Offices”, the vast amount of detail is immediately noticed. From pinstripe wallpaper to the blue and white color scheme, they set the tone to what the Yankee organization is all about.

But, there is one thing that hits you as your eyes gander to the right. It makes you realize exactly where you are and what you are about to get yourself into. It is a picture of Joe Di Maggio with his famous quote…

“I want to thank the Lord for making me a Yankee.”

You walk through two glass doors as the gentleman opens them for you. Staring straight ahead, you can see fans filling into the stadium, but to your right is where you are about to go. With a sign that acknowledges “Press & Players Only”, you make your way through.

“Follow the red tape,” a security guard tells me.

Following two flights of steps, you come to a door well where, I promise not to mention every security guard I see, another one stood.

“Stay to your left,” the security woman says.

Walking through the cement tunnel underneath the stadium, it is damp and cool. You see a painted blue stripe running horizontally on the wall followed by white, which fills in the rest. Coming to the end of the tunnel, you see a sign, “Visitors (Left), Yankees (Right), Field (Left)”.

I decide to venture left first.

Visitors Locker Room

After stepping a few feet, you run into a man with a book. He asks me to sign in and I make my way into the Baltimore Orioles locker room, the visiting team tonight. Inside, it is just under the size of the stadium infield.

The carpeting is purple and the lockers run around the room with the player’s numbers above. The center of the room has an eating table, and couches with a T.V. lie just beyond that. To the left of the table is a doorway to the shower, someplace I will not be writing about during this tour.

Inside I see Orioles manager Mike Hargrove walking through the locker room and outfielder Luis Matos eating some noodles. Other players are scattered throughout the room, but I stop outfielder Jay Gibbons to get his take on playing at Yankee Stadium.

“It is always a great atmosphere,” Gibbons said. “It was a little bit more scary maybe my first year, but now I am used to it and it is a lot of fun for me.”

As you leave the locker room, catcher Brook Fordyce comes in to commend the pitching performance of starter Pat Hentgen but none of the players seem amused by his persistency. However, Hentgen did pitch solidly.

The Bronx Bombers Locker Room

Making your way 40-yards down the tunnel, you start to feel your heart race as you realize you are about to enter the locker room in which all the great Yankees have spent hours upon hours.

As you open the door, you notice the scaled down white gaping swoops that grace the top of the stadium. The lockers are white, and the player’s names are on black nametags on the inside of the locker room.

The Yankee logo is all over the place and the inside is about the size of the infield. As I make my way through the locker room, I noticed how hard it must be to have to follow a tradition as clean and great as the Yankees.

“I’d say probably a couple of years,” Bernie Williams said of how long it took him to get used to playing here. “The first couple of years you think that every at-bat if you don’t do well then you are going to be sent down or be traded.”

Williams now acknowledges that his job is comfortable in New York, but said he didn’t realize that he was actually playing centerfield for the Yankees until the 1993 season.

“They made the trade for Paul O’Neill and before ’93 I was playing sort of part-time and trying to make it as a fourth outfielder. Then after ’93 they just gave me a position and told me it was mine to lose and do whatever you can to keep it.”

Leaving the Yankee locker room, I see Mariano Rivera walking out of his locker and Hideki Matsui meditating. At first I didn’t know why, but I soon realized.

Taking a left out of the Yankee locker room, there is a doorway. I walked into the doorway to see about fifty press people hanging out in the Yankee conference room. As I looked around, the connection began to filter into my head that they were the Japanese media and every night, Matsui must do a press conference.

As I made my way back, being sure not to step off the red tape, I began to reflect upon what history this place has had and how fortunate I was able to turn the doorknobs that the great were able to turn.

While I never made it out the tunnel leading to the field, I did however get a glimpse and let me just say that if you don’t get chills walking through there, then you are not a Yankee fan at all.