Damn Yankees and Their Pricey New Stadium

With the new $1.5-billion Yankee Stadium now open, I HAD to visit its "Monument Park" area to pay my respects. After all, what's not to like about a sickeningly posh edifice partly funded by massive subsidies from taxpayers who can't afford its ultra-expensive tickets and food? To paraphrase Marie Antoinette, "Let them eat $5 hot dogs."

So there I was in that "monumental" shrine to Yankee greats. I saw the retired numbers of legends such as Babe Ruth (3), Lou Gehrig (4), Joe DiMaggio (5), and Joe Six-Pack (6) -- along with their nicknames. Ruth: "The Sultan of Swat." Gehrig: "The Iron Horse." DiMaggio: "The Yankee Clipper." Joe Six-Pack: "The Guzzling Guy Who Formerly Frequented 'The House That Ruth Built' (Yankee Stadium I) Before Being Priced Out of 'The House That Greed Built' (Yankee Stadium II) Which His Son Joe Jr. Can Afford Because He's an AIG Crook With the Money to Buy $10 Beers in Cheapo Souvenir Cups As He Sits in a Luxury Box With His Rich Buddies Rather Than With Joe Six-Pack His Working-Class Dad Who Would've Attended His AIG Son's Birth If He Hadn't Been Busy Watching Mickey Mantle Hit Home Runs From Both Sides of the Plate During Frank Robinson's Triple-Crown Season of 1966 When Robinson's Baltimore Orioles Won the World Series While the Yankees Finished Last and Rich People Didn't Bother Showing Up at the Old Yankee Stadium But Now They're at the New One Because the Team Spends So Much on Players That They Always Have a Chance to Make the Playoffs and Rich People Like to Be Associated With Winners Even Though Many Rich People Are Morally a Bunch of Losers."

You can imagine my shock when I saw Joe Six-Pack's nickname: How did they fit so many words on one plaque?

But I digress. What amazed me about "Monument Park" was seeing several VERY large numbers there. No, not "56" for Joltin' Joe's famous hitting streak, nor "184" for Gehrig's American League record of RBIs in a season, nor "714" for the quantity of hot dogs Babe Ruth ate during a date with Marie Antoinette. Instead, one monument had "663,000" on it for the number of jobs the U.S. lost last month. Another had "210,000,000" on it for the dollar amount of bonuses that obscenely greedy mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac want to pay their pathetically performing people. And so it went.

What were those six- and nine-figure monuments doing there? I'll get to that in a minute, a period of time which has the same number of seconds as round-trippers hit by Ruth in 1927.

I sorrowfully write this post as a formerly avid Yankees fan who followed the men in pinstripes through many a lean post-1964 season. Then, during the 1977 World Series, I cheered the three home runs on three pitches that made Reggie Jackson "Mr. October." Nineteen years later, I cherished the Yanks' come-from-behind triumph over the Atlanta Braves and their fans whose stupid "tomahawk chop" was so insensitive to Native Americans that Sitting Bull still won't put "Georgia On My Mind" on his iPod.

Not that the old Yankees were a progressive franchise. Heck, their Major League roster didn't have an African-American player wearing the interlocking "NY" until Elston Howard in 1955 -- eight years after the Brooklyn Dodgers brought Jackie Robinson to Ebbets Field. Also, the obnoxious Steinbrenner family has owned the Yankees since buying the team in 1973 for six bucks and a bat signed by the 1975-born Alex Rodriguez, who could hit like the dickens even before he was conceived. But at least most tickets were once affordable at the Bronx Bombers' 1923-built home.

So what were those "663,000" and "210,000,000" numbers doing in "Monument Park"? Were the incompetent corporate titans who fire workers while paying themselves huge salaries thumbing their noses at 663,000 jobless people? Had Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac purchased a sponsorship like bailed-out Citigroup did to get its disgraced name on the New York Mets' new ballpark? (When a Mets hitter gets buzzed by an inside fastball, will he "bail out" of the batter's box? Bwahaha!) Then I realized that the new Yankee Stadium -- which sits on parkland "yanked" away from a low-income community -- is itself a monument to some of capitalism's worst excesses.

Comments

[MugRuith1]

Howdy, Mr. Astor!

-- You can imagine my shock when I saw Joe Six-Pack's nickname: How did they fit so many words on one plaque? --

According to my new Yankee Stadium mole -- a close personal friend of the old Yankee Stadium squirrel -- they were able to do it by employing the same agate font used in "Daily News" box scores.

Apropos of nothing, the Shanghai Stock Exchange is closed today for the Ching Ming Festival, apparently an homage to the Yankees' star sinkerballer, Chien-Ming Wang, who is a native of Taiwan. Regrettably, Wang will be starting not today but Wednesday, as the Yanks' play their season-opening series in Baltimore against the flight-challenged Orioles.

MugNotAHas­BeenButANe­verWasYank­eeRuith1

[Dave Astor - Huffpost Blogger]

Hi MugRuith1,
Thanks for your hilarious comments. This paragraph ("according to my new Yankee Stadium mole -- a close personal friend of the old Yankee Stadium squirrel -- they were able to do it by employing the same agate font used in 'Daily News' box scores") was about the funniest thing I've read in months!
Best wishes, Dave

[MugRuith1]

Howdy, Daved and Confused!

-- This paragraph . . . was about the funniest thing I've read in months! --

I may be biased, but I completely agree -- except, of course, for your blog posts here at the Huffington Post and columns in "The Monclair Times."

MugElChequ­eEstáEnElC­orreoRuith­1

[thomharrow]

Dave, you're dazed and confused. First, while the Stadium was built with public bonds, the City doesn't pay the bonds the Yankees do. Its not a subsidy.

And the ticket prices are marginally higher for most of the seats, with good combination plans. On top of that, the quality of the Stadium is ten times better, the experience is better, the access is better and the value is better.

You probably sit in the best seats as a reporter; try sitting in the terrace or grandstand, in a family pack seat. You'll see all the Joe sixpack you want, good families enjoying a great team.

finally, you don't have a franchise on the old days. I go back to public school in the Bronx in the fifties, ballgames with Hector Lopez and Gil McDougald on the field, all the good old nostalgia.

But the product is better now, the players are better now, and the stadium is phenomenally better now.

Stop whining.

[Dave Astor - Huffpost Blogger]

Hi thomharrow,
Thanks for your comments. I appreciate hearing your thoughts, and you sound like a great baseball fan.
While the stadium might not be directly paid for (in part) by the public, it is indeed subsidized with taxpayer money. Also, some of the best seats now cost MUCH more, and prices for many other seats are up more than marginally. I've never been a sports reporter, so I've almost always sat in the "cheap" seats of Yankee Stadium as a fan paying his own way.
The new stadium is more comfortable than the old one if a person can afford it, but there's something to be said for being in an historic stadium even if it's run down a bit and doesn't have gourmet food or as many luxury boxes.
Finally, "Dazed and Confused" is a great Led Zeppelin song!
Best wishes, Dave

[BostonSMS]

Dave, you hit your point out of the park.

[Dave Astor - Huffpost Blogger]

Hi BostonSMS,
Thank you!!
Best wishes, Dave

[DinkSinger]

The average fan should be able to afford a bleacher seat. For example, for the April 22 game vs. Oakland, two fans can sit in Section 202 Row 20 for $12 (plus $9.97 in StubHub fees). That's less then the $24.00 it would cost them for movie tickets in Manhattan.

In addition to the massive aid from the city and the state, about 40% of the Yankees share of the cost is effectively being paid by the other 29 teams, since it reduces the Yankees revenue sharing payments.

[Dave Astor - Huffpost Blogger]

Hi DinkSinger,
Thanks for your comment. You're right -- there are some relatively affordable seats at the new Yankee Stadium. Fewer than there were at the old Yankee Stadium not too long ago, but some. If bleacher-seated fans avoid buying overpriced food and beer, they might leave the stadium with a little bit left in their wallets to get past the subway turnstiles.
Best wishes, Dave

[DinkSinger]

What got me the last time I was at the old (actually the rebuilt) Yankee Stadium was the price of water. I believe it was $8 and that was back in 2000.

[Melissa Hapke - Huffpost Blogger]

Well, apparently, some of the Chicago Cubs players were impressed with it. Carlos Zambrano even said he'd like to see a new Wrigley Field.

Seriously: http://blogs.chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports_hardball/2009/04/zambrano-wants-new-ballpark-for-cubs.html

I've put up with a lot of heartache as a Cubs fan, but if Wrigley is taken down, I might have to revolt and become a White Sox fan (ugh!!!).

Having watched the St. Louis Cardinals build a new stadium and seeing the development of "Ball Park Village," go down the tubes, I could only imagine what would happen with Chicago. Although, if the city ends up with the Olympics (I hear hell is freezing over, btw), I think they'd have to build a ball park...

[Dave Astor - Huffpost Blogger]

Hi Melissa,
I've been to Wrigley Field twice, and it's a charming place. A real retro rather than fake retro stadium! Thanks so much for your comment.
Best wishes, Dave

[dbartenstein]

And we still have Fenway Park up in Boston..... hopefully for many more years!

[oldgeek1]

What a nonsense piece. The Yankee's financed most of the Stadium themselves. It is located in the South Bronx and the team hardly ripped the property away from the poor. This is an area that often could have qualified as a 3rd world country and war zone.

4,000,000 fans buying tickets, food , transportation paying sales tax. It attracts visitors to NY from all over the country.

[Dave Astor - Huffpost Blogger]

Hi oldgeek1,
Thanks for commenting. I appreciate hearing your opinion. But the economic benefits of the Yankees in that part of the Bronx would still exist if the historic old stadium hadn't been replaced by the too-expensive new ballpark. I've been to the old Yankee Stadium dozens of times, and it still looked good to me when I was last there in August 2008.
Best wishes, Dave

[tcny]

As of June 2008, approximately $941 Million of the $1.3 Billion (or 72%) of the funding for the stadium construction was public money, as the Yankees insisted they needed $400 Million more, which would raise the public money to almost 79% (source: NY Daily News, 6/12/2008).

The new stadium was built on land taken from a public park, despite protests from the local community. The new stadium has a significantly larger footprint than the old, so even if the powers-that-be wanted to turn the land under the old stadium into parkland, it couldn't be as a one-for-one swap. And much of the new parkland that has been promised (but not yet delivered) as a substitute for the park destroyed will not be anywhere near this neighborhood.

[Dave Astor - Huffpost Blogger]

Hi tcny,
Thanks for all the numbers illustrating how much taxpayers are shelling out for a stadium that many of these taxpayers will not be able to afford to visit. I also appreciate the parkland information.
Best wishes, Dave