It has been 36 years now, Diana Munson said on Saturday, so very long since her world changed forever and the Yankees lost their captain. She is grateful that fans still revere her husband, Thurman, part of a proud line of Yankees catchers with retired numbers and plaques in Monument Park.

“I’m 66; I don’t know how long I’ll be coming to the Stadium,” she said on the suite level at Yankee Stadium. “So when I see these people with No. 15, I always go up and hug them. Michael, my son, said, ‘Mom, you’re becoming a little bit of a stalker,’ and I said, ‘Do I seem like that?’ He said, ‘You don’t have to hug everybody with 15.’ ” She laughed. “Well, after 36 years, for me, that’s really love and loyalty,” Munson said. “I want to pay it back.”

For many years after Thurman Munson’s plane crash, on Aug. 2, 1979, Diana did not follow baseball. Coming back to Yankee Stadium was awkward, painful. Too many memories, too much sadness.

Jorge Posada changed that. She was drawn to Posada, the Yankees’ best catcher since Munson, a fiery leader and a family man in his image. She allowed herself to love the game again.