NEW YORK – There were World Series champions, Hall of Famers and Monument Park inductees ringing the Yankee Stadium infield on Saturday afternoon. For the Yankees, Old-Timers’ Day has always served as a bridge between generations.
This time, it also brought family together. The afternoon gave Cody and Clay Bellinger an opportunity to suit up alongside David and Ryan Weathers, two fathers and sons sharing the same dugout in the Bronx.
“There’s so many guys here that have carried on the legacy of being a Yankee,” Cody Bellinger said. “A championship is the ultimate goal when you put on this uniform, and hopefully we can carry on that tradition.”
The Bellingers participated in Old-Timers’ Day together in 2025, Cody’s first season with the Yankees. This was the first such experience for the Weathers. Ryan is in his first season with the club after being acquired from the Marlins this past offseason, while David was a playoff hero for the 1996 club.
“I’ve wanted to come for years,” David Weathers said. “It’s great just being in that locker room; all of us rehashing 1996. There’s a lot of guys from my teams here. Any person would love to be part of this, and it’s great being part of the Yankee family.”
A three-inning exhibition was played, with Hideki Matsui and Bernie Williams delivering the biggest hits. Most importantly, everyone emerged healthy – not necessarily a given, considering Mariano Rivera tore an Achilles tendon while playing the outfield in the 2025 game.
“We are keeping an eye on him, because he gets a little crazy,” Jorge Posada quipped before the game.
Surgically repaired, Rivera was back in uniform for Saturday’s contest, tossing from the mound and even taking an at-bat. Rivera said his recovery from the Achilles tear was more arduous than the ACL repair he endured as an active player in May 2012.
“Don’t remind me. It was tough,” Rivera said. “I still have to do the therapy. But I continue going and moving better, and I’m good enough to be here. Just to be on the field, it’s great. I love it.”
Weathers was among a group of first-time participants that included Dellin Betances, Todd Frazier and Adam Ottavino. As Derek Jeter once did, Betances balked at the term, “Old-Timers” – he’d prefer to be thought of as alumni.
“Kicking it with some of these legends, I grew up watching a lot of these guys,” Betances said. “I feel like I’m definitely not old, but I remember them. There’s a lot of championships in this room.”
Some of the shirts and pants might be sized a little larger than they once were, and certainly no one is covering ground like he once did. But the weight of the pinstripes remains.
“This is the best uniform in the world,” Posada said. “We were taught how to put this uniform on in the Minor Leagues. I take a lot of pride in the way we were taught, of all the rules that we had. Those were discipline rules that kept us doing the right things when it came to the game.”
The tradition of the Yankees’ Old-Timers’ Day stretches back to the final day of the 1947 season, honoring Babe Ruth. Over the years, almost every notable player in franchise history has participated, bringing the rosters of yesteryear together with the present.
Roy White still fondly remembers watching Mickey Mantle hit a home run off Whitey Ford in one such contest at the original Yankee Stadium. But some of the most valuable takeaways took place in the clubhouse and dugout.
“My first one in 1977 when I came over, I was in awe,” said Bucky Dent. “You’ve got Mantle, [Roger] Maris, [Yogi] Berra, [Joe] DiMaggio. To see the guys that were the great players before us, the history of the game. That was a special time because they were in the locker room with us. We got to talk to them, hear their stories.”
That tradition continues – though, as Rivera lamented Saturday, maybe not as often as he’d prefer.
“When I was playing, this day to me was special, because I saw all the old men that I could learn from,” Rivera said. “This was something that I looked forward to, every year that I pitched in this field. To me, it’s something that will never get old.”
Nick Swisher remembered huddling with Berra in the Yankee Stadium dugout while he battled a slump. Sure enough, the 10-time World Series champion offered a few words of wisdom that helped Swisher break out.
“‘Nicky, if you’re swinging at the changeup in the dirt, just move up in the box,’” Swisher said, mimicking Berra’s gruff speaking style. “And I’m like, ‘That’s all you did?’ He said, ‘I just moved up in the box because it made that low pitch a little higher in the zone for me.’ The simplicity at which these gentlemen went about their jobs is absolutely amazing.”
As the Bellingers and Weathers cooled off after the exhibition, the fathers remarked that their bodies were crankier than they had been hours before. But their smiles were a little broader, too: the magic of an event that has endured for nearly eight decades.
“There is no better place in the world to play baseball,” Clay Bellinger said.