Parade state of mind in New York

Yankees feted with ticker-tape event in Canyon of Heroes

Mark Newman / MLB.com

NEW YORK -- They came here in 1927 to greet Charles Lindbergh after his transatlantic flight, they came here in 1945 to celebrate World War II Allied Forces commander and future president Dwight D. Eisenhower, and they came here 40 years ago to welcome home Neil Armstrong and the other Apollo 11 astronauts after the first moon landing.

There is nothing like a parade up the Canyon of Heroes, where confetti and streamers fly from skyscrapers still, even though there is an ominous gap in the canyon this time, one that was not there the last time the Yankees were feted in this way in 2000. There is a hole in the sky where the World Trade Center towered then, but like baseball, a tradition goes on now and the parade keeps rolling along to mark one Yankees world championship after another.

This one on Friday was for a new generation. It was for all those kids who showed up with their parents around sunrise and waited in the cold with wide eyes. It was for George Steinbrenner, the owner who built this empire. It was for a blockbuster Major League Baseball season that needed a fitting end, something impossibly big and outrageous. It was one for the ages.

"It's like nothing I ever saw before," said Alex Rodriguez, a first-time champ who wore a fedora and gloves and stood beside Jay-Z on the ultimate pop-star float. "We've waited a long time for this. ... I've never seen so many people collected in one place. The excitement -- it just seemed like they were as hungry as we were. The fans really wanted this."

"You can't describe it -- you don't just see it and hear it, but you literally 'feel' it," added Lonn Trost, the Yankees' chief operating officer who rode with the Commissioner's Trophy in one of the lead vehicles. "The sound, the noise -- you look up Broadway and all you see are fans.