Baseball, more than any other sport, lends itself to nostalgia.  And for many Yankees fans of any age (except perhaps those under 10), whose team has the most distinguished record and tradition over their lifetimes, holding on to a piece of that past means big business for memorabilia dealers.

As the 85-year-old Yankee Stadium served the Yankees for one final season before closing with much fanfare in 2008, security measures were in place to prevent the kind of looting like that which took place at RFK Stadium in Washington when the Senators left town more than three decades ago.  Fans toted everything from seats to bases to toilets as they exited, not because those items had monetary value, but because that was their way of keeping a part of something that was leaving — they thought — forever.

My father has told me a story about the 1970’s Yankee Stadium renovation, when he was working as a court reporter at the nearby Bronx County Court House.  He recalled open ramps near the old Gate 2, and rows of seats, chunks of concrete dangling from their legs, were piled up on the sidewalk.  Day after day, he’d walk by, after awhile thinking nothing of it, before one day a truck must have come by and taken them away, perhaps to a landfill.  Just think what two seats from when Babe Ruth played would be worth today.

This time around, I even thought about trying to slide one of those “Line forms here” signs off its hooks at my favorite concession stand when the attendant turned to get my hot dog, but thought better of it.

But those precautions were also in place to allow the Yankees and their memorabilia partner Steiner Sports to control and sell the pieces of the original House that Ruth Built.

Steiner reports that the most popular item during the 2009 holiday season has been sections of “freeze dried” grass from the Stadium, encased in a glass display.  Next are pieces of the foul poles, and fourth are pairs of original Stadium seats. (Third are Eli Manning autographed collectibles).

To me, this shows the passion of baseball fans, the engine that drives the memorabilia business, is strong. The raw elements of the place where all of these memories occurred has such reverence that they have real value.

Some scoff that it is crazy to buy dirt or grass or scraps of metal that would otherwise have no value.  I suspect that most of the people who say that are not avid sports fans; they don’t feel the same excitement, disappointment and fulfillment that following a favorite team for years — often with a parent and/or child — can bring.

As I see it, fans aren’t buying pieces of a stadium.  They are preserving a memory.