NEW YORK — Yankee Stadium, the 85-year-old baseball cathedral synonymous with the game's biggest names and iconic moments, dims its lights for good this weekend amid a flood of memories mixed with sadness and disappointment. The House that Ruth Built is retiring early.

The New York Yankees, with an 84-71 record, are on the brink of being eliminated from postseason consideration and missing October play for the first time since 1994. The stadium that has hosted 100 World Series games will close tonight with Andy Pettitte pitching in an otherwise meaningless game against the Baltimore Orioles, a reality that doesn't sit well with the Yankees or their fans.

"It's an honor to pitch the game," Pettitte says, "but unfortunately it's going to be the last game in this ballpark."

"It's a horrible way to close Yankee Stadium," says Danene Siragusa, an administrator from Nanuet, N.Y.

Longtime baseball author Roger Angell says unlike other teams' fans, Yankees fans aren't used to losing and don't know how to react when faced with the flood of emotions coming this weekend.

"If you never win, the feeling of the place never changes, so it is a home," Angell says. "Yankee Stadium isn't like that, and the (George) Steinbrenner regime has made it clear that only winning is acceptable. But that isn't like life and makes for irritation when the winning doesn't continue. A home is where hard news happens often, not a place where you win every year, all the time."

The premature finish is hitting hard in the clubhouse as well. Shortstop Derek Jeter, who passed Lou Gehrig on Tuesday for the most career hits at Yankee Stadium, says he's not sure how he is going to feel when the last out is recorded. Closer Mariano Rivera says the emotions are "overwhelming, and it's going to be difficult to leave."

The Yankees, who are planning a stadium farewell party for fans to attend in November, won't reveal details of how they plan to honor Yankee Stadium today.

Several former players and family members of those who have died have said they have been invited to attend, according to "The New York Times." And there could be a ceremony similar to the one in the All-Star Game in July, when 49 Hall of Fame players took the field and Steinbrenner made a rare appearance.

"There's going to be some emotional stuff," says Hal Steinbrenner, one of George Steinbrenner's two sons who operate as the team's general partners.

And while the result of the game might not be important, many players are eager to be a part of history.

"Everyone on this team has thought about getting the last hit or the last home run," Orioles designated hitter Aubrey Huff says. "Babe Ruth hit the first home run in Yankee Stadium. It'd be something to hit the last one."

CAN'T TAKE HISTORY

Like the crosstown New York Mets, who are playing their final games at Shea Stadium before relocating to a new stadium next door, the Yankees aren't going far, moving across the street beyond the left-field corner into a $1.3 billion palace.

The Yankees hope to re-create the old ballpark's charm, making the new facility smaller in capacity — seating 52,325, about 4,500 fewer than the current stadium — but with larger concourses and seating areas and more luxury areas. The dimensions of the field will remain the same.

But one thing the new stadium won't have is history.

The focus this week has been on the memories of the House That Ruth Built, which opened April 18, 1923.

This is where Ruth hit his 60th home run in 1927, Roger Maris his 61st in 1961 and Alex Rodriguez his 500th in 2007. Mickey Mantle hit a drive off the Kansas City Athletics' Bill Fischer in 1963 that hit the right-field facade, 110 feet above the field, nearly becoming the first fair ball hit out of the stadium.

Yankee Stadium is where Reggie Jackson hit three home runs on three consecutive pitches in Game 6 of the 1977 World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers and where Don Larsen pitched a perfect game in Game 5 of the 1956 World Series against the Brooklyn Dodgers.

It is where Gehrig gave his "luckiest man on the face of the earth" speech in 1939 and where Ruth delivered his farewell address in 1947.

Ruth's granddaughter, Linda Ruth Tosetti of Durham, Conn., says the Yankee great's stature won't diminish with the demise of the stadium, which is scheduled to be razed early next year and replaced with a park that will include three baseball fields and a formation of trees that outline the old ballpark.

"It's sad that the stadium is going to be gone, but his legend lives on," Tosetti says. "My grandfather is bigger than any stadium. He's bigger than the bricks and mortar."

In the last week, workers started removing black-and-white pictures from the walls of the news media room. The public address announcer, Jim Hall, reminded fans that theft or damaging of property would be punished to the full extent of the law.

Hall of Famer Yogi Berra was in the clubhouse, and broadcaster Suzyn Waldman talked about seeing her first game on Mickey Mantle Day in 1969. "It's time" to move, she says. "Why shouldn't they have a palace?"

Joseph Mignogna, 90, a Yankees fan who grew up in Manhattan and lives in Wilmington, Del., attended a game last week and reminisced about going to the first game at Yankee Stadium.

"All the people were on their tiptoes waiting for Babe Ruth to hit that home run," he said.

Phillip Trujillo, a police officer wearing Jeter's No. 2 on his back, brought his wife and two sons to New York for the week from Albuquerque, N.M., saying it was a good education for his sons to see Yankee Stadium.

"This is our first trip to New York, and my wife and I saved for two years so that we could be here," Trujillo says. "I've been a Yankees and Reggie Jackson fan all my life. I'm 37 years old, and seeing the ballpark makes me feel like I'm a kid again."

For some, it will be tough to let go.

"I'm devastated that it is going to close," says Jennie Gaeta, a guidance counselor from Valley Stream, N.Y. "I grew up here, and have seen the Yankees win the 1996 World Series and two other pennants. I'm going to cry like (a) baby on Sunday."

PLAYERS REMINISCE

Both members of the Yankees and visiting players have been struck by the emotions hitting them in the stadium's last days.

White Sox slugger Jim Thome visited the Gehrig Room, a space down the right-field line used to repair broken stadium chairs. Ray Negron, an assistant to Steinbrenner, told Thome that when Gehrig was struggling with ALS in 1939, he'd go to the room, sit in a chair and pray and meditate about his condition. Thome stood spellbound, goose bumps on his forearm. "Absolutely amazing, I can't believe it," he said. "The history in this place is incredible."

Berra, who won 10 rings while playing in 14 World Series, hates to see the stadium go. He saw it for the first time in 1946 and played his entire career there. "This is a beautiful place, and it's sad that it's going to go," Berra says. "I just wish we could fix this one and stay forever."

Yankees manager Joe Girardi says catching for the 1996 World Series champions is his greatest memory of the stadium. Today, he's going to stand behind third base, where Yankees third baseman Charlie Hayes caught the final out in '96, and then visit the pitcher's mound.

"That will be my lasting memory," Girardi says.

Near the Yankees dugout, Mignogna told Girardi about his lasting memory of Yankee Stadium's first day. A crowd of 60,000 watched in baseball's first triple-decked stadium. Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis was there, and New York Gov. Al Smith threw out the first pitch.

Mignogna got tickets from owner Jacob Ruppert because his dad was a foreman in the construction crew that built Yankee Stadium in 284 days at the on-budget cost of $2.5 million.

He told Girardi fans dressed in fedoras and topcoats for the game. He said Ruth broke into tears after hitting the first home run. Mignogna has seen hundreds of games since, and he can't believe the end is near for Yankee Stadium.

"I lived here," he said. "I was here from the beginning to the end. It hurts because there's not going to be another World Series here. And now the ballpark is going to be gone."