Nobody said the transition to the new stadium would be easy or perfect or seamless, especially given 1) the economy, 2) the total cost of recent FA acquisitions, and 3) the significantly smaller number of seats. Hell, we should be thankful if it will actually be completely finished on time! They are simply trying to maximize their revenue stream with respect to attendance and really only the heavy hitters who have been with the Steinbrenners from day one, or the folks who have been with the Yankees the longest with the largest packages over the years, as well as the new corporate entities involved, are blessed with the luxury of the first choices. The rest of we mere mortals get the leavings. I’m sorry to add that a ten-year commitment for a package of 15 games is insignificant now, at least in terms of maximizing revenue. In fact, it would probably take at least two generations for you to enjoy another season like your magical first one and you would have to not only live that long, but spend millions in order to see something like that again.

A new stadium represents a new paradigm, like it or not. It’s the way of the world and has been for quite a while. I wouldn’t blame the Yankees per se, as much as I would blame the corporate slime they hired to determine the new ticket plan packages and how they would be implemented. It seems to me that from the form sent out by them that you posted, it may be from some outsourced place where English isn’t the first language, like Dallas, TX! If that were indeed true, that’s a “Bronx Bummer”! In George’s day, that grammatically challenged employee would have already filed for unemployment by now.

Ultimately, every one of us saw this coming. If you didn’t, you simply haven’t been paying attention to where other new venues have been recently brought online. Thank God the Yankees reload every year so they won’t suffer too many empty seats the way other teams have with their new buildings. To me it’s worthless for a MLB organization valued at hundreds of millions to have a new park, yet they don’t provide a worthy enough team to warrant enough interest to justify the inflated ticket prices paying for it. Nobody wants to pay more for the same old crap in a new package. That’s part of the change we all are desperate for. I think there are enough Yankees fans still traveling to New York for mere trips for the pilgrimage, that it could still prove to be recession proof. I could be wrong about that though, especially if they stink like they did last year. That new concessions venture with the Cowboys had better blow folks away to justify these incredible prices, to be sure. More will be revealed with respect to that.

I’m positive that you can get into a few games this year without taking out a loan, not that we could get one of those these days anyway! (lol) While they may not be the perfect seats, or the perfect game, at least you’ll get in there, and you know as well as the rest of us that you never know what you’re going to get any given night wherever our Yankees call home. It took my wife and me more than 40 years of fanaticism to make it to Yankee Stadium for our first and only game, and it was the announcement of the new stadium that hastened obtaining these checks on our bucket lists. I simply would not allow my wife or me to pass away without experiencing what we have seen and heard everyone wax rhetoric about for much longer than we’ve lived! This is because other than seeing the Yankees play the Marlins in Miami during the first Interleague Series, the only other place I’ve seen a regular season Yankees game was at Fenway Park way back when I was six and there was no such thing as a FA and the only Interleague games were the World Series. We upgraded our friend’s season tickets and sat right behind home plate on the aisle in the back of the lower deck (120A), but our luck for things like this is historically so bad, we not only saw the Yankees lose a blowout to Baltimore that evening, but Daniel Cabrera had a no hitter going until Robbie Cano rapped single to break it up with one out in the bottom of the ninth! You know the game… And Darrell friggen Rasner, who got a whopping 20.1 innings in ’06, was the last minute starter by Joe Torre! Thanks Joe for making my lone game at The House that Ruth Built unforgettable! At least I know where to find it online and everyone remembers that crapfest of a game from Hell! I just don’t know how to post a link here. PJ hangs his head in shame…

http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com/news/wrap.jsp?ymd=20060928&content_id=1688583&vkey=wrapup2005&fext=.jsp&team=home&c_id=nyy

And so you know, as far as “to glove or not to glove”, it all depends on where you sit, but in my humble opinion, you would look like a bigger dork “catching” a HR ball with your forehead, or breaking a finger or three and not getting the ball, than bringing it along “just in case”! Besides, I never took you for a celebrity, whose primary concerns while attending a Yankee game are how you look, and where you are while looking like that.

Finally, there is absolutely nothing at all the matter with keeping score. Just make sure it’s not your priority while enjoying the game. If keeping score is your priority at a Yankees home game, you should get a job that pays you for doing that. Then you get into all of the games for free without an obstructed view…

;)

[26] You got something against scorecards? I oughtta rip…

Seriously, I agree with much of what you say. I already get the Extra Innings package and the Gameday Audio package – the amount of baseball I take in overall won’t suffer; it’s the number of times I get to the ballpark to enjoy the game in person that will. I love spring training and have done it a few times (Florida and Arizona), though work scheduling prevents me from doing so these days. But I never liked sitting in the outfield, in part because even with contacts or glasses, my vision is for sh*t, and I simply can’t follow the game as well as I can when I’m looking out from the other direction. I do own a glove, thanks, though the only time I’ve taken it to a ballpark (Wrigley Field, 1999) i felt like a pretty big dork, and the number of Old Style beers I consumed would have made any attempt to catch a home run ball a hazard to my health and those around me, particularly given my lack of ability to track flyballs in the first place. IOW, there’s a reason I wasn’t the Futility Outfielder…

You think those are tough ticket stories? Try getting into The Masters from year to year even if only for Monday or Tuesday practice rounds, or Wednesday for the Par 3 event! Just the privilege to purchase those tickets for ONE of those three days, and up to a maximum of four per household, may take years. And you can simply forget about purchasing a weekly badge for the “toornament” from the Masters Tournament Committee. That list is permanently closed. And I haven’t even mentioned the gouging that’s citywide, which exceeds the type of gouging Major League cities do whenever the Yankees come to town. $350-$500 per night in a Red Roof Inn really isn’t my cup of tea! Even if you’re fortunate enough to get some corporate “connection” to slip you a badge for the week, be prepared to drop $3-5K for accommodations and another $2,500-$10K and up for your laundry list of friends that want swag from Augusta National Golf Club and The Masters. And how would you feel if some obscure foreigner won out of nowhere, say… Trevor Immelman? They don’t call them the “toughest tickets in all of sports” for nothing!

Pfft!

Do what my wife and I do. Get your Gameday Audio for the computer for $15 from MLB, and the EI package from your cable or satellite provider for “a buck fitty”, and see all of the close-ups and replays and emotion (or lack thereof) and sweat dripping from the players’ faces, and listen to Paulie and Coney and the rest of the gang and laugh at them from day to day! You can even TIVO the games and pre and post game shows for your own convenient perusal. Even with the new stadium, your food at home, your theater seating, and your big screen receiver is better… way better. At least mine is…

We also go to Tampa for at least two weeks every March for golf, fun, sun, and Yankees… but I digress. We have never had a problem getting seats for ST games, and we get to see more players, practice, drills, cutting up and such and no celebrities feebly attempting to be a story due to their mere presence!

Honestly, some folks only see a foul pole and not the big picture! At least you’ll know whether or not the ball is really fair or foul, if you’re right there. Who knows? You might even catch a home run! Jaffe would more than likely get conked in the head filling out his scorecard anyway… or miss it all together while taking a leak…

Does he even own a glove?

;)

My dad and I sat in the equivalent seats in the old stadium last year, right behind home plate, and as amazing as it was (a long overdue gift for my dad), I would have never shelled out $2500/seat.

I wonder how long it will be before those seats are on StubHub at a fraction of the cost.

Hard to believe that I used to buy Upper Deck tkts on the day for $12, then sneak into the box seats to watch Alvaro Espinoza ground out weakly..

I’m gonna give a shout-out to my HD TV this season, even if I have to put up with blowhard Michael Kay for nearly 162 games.