Yankee Stadium Part Deux

Posted on 27. Sep, 2009 by Corey in All, General Baseball.

The feeling is hard to put into words, but there is something magical about exiting the Green Number 4 Subway train at 161st street in the Bronx in New York City.  As the doors open and the crowd pushes its way towards the exit, standing before you are memories of baseball legends and greats.  Still standing, but not for much longer, is the original Yankee Stadium and just across the street is the new one, opened at the beginning of the 2009 season.  As I walk towards it, it strikes me how many Hall of Famers have played there, and how many championships have been won.  And with the way the 2009 Yankees are playing now, there could be many more titles to come.

I was fortunate to see two games in the new Yankee Stadium, both against their arch rival the Boston Red Sox.  That rivalry deserves a blog in itself, something I plan on talking about in the future.  Even though the Yankees had a commanding lead in the American League East, and the games did not mean much as far as playoffs or standings, please don’t tell the players and fans that.  I can tell you from personal experience, the ticket prices didn’t care either.  When I first decided that I was attending these games I contacted Yankees ticket office to see if they had anything left. The cheapest ticket remaining was $500 for the second deck!  I reached out to my buddy Ian, my personal ticket broker at times, and he told me to try Stubhub, which I did with great success.

While sitting in my seat at the new Yankee Stadium, the overall design feels the same as the old Yankee Stadium.   Walking the concourses and special clubs are totally different, but they kept the overall feel which is important to New York.  The place seemed really big to me, as the stands seat around 52,000 people.  By far the biggest of the newer era stadiums built in the big leagues.  I had a terrific overall experience at Yankee Stadium, but hard to put it in my top 5 of all Major League Stadiums.  The rich tradition of the New York Yankees helps, but just not enough to crack the top 5.   I will now go through some of the features that I picked out in the stadium and show them with a picture description.  At the end of this blog I will include stadium shots of the field from various angles.  Narrowing down my 400 plus pictures for this entry was tough, so please bare with me if it gets lengthy.

Outside of Yankee Stadium by the main gate is the Babe Ruth Plaza.  There is no statue, but just a sign marking this area.  The famous Babe Ruth Baseball Bat from the old Yankee Stadium did not make the trip across the street, sighting it was to hard to move it since “it was a furnace painted up,” one employee told me.

As I mentioned, old Yankee Stadium is still standing, but is almost ready to be torn down. The place has been completely gutted, and the Yankees are selling just about everything from it except for the concrete.  The stadium is sealed with netting, fencing and scaffolding all the way around it.  I was able to sneak a peak inside to see the gutted right field bleacher area.  Also pictured below are some of the items that are being auctioned off.  A set of two seats from the old stadium go for $1499.  A scoop of infield dirt or chunk of outfield grass goes for about $29 in a collectible plastic case.  Some of the items remaining for bidding are the door to the umpires room, George Steinbrenner’s luxury box suites or the stretcher used in the stadium for injuries.

Every gate that fans can enter at Yankee Stadium are very large and stand out from the rest of the stadium.  There is a lot of security before entering the ballpark as every bag must be checked.  At Citi Field everyone got waved down with a wand, but not at Yankee.  Lines backed up at the main gate, but entering the side or back gates were a lot quicker.

The food at Yankee Stadium stood out to me as being very nicely done. There were so many options and it was hard to find two concession stands that carried the same items.  Like Citi Field, the stands menus all displayed the calories that each item had.  The lines never seemed to long since there was so many options.  The prices were through the room, and I choose to eat all my meals before entering the stadium.  Pepsi is served inside, so I did not have a drink either.  On the lower level there is a Yankees Food Court with tables in the middle for fans to stand around and eat.  The concourses on the field level did not seem wide enough to handle such large crowds, but the ones upstairs were much bigger.  Also above all the concession stands were tons of pictures honoring each the Yankees World Championships.

I went from never seeing a Fresh Market at a professional stadium to seeing three in a week.  I guess the culture is changing as fans are concerned with health.

I have talked about this before in an old blog post, but one of my favorite features at a baseball stadium is the special “Kids Concession Stand.”  Smaller prices and smaller portions, but a really cool gesture.  Hope more teams start doing this.

As expected, lots of Yankee’s merchandise is sold as almost every fan at the game seemed to be wearing a jersey or a hat.  Since the Yankees had clinched a playoff spot when I was there, but not the AL East Division yet, there was limited post season merchandise.  Outside the stadium and inside the gate there seemed to be numerous merchandise stands.  There also was a “Women’s” store with items for ladies.  The most crowded store, but probably the one with the least amount of purchases is the Steiner Collectible store. There were tons of game used items, signed pictures and other very expensive items.   A very cool thing to look at, but would have to take a second mortgage on the house to afford something.

Supreme Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor threw out the ceremonial first pitch on Saturday afternoon.  She was escorted to the mound by Yankee Catcher Jorge Posada. Sotomayor received a huge ovation from the crowd and threw a strike from a few feet away.

Joba Chamberlain started the Friday night game, and actually pitched quite well.  For each one of his strikeouts, they displayed this really cool logo on the scoreboard.

Rumor says that the Yankees ground crew were the first to start the “YMCA” as they drag the field.  Now ground crews all over the country dance and perform in some way.

Found it funny that this engraved sign was on the back of EVERY seat in the stadium no matter where it was.  Guess it is some sort of legal coverage.

A tradition at Yankee Stadium, both old and new, is that the fans in the right field bleachers chant the names of each Yankees player once the game starts and they are in the field for the top of the first inning.  Fans do not stop chanting the players name until that player acknowledges them in some sort of way.  Some players just give a half hearted wave, but some players really get into it like Nick Swisher or Johnny Damon.

Did not make it to monument park this time around, but it seems a bit smaller than the older stadium.  Fans start lining up as soon as the games open, and the Yankees cut the line off about 45 minutes before the game begins.

Some more stadium shots…

Once again, all 30 CURRENT Major League Stadiums visited…

2 Responses to “Yankee Stadium Part Deux”

1. murph says:

   September 28, 2009 at 5:58 pm

   thats awesome.. this is on my to do list for next summer

2. NYC- The Big Apple « Corey Brinn dot Com says:

   September 29, 2009 at 8:35 am

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