Talk Bronx New York

Miriam Chan once lived in a house a few blocks from the one that Ruth built.

“Oh, what a player that Ruth was,” Chan said recently as she pulled a Yankee cap over her head. “What a beautiful swing.”

Chan, who was 6 when her family moved to Manhattan from the Bronx, has been around to celebrate all of the Yankees’ 26 World Series championships, including the first in 1923, which came at the expense of the New York Giants.

“I’ve been a Yankee fan my whole life,” she said, “and that’s a pretty long time.”

When asked how long, she balked.

“Let’s just say I’m in my 80s and I’m lying about it,” she said.

Chan, a widow and mother of two who lives on the Upper East Side, still takes the train to her old neighborhood to watch the Yankees play, and she plans to visit their new house next season.

“It’s kind of sad that my guys are moving to a new stadium, but time changes everything,” she said. “I guess I’ll just take my memories across the street.”

Those memories stretch from Babe Ruth to Lou Gehrig — “Oh, that poor man, that’s all we could talk about when he got sick,” she said — to Joe DiMaggio to Mickey Mantle to Bobby Murcer to Don Mattingly to Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez.

Chan has been a regular at Yankee Stadium since the mid-1930s, when she was an art student at Hunter College. She later became a sketch artist in the fashion industry.

“One year, there was a fire at Hunter, so the students were moved to an unoccupied building in the Bronx,” she said. “On the train ride home from school, my girlfriends and I would pass Yankee Stadium. We started getting off the train and going to the games, and I’ve been a die-hard ever since.”

Chan spends a good part of her year at her home in Palm Beach, Fla., but is back in New York before the start of each baseball season.

“A good dose of the Yankees and a little of that New York pollution keeps my system going,” she said.

Through the years, Chan has seen a number of great Yankees come and go, but her favorite is Bernie Williams.

“He carried himself with so much class and dignity,” she said, “and he was such a graceful player, kind of like DiMaggio in that way.”

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Robinson Cano Joins Yankees For 4 Year $30M Deal 

The Yankees traditionally have eschewed giving long-term contracts to their young players. Robinson Cano became an exception to that Thursday.

The Yankees finalized a four-year contract that guarantees second baseman Cano at least $30 million. With club options for 2012 and 2013, it could turn into a six-year, $57-million contract.

There have been times, general manager Brian Cashman said, that the Yankees have been on the path to getting something done, as with Derek Jeter years ago, but owner George Steinbrenner blanched. There have been other times, Cashman said, that the Yankees have wanted to do something but couldn’t get the player and agent to come to their negotiating neighborhood, as with a young Bernie Williams. But mostly, the Yankees simply haven’t tried to lock up players until they hit free agency.

“Robby is one of the emerging talents in the game,” Cashman said by phone. “He’s a tremendous hitter, and he’s dedicated to getting better and better … He has the chance, God willing, if he stays healthy and productive, he’s going to have a tremendous career. He’s already proven he can play in New York. When you have players that prove they can handle the stress and pressure of playing here, like Robby has, you’ve got to put your arms around them.”

Cano’s agent, Bobby Barad, said by phone: “We’re very happy. That was the goal when we started these conversations. We both knew each other quite well and had some conversations going back to as far as spring training. Just through those conversations, both of us had interest.”

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