New York Yankees: Bad for the Bronx, Bad for Baseball

(Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

In the not so distant past the New York Yankees embodied everything good about baseball and America.  Slowly that faded.  Yankee lore officially died on August 19, 2006—ground breaking day of New Yankee Stadium.

This is a story about corporate greed, political cronyism, and arrogant negligence to the neighborhood where the ghosts of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Mickey Mantle, and Thurman Munson occasionally pitch tent and drink beers with ghost fans of those "Bronx Bombers".  

The new and the old Yankee Stadiums both stand in New York state's 16th Congressional District.  Outside of the beltway, it is more commonly known as the South Bronx.

New York's 16th Congressional District is 98 percent Hispanic and black.

According to the 2000 census, it is the most impoverished of the 435 districts in the country.  How can this be?  Aren't the Yankees the wealthiest team in baseball?

The year 2000 was a pivotal one for the older white men who wear expensive suits to the ballpark.  The team's owner, George Steinbrenner, hired Randy Levine as Yankees' president.

Levine's Wikipedia bio states interesting facts:

—"Levine served as principal associate deputy attorney general and principal deputy associate attorney general at the U.S. Department of Justice during the Reagan administration."

—"(Levine) negotiated the 1996 MLB labor agreement."

—Under Rudy Giuliani, Levine worked as "New York City’s Deputy Mayor for Economic Development, Planning and Administration from 1997 to 2000. In January 2000, he announced his resignation...he was named president of the Yankees the next day."

—"Levine was a 'bundler' for John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign, and raised between $100,000 and $250,000 for McCain in 2008.

In the 2008 Presidential Election, Barack Obama won the 16th Congressional District of New York with 95 percent of the vote to McCain's five percent—the largest margin of all 435 districts in the country.

So to say that Randy Levine represents residents of the South Bronx is like saying 90-year-old kooky cat lady across the street would make a swell Miss America.

While it may never be proven, to think Levine did not use his political clout, greased some palms, and stuffed the pockets of state, city, and Bronx Borough politicians is kindly called naive.

Not so kindly called, [insert tactless insult to mental capacity].

This New York Daily News article makes clear good Mayor Bloomberg took it upon himself and, "rushed a bill through the Legislature to give 22-acres of Macombs Dam Park and part of John Mullaly Park as sites for the new stadium and its parking garages."

Yes, the Yankees—whoops, the taxpayers are suppose to eventually replace the acreage.

Wait a second.  How do you replace fully grown trees in a microcosm of concrete?  Go ahead laugh.  It actually turned out to be just over 25-acres with trees as old as 80 years.  Say it.  Tree hugger.

[Inserting crude and tactless insult to mental capacity]

Land rape.

On those 25-plus acres there used to be 377 fully grown trees.  To put it in better perspective, 70 percent of the trees in the area. 

The New Yankee Stadium and their "up yours Bronx" bosses stole 70 percent of the mature trees.

This in the South Bronx, an area with already breathtaking rates of asthma.  And take a guess where the highest rates of asthma are located in the South Bronx.  Ready? 

Near Yankee stadium, and all the trees that were plowed for construction of the $1.5 billion playpen.

Quick biology refresher: Humans breath oxygen.  They exhale carbon dioxide.  Plant life (the bigger the better) takes in the human's exhaled carbon dioxide and turns it back into fresh oxygen.

This is just a guess.  But lowball, it's safe to say 50% of breathable air has disappeared from a community.

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