July 27, 2009

Yankee Stadium slam book, mid-season edition

Just in time for the pennant race, we have yet another review of the new New York Yankees and Mets stadiums, courtesy of Metropolis magazine's Mark Lamster, who'd previously critiqued New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ourossouff's review of the new places as being too focused on abstract aesthetics and not enough on actual ballpark experience. Lamster's principal conclusion this time around: New Yankee Stadium and Citi Field are mostly about making money, and aren't shy about it.

When I first started attending games on my own, some 20 years ago, a ticket to the Yankee bleachers cost $1.50, pocket change even for a kid on a tight allowance. That same ticket now costs $14: not an unreasonable sum, but more than a movie and enough to keep a student on a limited budget from making it too much of a habit. The new stadium, for that matter, doesn't beg that kind of relationship. It's a special-occasion place, somewhere to visit a couple of times a season. Why empty your wallet for an entertainment event that might not be entertaining? (Even the best teams lose roughly 40 percent of their games.) When you're stuck in the nosebleed seats, and a beer, a dog, and a bag of peanuts cost upward of 20 bucks, thoughts of exploitation inevitably percolate through the mind. It is in those moments that the fan-team compact seems hopelessly broken, and one begins to wonder about the difference between being a fan and being a chump. Sometimes it seems like there's no difference at all.

I'm pretty sure Yankees bleachers prices went up to $3 in 1986, but otherwise, hard to argue with that — and yes, I'd be saying that even if Lamster didn't quote me in his piece.