Contradicting everything I said yesterday, I’d love to catch a game at the new park..but agree with Chyll about the security. If I pay good money for my tickets there is no way I’d put up with being spoken too like that..guess have been in uber-polite Japan too long but such behavior really reflects badly on the “Yankee” culture. There have been more than enough complaints about the security over the past few years that they should have addressed it by now.

I called the Stadium today to see if the 81 game package was available for the Upper Deck ($30) seats. I was told that they were not selling any to new people. It was only available to existing ticket holders. So access to the upper deck cheap seats are diminished because people who can’t afford the Premium seats are taking them.

There is probably a similar effect for game day tickets. Fewer cheap seats will be available to buy since last year’s premium season ticket holders are pushed upstairs.

So the upper deck seats are affordable but there are fewer of them to go around.

I’d have to come back, on GP.

Thanks very much for this article Cliff! You did a great job, even if you DID pick the Red Sox to win it all this year…

Though, of all my impressions, the one that stands out is just how ridiculously huge that new video board is. No expense spared there.

And I *love* the Abraham bit! It took me about five or six seconds to get it: (“That sounds so familiar…I know that line from somewhere…”) Very, very funny.

The CF restaurant is obnoxious aesthetically, and to have seats *that* obstructed in a new ballpark is inexcusable, I don’t care if they only (now( cost $5). Slack, slack design.

Overall, however, I have to admit the whole stadium as a whole sure looks purdy. I posted years back about how great the open concourses were at the other new parks I attended (e.g., Cleveland and Detroit), and as much as I will “miss” that the old charm of the Yankee tunnel concourses, I simply won’t really miss them.

I think, Cliff, you are a bit too hard on the lack of detail on the frieze (which I think looks great, and preferable to the concrete knock-off in CF) but I’ll reserve judgement till I see it live.

[12] that a few members of the stadium staff were not only fan unfriendly, but they were down right rude to the paying customers.

I agree entirely. Over the last ten years or so, I have found the Yankees staff in general to be amazingly fan-unfriendly, rude, and abrasive. My brother and I actually had a theory that the Yankees ordered various workers and vendors to be assholes, to make the stadium experience less pleasant and thus justify a new stadium. I don’t really believe that of course, but…

(sorry for the long post)

One thing I noticed about my first and only trip to Yankee Stadium last summer was that a few members of the stadium staff were not only fan unfriendly, but they were down right rude to the paying customers. The worst example for me was in the gift shop. One worker got very huffy with a lady who asked if there were any Jeter shirts in the back (they were bringing out other shirts from the back at the time). When I politely asked the lady at the checkout counter if she could wrap the glass item that I had just purchased she just gave me a look and said “What makes you think I wasn’t going to wrap it?” I just chalked it up as someone trying to let me experience the “New York attitude” that I had heard so much about. The funny thing was that the overwhelming majority of people we met in NY did not have that attitude. Other than those two ladies in the gift shop (and the security guard that made us walk all the way around the Stadium to get back to the ferry boat) the experience with the stadium staff was not unlike what I had seen in other stadiums.

I went to see Michael Jordan play his last game in Atlanta a few years ago (well, it was supposed to be his last game). My friend and I had “nose bleed” seats in the Georgia Dome. We got there early and decided to try to get down close to get a picture of the players warming up. We asked one of the security guards and got denied access. We asked another and got denied again. We finally decided to just wait until a group was going down to those courtside seats and we followed them past the guard like we knew what we were doing. I think the girl was yelling at us to see our tickets, but we just kept going and she gave up. After we took our pictures, we decided to just pick a couple of seats and stay there until the real ticket holders showed up (the game was a sellout due to Jordan). We noticed other people trying to do the same thing and getting busted left and right by the rightful ticket owners. We knew it would be a matter of time before our time was up, but it would be worth it while it lasted. Even with astronomical odds stacked against us, we picked two seats that no one ever tried to claim (third row in the corner). The only drawback was that we couldn’t leave our seats until the game was over for fear of not getting back down there (my poor bladder still hasn’t forgiven me…;-)

[3] Agree completely. Security heavy handedness will not be unique to NYS.

[4] While the closeness of the upper deck was great for seats around home plate, it led to increasing obstruction of the field as you proceeded down the line. As a result, at least 2/3 of the upper deck had some part of the field blocked off from view. With all the furor over a few obstructed bleacher seats, the overall improved sightlines have been overlooked.

[5] I am not so sure the new place is unaffordable to those of limited means, at least any more so than the old one. While the prime seats are much more expensive, most of those went to full season ticket holders anyway. Most of the upper deck and bleachers are still the same price or slightly more expensive (and in some cases a few dollars cheaper).

It’s just remarkable that the primary consideration was anything other than “How can we make this a great place TO WATCH A BASEBALL GAME?”

This issue + the extra foul territory down the lines & the obstructed bleacher seats gets my goat more than the ticket prices or Gestapo ushers…