Take Me Out to the Ball Game: More is Less at the New Yankee Stadium

“Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out with the crowd;
Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack,
I don't care if I never get back.
Let me root, root, root for the home team,
If they don't win, it's a shame.
For it's one, two, three strikes, you're out,
At the old ball game.”

That famous song, by Jack Norworth (I bet you did not know that, and I am impressed if you did) is sung in the middle of seventh innings from early March to late October in ball parks all over the United States.

 This past Sunday, April 19, 2009, I finally went to my first game (“Yankee Stadium's Opening Day: Should I Stay Or Should I Go?”)  at the “New” Yankee Stadium and think the Steinbrenners and all other owners as well need to take another look at the lyrics to “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” before they design a stadium (new or old).

If you look at the lyrics, they are describing going to a baseball game and watching a baseball game, nothing else.  That is what the person in the song was enjoying a baseball game not any of this other ridiculous crap to “enhance” the game. 

It does not work and it just pisses the real fans (myself) off.

Do not get me wrong, the stadium is beautiful and really worth every penny that the Steinbrenner’s (and the people of New York) put into it, and enjoyed myself during the Yankees 7-3 victory over the Cleveland Indians. 

However, there are just too many little things and one big thing (pricing) that make me question why come to the ballpark.

I can put up with the constant games and nonsense up on the scoreboard between innings, and encourage other stadiums (if they do not, to do it).  It keeps little kids or people who really do not care interested long enough to allow the true baseball fans to watch the game for as long as they like. 

And I understand you have to make coming out to the ballpark appeal to everyone, and that is what most of this stupid stuff does, as the people behind me pretended to be real Yankee fans, but if you looked closely (and I was able to having nine innings with them) they were not (wondered why A-Rod had the day off).

The price of food and drinks is an obvious complaint and I will not dwell on it too long.  I am just saying that my mother ordered a beer and hot dog for $19.50.  I have tried to boycott Yankee Stadium food for a couple of years for two reasons.

The first is of course because of the prices, and the second is because there are non-Yankee employed vendors just outside the Yankees property lines, who sell the same items at better quality for a lot less (including one guy who used to stand across from “The Bat” now he is by the old stadium, who charges $2.00 for a hot dog, $1.50 for a soda, and $1.00 for a water, you really can’t beat it).

I normally go to that guy and eat like four hot dogs and a drink before the game, fill up and then on the way back to the car get a couple more before heading home, and you are fine and find a lot more money in your pocket.

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