More than eight years after they finished the new Yankee Stadium, I still get confused when I climb out of the subway at 161st and River Ave. Whoa—where did it go? The lot that used to hold the ballpark is empty. The stadium, I forget every time I visit the Bronx, is across the street. It’s like a mirror image held up to the past that leads into an alternate universe where everything is different.

In the new world, Yankees fans no longer fight with their Boston counterparts. Baseball’s most famous rivalry is not what it used to be. It feels a little strange. Maybe that’s why it took 45 minutes to get into the stadium when I visited recently for a Yanks-Sox game. I thought it was just for extra security, but perhaps the authorities were swapping out the bodies of human fans for peaceful aliens dressed in Mattingly and Munson and Judge jerseys and Red Sox caps. Inside the ballpark, they sit next to each other. They talk to each other. Sure, they argue sometimes, even scream at each other, but it’s like a pantomime that always ends happily.