As many of you know, I was recently in New York City, and it was a perfect opportunity for me to fulfill something that I always wanted to do- go to Yankee Stadium and watch a game. (What? You were thinking I was going to say go see Mama Mia!?) First of all, understand that I have never been to New York before, but I have heard legendary stories. Mostly about buying cheap purses in Chinatown. (Those stories proved to be true, by the way.) Aside from that, I think New York is a place that you either love or you hate. I loved it. I think the reason for this is because I was able to learn to play by their rules- as best as I could. I'm hardly arrogant enough to describe myself as a hard core New Yorker. The biggest difference between New York and most places is the subway. It's really simple- if you can read a map, and coordinate numbers and letters with colors. And then there's subway etiquette- which I failed at miserably when I went to my first Yankees game when I rudely plowed down a woman in the subway. (Tourists, sigh.) But, baseball was involved. I was doing whatever it took to get to the house that those guys (Do your best New York accent when reading those guys for effect) in the above picture built.
The New Yankee Stadium is a palace. It's very similar dimension wise to the "old" Yankee Stadium, and it still features many of the prominant features. The short right field, which was originally designed for Babe Ruth himself, along with the second deck overhang is featured, as well as the classic Yankee Stadium white facade. My favorite part of the ballpark was Monument Park, and is a must visit for baseball fans. Monument Park is open before the game, and pictures are allowed and encouraged. Most teams retire numbers. The Yankees have a sanctuary for their greats in addition to retiring their numbers. The three prominant monuments are those of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and then former manager Miller Huggins in the middle. There are also prominant memorials for Mickey Mantle, and those that helped with the 9/11 tragedy among others. Most players simply have plaques on the back wall of Monument Park- players such as Don Mattingly, and Yogi Berra for example.
While the New Yankee Stadium harkens back to the past, it is still a very modern ballpark and has great sightlines, very good seating, and also has a couple of swanky clubs and restaurants including a Hard Rock Cafe for the commoners. The Yankees are known for their high ticket prices- hey, they have to find a way to pay for all those stars somehow, and gouging their fans is a logical way to do this- however, you can get bleacher seats for a mere 15 dollars. If you are a baseball fan and want quality entertainment in New York City, it doesn't get better than the 15 dollar bleachers in right field. They are one of the more rowdy bunches in all of baseball- they sound like the Cameron Crazies with their chants of Der-ek Je-ter. For those with families, a word of warning about the right field bleachers- there can be a fair amount of foul language. Not enough to offend the common man, but enough that you may not want small children to hear it. If you have a family with small children, you could also get upper deck seats for around 35 dollars a piece, which is still affordable for Major League Baseball. If you want to "do it right" and spend a lot of money and get close to the players- I spent 150 dollars to sit 20 rows behind first base, and enjoyed it, I recommend that as well. It's kind of up to you at Yankee Stadium. You can spend as little as 15 dollars or you can even sit behind home plate for almost 1,000 dollars a seat. Another that's really cool is to listen to the Yankee fans sing "New York, New York" at the end of the games.
It's really, really hard not to be in awe of the Yankees and what they have done. 26 World Championships, and then the unbelieveable players that have gone through there- Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle, Reggie, and now Jeter. And then there's all the players in between. And they let you know about them.
The games that I went to were both very memorable. I saw Andy Pettitte pitch against the Baltimore Orioles. It was one of the best played games that I have seen all year. It was a 2-1 Yankee win with several web gems, including Mark Texiera throwing out the go ahead run at the plate, and Jose Molina retrieving a wild pitch and throwing out Brian Roberts to save the game in the same inning. I marveled at Derek Jeter's range. TV doesn't do the man justice. He can get to balls that very few can without diving and then make an accurate throw. The game was won when Hedeki Matsui- who played for the Yomiuri Giants, Japan's version of the Yankees hit a walk-off home run to lead the Evil Empire to a 2-1 win. The next game I saw was against the Oakland A's and was rain delayed, but the rain subsided enough to play the game which started at about 9:40 PM EST. I got to see CC Sabathia pitch, and he struggled a little bit early, giving up three runs and appeared to be affected by the weather and wet conditions. He was constantly wiping his hand on his pants leg and threw almost all fastballs until the A's finally forced him to take the chance to throw breaking balls. Sabathia finally relented against his breaking ball phobia and shut down the A's. Meanwhile, Mark Texiera ignitied the Yankees with a ball that was launched into the second deck, and was later followed by a Jorge Posoda double that tied the game. The Yankees to batter the A's and eventually built a 6-3 lead and Yankee phenom, and possible future closer Phil Hughes pitched two uneventful, but impressive innings for his first career save.
Getting to Yankee Stadium is quite easy. Fly into your airport of choice. Take a taxi to your hotel in Manhatten. And then get onto the 4 train and stay on it until you get to Yankee Stadium. The subway station takes you to about 100 feet of the gates of the stadium, so you won't have to try to traverse the street of the Bronx. The subway runs constantly- unlike Atlanta, which created a very uncomfortable clown car situation a couple of years ago for myself and four of my other friends plus some random guy that tagged along. You may have sardine situation on the subway, though. But at least no one will have to sit on someone else's lap. If you are extremely claustrophobic and don't mind spending 40-50 dollars, there are plenty of taxi drivers that are easily identifiable by the signs that they are holding that say "Taxi".
Now, I know that there are some Mets fans out there, thinking, "Why doesn't Todd say anything about the Mets?" It's really simple- they weren't in town. I do want to go to a Mets game. I did visit Citi Field, and it is very nice. However, I do not want to judge until I watch an actual game there. I just want to be fair, and right now Citi Field gets an incomplete from me. I love the Mets- they had a AA team in Jackson for years, of course. Daryl Strawberry was one of my favorites.
At any rate, take about four days at some point in your life, go see what New York has to offer, and put aside any hatred you have for the Yankees for a few hours, and enjoy Ruth's new house.
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