Yankee Stadium: The History, the Dimensions and How the Park Plays
A guide to Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, home of the New York Yankees: the parks before it, the old and new buildings, its short lines and deep alleys, and what the record shows.
Few ballparks are described by their results as often as Yankee Stadium. The Yankees have won 27 World Series titles and 41 American League pennants in the historical record through the 2025 season, and 20 of those titles came during the first 40 years of the original Yankee Stadium. A park that hosted that much winning would be famous even if it had been a plain box. It was not a plain box, and its successor across the street carries on the name, the address in the Bronx and a good share of the ritual.
What the park does to a baseball is a more specific question. The site's reference data gives 318 feet down the left-field line, 399 to left-center, 408 to center, 385 to right-center and 314 down the right-field line. In words: short lines, deep alleys and a long center. That shape produces home runs of a particular kind, and it has done so, in different forms, for a century. The sections below explain the shape, the parks the Yankees used before this one, the stretch when they shared a home with the Mets, and what the numbers say about the club's time in the Bronx.
All figures here come from the historical record through the 2025 season or from the site's own ballpark file. Where something is not in those sources, the guide says so rather than guessing. For ticket prices, entry rules, food and anything that changes with the season, check the club's official site.
Four homes before the Bronx
The franchise did not start in New York. The historical parks table shows that it began in 1901 as the Baltimore Orioles of the new American League, playing at a park called Oriole Park for 1901 and 1902. In 1903 the club moved to New York and became the Highlanders, a name tied to the high ground of its first New York home, Hilltop Park. Hilltop Park is the home in the historical record from 1903 through 1912, and the best attendance recorded there was 501,000.
From 1913 through 1922 the club played at the Polo Grounds, the same park used by the New York Giants. By that time the name had changed to Yankees. The historical record lists the best attendance there at 1,289,422, which is already well above the Hilltop figure. The Yankees won their first two pennants, in 1921 and 1922, while renting the Giants' ground, and lost the World Series both times to the Giants themselves. The club had outgrown renting from its landlord, and it decided to build a ballpark of its own.
The new ballpark opened for the 1923 season, and the log shows a historical park entry called Yankee Stadium I from 1923 to 1973. The same year the club won its first World Series, beating the Giants 4-2. The pattern of that decade explains why the nickname "the House That Ruth Built" stuck: a stadium of unusual size, a star who made the crowds possible, and a title in the opening season. Babe Ruth is the franchise leader in home runs with 659 from 1920 to 1934, and the Yankees' list of Most Valuable Player winners begins with his 1923 award.
The original Yankee Stadium, 1923 to 1973
Yankee Stadium I stood for 51 seasons of Yankees baseball in the historical table, and its record is the most remarkable in the sport. The Yankees won pennants in 1923, 1926, 1927 and 1928, then in 1932, 1936, 1937, 1938, 1939, 1941, 1942, 1943, 1947, 1949, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963 and 1964. That is 27 pennants in a span of 42 seasons. Of those, the World Series titles came in 1923, 1927, 1928, 1932, 1936, 1937, 1938, 1939, 1941, 1943, 1947, 1949, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1956, 1958, 1961 and 1962, a total of 20.
The best individual seasons of the era belonged to men who were measured against the building. Lou Gehrig, who finished with 493 home runs and 1,995 RBI for the club, won MVP awards in 1927 and 1936. Joe DiMaggio won in 1939, 1941 and 1947. Yogi Berra won in 1951, 1954 and 1955. Mickey Mantle won in 1956, 1957 and 1962, and Roger Maris won in 1960 and 1961. In 1961 Maris hit 61 home runs and Mantle hit 54 in the historical record.
The building also had strange geometry. The left-center area was famously deep, a stretch of the outfield that robbed right-handed power hitters of home runs and gave them doubles and triples instead. Hitters who could pull to right, especially left-handed hitters, had a short route to the seats. The idea that the original Stadium was a "left-hander's park" has some truth to it, but the deep alley meant that a right-handed hitter such as DiMaggio had to find his power to the right of that alley. For the players and the clubs, see the best players in Yankees history.
The 1960s ended on a low note. The Yankees' 1964 pennant was followed by a long, sad drop: the 1965 through 1975 seasons produced no pennants at all. The ballpark itself aged, and 1973 was the last season of the original building before its rebuilding.
Two years at Shea
The historical table has an unusual entry for the next two seasons: Shea Stadium, from 1974 through 1975. The Yankees left the Bronx while the old Stadium was rebuilt and played their home games in Queens, in the park the Mets used. Attendance there peaked at 1,288,048, much lower than at the old Stadium. The club did not win a pennant either year.
The rebuild gave the Bronx a different building, and the historical table shows it as Yankee Stadium II from 1976. The ballpark looked much like its predecessor from the field, but the structure behind it had been changed. The stands were rebuilt and the look of the place changed in its details. The rebuilt ballpark opened for 1976, and the club won the pennant that year, the first pennant since 1964. Then it won again in 1977 and 1978 and took World Series titles in both years, beating the Dodgers 4-2 each time. If you want to see how that run fit into the franchise's long arc, the Yankees franchise history walks through each era.
The renovated Stadium also produced the 1990s dynasty. The Yankees won the pennant and the World Series in 1996 against Atlanta, then in 1998 against San Diego, in 1999 against Atlanta and in 2000 against the Mets. They also won pennants in 2001 and 2003, losing the World Series in seven games to Arizona and in six to Florida. The 1998 team went 114-48, second only to the 1927 team's 110-44 by winning percentage among the seasons the fact sheet ranks, and ahead of the 1961 team's 109-53. The best attendance in the old building's last decades was 4,298,655 in 2008, which works out to about 53,000 per game over an 81-game home schedule.
The new Stadium, from 2009
Across the street from the old one, the club built the third Yankee Stadium, which opened for the 2009 season. The historical park labels overlap in places because of how the database assigns names across years, so the dates here come from the break in the attendance records: the old building's best season, 4,298,655, was 2008, and a second figure of 3,765,807 belongs to the new building. That second figure works out to roughly 46,500 per home date, which is almost exactly the 46,543 capacity in the site's ballpark file. The new Stadium holds fewer people than its predecessor did, and it fills up.
The Yankees won the World Series in the first year of the new park, 2009, beating Philadelphia 4-2 after beating the Angels 4-2 in the ALCS and Minnesota 3-0 in the Division Series. That makes their 27th title, the most recent in the historical record. Since then the club has won division titles in 2011, 2012, 2019, 2022 and 2024, and the 2024 team won the pennant by beating Cleveland 4-1 in the ALCS, before losing the World Series to the Dodgers 4-1. In 2025, the Yankees won the wild-card series over Boston 2-1 before losing the Division Series to Toronto in four games.
The current era's star is Aaron Judge. His 368 home runs with the club from 2016 through 2025 already rank fourth in franchise history behind Ruth (659), Mantle (536) and Gehrig (493). He won the Rookie of the Year Award in 2017, and Most Valuable Player awards in 2022, 2024 and 2025. In 2022 he hit 62 home runs, the most in the American League in the historical record and one more than Roger Maris hit in 1961. That season sits next to Maris's as a reminder that this park, like its predecessor, makes home-run totals into national events.
What the dimensions do
Here is the site's reference data for the current park in a table.
| Spot | Distance |
|---|---|
| Left-field line | 318 feet |
| Left-center | 399 feet |
| Center field | 408 feet |
| Right-center | 385 feet |
| Right-field line | 314 feet |
Two numbers matter most: 318 and 314. Those are short foul lines by the standard of any major-league park. A fly ball down either line needs less carry than it would in most places, and the right-field line is the shorter of the two. For a left-handed pull hitter, the target is a wall 314 feet away. For a right-handed pull hitter, the target is 318.
The other numbers are the opposite. From the line to the alleys the distances rise sharply: 399 in left-center, 385 in right-center and 408 in center. That is deeper than the standard 400-foot center field, and the left-center number in particular means that right-handed hitters who drive the ball to the left side of center get fewer home runs than their pull-side power would suggest. The result is a park where home runs are common near the lines and rare in the gaps, and where doubles and triples depend on the speed of the outfielders.
Compare this with the other end of the spectrum. At Wrigley Field, a plain, nearly symmetrical park, the lines are 355 and 353 and the alleys are 368. Yankee Stadium's lines are 35 to 40 feet shorter, and its alleys are 17 to 31 feet deeper. A park like that asks pitchers to be more careful on pitches that can be pulled and asks outfielders to cover real ground. The Yankees' rivals in the East, the Orioles, Red Sox and Rays, each have parks with their own quirks.
The ballpark file also lists an elevation of 55 feet and an azimuth of 75 degrees. The azimuth is the compass direction from home plate to center field, so the hitter faces a little north of due east. That orientation sends the afternoon sun behind the plate, as it does in most parks, and puts the shadows across the infield late in the day.
How the park shapes the game
A short right-field line makes one pitch type harder to throw: the fly ball that a left-handed hitter pulls. The classic example is the fastball that a pitcher leaves up and inside to a left-handed hitter. In most parks it is a long out. In this one it can be a home run. Pitchers who keep the ball down and induce ground balls have an advantage in a park like this; pitchers who give up fly balls need an outfield that can cover ground.
For hitters, the park rewards the pull. A left-handed pull hitter with moderate power can reach the right-field seats, and a right-handed pull hitter can reach the left-field seats, though the left-center alley punishes a swing that is slightly late. The sort of hitter who does best is the one who can spray the ball into the gaps for doubles and also pull for lines. Derek Jeter, the franchise leader in hits with 3,465 from 1995 through 2014, is the model of the second kind.
The numbers for stolen bases and defense are less affected by the park. Derek Jeter also leads the franchise in stolen bases with 358, and the speed of an outfield makes the difference on the deep alleys. Defensive range matters more here than in a symmetrical park, since a ball hit to center or the alleys can be a triple or an out depending on who is out there.
The historical Teams table carries a batting park factor for each club-season, where 100 is neutral and higher numbers favor hitters. For the Yankees it ran from 98 to 108 between 2005 and 2025, above 100 in most years from 2006 through 2018 and highest at 108 in 2011, then back near 100 in 2019 and the seasons since. It is a modest tilt toward hitters rather than a wall of home runs, and it moves from year to year. Readers who want to run their own comparisons can use the site's stat calculator and the leaders pages.
The October record
The Yankees' postseason log is long, and the historical record shows its scale. Through 2025 they played 41 World Series and won 27 of them. Many of those series were short and one-sided: they swept in 1927, 1928, 1932, 1938, 1939, 1950, 1998 and 1999. Others were close. They beat the Dodgers 4-3 in 1947, 1952 and 1956, beat Milwaukee in seven games in 1958, and lost seven-game series to St. Louis in 1926 and 1964 and to Pittsburgh in 1960.
The recent record is more mixed than the old one. After the 2009 title, the Yankees lost the ALCS in 2010 to Texas, in 2012 to Detroit, in 2017 to Houston, in 2019 to Houston, and in 2022 to Houston again. Their 2024 pennant was the first since 2009. A fair reading is that the park has not been a guarantee of anything; it has been a stage for a club that has qualified for October most years.
For a full tour of the best individual seasons and every playoff run, the article on the best Yankees seasons and every October run covers each one, and the history of the World Series explains how the format changed around them.
Planning a visit
A few points apply regardless of the season. Check the schedule on the schedule page and the club's record and next game on the Yankees team page. Early arrival helps: the lines at entry gates grow before the first pitch, and batting practice is worth seeing. Monument Park, the area of plaques and retired numbers, has changed location and access rules over the years, so check the club's official site for current hours and entry rules rather than relying on memory.
Think about sun and sightlines. Shade depends on the seat and the hour, and the club's seating guide is the best way to choose; upper-deck seats give a full view of the field. In April and October, the weather in the Bronx can be cold and windy, so bring layers. The site's ballpark page collects the dimensions, capacity and location data in one place.
Common questions
When did the original Yankee Stadium open? The historical parks table lists the club at Yankee Stadium from 1923. The Yankees won their first World Series in that first season. Before 1923 they rented the Polo Grounds from the Giants for ten seasons.
What are the dimensions? In the site's reference data they are 318 feet to left, 399 to left-center, 408 to center, 385 to right-center and 314 to right. The foul lines are short and the alleys are deep.
Where did the Yankees play in 1974 and 1975? The historical record lists Shea Stadium for those two seasons, while Yankee Stadium was rebuilt. They returned to the Bronx in 1976.
How many people does the current park hold? The site's ballpark file lists a capacity of 46,543. The best season in the new building drew 3,765,807 fans, which averages roughly 46,500 per home date.
How many titles did the Yankees win in each building? By the historical table, 20 of the 27 came in the original Yankee Stadium's first 40 years, six more came after the 1976 rebuilding (1977, 1978, 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2000), and one came in 2009, the new park's first season.
Where to go next
For the full club story, start with the Yankees franchise history and the list of the best players at each position. The division rivals are covered in the histories of the Orioles, Red Sox and Rays. The team's live record is on the Yankees page, the ballpark data is at /ballparks/yankee-stadium/, and news on the club is collected at /searchset/mlb-al-east/new-york-yankees/.