The House that Corporate Sponsors Built

Tonight I went to my first game at the New Yankee Stadium after years of going to games at the House that Ruth Built. Since this is all part of my impromptu NY trip I didn't have a camera with me, but I doubt my pictures would be anything special compared to all of the images already available from the Yankees propaganda machine or other people who have visited the new stadium.

Full Disclosure: I'm a lifelong Mets fan. I don't think my opinions come from some deep rooted Yankee hatred, as opposed to an objective look at things from the perspective of a fan, but I realize that it's likely some small amount of bias will inevitably creep in. But I've warned you about it in advance, so deal with it.

In journalism school they teach you the golden rule: don't bury the lead.
I wasn't all that impressed with the new Yankee Stadium. I'm not entirely sure if it's because I think you should get more for your money for a billion and a half dollars or because there's a bunch of useless stuff that needed not to be included. So here we go with the rundown.

The walk in from the outside of the stadium is a nice upgrade, and actually gives you that whole "cathedral of baseball" feel to it. In my opinion they should have just added it to the old stadium and made a few minor improvements. At the entrance "guests" have to scan their own ticket rather than having ushers or ticket checker people do it with a hand-held device. This is a bad idea because people are stupid and most of them can't operate technology correctly. Given that there is no manual override for a scanner that just isn't picking up a faded barcode or some other issue and you're going to have backed up lines of angry New Yorkers - which is never a good thing.
Anyway, the interior is much roomier, which I guess is nice and it's also brighter/better lit. That I will say is a nice improvement. Stairs replace ramps, which means as far as I can tell the whole place is a lot less handicap accessible. I believe Handiman will have something to say about that. Now with all of these new stadiums they have increased concession stand offerings (and prices) to cater to the casual fan or as we used to call them - bandwagon jumpers, jag-offs, fair weather fans, or simply "that f'in guy doesn't know s*!t". But fine, while these new ammenities will bring that specific clientele it does of course offer a benefit to actual fans - call it a positive externality. Economics degree in action. The new Yankee Stadium has it's own steakhouse, a la AT&T Park in San Francisco. Yeah, that's right Yankee fans, this wasn't some brilliant idea you came up with, you swipe it from another team like a high priced free agent. Anyway, besides that you've got your typical fair - chicken fingers, hot dogs, hamburgers, philly cheesesteaks, pizza, Italian sausage and nachos. The food was good, so at least you feel like you're getting your arm and a legs worth.

The seats are more comfortable than the old stadium, so that makes for a much more pleasant experience. Especially when the Yankees are playing a pathetic team like the Washington Nationals. The JumboTron is approximately 700 feet high and is used to display facial images of the players for the previously mentioned fair weather fans, who don't know the guys who play on their own team, rather than interesting or important information such as their batting average and other statistics. Those tidbits are relegated to a much smaller board cramped with the batting order, and current pitcher. The configuration makes for a more difficult read and really should be on the big board. That's to the left. To the right is a pitiful out-of-town scoreboard which displays 4 games at a time and has to continuosly circle through all of the days games. Haven't full out of town scoreboards been adopted as the norm since the mid 1980s? Then there are two "old fashioned" scoreboards embedded in the outfield wall. Question - who the hell is looking at those? There's a 700 foot jumbotron showing the same information. They are a pair of wastes - a useless aesthetic someone diagrammed out to try and give a billion dollar stadium a more "old fashioned" feel, I suppose. Besides the poor treatment of the right field bleachers. Connecting them to the rest of the stadium - good idea; blocking off part of their view because you want to build a restaurant or some other ridiculous attraction for the wealthy - bad idea. I guess that's a good enough segway into the now infamous "moat" that seperates the expensive seats from the common folks. I wasn't close enough to them to see how the whole process works so I won't comment further beyond what I've read from the various papers and sports reports who have been there and experienced it - that's just wrong.
Around the stadium I found an AT&T cell phone kiosk and an art gallery. I was upset with the serving of wine in San Francisco but these two things put that to shame. I'm sure this isn't the only stadium that does it but I expected better from the Yankees. They're the Yankees. They're supposed to be the only thing that people who don't know anything about baseball, know about baseball. It sure be pure, like the old stadium. More Derek Jeter and less A-Roid.
I like to think that Jeter is sad deep down inside with the direction the organization has taken. It allows me to not hate the Yankees, believing that at least one of them is still about the game.
But to me, this new stadium isn't about baseball, it's a sideshow. I miss the old place.

I'm hoping to go to Citi Field before heading back to Cali. If I do I'll review that too, and I'll probably be even harsher, because after all, it's supposed to be for me. "New" Yankee Stadium not being the single greatest achievement of humankind - I could care less - Yankee fans have to deal with that when they stop delluding themselves.

Why do the Yankees hate cripples?