New Yankee Stadium Nearing Completion

(Zell's Pinstripe Blog)

I don’t know about you guys, but I am excited for the new Yankee Stadium. A lot of people are disgusted and mad about the old ballpark leaving, but things change. I know I’m pretty young and didn’t get to see what the old ballpark was like, except for pictures, but I understand.

The Yankees have had a lot of tradition and memories on those hollowed grounds. It’s not like the organization is trying to take any of that away just because they are making a new stadium. I’m sure there will be a ton more Yankee moments in the new Yankee Stadium...then, 50 years from now, you're going to cry, saying they shouldn’t tear it down.

As technology gets better, teams feel the need to give the fans a better product, and that’s exactly what the Yankees organization is doing. The Yanks are trying to give the fans a whole new experience and bring back memories of the old stadium at the same time. The facilities and new technology will be top of the line, and it will be more enjoyable to watch a game.

From the Yankees' official website:

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The sod is now in waiting, completely planted in October. This week, a bulldozer turned over the infield dirt and a landscaper trimmed the infield grass with an old-fashioned power mower.

Across the way, the plaques and monuments have been removed from the old stadium and are stored in a truck. In the new stadium, Monument Park will be in dead center, behind and above the fence. Visitors will have access through a glass-enclosed box directly above it and within the batter’s eye.

For safety and security reasons, the monuments and plaques now stored in the old stadium will be among the last objects moved across the street.  

Overall, construction is about 90 percent complete, down now to the trim and the finishes. Almost all of the dark blue seats have been installed, save for the lower-deck club seats and the Legend boxes located down the foul lines.

The construction appears right on target and the privately funded $1.3 billion stadium—which was the brainchild of Yankees chairman George Steinbrenner—should be nothing short of spectacular.

The new stadium pays homage to the original edifice erected across the Harlem River from the Polo Grounds. The Yankees shared that old horseshoe-shaped park in Manhattan with the Giants from 1913-22. They inhabited the old stadium for the last 85 years, save for two seasons—1974-75—when the Yanks played at Shea Stadium while the ballpark was undergoing a $160 million renovation paid for by New York City.

The new stadium is airy and open, with complete views of the field from every concourse, rest room and concession stand, no matter what level. The congestion in the concourses and the problems of ingress and egress in the old stadium are now left in the past.

Like the original stadium, the auxiliary scoreboards are located on the fences in left-center and right-center fields. Those scoreboards are hand-operated, and the one in left-center was installed this week.

The new yard will seat 53,000, but every one of those seats has an unencumbered view of home plate, even though the new stadium reaches about the same height as the old one.

Most of the seats are much closer to the field than the old stadium, where the catcher squatted about 70 feet from the backstop. In the new park, that distance is about 50 feet.

The field dimensions are identical to the old stadium: 318 feet down the left-field line, 314 feet down the right-field line, 408 feet in dead center, 399 feet in left-center and 385 in right-center.

Around the concourses, the concession stands are in and the cleanup is under way. In five months, it will be alive with crowds and there will be baseball to be played.

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