news-record.com

This chair is ugggly! It needs work and paint.

For a hefty price, it could be yours, if it were for sale.

Lore handed down from previous owners of Greensboro’s minor league baseball teams says the chair comes from New York’s original Yankee Stadium — the one before a 1970s’ massive renovation. It is believed the chair and others removed during the renovation arrived here in the 1980s.

Web sites show surviving prerenovation seats from the 60,000-plus capacity stadium priced from $1,999 to $3,999.

The Greensboro chair now is now with window-maker David Hoggard, former Greensboro Parks & Recreation Commission chairman and former Charles B. Aycock Neighborhood Association president.

It came from War Memorial Stadium, close to Hoggard’s house. The old Greensboro Hornets and Bats minor league teams played there until 2004 before moving to downtown’s NewBridge Bank Park and being renamed the Grasshoppers.

Recently Hoggard was in War Memorial Stadium, now used for amateur baseball, with Greensboro Coliseum managing director Matt Brown. Hoggard, who attended many Hornets and Bats games, spotted the chair atop the old “Grandstand.” That was the hot spot in the deep left field bleachers where young people gathered to drink, flirt and watch baseball.

Brown said, “I’ll get it down for you.”

“Four days later,” Hoggard says, “it showed up on my front porch.”

John Horshok, chief operating officer of the Hornets and Bats from 1993 to 1999, says the chair and others were here when he arrived. He moved them from behind home plate out to the Grandstand.

A 1993 News & Record story identified the seats as relics not from Yankee Stadium, but from a now-demolished stadium first known as Shibe Park and later Connie Mack Stadium, in Philadelphia. The present Oakland Athletics played there until departing in 1953 and the Phillies until 1976.

Horshok, however, believes the seats came from both Shibe/Connie Mack and Yankee stadiums. Those with rounded backs were from Philadelphia, those with straight backs, such as the one in Hoggard’s care, from New York.

Internet photos of Yankee Stadium seats look identical to the chair here, except the red color. Reportedly, blue Yankee paint appeared on some when chairs were worked on.

Even if the chair is from old Shibe/Connie Mack, it has value: $1,295 according to one Web site.

“We thought it was cool that someone could sit in a seat from where someone had once watched Babe Ruth and watch Derek Jeter,” Horshok says of a current Yankee who played here.

Horshok says he last saw the old seats stacked behind the ball park. He also owns one, emphasizing that it’s not for sale. Another Bats-Hornets era fan has a row of four connected square-back seats.

Donald Moore, Grasshoppers general manager, says he has no idea what happened to the old chairs. When he came in 2001, metal seats had replaced them.

Somehow, the Grandstand roof chair stayed.

As a joke, Horshok had put it up there as the “Bob Uecker” seat, farthest from home plate. Uecker is famous for being a nonfamous former Major League player. Commercials have him getting no respect as an ex-Major Leaguer. He’s shown arriving at a stadium expecting the best seat, but getting the worse.

Seats from the prerenovation Yankee Stadium are valuable because tears as big as baseballs are falling among Yankee fans. Their ball park, built in 1923, is being demolished. The Yankees will play in a new Yankee Stadium next season.

Hoggard stresses he’s only the chair’s caretaker. It belongs to the city, owner of War Memorial Stadium. He has contacted the Greensboro Historical Museum, which indicated it would love to have it.

Contact Jim Schlosser at 601-9879 or beale1@clearwire.net