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And that's dollars, not pesos.
Situated across the street from the original House That Ruth Built, the Palazzo Steinbrenner glitters amid its bleak backdrop in the South Bronx like a misplaced jewel — the Hope Diamond, in a box of Cracker Jacks.
Tonight, famed Yankee Stadium —"the cathedral of baseball," Phils outfielder Jayson Werth calls it — will be the setting for this Fall Classic featuring baseball's two best teams — the Rollins-Utley-Howard Phils versus the Yankees of Jeter, A-Rod and Mariano. Last year's world champs versus this season's winningest team.
For many, it's a dream World Series. For the Phils, it's a dream come true.
"Every kid," Phillies southpaw Cole Hamels said, "has a goal of pitching a World Series game in Yankee Stadium."
And baseball's reigning kings, it seems, have had the goal all summer long of taking on sports' most storied and successful franchise. Even before they had dispatched the Dodgers in five games in the LCS, Charlie Manuel's crew seemed to be of one mind:
Bring on the Bronx Bombers.
"They're the Yankees," Hamels said. "They've got all-star players at every position. Who doesn't know the Yankees?"
Pedro Martinez knows them; the right-hander was the ace of the Red Sox staff from 1999-2004. When it was mentioned that he had a history with the Yankees, the future Hall of Famer and Game 2 starter issued a wry grin.
"The Yankees," he said, "have a history with me."
Yet for all the talk emanating from Philly about the Yankees, New Yorkers have barely breathed a word about the Phillies. Until now, of course. There's a feeling here in Gotham that the Yankees, their fans and the Madison Avenue types desperately wanted the Dodgers, wanted the renewal of what was once a rite of autumn.
From the 1940s through the '80s, Yankees-Dodgers World Series spanned five consecutive decades. To Yankee fans, the Dodgers were the Boys of Summer; Koufax and Drysdale; Sutton and Garvey; Fernandomania. This year, the former Subway Rivalry would have been burnished by the return of former Yankee field boss Joe Torre and ex-Red Sox slugger Manny Ramirez to the Bronx.
The Yankees have no such history with the Phillies, though they've come close. Their lone previous World Series meeting came in 1950, so long ago that Elvis, Marilyn and JFK were household names only in their own households.
Had the Phillies not suffered an infamous late-summer collapse in 1964, they would have met the Yankees that year in the Fall Classic. Over a six-year span from 1976-81, the Yankees and Phillies were in their respective LCS in the same year five times, yet the baseball gods never saw fit to match them in the World Series.
Now, one year shy of the 60th anniversary of their last championship meeting, the Phils and Yanks finally meet again with the sport's most prestigious prize at stake.
Phillies left-hander Cliff Lee, who starts tonight opposite his former teammate in Cleveland, CC Sabathia, knows the enormous challenge that awaits both sides in this Fall Classic.
"It's time," Lee said, "to step up."
And onto baseball's biggest stage.
