The House that Taxpayer Money Built

I'll never forget the first time that I entered the original Yankee Stadium, way back in the early 1990's. Having spent years watching Yankees telecasts, I was simply unprepared for the moment when I walked through the turnstiles and saw the Stadium's facade, the freshly cut grass of the outfield, and the finely manicured infield where my childhood hero, Don Mattingly, over at first base, ate up baseballs like a vacuum. The feeling was overwhelming, because the "House that Ruth Built" seemed so much larger than anything I could have ever forseen; words cannot convey the awe, absolute in its scope, that filled my teenage body and on which I still look back on fondly. The majesty of that building remains a formidable memory, one that I am not likely to forget soon. Such is baseball, and such are the bonds, emotional and otherwise, that are formed through this game.

Earlier today, after many years of attending games up in the Bronx, my brother and I went to the latest incarnation of Yankee Stadium, an edifice created at the cost of $1.5 billion (that's billion with a "b") dollars. The new home of the Yankees, make no mistake, is beautiful, and pays homage to the team's rich, unrivaled legacy, but was raised at great expense to those who live year-round in the South Bronx, one of the country's poorest and most economically depressed areas. The Stadium, built atop what was once public parkland, and which was secured by financial incentives, makes little sense in today's world, a world in which people suffer to pay off their mortgages in light of so much uncertainty. Truth be told, there was nothing wrong with the old Yankee Stadium, a building that lacked comfort and amenities, but which had plenty of gritty, rough-hewn charm and a fabled history courtesy of some of baseball's all-time greatest players.

Did I mention that the new Yankee Stadium cost a total of $1.5 billion to build? The figure is worth repeating, because with all of the shops and restaurants, the place simply begs for you to open up your wallet and spend money. Incredible. Here's a total of how much money I spent on food, drinks, etc.:

1 game-day program/magazine: $10.00
4 hot dogs + two beers: $42.00
1 salmon sushi roll + 1 soft drink: $14.25
1 noodle bowl: $8.50
TOTAL: $74.75

I write those numbers not to brag, but to show just how expensive it is to attend a major-league baseball game in New York City. Can you imagine taking a family of four to see Derek Jeter perform his signature leaping throws? An evening at the ballpark will surely cost fans hundreds, and shows just how out of touch Yankees' management is with reality, the working public; one wonders how the team, in what is considered one of the deepest American recessions in decades, can dare charge upwards of $2,000 for its prime, field-level seats. I hate to say it, but my Yankees, my beloved Yankees, have taken what I love about baseball and turned it something vile and crass; the team seemingly spits in the faces of those who can no longer afford to subsidize the multi-million-dollar contracts of men playing what is essentially a game for children. While it is true that the glory years of baseball, its professed innocence, faded long ago, and that the sport is a business like any other, there is absolutely no reason for the Yankees to take advantage of its own fans by forcing them to pay exorbitant ticket fees--extortion money, really--for the "privilege" of sitting in the last row of the bleachers.

I didn't quite feel the same sense of wonder earlier today on my first visit to the new Yankee Stadium, but then again, I am much older if not a little wiser, and understand that some changes are simply meant to carry one moment into the next.

[D | R]

Picture of the Day

From an exhibit at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York.

http://www.baseballhalloffame.org
http://www.cooperstownchamber.org

Boy Chucker

Adventures in American Capitalism presents...Things I Bought Yesterday:

1 copy of the Daily News: 50 cents
1 packet of extra-strength Excedrin: 75 cents

Total expenditures for Monday, August 11, 2008: $1.25

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Call me a romantic, a traditionalist, even a fool if you'd like, but I prefer my Morrissey songs to be full of melody, grandiose and sweeping melody without shame or restraint. And as much as I enjoy the pulverizing bass of Morrissey's new single, All You Need is Me, his best work--both as a solo musician and with the Smiths--has always taken advantage of pop music's jingle-jangle sensibility and love for restlessness that only melody can provide.

To be fair, though, Morrissey's most recent records have corrected some of the missteps that the singer took in the 90's (Southpaw Grammar, anyone?), which means that there is much delight to be had in tracks like "First of the Gang to Die" and "Irish Blood, English Heart." (The latter also relies upon rock'n'roll bombast.)

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Don't you just hate it when things are just so painfully obvious? To wit:

To treat cyanide poisoning, use nitrites to oxidize hemoglobin methemoglobin, which binds cyanide, allowing cytochrome oxidase to function. Use thiosulfate to bind this cyanide, forming thiocyanate, which is renally excreted.

from First Aid for the USMLE Step 1 2008

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Is it to much to ask for a decent, well-playing baseball team, or at least one that plays up to the expectations of its $200 million payroll?

[D | R]

The End of History: On Baseball & Memory

Every year around this time, with the opening of a new season of Major League baseball, I cannot help but to think of possibility and promise. I also think of those times during my childhood when life was little more than launching tennis balls over chain-link fences with a wiffle bat, trading baseball cards with Nelson ("Do you have Don Mattingly?"), visiting the Stadium to watch my beloved Yankees, or trying to find a left-hander's mitt that felt just right. It all sounds like nostalgia, sure, but to me baseball is far larger than training one's eye on the trajectory of a curveball, tight and sharp; the game, rich with contradictions and history, is representative of life as an adult: the brute force of the daily grind versus the grace and candor of time spent with family, loved ones.

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I'll never forget the first time, during the early 1990's, when I walked through the gates of Yankee Stadium. I remember gasping at the sight of the infield, the empty seats, and the famed facade, a hold-over from the Stadium's early years, when names like Ruth, Mantle, Maris, and DiMaggio held significance not only over the rest of professional sports, but over New York City itself. It all seems so much smaller on TV, I thought to myself as the Yankees warmed up on the field prior to playing the Milwaukee Brewers (then still a team in the Central Division of the American League), and of course the Stadium was much larger in real life than it could appear on television or in the mind of a little boy.

On that evening, whose warmth I still feel every single time that I hand my ticket to an usher at the Stadium, I heard for myself the thunderous crack of bat meeting ball--"that's a home run!"--and was witness, for the first of many chances, the home team managing to eke out a win in the early summer, in what would be another hopeless season (the Yankees would only win about sixty-five games that year).

Oh, to feel that wonder again.

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My Dad accompanied me to a Yankee game once and promptly fell asleep. His verdict? "So boring!"

We haven't seen eye-to-eye since.

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During my sophomore year in college, I decided to take a summer job at Shea Stadium, home of the Mets (just like the "Cathedral" in the Bronx, the ballpark in Flushing is due to come down after the end of the current season). It was one of those thankless jobs, one of many that young people take in order to make some money during the time between semesters, in which I was charged with selling bottles of Coca-Cola, hot dogs, popcorn, ice cream, lemon ices, and, if lucky, cotton candy.

With my Mets jersey, to which a button with the price of a soda ($3.25) was attached, I walked into the stands and belted out my tired refrain:

Hot dogs! Get yer hot dogs, heee-ah!
Ice cream, ice cream! Get yer ice cream, heeeeeee-ahhhhhhh!

The most I ever made during a game that season was $50. The least I ever made was $3.00, when I was told to sell lemon ices during a game in which a massive rain storm passed over Shea. Needless to say, the stands were empty when the skies cleared during the sixth inning, and I walked around trying to sell ices to the fans that decided to remain, over and over. Over and over I walked, the ices melting, melting...

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Yankee Stadium, like so many other fields before it (Seattle's Kingdome and Pittsburgh's Three Rivers Stadium come to mind), will be razed at the conclusion of the 2008 season, will meet its fate with crane and wrecking ball. With it will go the memories that I've accumulated over the years: the yelling, the tears, the pure joy that could only be the product of the perfect game that is baseball, of a creation that, in some ways, is more about myth than reality.

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A new season has begun. Will my team reach another World Series, or will I have to keep making excuses for a collection of players who make upwards of $200 million?

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I know I am more whole, somehow more alive, when I am holding a ball in my left hand, its red seams tightly wound and crisp, staring a batter down into oblivion.

[D | R]