CC Sabathia was brainstorming sounds that he associates with happiness on the latest episode of R2C2, and one of the first that came to mind was the Yankee Stadium bells that ring out every time the Bombers score a run.
“Those bells, those get me excited,” Sabathia said of the fanfare version of the Westminster Quarter chimes that play whenever a Yankee crosses home plate.
Turns out, Sabathia had a hand in salvaging those recognizable bells.
The Westminster Quarters became a run-scoring tradition for the Yankees at the old stadium, but when the team moved to the new stadium for the 2009 season, Sabathia recalls a crucial piece missing in what was to be his first year in pinstripes.
“When I was pitching in the old Yankee Stadium, obviously I would give up a lot of runs…and heard that all the time,” Sabathia said. “But when we first moved into the new stadium, they didn’t play it.”
Looking back on the Yankees’ pair of exhibition games against the Cubs at the new stadium, the first games to ever be played at the ballpark, the Westminster Quarters can be heard on home runs, like when Derek Jeter went deep in the first exhibition game, but they aren’t heard when runs were scored any other way, like a Melky Cabrera RBI single. Apparently, that wasn’t acceptable to Sabathia, who understood the bells’ effects as a former visitor and opponent.
“I remember going to [Yankees PR director Jason] Zillo,” Sabathia said. “I was like ‘Why don’t you play that song when we score runs?’ I remember he was like ‘Oh, that’s an old stadium thing, I don’t think they’re gonna do that here.’ I was like ‘No, you guys need to do that. That s--t is intimidating…every time we score runs you hear that noise, I remember asking Zillo to bring that back and they brought it back to the stadium.”
Sure enough, the bells are once again played every time the Yanks score a run, and Sabathia and the Yankees responded by winning the World Series in the new stadium’s inaugural season, and Sabathia hopes those victorious bells continue to torment opposing pitchers like it once did to him before he became a Yankee.
“It haunted me as a visitor,” Sabathia said. “I know David Price has nightmares about hearing it. You just gave up another grand slam cuz.”
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