As the Yankees 2009 home opener approaches, I find myself thinking about what Peter Abraham wrote, the past Sunday, about the new Yankee Stadium:
There should be a sense of community at a baseball stadium, the feeling that tens of thousands of people have come together with the common goal of seeing their team win.
The old Yankee Stadium was imposing in that regard. During important games, you could almost feel the will of the people from the stands, their voices forming a wall of sound.
“It was a great place to play because the people were part of the game,” Mark Teixeira said. “But it was also a tough place when you were the opposing team. There was a different feel than at other stadiums.”
Will that same feeling exist at the new Yankee Stadium? Until we see a few games against the Red Sox or baseball played on a crisp October night, we won’t know for sure. But based on the design of the new ballpark, everything seems geared to make sure there isn’t a community of fans, only a strictly enforced class system.
The Yankees will allow fans through the gates three hours before the game to watch batting practice, a welcome change from the old rules. But fans will not be allowed on the field level unless they have a ticket for that section. If you want to snap a photo of your favorite player, it will be from a distance unless you want to spring for tickets that cost $95 to $375.
The array of restaurants and bars is impressive. But so are the security forces aligned to keep you out unless you have membership or an expensive ticket. There’s the Audi Yankees Club, the Budweiser Hall of Fame Lounge, the Mohegan Sun Sports Bar, the Club Suite, the Ketel One Lounge, the Left Field Dugout Lounge, the Jim Beam Suite, the Delta Sky 360 Suite.
The now infamous Legends Seats close to the field are protected from regular folks by a large concrete wall, and security guards stationed every few feet. The Mohegan Sun Sports Bar sits smack in the middle of the bleachers, ruining the view from hundreds of seats.
While it’s part of modern baseball to provide exclusivity to patrons willing to spend large sums of money, do the Yankees really need so many areas where the average fan isn’t allowed? In some cases, they rub your nose in it with huge windows showing you what’s inside as you walk by.
The organization defends the exclusivity by saying fans paying the high prices make it possible for the team to offer tickets for $22 and $29 in the grandstand. But those seats are scaled further back from the field than the “cheap seats” at the old Stadium.
Perhaps this is the price you pay for progress. Ultimately the game is determined by the players, not the fans. But there used to be one Yankee Stadium. Now there is one if you have a lot of money to spend and another if you don’t.
This is exactly what I feared, sixteen months ago, on December 18, 2007 when I wrote:
Thinking about it some more, I’m starting to wonder if Yankee Stadium will become like the Titanic when it set out to sea – with all the rich people staying on top, living the high-life, and all the poor people jammed into the bowels of the ship, crammed in there, huddled, and wondering what it’s like for the affluent folks in the nice parts of the vessel.
And, when I had the chance to check out the new Stadium, in person, ten days ago, I did come away from the experience thinking “Wow! There’s a lot in here that I’m not allowed to access – and, I’ll probably never be able to afford what it costs to access it.” And, that included several of the shops inside the new Stadium who were carrying goods for sale that were just priced way too far out of what my budget would allow.
I’ll be back at the new Stadium this Thursday for Opening Day. It will be interesting to see if I still feel the same way – the way I predicted it may become, the way that Abraham later detailed it, and the way that I personally experienced it. Then again, why should it change? If the Yankees really cared about this, they never would have let it happen in the first place, right?
