1992, this was a good year for a variety of reasons. I was eight and actually excelling in school, (a feat I would not see again for another ten or eleven years until I reached college). Boutros Boutros-Ghali (one of the coolest names ever), took over as UN Secretary-General, George Bush Sr. threw up on the Japanese Prime Minister, and most importantly this was the year I went to my first Yankees game.
I recall the anticipation before we embarked on the 1 hour+ trek to the game. The drive through the crime ridden Bronx was magical; the abandoned cars, the crackheads on the sidewalks, condemned buildings, etc. It was a bit scary for an eight year old kid from the suburbs, but it was also alluring. This was only the appetizer. The main dish was the stadium: the hallowed ground on 161st Street and River Ave. The ballpark stood out among the decrepit buildings like a jewel in a pile of trash. This was the very spot where players like Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Joe D., Yogi Berra, Thurman Munson, and one of my favorite Yankees', the immortal Cecil Fielder had played. I figured that this place must be special however, why else would rich yuppies from the burbs' risk life and limb to drive out to The Bronx just to watch a baseball game? Once you enter Yankee Stadium you are treated to a unique aroma of urine, sweat, and other unknown smells that I couldn't even begin to decipher. You look around and notice the low ceilings, you hear the most foul obscenities, see people stumbling around drunk...and this all takes place before the game has even started. However once I caught my first glimpse of the field, my heart skipped a beat. It looked amazing. I couldn't get over how the perfectly manicured grass looked like a gorgeous painting. To add to the ambiance, Eddie Layton was playing the organ, and the sound beautifully resonated throughout the stadium. We went to our seats which were cramped and didn't have much legroom but who cared? I just wanted to see my favorite team play.
Lets fast forward to 2009, I am now twenty-five and have attended 5 games at the "new" stadium. I hated the idea of building this place from the moment they first broached the concept building another stadium. I thought, "how could they abandon THE Yankee Stadium? This place can't be duplicated, and why should it be?" Granted the old stadium was outdated and could have used a face lift, they should have remodeled it and made small improvements, but overall kept it the way it was. Fenway and Wrigley are older than Yankee Stadium, so why tear the ladder down? It was all about greed and money: they wanted more luxury boxes, they wanted fancy restaurants (the old stadium had $7 hot dogs, how much fancier did they need)? So now we get Lobel's steaks-the dream of any true baseball fan to pay $20 for a steak sandwich at the ballpark. I love to eat as much as the next guy, but I have never came to a game for the food; I came to watch the Yankees smack around their opponent. Now it's the fans who are the ones getting bitch slapped by the Yanks and forced to come to this tame, watered down stadium to watch our team. The place has no soul; it has no feeling. It's just a huge industrial-looking pit with a scoreboard that you can see from outer space. The crowd is alien to me. Gone are the true fans who had passion for the bombers. Gone are the heated arguments amongst the patrons. Now we are left with guys in suits who couldn't tell you who the Yankees first baseman was before Jason Giambi.
As I walked out of this new ballpark for the first time, I remember saying to myself, "where the hell did I just go?" I looked over the old stadium and wished there was an undo button-I would click it in a heartbeat and erase this impostor field. Unfortunately this can't be done and I, along with all True Yankees fans are stuck with it. So when you go to a Yankees game, look around the stadium and see what greed has gotten, and then glance across the street and look at what greed has left behind. This place would be fine if it were the Twins new stadium, or the Marlins new field, but it's not fine for the Yankees, and it's not fine for the "true" fans.
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