Where Have You Gone, Stadium Insider?

I typically don't break the "Stadium Insider" character, but I just thought I would pop in and let everyone know about the recent blog hiatus. In the past month or so, I have gotten engaged as well as taking a vacation. Further, work has been rather hectic (you know - the real job that pays my bills and allows me the luxury of going to Yankee Stadium and spending my money on bad food).

I may have created lofty expectations in the offseason and in April/May when I was scheduling posts so that there were multiple posts spread throughout the day. Our traffic numbers from those months indicated that the readers were embracing the posts - in April we had nearly 100,000 page views! Unfortunately, working 9 AM until at least 6 PM takes a lot out of you, the ideas haven't been flowing off of the fingertips as freely, and I haven't been seeking out stories. If anyone can tell me how to add a few hours to my day, please contact me immediately.

For anyone who already doesn't follow me on Twitter, you can do so at Twitter.com/StadiumInsider. Posting updates there is pretty easy since they are only 140 characters - you'll notice that I check in a lot. I can also be reached via the contact link at the top of the page if you have any story ideas - I'll welcome the opportunity to be lazy and have a story dropped into my lap every once in a while!

I have some stories planned for the second half - best standing room only spots in the stadium, NYY Steak review, etc. As always, when bad weather inevitably hits the area and affects your trip to Yankee Stadium, I'll be here with updates from Steve DiMartino of NYNJPAWeather.com. I can't promise many posts, but I can promise that this blog won't just fade away into an obscure corner of the interwebs. Meanwhile, if you long for the type of material that we were putting out day after day in April and May, I would recommend checking out The Mets Police. They are officially a Mets Blog, but they have a season ticket plan at Yankee Stadium and are pretty much the Citi Field Stadium Insider. Highly recommended reading.

To anyone who still checks back here daily, I truly appreciate the patience and loyalty. To anyone who has ripped me in the comments section for not posting regularly, I am flattered by your readership. Hopefully this case of writer's block/blogging apathy will subside soon and I'll be back filling all of your quotas. In the meantime, please enjoy Yanks27's NSI Minor League Report, Bobby's Yankees book reviews and Nick's occasional stadium insider ramblings (his writing style resembles mine, so be sure to check the tagline at the bottom of the post to check on the author).

For the record, here are my second half Yankees predictions - Joba is going to turn around his season, Phil Hughes will enter the rotation in dominant fashion, A-Rod will make a run at the MVP award, and the Yankees will edge the Red Sox for first place. If A.J Burnett can have a month of dominance in October like his month of dominance in June, the Yankees will be playing in the Fall Classic. I have a feeling in my bones, people. Republicans are out of office, Moose is no longer doing an admirable job as one of the more underrated Yankees hurlers of all time (curse of the Moose), and the Yankees finally have a viable pitching staff. Our 8 year drought will be over in three and a half months and we'll be planning a tickertape parade down the canyon of heroes. You heard it here first. Read the full post, after the jump

Housekeeping Note: Introducing a New Commenting System

At some point today, we realized that the built-in blogger commenting system did not have IP tracking functionality built it. We certainly don't want to collect IP addresses, but we plan on running some contests this season based on the comments, and want to prevent cheating by tracking IP addresses. We are well aware of IP masking, but it is doubtful that any of our contests will be worth all of that trouble.

That being said, we proudly present the new comments. It will now be necessary to register a username of some sort which hopefully won't be too much of an inconvenience to anyone. The website that runs the new commenting system "Intense Debate" actually claims that their commenting system ENCOURAGES conversation on blogs, but then again, why wouldn't they claim that? It should be noted that the old comments will remain on old posts, and you will still use the old commenting system if you decide to comment on those posts. Everything from this point forward will utilize the new system.

In any case, this means that everyone from myself to Fake IPK to the commenter actually named Anonymous will have to create a new username. Just get it out of the way on this post, and why not introduce yourself? We have seen a considerable increase in traffic and in comments lately, so now is as good of a time as ever to start building a Stadium Insider community.

Just keep in mind, if we ever see the first comment on a post say "first" and nothing else, we will retire from blogging. Also, it will automatically ban your IP address from ever winning a New Stadium Insider contest.

Along those lines, look out for the announcement of our first ever contest in the coming weeks. The prize will be a pair of Grandstand tickets for the Yankees vs. Orioles on May 20. No, they are not great seats, but yes you will be able to check out the new Yankee Stadium. Details will follow, so be sure to bookmark the blog, add us to your RSS reader, and follow us on Twitter for all of the latest news. Read the full post, after the jump

Whats hot in the Yankee Blogosphere

Since I'm too busy at work to bless everyone with my invaluable Yankee commentary, I thought I'd share some of today's greatest hits from around the rest of the Yankee Blogoverse:

Proving yet again that quality beats quantity any day in the blogosphere, the incomparable Replacement Level Yankees Weblog posted an awesome analysis of the newest Yankee homegrown golden-boy, Brett Gardner. The odds are stacked against the second coming, although the Kenny Lofton comp gives us a bit of hope.

Steve over at WasWatching caught up with Newsday beat-writer Kat O'Brien. In a wide-ranging Q & A, Kat sharea that although she loves her job, she can't recommend the field of journalism to any young hopefuls. New media is infringing upon old media, and job security in the industry is at an all-time low. Hold on to your blogs people, a new day is coming.

Speaking of new media, Andrew over at Scott Proctor's Arm is all up on the Twitter. We here at Stadium Insider recently unlocked the vast landscape of Twitter by using the awesome TweetDeck. It is hard to understand, but Twitter seems to be something that will be around to stay. The word "tweet" however, is insufferable and silly. It better not get added to the dictionary. For more reading about Twitter, check out this informative article from last month's NY Mag by Will Leitch.

Providing the all too necessary comic relief, It Is High, It Is Far, It Is... Caught continues their top 10 names list with a list of the top 10 players to play for the Yankees with the name Jose. Good to see Molina quickly climbing the list. Be sure to head over to their often updated blog and check out some of the other name lists. It is fun stuff.

We have to sneak this one in - Jane Heller (author of the book and blog "Confessions of a She-Fan") apparently enjoyed Kaybli's previously linked "second coming" Brett Gardner photoshop enough to download it to her computer and re-upload it to her MLBlog. It was the perfect companion to Jane's comment about Brett Gardner being in her dreams. Please join us in reminding Kaybli to watermark his photoshops so people know where its at!

Enjoy this post while it lasts - I'm generally against aggregating links, as it comes off as lazy. Then again, this list probably took me longer to compile than most other blog posts, so I guess my productivity at work just took a major ding...

Talk about it in the Stadium Insider Forums!

Tax Season is here - Save By E-Filing Your Taxes and tell 'em Stadium Insider sent you - Only $19.95! Read the full post, after the jump

Yankees trying to go viral to sell the premium seats?

We have all heard that the Yankees hired an outside company to sell the nearly unsellable "Greatest Seats in The World." Today, I was perusing Twitter for items (I refuse to utter the word "tweet") about Yankee Stadium, and I came across the following video featuring some never before seen footage from inside of the new Yankee Stadium:



You will notice that the info for the video on Youtube contains ticket purchasing information, directing people to the Yankee ticket office. This is most DEFINITELY a shill (likely working for Douglas Elliman) trying to sell those premium seats. I guess I took the bait, since I am posting this. That being said, I have faith that nobody reading this blog can afford those rip-off seats and I hope everyone enjoyed the sneak peak into the new stadium!

Talk about it in the Stadium Insider Forums! Read the full post, after the jump