Dirt, Seats And Bases Available From (Old) Yankee Stadium Auction

After paying NYC $11.5 million for the right to auction off items, the Yankees are selling off remnants of its old stadium. Yankees COO Leon Trost said at a press conference, "We're talking about making available pairs of seats, commemorative seats, seat backs, seats from the bleachers, foul poles." Heck, there's even a chunk of freeze-dried grass for $79.99 or a 4' by 80' piece of sod from between second and third bases for $6,000.

The auction is being conducted by Steiner Sports; Brandon Steiner said, "Our goal is to save as much as we can. People can laugh about the dirt and laugh about the brick, but those are memories we can savor." Newsday reports the items will be rolled out over time. One much-mentioned item is a piece of the wall that Derek Jeter fell over to catch a pop-up during a 2004 game against the Red Sox. It's not online yet, but a Yankee Stadium seat is ($749).

However, not everyone is happy with the deal: Frequent Yankees critic Assemblyman Richard Brodsky said, "The carcass of Yankee Stadium is city property and it’s clearly worth more than $11.5 million. I know no good reason why taxpayers, having built the new stadium, should not benefit more from the sale." Trost responded to Brodsky's stance, "I say that [Brodsky] continues to grandstand, that he has an agenda that we don't know what it is. We hope his constituency likes what he's doing, because they're paying for it." In this arrangement, the Yankees cover the cost of removing all the seats and other items, instead of the city bearing the cost.

Speaking of spending money on Yankees items, a NY Post reader offered this analysis of how crazy the prices are at the new stadium: "Option 1: Two tickets to Tuesday night, June 30, Mariners at Yanks, cost for just the tickets, $5,000. Option 2: Two round-trip airline tickets to Seattle, Friday, Aug. 14, return Sunday the 16th, rental car for three days, two-night double occupancy stay in four-star hotel, two top tickets to both the Saturday and Sunday Yanks-Mariners games, two best-restaurant-in-town dinners for two. Total cost, $2,800. Plus-frequent flyer miles." [via kottke]