Tuesday, April 28, 2009

New Yorker Article

There was a great article in the New Yorker a few weeks ago, which I have just gotten around to finally reading, about the new Yankee Stadium. The author begins by regaling how the christening song of the new stadium, as the parade went by outside of it during the opening ceremonies, was to the tune of "Sweet Caroline," which among other things happens to be the Red Sox's call-to-arms. Now I'm all for the irony of the Yankees' faithful (?) dancing to the Sox's mantra/jingle, but it seems a bad omen that someone gravely overlooked and I wonder just how this could have happened? Is someone really THAT out of it? Or has a Sox fan infiltrated the planning committee? He he.

The article continues on to describe the exorbitant prices of food and beverages at the stadium, but praises the new stadium for including the calorie content for each item sold at every vending station. (I suppose that's progress, right?) But with ticket prices increased 76%, and a new digital transcription service running on one of the scoreboards, which details the announcers' words and the fans reactions and inadvertently chastises those Yankees players for whom the fans have an indifferent reaction or for those who are somewhat booed, and with many fans labeling it "The House The Bondholders Built" or "The House That TARP Built," one has to wonder just how extravagant of lifestyles the elite who decided to build this second adjacent stadium believe the majority of New Yorkers live. I think we'll see those $2,600 per game seats behind home plate vacant the majority of the time, or at least given out at a hefty discount to fool the cameras.

Let's see how the new Yankees fare with their new stadium, their bloated payroll now boasting three out of the top four salaried players (A-Rod, Teixeira, Sabathia) in baseball, and new management after a dismal and beleaguered season. Oh, and Wang's ERA is 34.50. Nice.

I can't help but agree with every bit of the article, written by a die-hard New Yorker, as to the shifting mentalities of those who attend the games. It seems even the tested and stubborn Yankees fans who are accustomed to World Series victories, great players and huge personalities, have gotten a bit irate at the challenges they now face just to attend a game (or to see their team win.) The article, though unbiased, seems like an argument toward bias of 'returning to the grand ol' time of simplicity and frugality' when it comes to prices and attendance pluses, though I want to interpret it as a bias towards 86 years of ache for their poor decisions.

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