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The Yankees' new stadium is barely a week old and the observation/complaints keeping piling up. Here's the latest—but it may be too early to declare whether the Red Sox jersey should have been left under the new stadium.
Unofficial Yankee Stadium "mascot" Freddy Schuman—aka Freddy Sez who carries a tin pan to rally fans—has been having trouble making it into the new digs for free. The Post explains the one-eyed 84-year-old used to get season tickets from sponsors or "was simply let through the press gate with a wink from a Stadium official." While he made it through the press gate on Opening Day, Freddy had to beg fans for tickets for the rest of the Cleveland-Yankees series, "The Yankees say I am a part of the Stadium. What part am I, the toilet bowl? But the fans have come through. They gave me $40, and even $100 tickets. I feel guilty though." The Yankees claim the fan was shut out due to "miscommunication"; the uber-fan sniffed, "Frankly I don't know how some fans are going to afford these new prices."
Speaking of those expensive tickets, the TV coverage of the Yankees' home games showed many empty seats behind home plate (empty seats were also evident near Citi Field's home plate). WCBS 880 found "Through four games, average attendance at the new stadium is only 45,401 - compared to 54,045 for the first four games at the old stadium in 2008. The new park has been filled to only 82.9 percent capacity. The old park, through the first four games last year, was 95 percent full."
And getting back to the possible wind+stadium-design home run machine at Yankees Stadium, Yankees GM Brian Cashman said they conducted a wind study during construction, "There was nothing in the study that indicated the ball would be jumping to rightfield. There was a curiosity about leftfield or not, to be honest, over time, once the old stadium came down, whether that would have an effect or not on the balls carrying to left. But nothing to rightfield. There was no indication that this (stadium) would play any different than the other ballpark." Newsday adds, "Cashman, manager Joe Girardi and several players noted that the ball did not seem to carry to rightfield on Sunday as in the previous three games."
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Somehow I doubt the Yankees care much about the lack of capacity crowds. I'm sure the increased ticket prices more than offsets any lost revenue.
Besides true Yankee fans would mortgage their first born just to have a season ticket. Rugrats be damned.
the Yanks must be the first MLB team to open a new park and watch attendance go DOWN. bunch of idiots running this team and building this park.
if you've been to the new ballpark...you will find that is cavernous, open and airy. The shape of the stadiums seating creates a downward rush of air out to RF when the winds blow west. ...and perhaps when the old stadium comes down it may get even worse when winds come off the river...oh boy here we go. First night game tonight and it's a southerly breeze...we shall see...
I love the Yankees. They've been my team since I was a youngster in 2nd grade and my dad caught me a foul ball hit by willie randolph. For the past decade i've gone to to 8. 9. 10 games per year, and one of the biggest thrills of my life was getting a bleacher seat to one of the 1998 world series games.
But I can't say "Fuck the Yankees" enough for the way they shrunk the affordable seating areas and created these $2600-per-seat monstrosities. fuck the yankees. fuck them. They clearly don't want fans like me to come to their games, because i can't afford $75 and $100 lodge seats, let alone $200 and up seats for the main level.
I hope the Yankees PR office is reading this. I hope they're getting the sense from the ENTIRE GODDAMN CITY that they are ripping off their fans with this new stadium (not that the entire experience of going to the old stadium wasn't a ripoff also, but at least less of one than now).
Check out this article from the New Yorker this week. Ben McGrath hits a home run, as it were.
And to the question "yeah but what are you going to do about it?" i say "i will root for the mets, so help me god."
what, you don't like guys sipping cosmos in padded seats at baseball games? or empty padded seats? come on man.
seriously, it's disgusting, and you put it quite well.
My favorite player growing up was Mickey Rivers, but really, I'm not following the Yanks much these days. It's not fun. Even when they win it's like so what, they were supposed to win because they spent so much more money than anyone else. And the cast of characters changes faster than I can keep track.
I remember going to the stadium and paying $45 at the box office right before the game for seats 12 rows up between the Yankees dugout and home plate (Clemens was pitching and you could hear the ball sizzling through the air). Try doing that now.
I wonder what tickets sold vs. attendance for those days were - assuming attendance is based on headcount at the gates.
I guess a 10% reduction in attendance may hit concession sales - but they still make tons of dough from TV rights, worldwide merchandising, season tickets, etc...
And Freddy sez is NOT a toilet bowl. A toilet bowl actually serves some actual purpose at a Yankee game...
Team has been going down hill since they let Tino go and signed up Giambi. A few other huge errors (A-Rod) and then they decide to leave the biggest asset (the Aura of History ... the babe, Lou, joe d and mickey, not to mention Thurman and Pauly), tear it down and royally screw the replacement up.
Born a few subway stops away, I was a huge Yankee fan since the Chambliss HR derby. I'm doubtful it will ever be the same.
Thanks guys.
Screw Freddie the Frontrunner.
It just looks ridiculous on TV to see all those empty, large, cushioned seats behind home plate for every game when you know that tens of thousands of fans would love to be at those games but can't afford it.
The Yankees seem to be following the failed seating sales strategies of the airline industry. Their lawyers are probably trying to figure out how TARP money can be used to put the asses of financial industry CEO's in those empty seats.
Why TARP when getting a new bond to pay for those seats again just like the stadium is so much easier. Yankee fans and New Yorkers just LOVEEEEE to shell out more money for private enterprises. Bloomberg should try to build a stadium for the Jet's and Giant's again. I'm sure it'll go over much better now.
http://i.zdnet.com/blogs/nelson-muntz.gif
Couldn't be that Chien-Ming Wang totally sucks as a palyer, could it? No, no, obviously it's mysterious air currents.
This is why I hate the Yankees.
This has little to do with Chien-Ming Wang. There were 20 home runs hit in four games. Only two were given up by Wang.
Of course, it has been just four games involving two lineups both loaded with home run hitters, so too small a sample size to come to any real conclusions.
It also, by the way, is pretty weak as reasons to hate the Yankees go. They didn't come up with the "wind" theory, and they're not writing the news articles about it.
The 20 homer runs have more to do with bad pitching than a "wind tunnel."