March 22, 2008
A Look Inside the Next Yankee Stadium
The Yankees recently sent out an email announcing their "premium offerings" at the next Yankee Sadium. If you plan to experience some of these luxuries — slated to debut next season — start playing the lottery now.
Below are the four levels of premium seating at what is sure to be the most commercially aggressive stadium in the history of American sports. All are tagged as "suites," but don't confuse all with enclosed luxury boxes. Most appear to be renamed versions of some of the best outdoor seats in the current Yankee Stadium — but with special privileges that come at outrageous prices.
• Legends Suite — These 1,800 lower-level seats extend from dugout to dugout and start at $500 each. For a baseball game. That may be played in cold or rain. Against the Royals.
• Main Level Outdoor Suite — Located on the second level behind home plate, these 1,200 seats start at $350 per game. Yep, for $350, you get no better than the 1,801st-best seat in the house.
• Terrace Level Outdoor Suite — The best home-plate view from the upper deck comes from these 1,300 seats that start at $100 per. Upper deck, you may recall, is usually populated by people not rich enough, or not willing enough, to pony up for the "good" seats.
• Club Suite — Lacking in friends that are high-placed in the corporate world? Now you can buy into an expansive luxury suite, one ticket at a time, and hob-nob with the wealthy from a variety of industries. Maybe even organized crime! These 74 seats start at $700 per. And, get this, you still have to pay extra for booze!
I don't know why these seats are said to "start" at the prices given. Perhaps some spots in particular sections cost more than others. Or perhaps some games cost more to attend. I do know this: at the base prices listed above, the Yankees will take in $1,968,000 for these 5,040 seats. For every game. Throughout the foreseeable future.
That's before anyone buys a drop of beer. Or advertises in the park. Or eats at the steakhouse (blasphemy). Or leases a luxury suite. Or purchases any of the other 45,000 seats.
All those things will bring the Yankees per-game revenues around $83 trillion.
I will update when I find out what is planned for regular fans, the ones who showed up before the dramatic increases in attendance at Yankee stadium since 1995.
(It's interesting to note that, as recently as 1997, the reigning World Series champion Yankees drew only the 5th-best attendance in the AL, at 32,254 per game. In 2001, with the Yankees having won three straight World Series and a total or four in five years, the per-game attendance was "only" 40,800. Last season, a second-place effort coming off consecutive first-round playoff knockouts, the Yankees drew a franchise record 52,729 per game.)
March 17, 2008
Photos: Yankees Spring Training 2008
Having spent the past weekend visiting the Bronx Bombers in Tampa, I've just posted a small photo album that marks the debut of my Pentax DA 18-250mm f/3.5-6.3 ED AL IF lens for my K01D camera.Being in the middle of a 9-week photo course, I'm still a DSLR newbie, but I was lucky enough to capture Alex Rodriguez's Friday home run (below) with the third picture I ever shot with the zoom lens. I also dig this seemingly ho-hum shot of A-Rod taking a ball below the knee. His eyes are right on that major-league pitch; the dude is scary-good.
A couple of the shots were treated with a fake HDR Photoshop action that I like to play around with on landscape shots. I used it on this recent Central Park capture that ranks among my all-time favorites.
A Few Notes:
• Thanks mostly to Frenchy's tiki bar in left field — which stays open, with a band playing, well after the meaningless game ends — the Clearwater-based Phillies have the best minor-league park. Way more social and casual than Legendzzz Field, which, like the original, pretty much pins you to your seat.
• Fans are at a greater risk of getting hurt at spring training, because those are the only games I've been to where fans who are paying attention to the game duck away from foul balls, exposing those not paying attention for a second to get brained. I guess the blood-thirst to own a genuine Allan H. Selig-signed baseball dissipates at age 70.
• I survived Waffle House and an airport hot dog on getaway day. Don't tell my stomach he can't hang.
• To win the Florida vote in the election I guess you have to cater to two demographics: fossils and skinny, white college-aged (though not necessarily college-educated) kids all tatted up and sporting New Era caps. From there, you can punt the other 3.4% of the state population to the opponent.
• Played 3.5 hours of $1/$2 poker at the Hard Rock Casino in Tampa and earned $150. The play was so bad it was hard to not laugh sometimes. Players were astounded that I, in my third hand against an unknown villain who was up $400, did not call a $15 pre-flop raise from the big blind (and out of position) with 10-9 suited with a $100 stack, which was the state-mandated max in the game. (There is also a $100 max buy-in at the $2/$5 game. Lots of decision-making in that one: push or fold.)
March 3, 2008
When Casual, Backyard Wiffle Ball Just Won't Do
On page 30 of the current issue of ESPN The Magazize are tips on how to throw nasty Wiffle ball pitches from Joe Nord, a former Cy Young and MVP Award winner in "the preemininent Wiffle ball organization in the country."
Funny, I thought, Nord doesn't look 8 years old.
Turns out Nord is a member of Fast Plastic, an adult league in which passion runs deep enough for someone to have produced this YouTube video of serious Wiffle ball players — some wearing dual batting gloves — over a soundtrack of Eminem's "Lose Yourself" and Motley Crue's "Kickstart My Heart."
Those are some nasty scowls on those dudes' faces. I'd hate to get into a heated game of Hungry Hungry Hippos or Chutes & Ladders with those ballas.
• See also: Wiffle ball on Wikipedia