As baseball said farewell to Yankee Stadium, one of the game’s most beloved players stood beneath the stands in a full vintage uniform. Now 83, the man who coined the phrase “it ain’t over till it’s over” put his own stamp on the day.

“I’m sorry to see it over, I’ll tell you that,” Berra said.

The goodbye completed an 85-year-old run for the home of baseball’s most famous team. What began with a Babe Ruth home run on an April afternoon in 1923 ended Sunday with Mariano Rivera retiring Brian Roberts on a grounder to first baseman Cody Ransom, completing a 7-3 victory over Baltimore on a warm September night.

Johnny Damon and Jose Molina homered, Andy Pettitte got the victory and Rivera threw the final pitch at 11:41 p.m. on a bittersweet evening, when the Yankees staved off what appears to be inevitable postseason elimination. Appropriately enough, the final Yankees player to bat was Derek Jeter, whose grounder to third ended the eighth. Jeter was removed with two outs in the ninth, leaving the captain to take the final in-game curtain call.

But first, all the greats were remembered during a 65-minute pregame ceremony that included 21 retired players, six of them Hall of Famers.

“I feel like I’m losing an old friend,” Reggie Jackson told the crowd.

Bob Sheppard, the 90-something public address announcer who started in 1951, read the opening welcome. He missed this season because of illness but recorded his greeting and the introduction of the Yankees starting lineup.

The 1922 American League pennant, the first to fly in the ballpark, was unfurled in the black batter’s eye beyond center field. Young men and boys were introduced representing the opening-day lineup in 1923.

Then came the living Yankees who make the stadium a standard for excellence.

Willie Randolph slid into second base when he was announced. Fan favorite Paul O’Neill pointed to the Bleacher Creatures in right field. Bernie Williams, back at the ballpark for the first time since the Yankees cut him two years ago, received the longest ovation, which lasted nearly 2 minutes. Don Larsen scooped up dirt from the pitcher’s mound in a plastic cup, assisted by Whitey Ford.

Accompanying them were the sons of some deceased stars: Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Billy Martin and Thurman Munson, joined by the wives of Catfish Hunter, Bobby Murcer and Phil Rizzuto, the daughter of Elston Howard and Murcer’s son and daughter.

No mention was made of Roger Clemens, whose legacy has been clouded by accusations he used performance-enhancing drugs. George Steinbrenner, the team owner since 1973, did not attend.

Julia Ruth Stevens, 92-year-old daughter of the Babe, threw out the ceremonial first pitch before a crowd of 54,610 - bringing the stadium total to 151,959,005.

“I’m very, very sad to think that the Yankee Stadium is not going to be in existence any longer,” she said. “I wish it could have remained as a New York landmark, but I guess like all things it has come to its final days as we all do.”

Outside the stadium, the marquee that usually has the day’s start time and opponent said: “Thanks for the Memories.”

When Damon hit a three-run homer in the third inning, the ball was caught by Brian Elmer, salesman from Trenton, N.J. - and a Mets fan.

“This is my first time here,” he said.

Molina put the Yankees ahead 5-3 with a two-run homer in the fourth, caught beyond the fence in left-center by a fan from Colorado who would identify himself only as Steve.

“I’m a Yankees fan, have been all my life,” he said. “I just took my boys out here and my older brother who’s a crazy Yankees fan and we wanted to come out here for the last game at Yankee Stadium, just like a lot of folks.”

When Pettitte left in the sixth, the four-time World Series champion received a prolonged ovation and came out for a curtain call. Then in the seventh, a video was played of Sheppard reading a poem:

“Farewell old Yankee Stadium, farewell/What a wonderful story you can tell/DiMaggio, Mantle, Gehrig and Ruth/A baseball cathedral in truth/Farewell.”

The crowd was allowed on the field starting at 1 p.m. and entered through the left-field seats not far from where Aaron Boone’s pennant-clinching home run landed five years ago.

Glenn Bartow and his 13-year-old daughter arrived more than 12 hours before the game began at 8:36 p.m., and were the first ones into Monument Park.

“We come every Sunday,” Emily Bartow said.

This Sunday was the very last.

Visitors touched the 24 plaques and six monuments, posed next to them for family photos. Under the kind of cloudless sky that made people recall summer days of yore, they slowly circled the warning track.

Some posed along the 318-foot sign in the left-field corner of the pockmarked fence, raising baseball gloves along the top of the blue-padded wall as if they were making leaping catches. Others stood alongside the 408 sign in center. Some covered their hands with dirt and put their hand prints on an advertisement with a black background.

Jeter, likely to get a plaque of his own years from now in the new Yankee Stadium, said Saturday was the first time he looked around and tried to soak in the memories - the three big decks filled with fans, the sign in the tunnel from the clubhouse to the field with the Joe DiMaggio quote: “I want to thank the Good Lord for making me a Yankee.”

“Just driving in, I think it really starts to hit you, that this is the last time,” he said. “When you take the field, you’re constantly reminded of the history that’s been here before you.”

Thousands of police and security filled the worn aisles to ensure the fans didn’t walk away with the ballpark’s guts - which will be sold piece by piece to collectors. Many fans have been arrested and screwdrivers confiscated during the past week.

“I’d like to try and get two seats,” said Bartow, the early-arriving fan. “They’re going for a couple thousand dollars. It’s going to be tough, but I may have to do it because, you know, we have to.”

The Bartows lingered on the field for 1 hour, 15 minutes, taking pictures they’re certain to cherish. When it was time to climb the steps back to the stands, father and daughter turned to exchange a final-day kiss.

Berra, a 10-time champion often considered the greatest living Yankee, didn’t really need any more souvenirs - although he said he wouldn’t mind leaving with the final home plate of the ballpark he loved.

“I hate to see it go,” he said. “It will always be in my heart.”