Say it ain't so, Joba

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Does anyone want the season ticket holder's special edition 2008 All-Star Game Program?

You can check out my Craigs List posting for more information. I got two of them for my two season tickets, and I don't need two of them. One will be a keepsake, this one will go to someone who wants to pay face value ($15) for it.

I don't plan on making this blog a garage sale site, but I just thought this was pertinent place to offer it up.



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Yankees to have "homegrown" catering company provide food in the New Yankee Stadium

From BusinessWire comes news of Dallas Cowboys/New York Yankees partnership. Usually these business press releases fly right over my head, but in this case it is pertinent to frequent visitors to Yankee Stadium.

Lets go to the release:

“The old model of stadium concessions is broken,” stated Hal Steinbrenner, Co-Chairman of the New York Yankees. “Fans want and deserve a better experience for their sports entertainment dollar. Working with Legends to leverage the talent and experience resident in the Yankees’ and Cowboys’ organizations will enable us to set a higher bar for sports franchises while delivering greater value to fans. When the new Yankee Stadium opens for the 2009 season, our fans will be able to experience first-hand the enhancements to our menus, concessions, retail operations and fan spaces that Legends has overseen.”

The main bullet point of this press release is that the Yankees are cutting out the crappy middlemen such as Aramark and Centerplate catering and creating their own in-house option. Theoretically, this should cut costs for food items at the new Stadium, but that is highly doubtful given the overhead of starting up this operation and building the billion dollar Stadium. However, this does mean that we are free from the gummy chicken fingers and transfat-enhanced, year-old oil-soaked french fries that had haunted us for years at the old Yankee Stadium.

Many long-time vendors at the old Yankee Stadium are likely to lose their jobs based on this announcement, but for the average fan it is nothing but a good thing. I have seen some of the cooking facilities that Aramark and Centerplate use and whatever the Yankees come up with can't possibily be worse.

LONG LIVE LEGENDS HOSPITALITY MANAGEMENT!

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Video from inside of the new Stadium

This was a pretty cool find by Greg over at Sliding Into Home. Someone posted footage from inside of the new Yankee Stadium on YouTube. Good to see they are already forcing 16 oz. cups of watered down Budweiser down our throats. Will beers crack $10 next season (other than the 24 oz. Fosters/Heineken)? The anticipation is killing me.




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Follow NYY Stadium Insider on Twitter!

It took me a while, but I finally figured out how Twitter works.

For those of you who don't know about Twitter, head over to Wikipedia.org and check out the Twitter page.

Once you are done with that and you are all pumped up about Twitter, you can then sign up, and check out the "Stadium Insider" feed. Be warned that I use that as my personal twitter as well as the blog's twitter (c'mon, having two accounts would be LAME). Therefore, you may get updates about how great Penn State football is, how much I want to smash the remote when Eli Manning throws three picks in a game, how much Time Warner Cable sucks, etc.

Anyway, as soon as I get season ticket info, I will post it there, so be sure to "follow" me NYYSI on Twitter.

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Yankees to offer installment payment options for 2009 Season Ticket invoices

While I had a responsive member of the Yankee Stadium ticket operations team, I thought it would be helpful to the masses to inquire about payment options for their 2009 invoices.

I believe that the initial amount due upon receipt of the invoice will
be 10% of the total due and that there will be at least one or two
additional partial payment dates to follow. The option to pay in full
will certainly exist, and I think the number of payment dates will
depend largely on just how long it takes to make the seating
assignments. It's my understanding that payment on the smaller plans
(20 games and less) will be due in full as we don't anticipate having
those assignments completed until early '09.

Good news for people who want their Yankee tickets, but will be struggling to stay afloat this holiday season!

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New Yankee Stadium Season Ticket Holder relocation update

This just in from the Yankee ticket office:

I just wanted to send you a quick email to let you know that we started our relocation process this week with our Full and A Plan holders. Once we have completed the assignment process for the Full Plans we will move to the Full Season Pool and then to the 41-Game Plan assignments. We anticipate having invoices and seating locations mailed to Full and A Plan holders in about 3-5 weeks, so I imagine the Relocation Department will be in touch with you in mid-December. Please feel free to contact me with any questions you might have about the relocation process.

I have to give credit where credit is due. I have always voiced my displeasure at the lack of correspondence from the Yankee ticket office, but they have done the right thing here. In these crazy economic times, it is good to know that the new invoice will be arriving right around the holiday season.

If you are a season ticket holder, definitely keep an eye out for an email of this sort. It is NOT a form email sent within a template. It appears to be my ticket representative reaching out.


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I agree - it was all Bobby Meacham's fault

Thats right, Mr. Meacham - he is out and it is your fault. Keep up the good work

I am too young to remember Bobby Meacham as a player, but everyone old enough to remember his days in MLB tell me that he was a horrendous baserunner (among other aspects of his game).

The fact of the matter is, Meacham was set up to fail. Not only because he didn't have baserunning instincts, but because he was following in the footsteps of Larry Bowa - one of the best base coaches out there.That being said, I had low expectations for third base coach going into the 2008 season.

That being said, even I was shocked at how many times Meacham had to be mentioned because of his bad instincts. If he wasn't sending a guy home when he had no business doing so, he was holding a man at third when the outfielder had a noodle arm. It was a comedy of errors from the third base coaching position from the beginning. Rule of thumb if you are a third base coach - don't get noticed. The only exception to that rule is if you are Larry Bowa, since then you will be running down the baseline next to the baserunner and nearly sliding into home with him.

Am I overstating Bowa's influence on the outcome of baseball games? Probably. However, the New York Yankees baserunning cost them runs in 2008. Baseball Prospectus 2008 introduced baserunning as a key stat they were developing a system for evaluating. I can't wait to read their analysis of 2008 based on the above numbers.

Maybe it wasn't ALL Bobby Meacham's fault, but he definitely did not HELP the New York Yankees win baseball games in 2008. For that, he earned himself a trip to the unemployment office.

Another theory on this firing is that when he was younger, he looked like Melky Cabrera and the Yankees can have NONE of that:



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Are you all getting pumped?

For that Phillies/ Rays World Series?

Rumor has it there will be blood on the streets outside of the Fox Sports executive offices in L.A if the Rays and Phillies continue their march to the World Series.

The story will be the upstart "worst to first" Rays against the city starved of Championships, Philadelphia. I doubt the ratings will follow.



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Concert for closing ceremony at Yankee Stadium canceled

This comes via the NY Daily News -

According to the Yankees Media Relations department, the team has decided against a concert on November 9 as part of a "closing ceremony".

What is not clear from this article is whether there will even be a closing ceremony. Former Yankees such as Joe Torre have voiced interest in attending such a ceremony and rumors have been running rampant that EVERY past Yankee player would be invited. As of now, those are simply unsubstantiated rumors.

Unfortunately, no date has been set nor has a closing ceremony even been confirmed. In addition, the Yankees have not set a dismantling date for the old Yankee Stadium.

UPDATE: AM New York was the first to report this, and they are saying that there will be no closing ceremony at all. Epic fail by the Yankees in their final season at the old Stadium. I can understand though, being in the stadium on a regular basis as a season ticket holder gave me a "good riddance" feeling toward the old Stadium. I can only imagine what it felt like to the people who had to work there.

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Cashman returns promising change

YES WE CAN! Read the full post, after the jump

Tours of the "old" Yankee Stadium Still available...

This comes courtesy of River Ave Blues and NY1. It appears the Yankees have opened up some more Yankee Stadium Tour slots (they have nothing else going on in the Stadium this October).

I checked out the Ticketmaster.com page for the Yankee Stadium tour, and while select dates showed as active "events", I could not locate tickets. Perhaps there was a "River Ave Blues effect" and the tickets for the remaining tours sold out quickly.

If you really want to check out the "House That Ruth Built" before they tear it down, you can probably check out Stub Hub and Craigs List.

As I mentioned yesterday, New Stadium tours have not been announced yet.

Update: Here is another link (from the NY Post) about the Stadium Tours resuming.

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