Don't wait to book your Big Apple ballpark tour

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Fans are scrambling for tickets in this final season of major league baseball play at legendary Yankee Stadium, which was built in 1923.

NEW YORK — One of the great thrills in spectator sports is about to vanish, the chance to walk out of the 4 train in The Bronx at East 161st Street and River Avenue with a baseball fan who has never been to Yankee Stadium and feel the fresh excitement in every step from subway to turnstile.

This place may have narrow aisles and cramped concourses, but right there is the spot where a dying Lou Gehrig declared himself "The luckiest man on the face of the earth" long before Reggie Jackson's third home run in Game 6 of the 1977 World Series cleared that fence over there.

Start spreading the bad news. Online tickets for official Yankee Stadium tours are sold out for the rest of the season, the Yankees' last at the most famous sports facility in America.

But remember the Amazin' Mets of 1969 and magical Mookie Wilson in 1986. And believe. You can still get a tour without knowing George Costanza or any other Yankees front office staffer.

What's that? You say such a mixed metaphor doesn't work in New York City, with more than eight million busy people and only a handful willing to wear a Yankees ballcap and Mets T-shirt simultaneously?

Fuh-get about it. Just thank city fathers and mothers, Wall Street bankers, all the Steinbrenners and a madcap Mets management team responsible for firing Willie Randolph in the middle of the night. Somehow, they conveniently arranged for the final seasons of Yankee Stadium and Shea Stadium to coincide.

The black cat

A 2008 New York ballpark tour should include:

--A game at Yankee Stadium. Meet by The Bat outside "The House That Ruth Built" for the 1923 season. Don't forget to check out Monument Park inside.

--A game at Shea Stadium. Close your eyes and picture Tommie Agee making not one but two sensational catches after hitting a home run in a victory over Baltimore in Game 3 of the 1969 World Series. A 22-year-old Nolan Ryan got the save.

--A tour of Yankee Stadium. Still possible because the Yankees save 20 day-of-tour tickets for box office purchase. By the way, the Yankees give visitors a more thorough tour than they do up at Fenway Park.

--A stroll around the new Yankee Stadium (next to baseball's original palace) and Citi Field (that big thing you see on TV over the fence in left-center at Shea).

Four ballparks with one Grand Central Station subway transfer. Not bad.

Shea Stadium, opened in 1964, cannot match its Bronx rival for history. But a black cat did run by Cubs third baseman Ron Santo while he was standing in the on-deck circle in 1969 and Pete Rose punched out Mets second baseman Bud Harrelson after a hard slide in the 1973 National League Championship Series.

Beatles, The Gipper

Other Shea tidbits: William Shea was an attorney who fought to get baseball back in New York after the Dodgers and Giants shrewdly split for California in the late 1950s, Thurman Munson and Co. played there in 1974-75 during a Yankee Stadium renovation, Chico Escuela wrote "Bad Stuff About The Mets" (in a "Saturday Night Live" skit) and current Braves pitching coach and former Mets relief pitcher Roger McDowell was "The Second Spitter" (of Seinfeld fame).

Remember, too, these places are famed without baseball.

Shea Stadium might be best known as launch pad for the Beatles' 1965 American tour. It was the showcase for Broadway Joe Namath's long passes and white shoes.

"The Best Game Ever" is Mark Bowden's stellar new book about the 1958 NFL Championship Game at Yankee Stadium in which the Baltimore Colts defeated the New York Giants in overtime to catapult pro football popularity. Yankee Stadium boxing lore includes Joe Louis' victory over Max Schmeling. The 1946 Army-Notre Dame game, a 0-0 tie involving four Heisman Trophy winners, is considered one of best college football games. Notre Dame head coach Knute Rockne gave his "Win one for the Gipper" speech at Yankee Stadium at halftime of a 1928 game against Army.

Even now, there is talk hockey's New York Rangers might host the final event at Yankee Stadium.

Somehow, the thrill from subway to turnstile just won't be the same.

Reach Gene Sapakoff at gsapakoff@postandcourier.com