8 Days 'til Construction is Complete!

To get this blog back in its intended direction, let's focus a bit on the new Stadium!

As we've pointed out, and as indicated on the top right of this page, all major construction of the Stadium will be completed by next Tuesday, February 17. Being just 8 days away, Zell's Pinstripe Blog has a bunch of photos from outside of the new stadium. Oh boy do they look nice! Click HERE, for more pics.







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

Stadium Constuction 12.5 Days ahead of schedule, set to finish on February 4th

Everyone knows that this blog has had its issues with Journal News Beat Blogger Peter Abraham. While we will never be fans of his opinion, persona or attitude, we do recognize that when he is doing what he is doing best - getting pertinent Yankee information to the fans before even the Yankees can - he is a revolutionary figure in the blogoshere.

With that said, Abraham is the first out of today's Yankees/Cisco press conference with up to the minute Yankee Stadium construction information.

Of note, the Stadium is 12 and a half days ahead of schedule. In a previous post, we had referenced the original completion date of February 17. Without any delays, the Stadium should now be complete on February 4 - 85 short days away! The new Metro North Station is behind schedule (like everything else the MTA does) and will not open until at least the third homestand (May 15,2009). Finally, Lonn Trost gave word that there are still 7 unsold luxury suites due to the economical downturn. Sell your stocks people, investing in the Yankees is the way to go!

You won't often find us citing Abraham's blog since you can find link dumps on many of the 1,085,093 Yankee blogs out there. However, when he is first with information pertinent to Yankee season ticket holders, it needs to be done.

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

New Yankee Stadium Construction set to conclude on 2/17/09

There is a GREAT article on Yankees.com about the New Yankee Stadium today, and I recommend it to any baseball fan. Many nuggets within this article (none of which pertaining to tickets or relocation packages). Here are the highlights:

And around the construction site, many of the upbeat workers are wearing dark blue buttons with the name of the famous ballpark in white capital letters set above this date: Feb. 17, 2009, less than two months before Opening Day.

"That's when we're turning the stadium over to the Yankees," said Harry Olsen, the project manager for the company that's overseeing the construction and site.

Pretty cool to have a completion date! Right around pitchers and catchers next year, the New Yankee Stadium will be complete.

Every seat in the new Yankee Stadium will have a full view of home plate. (Stephen Chernin/AP)

It will seat 53,000, but somehow, as MLB.com learned on a recent tour that traversed almost every nook and cranny of the new facility, every one of those seats has an unencumbered view of home plate, even though the new stadium reaches about the same height as the existing one.

Most are much closer to the field than the current stadium, where the catcher squats about 70 feet from the backstop. In the new park, that distance will be about 50 feet. The grade, which seems nearly flat at 35 percent in the current lower deck, has been changed to a much steeper 45 percent. That's akin to a pitcher peering down from a mound 10 feet above the ground, as opposed to a mound that's about six feet high. There are also many fewer rows in each deck.

All of the above is some good news for the people who sit in the main reserved in the outfield and wonder why they are paying way more than most of the people in the Stadium, but get a worse view.

It is airy and open. The congestion in the concourses and the problems of ingress and egress in the current stadium will be left in the past.

You had me at airy and open. I'm sick of being molested when attempting to exit the current "Cathedral" (appropriate nickname for all of the wrong reasons?)

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

Game #1 experience - I'm still waiting in line for the bathroom

Absurd backup to enter the Stadium? Check.
$10 beers? Check (Ok, $9.50 - big difference).
15 minutes lines for the bathrooms? Check.
Ignorant "fans" making absurd statements? Check.

From the above statements, one would assume that the home opener was a real drag and that I hate the current Yankee Stadium experience. Au contraire! Fine - I'll admit that I would take great joy in having the opportunity to push the detonate button when imploding the current stadium. However, even a skeptic like myself has to admit there is some sort of - lets say - mystique and aura that surrounds attending a game at the current Stadium - even with all of the flaws.

On to the game - I scored a single face value ticket in the loge level from Yankees.com on the day of the game. A word of advice for other sold out Yankee games - check out the official ticketmaster page on the day of the game. A lot of the time more tickets are released for whatever reason. I was also able to score a single ticket for just about face value for a buddy of mine so I didn't have to go to the game alone.

The normal entrance to the Stadium that I use is the entrance in left field, closest to the Subway. Unfortunately, this is also the entrance to the Stadium that is directly across from the new Stadium construction site. Word to the wise - if you are going to a game at the Stadium this year, use a different entrance. Apparently, everyone and their mother decided to enter there because they wanted to gawk at the new Stadium. After a couple of minutes of standing in line further away from the entrance than ever before, we decided to circle around the Stadium and try to make it in for the first pitch.

Turns out we just missed the first pitch, but we still saw most of the top half of the first. I have to admit that the Stadium crowd was at its best from the beginning. Don't worry, I'm not going to ramble on and on with an inning by inning recap, but here are the highlights:

- Beers are up to $9.50 for a pint sized cup. I considered it a bargain when they weren't $10. The smallest hot dog ever is $5.25. I can't imagine what the prices are going to be in the new Stadium.

- New gimmicks between innings this year:
1) Guess the baby bomber - a picture of a Yankee as a child is put up on the big screen in center and the fans have to guess who it is based on three clues. Last night's child picture was the big G and it was pretty obvious from the second it was put up.
2) Someone pulls a lever and the countdown of remaining games at the current Yankee Stadium ticks down a game (see the picture to the right). This takes place after the 5th inning when the game becomes official. Last night they propped up a probably dead George Steinbrenner to pull the lever. It was a great moment. I think it would be cool if they got a different celebrity to do that every game this season. Kind of like the different celebrity singing "Take me Out to the Ballgame" at Wrigley Field during the 7th inning stretch.

- When Joba was pitching in the top of the 8th, there was some idiot behind me spewing some of the most nonsensical statements I had ever heard. Among the idiocy was "Joba's fastball isn't sh!t", "he can't get guys out with his fastball", "he's got nothing on Mo". After the strikeout of Rios "see, his slider is his only good pitch". After blowing Thomas away on a fastball? Silence. The guy had the thickest low-class New York accent I have ever heard and for that entire inning I was ashamed to be associated as a Yankee fan with that guy. Unfortunately that guy is what Mets fans, Red Sox fans and other Yankee haters around the country will reference when citing reasons for their Yankee hate. I'll admit there are WAY more of those types of Yankee fan than I would like, but every fan base has them. The Boston equivalent is the drunk dude with the thick Boston accent yelling "hey Jetah, you're gay".

- The bathroom lines were worse than ever. I broke major men's bathroom etiquette in the 8th inning after Damon's triple. I went to one of the bathrooms with an enter and an exit door and sneaked into the exit door. From there, I cut the massive line, entered a stall, did my business and was back in time to see Giambi end the threat.

So there you have it, that is the NYYSI look at the final home opener in the current Yankee Stadium. Yankees win. THEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE Yankeeeeeeeeees wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin.


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