Hours before the Yankees and Red Sox prepared to face off again at Fenway Park on Sunday, the rivalry was alive and well in the Bronx, where jackhammers rocked a concrete corridor at the future Yankee Stadium site in search of a prankster's hidden David Ortiz jersey.
For those who find such superstition credible and feared a Yankees curse, fear not. The Bombers yanked the Red Sox jersey out of the new ballpark's structure in a photo opportunity ceremony on Sunday afternoon, with construction workers removing the illicit article.
Yankees team president Randy Levine and chief operating officer Lonn Trost were present on Sunday at the site, as workers removed the jersey from two feet of concrete in a service corridor. The jersey, plucked from a two-by-three foot hole, was a home white Red Sox article bearing designated hitter Ortiz's name and number.
The New York Post reported that the culprit was Gino Castignoli, a 46-year-old Bronx resident and Red Sox fan. Castignoli told the newspaper that he buried the jersey at the construction site last summer while working at the stadium.
The Yankees originally denied the story after their records indicated that the jersey could not have been buried near the Yankees' future clubhouse, as an original report on Friday indicated. Two workers told a construction manager that they remembered Castignoli, and they led the supervisor to a service corridor near the site of the planned Legends Club restaurant -- behind home plate and toward the third-base side.
According to the newspaper, workers dug for five hours on Saturday with jackhammers, finding the jersey at 3:25 p.m. ET and notifying Yankees officials.
The Yankees plan to donate the jersey to charity, and they may pursue a lawsuit against the construction worker, according to The Associated Press.
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