Yankees Old-Timers’ Day 2026: How to Watch, Roster, and Why It’s Nearly Extinct

The New York Yankees hold their 78th Old-Timers’ Day on Saturday. Nobody else in baseball has done this 78 times, and no other club has kept it going without interruption.

How to watch Yankees Old-Timers’ Day

• Date: Saturday, Aug. 8, 2026
• Gates open: 12:00 p.m. ET
• Be seated by: 12:45 p.m. ET
• Introductions: Approximately 1:00 p.m. ET, read by Michael Kay
• Alumni game: Immediately following introductions
• Yankees vs. Braves: 3:05 p.m. ET
• TV: YES Network, exclusively
• Venue: Yankee Stadium, Bronx, New York

If you are out of market, read this

The ceremonies are a YES Network exclusive. MLB.TV has historically carried only the regular season game that follows, not the introductions or the alumni game.

Fans outside New York found that out the hard way last August. One in North Carolina signed up for a Fubo trial and hit a geographic restriction. Another in Washington ended up watching a fan’s phone stream from the Yankee Stadium outfield on YouTube.

Realistic options: a provider that carries YES, a streaming package that includes it, or waiting for the full ceremony to post to YouTube afterward, as it has in past years.

The 2026 roster

Nine Monument Park inductees are scheduled, seven with retired numbers.

Hall of Famers: Mariano Rivera (42), Joe Torre (6)

Retired numbers: Ron Guidry (49), Andy Pettitte (46), Jorge Posada (20), Bernie Williams (51), Paul O’Neill (21)

Monument Park: Willie Randolph, Tino Martinez

First-time Old-Timers: Dellin Betances, Todd Frazier, Adam Ottavino — all three current YES Network studio analysts — and David Weathers

Full scheduled roster, subject to change: Clay Bellinger, Dellin Betances, Ron Blomberg, Aaron Boone, Homer Bush, Rick Cerone, Chris Chambliss, David Cone, Johnny Damon, Bucky Dent, Brian Doyle, John Flaherty, Todd Frazier, Dwight Gooden, Ron Guidry, Orlando Hernández, Jill Martin, Tino Martinez, Hideki Matsui, Lee Mazzilli, Ramiro Mendoza, José Molina, Diana Munson, Kay Murcer, Jeff Nelson, Paul O’Neill, Adam Ottavino, Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada, Willie Randolph, Mariano Rivera, Mickey Rivers, Luis Sojo, Alfonso Soriano, Shane Spencer, Mike Stanton, Nick Swisher, Joe Torre, David Weathers, Roy White, Bernie Williams.

Three widows of Yankees legends are on the roster: Diana Munson, widow of Thurman Munson; Kay Murcer, widow of Bobby Murcer; and Jill Martin, widow of Billy Martin. Two fathers of current Yankees are attending — Clay Bellinger, father of Cody, and David Weathers, father of Ryan.

Derek Jeter is not on the list.

Seventy-eight years of the same afternoon

The photographic record is the argument for why this survives in the Bronx and nowhere else.

That is a Hall of Famer taking a pitch off the body in an exhibition game 69 years ago. He stayed in, singled and scored.

Why almost nobody else kept it going

Twenty-nine other clubs have history and alumni. Almost none of them hold an annual event under that name, and the ones that hold anything have mostly changed the format.

The injury problem. Putting retired athletes in a live baseball game is an insurance question before it is a marketing one. Modern players, many still working in broadcasting or coaching, are reluctant to risk a hamstring or a highlight of themselves looking finished. The Yankees themselves paused the game portion for several years, holding introductions and a question-and-answer session instead. The alumni game returned this season.

The money problem. When the Mets studied bringing the event back to Citi Field, the conclusion was that a standalone alumni day did not move enough tickets or attract enough sponsorship to justify housing, flying and hosting dozens of former players for one afternoon.

The targeting problem. Clubs found that anniversary weekends built around a specific team draw a more motivated buyer than a generic gathering of everyone who ever wore the uniform. The Phillies have run alumni days built that way.

The roster problem. Fewer players spend a full career in one city now. A club that wants 40 former players in uniform has to fly them in from everywhere and hope enough of them still consider that town home. The Yankees are the exception because their pool is deeper and more multi-generational than anyone’s.

Every other sport figured this out

The strange part is that alumni events are not dying. They are thriving everywhere except baseball.

The NFL does it at halftime, which costs nothing and risks nobody.

College basketball does it as a tunnel walk.

Hockey plays the full game and does it outdoors, in front of 40,000 people, at a baseball stadium.

Baseball may have just found its version

Two summers of evidence suggest the sport is circling back — under different names.

The Brewers ran an alumni home run derby last season and followed with a full alumni game on July 24.

And on Friday night in Seattle, the Mariners held the first Alumni Home Run Derby in franchise history, part of their 50th anniversary season.

Ichiro Suzuki, 52 years old, hit six home runs in the opening round and finished one point short of the final. His last swing caught the top of the right field wall and stayed in.

“When I hit it, I thought I got it, and so I was a little bit relieved,” he said through longtime interpreter Allen Turner. “And so I kind of let my guard down, and then it didn’t go, so it kind of hurt me there.”

Asked how a 52-year-old survives a stamina event, he was matter of fact.

“I’m doing this all year. There’s never a time where there’s an offseason. It’s pretty much an everyday thing where I’m doing baseball, so it’s kind of an all-year thing for me.”

Stefen Romero won it — a 12th-round pick who played 94 major league games and hit four career home runs, then hit 96 in five seasons in Nippon Professional Baseball. He lives outside Portland now and coaches his sons in youth baseball. The Mariners called him a month and a half ago. He hit 12 in the championship round.

The derby solves everything the full game broke. Nobody runs the bases, so the insurance exposure collapses. It takes 45 minutes. It runs after a game rather than before one, so nobody has to arrive three hours early. And it produces the thing that travels — video of Ichiro at 52 putting balls in the seats passed 300,000 views on X overnight.

Milwaukee tried it first. Seattle got a national moment out of it. The Yankees are the only franchise that has run this every year for 78 years — but they are no longer the only one running something.