Newsday: Best: YES’ John Filippelli saw Stadium empty, and full

Yankee Stadium...as empty as the Bob Lorenz Doll doing play by play.

For John Filippelli, YES’ president of production and programming, Sunday’s Stadium party resonated professionally and personally.

His first real job was as a Stadium vendor in 1966, including the September game against the White Sox that drew 413.

That was the day Red Barber famously insisted on discussing the attendance on the air, and soon thereafter was fired.

“I sold six bags of peanuts and got seven foul balls,” he said. “That’s what I remember. I had more balls than I sold peanuts. There was no one here. You could almost give them out, one per customer . . . It was very spooky and surreal and strange.”