Extended Family Outing To Yankee Stadium Nothing To Sneeze At?
Yesterday, I took my annual “pre-season” trip to the allergist and I brought along the copy of “Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend” that I’m currently reading. When my doctor saw me with the book, he laughed and said “I should have known that you’d be reading that one” and then shared that he had heard the book being discussed on WFAN.
As it’s been a year since we’ve seen each other, and I knew that he was a Yankees fan going way back, having grown up close to the Stadium, I asked him if he made his way to the new Stadium last year.
He shared that he did make it to a game and then mentioned something interesting. He said, as a kid, they would often celebrate birthdays by going to Yankees games – taking twenty (or so) family members and friends to game, grabbing a hotdog, soda and ice cream for all in the process. After saying this, he followed with “Of course, you could never do that today.”
Think about this for a minute. Probably as recent as 1980, you could feasibly take 20 kids to Yankee Stadium for a game, get them a dog, pop, and some ice cream for close to $250, in total, thereabouts. But, how much would that cost you today – even if you were willing to sit in the upper deck out in the outfield? You’re probably looking at something around $800 for that outing, no? That’s quite a bump in the last 30 years.
Now, sure, I know, $800 to some is not a ton of money. And, yes, there’s such a thing as inflation. But, it just seems – at least to me – that the cost for such an outing, today, should be closer to $600 or less.
Funny, as I typed that, immediately I thought “Maybe I should strike that? Two hundred extra bucks doesn’t seem like a lot to bitch about.” But, thinking about it longer, it’s an interesting difference. Six hundred dollars is closer to $500 and eight hundred dollars is closer to $1,000. And, a grand, for most, is not a small amount of money. The other figure, $500, is doable and somewhat reasonable for a kids party these days. But, once you get closer to a thousand dollars, I doubt that many people could swing that one.
Shame. But, then again, that’s life today in Yankeeland. It’s just more and more difficult to take the entire family, or more, to a game. And, it’s practically impossible to do it several times a season.
20 kids, 20 hot dogs, 20 sodas and 20 ice creams isn’t a cheap proposition in any other park, not just Yankee Stadium. And you shouldn’t use a fixed amount like $600 as your barometer because I assume you earn more as a resident of this part of the country than you would doing the same work in KC or Detroit or Minneapolis…
Really, what can’t you say this about?
We all went to games as kids, and we didn’t know about such things as budgets. All it was was “I want a hot dog”, “I want an ice cream”, “Can I have a pretzel?” For a kid, a trip to the ballpark is just as much a picnic as it is a ballgame.
@ 77yankees:
For my kids, it is…hot dog, cotton candy, dip-n-dots, popcorn, etc. Every two or three innings, I’m buying food.