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01/28/2008 8:46 PM ET
Yankee Stadium tour is rich in history
Veteran guide brings MLB.com cameras behind the scenes
By Doug Miller / MLB.com





Tony Morante proudly wears his Yankees jacket every day as he patrols the grounds of the place where he grew up and will probably spend the rest of his life.
Morante is the Yankee Stadium director of stadium tours, a job he's enjoyed since 1986 when the Yankees decided to host tours for fans eager to get a leg up on the history of the storied Bronx ballclub and check out the inner sanctum of the House that Ruth Built.

MLB.com/Entertainment will be touring stadiums throughout the country and giving you inside looks at each park, and what better place to start than the place where Derek Jeter mans shortstop and Andy Pettitte and Joba Chamberlain toe the pitcher's mound?

Watch the video tour

"I've been coming out here since 1949," Morante told us in the first part of our three-part video. "My dad was an usher then. I started coming out to a lot of games when the school was out. I would come out before the gates opened and I would sit out in right field and catch some of those balls that the guys were hitting in batting practice.

"After about eight or nine years of doing that, my dad said, 'Hey pal, you're coming up on the arm long enough. You're gonna have to start earning.'"

Morante became an usher in 1958 and worked his way up to his current gig of 22 years. He said the Yankees saw the Mets doing well marketing their Shea Stadium tours to young people and came up with their own plan.

"I thought the only thing that would be able to counteract all of that was the history we had," Morante said. "That was our most important product, so we built the tours on the backs of the schoolchildren in 1986 and watched them grow from seed."

Take the tour and you'll learn a lot from Morante. You'll find out about the Yankees' history at Hilltop Park and the Polo Grounds and how the team ended up on the current plot of land, which will give way to the new Yankee Stadium in 2009 after the current model is closed down.

You'll walk through the tunnels of the ballpark that will host the 2008 All-Star Game for one last time, and you'll hear all about one George Herman Ruth.

Morante is an affable guy with a lot of stories, and his insider knowledge of the Stadium through the years makes for some colorful observations.

After pointing out that the land that the current Yankee Stadium sits on was purchased for $2.4 million, Morante smiles with a hint of nostalgia in his eyes.

"That's not even the average salary of a ballplayer today," he says.

Doug Miller is a Senior Writer for MLB.com/Entertainment. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.