Open Thread: Scenes from the New Stadium
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(click image of a much larger view)
That sorry excuse for a panoramic shot of the New Stadium was taken by me, from our seats while the Yankees were taking batting practice before today’s game. Sheesh, you’d think I’d remember to at least get home plate in the picture, huh?
Luckily, I did manage to get some good shots of The Great Hall, which has banners of everyone from Reggie Jackson to Paul O’Neill, Donnie Baseball to Thurman Munson, and everyone in between. A banner alone couldn’t hold Reggie’s ego, so got his own wall as well. The screen in center field is frickin’ huge, just massive. The obstructed view seats in right and left fields are pretty bad though, and the TV screens really don’t help.
The position players stretched before the game while the pitchers played catch. Jose Veras played catch with Edwar Ramirez, CC Sabathia with Chien-Ming Wang, Andy Pettitte with someone I forgot, Joba Chamberlain with Brian Bruney, and Phil Coke with Dan Giese. Afterwards the starting rotation got together for a quick chat.
Coolest moment of the day: I was wandering around before the game, and as I walked past the entrance to the luxury suites Pilot Chesley Sullenberger walked out of the suite and took a look at The Great Hall. He’s the guy that landed the plane on the Hudson a few weeks back (I’m sure you knew that already), and threw out the first pitch. I did my best to grab a picture of him talking to some people who stopped to say hi as I went up the escalator. Very cool.
You can check out my entire set of photos via my Flickr slideshow. Ben will upload his pictures at some point for you to see as well.
As far as the actual Stadium goes, the biggest problem I had with it was the levels of the sound system. We were sitting directly below a speaker, and my Mo, it was deafeningly. To whoever the lady is that goes about the Stadium asking people trivia questions and what not … don’t talk so damn loud, the person is right next you! The sound system went completely silent in the sixth inning, and stayed that way for the rest of the game. It’s a good thing they played these two games, now they have a chance to fix that.
Other than the PA system, the place was amazing. Monument Park seems a little too hidden, it would be nice to have it on full display as it was at the Old Stadium. The upper deck isn’t nearly as steep as it was across the street, and I like the look of the dark blue seats. I’m sure some people will bitch and moan about tiny little things, but overall the place is phenomenal. I look forward to watching baseball there for the rest of my life.
Here’s your open thread for the night. The Devils and Islanders are both in action, as are both Final Four games. Anything goes here, just be nice.
This game is going to be the death of me.
Man, UConn needs to gets some rebounds.
And make some shots.
And score more points than they give up.
I think you may have something there!
If Walker misses these two free throws, I’m going to break my laptop.
Thabeet needs to learn what the fuck boxing out is.
I’m expecting Ben to issue a blanket apology for all the bad things he said about the building and financing of this glorious ballpark.
Let’s go UCONN!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The GF and I snagged tickets for Sat. May 16 vs. the Twins. I’m so pumped for my first trip to the stadium.
I understand that it’s silly that there are obstructed view seats in the stadium at all, but the fact that they are $5 makes up for it in my view. You could potentially spend $405 to go to every game. I think it’s a good deal, even with the crappy view.
Let me tell you a dirty little secret about the new place. You could buy that $5 seat, and then hang out in the standing room behind home plate and have one of the best views in the house. I did it for an inning and nobody chased me or anyone else away. If they do chase you away, just walk over to the next standing room area, they’re everywhere. And the view is amazing.
I agree. I mean five bucks can’t even get you into a movie or a driving range.
U can buy a 5dollar foot long lol.
I’m about 20 minutes away from a dollar theatre. Take that.
Wisconsin doesn’t count.
Good thing I’m not there.
FYI, Was at the game today and sat in Tier 305. Didnt mind paying the 20 dollars for them but I wouldnt spend the regular 40 or so dollars on them. I couldnt tell if any of those Tex or Jeter’s shots were hr’s and I couldnt see either right fielder.
The stadium is magnificent though, amazing.
Tremendous piece (as usual) by Howard Bryant profiling Girardi.
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/.....id=4037320
One quibble, that he really should have clarified. Girardi had a very public falling out with the owner of the Marlins, Jeff Loria. He basically told him to STFU when Loria was riding an umpire from the front row of the stands. This is pretty typical behavior from Loria, who is widely known around Baseball as being a complete asshole. You can’t expect Beinfest or anyone else in the Marlin front office to take sides with Girardi on anything and exepct to keep their job. He made the silence on the Marlin’s end seem more revealing than it is, or at least never examined what it might say about Loria, as well as Girardi.
Why’d those bastards have to kill Sonny!
Where were your seats and how were they?
Section 420B, Row 5, Seats 8-9. Right behind the plate, upper deck in what used to be Tier Reserved. Great view, enjoyed them.
Not too high up? I think that was the fear about that level of seats. The pictures are great. (Loved the one of Sully)
thanks.
ESPN has the sawx number one in their preseason rankings, didnt see that coming.
I’m stunned.
IETC.
Jim Caple picked us to finish eighth!!!
In the power rankings, 3rd in the AL East.
That would be roughly the same showing we had last year, which means were not any better despite adding CC, AJ and Tex. I find that hard to believe.
What I find more disturbing is my boy Buster Onley picked us for 4th in the power rankings, 3rd in the AL East. I think highly of Buster’s opinions and Yankee sources, so that worries me.
I can see thinking highly of him, but I wouldn’t get worked up by his picks. Seriously, 3rd in the east is how many games different than 1st or 2nd? There is certainly a small margin for error. I’m sure Buster would say while he picks them 3rd, it wouldn’t surprise him in the least to see them finish 1st. And I can guarantee he didn’t have the Rays winning it last year.
I’m not losing any sleep over it, and I can guess his rationale. It’s that the team simply has too much age in key spots. That’s a fair criticism. I don’t think they’re so old they can’t win, but if they start breaking down and/or wearing down, age will likely be a big factor.
There’s a flip side to that coin. The Rays are so young that we don’t have enough info on them health-wise. I also hate their bullpen, and see a big regression coming there. That, and the fact they don’t score much can make them a 88 win team this year.
To add to my other comment, Buster picked the Yanks 1st last year and they finished 3rd, so hopefully he works in reverse this time. He also had the Indians, Mariners(!!!), Braves, and Rockies in the playoffs, with the Indians winning it all. Carmona was his Cy pick.
Moral of the story:
I wouldn’t be concerned with him picking the Yanks 3rd.
I love how no one paid attention the M’s GIANT pythag gap in ‘07 that helped them have a decent year.
Yeah, and most people say the 3 best teams in baseball are in the AL East. So he obviously doesn’t agree, and thinks there are 4 teams better than the 3rd best team in the East. hmmmmmmm
I really don’t see 4 teams (besides MAYBE the Sox or Rays) being better than us.
You know how ESPN picks some comment to display on the bottom of the page. Here’s one absurd comment from the Power Rankings page from a Sox fan:
Yankees are overrated. They had less offense than last year before ARod went down, and now its even worse. CC’s numbers were inflated from playing NL teams who never saw him before (and still tanked in the playoffs yet again), and Burnett is always hurt.
And don’t talk to me about injuries. The Sox had injuries to Papi, Lowell, Beckett, Drew, and a catcher who was totally lost all year and they did just fine. Didn’t complain either.
WOW!
A-rod finally placed on the DL, retroactive to March 27
Good. He’s on my fantasy team, and I can finally pick someone else up.
march 27th eh? sounds like good news to me.
most likele, he’ll be dl’d again then be eligible around the end of april.
Why would they DL him again? 15 and 60 are minimums, not maximums. You go on the 15-day DL, you can stay on it as long as you want, modulo the rehab assignment rules.
Whoops. But why would it be retroactive to the 27th, unless the expect him back 12 days into april or so?
Yo, Thomas, if you’re still around, I’m gonna go jump off Arjona. You with me?
So fucking painful.
Don’t take the UCONN loss so bad, you still have the Yanks.
That is, if Arjona is a bridge.
It is a really crappy building that should be condemned.
I love how it’s gonna get knocked down/replaced after I graduate.
My dad’s at the Final Four. He’s apparently sitting in front of Plaxico Burress.
Beer him.
Still time Uconners
I’d love to see a Mich.St. vs. Villanova final now.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Am I the only one who likes the lighter blue color of the outfield wall at the old Yankee stadium? I’m not digging the dark blue. It just doesn’t scream Yankee stadium to me.
I agree. I see the new stadium and think the Yanks are playing away.
From ESPN’s spring blog:
Joba Chamberlain worked out at the Yankees’ minor league complex Saturday, one day before his final spring training start.
New York’s No. 5 starter flew to Florida after watching the Yankees play their first game — an exhibition matchup with the Chicago Cubs — at the new Yankee Stadium on Friday night.
Chamberlain says he will throw five innings or 75 pitches in Sunday’s camp game between Triple-A Scranton/Wikes-Barre and Double-A Trenton. The right-hander is scheduled to make his first start of the regular season April 12 at Kansas City.
Whoa, whoa, whoa…I thought Joba was in NY according to Mike.
Space clones?
i know there are a bunch of huskie fans on this site, but msu is a fun team to root for right now
I’ve really got no hate for MSU. They outplayed UConn like crazy. The second half of this game was possibly the worst second half of the season. Great time to have it…
Missing Jerome Dyson really hurt this team. Without him, there was no real shooting threat. Price could light it up every once in a while but he was pretty streaky.
The defense was fecal-like today as well. No one stayed on his feet, no one boxed out, and the guards relied way too much on the frontcourt to do the job.
Bob Tufts’ analysis says A-Rod’s VOCR (Value over Cody Ransom…nice acronym huh?) is 19.9 runs, or nearly two wins, which is a lot in the AL Beast.
But A-Rod won’t be out for the entire year. If he’s out untill May 15th, he will miss about 45 games (probably less(maybe 35)). That is about 28% of the year, which is like .5 wins (maybe).
Thinking about it, 45 games is way to high. I wasn’t counting off days, the couple of days in April before the season starts, rain outs, and the fact he may come back before May 15th. Probably between 20 and 35 games missed. Which is like .25 – .43 games.
Sorry I should have explained it more..that’s 19.9 runs if Alex misses all of April and half of May.
Well, I look like an idiot now.
I’ve just ordered my first pizza online and its pretty sick. Dominos has updates of where your pizza is and everything, its awesome.
Dominos? What are you a Mets fan?
IETC.
We’ll find out afterwards. If he chokes on a piece of pepperoni, he probably is.
Well, the pizza’s shitty enough. They better give you some cool shit like that.
The only problem with ordering your pizza online is that now you’re eating Domino’s.
IETC as well.
Why all the hatred? Domino’s pizza is delicious.
Srsly?
See, Jack, I’m from New York. I’ve lived in New York, with the exception of college, my entire life, and in New York, we have pizza. Domino’s is not pizza, and it’s not really delicious either. When you start talking about Domino’s on a blog based in New York, you’re going to run into a lot of people used to real pizza who think Domino’s is pretty not delicious.
The people up here have basically managed to mess pizza up. It’s depressing. Luckily, I have great pizza when I go home.
Like this?
Ugh. DiGiornio is terrible, too.
http://tbn0.google.com/images?.....z2-018.jpg
Not a fan. You can let those things cool down for 2 hours and still burn the roof of your mouth.
Ben, I’m from NH. We don’t have pizza. And Domino’s still sucks dirty swamp ass.
Thank you. When I see Dominos in Manhattan, I want to hurl. Dominos does not belong in New York. It’s a joke.
Murray, I couldn’t agree with you more
ew
To me, pizza is pizza as long as it’s not cold. I just don’t get the cold pizza love.
I’m not huge on cold pizza, but I eat it because of how much I hate re-heated pizza.
For a long time, I would NEVER eat re-heated pizza. Not sure what changed but whenever I would order a pie or bring home slices that I don’t finish, I’d pop them in the microwave and warm them up.
I guess my disdain comes from high school. There were times when I was pretty sad then and for some reason, cold pizza was a symbol of that. Who knows? It could be that I thought ESPN’s “Cold Pizza” was beyond awful for all I know.
Why does ESPN hate the Yankees bullpen?
Timmy K knows what’s up.
So they can idiotically argue that Joba belongs in the pen, without using any statistical basis to back it up. The stats, of course, prove them wrong.
Because Joba’s not in the eight.
But seriously Tim Kurkjian said
“The question is, do the Yankees have the pitching to win, and I say yes. Their five man rotation is so good, they feel that any of their five guys can match up with the other team’s ace and they have a chance to win, and their bullpen outside of Mariano is way better than people think; with all their strikeout guys, I think they can pitch their way to the AL East title.”
(Hat tip TSJC)
Crap, I suppose to quote it, not hyperlink it.
It is kind of funny that Kurkjian’s blog isn’t on the ESPN MLB main page.
As TSJC said, Kurkijan said it on ESPN (the network).
Do you have the actual link to where Kurkjian said that? I’d like to read it. I can’t seem to find it.
He didn’t write it; he said it on SC this morning.
And they love the Sox bullpen.
Sox pen in 2008: 4.00 ERA/1.35 WHIP/7.8 K/9
Yanks pen in 2008 3.73/1.26 WHIP/8.7 K/9
And lets not forget, the Yankees pen (on paper) has improved for 2009. They also won’t have to pitch as much with the HUGE improvement in starting pitching. And they have a ton of arms waiting in the wings (Melancon, anyone?) should anyone falter.
Does ESPN do any research?
Does ESPN do any research?
The answer is bad either way. Because if it’s “no” then that’s clearly bad. But if it’s “yes” then it’s also clear they’re just ignoring objective data, which is probably worse.
I’m guessing they don’t. Where’d you get those stats by the way, just for my own personal use.
Go to each team’s B-R page, look up their pitching splits for a given year, and look under “pitching role.”
Got it, thanks.
WTF, Nova. Come on, win this game.
Did anyone else see Luis Vizcaino pitch today? Well, he got pretty damn fat compared to how he was on the Yankees.
Pitching every day under Torre helps shed the pounds.
and shred the elbow
Were you in 420b? Looks like you might be the ones who bought my seats there.
Row 5, Seats 8-9.
I have 5-10 in row 9. I am selling pairs for Friday nights and Saturdays.
hfrisch@gmail.com
I respect people who put the Yanks behind the Sox and Rays. Injuries, injuries, injuries. The Yanks haven’t stayed healthy in years, and there’s no reason to think that could change this year. I (like Timmy K) think they’re better on paper (and when healthy) than both the other two teams, but it’s a long season.
I think most people in the $5 seats are probably going to make a habit of hanging out in standing room areas. The area right above the sports bar looks pretty prime (and close).
Yeah, the Sox just SCREAM health, with their 1B who’s older than Tex, their 3B who’s older than ARod, and JD Drew in RF — and their catcher who is so over the hill that his name has become synonymous with TERRIBLE. Health-wise, they’ve got the Yanks where, in LF and at SS?
I love how everyone is like Youk is all homegrown and great yet he is already 30 and kinda going past his prime.
Some of these guys never had a prime.
Mitchell Friedman?! Ricky Vaughn?! Who are these guys?!
This guy here is dead.
Well then cross him off the list!
I’ll go thread appropriate.
Is that you Tolbert? I’m hung over, my knees are killin’ me and if you’re going to pull this shit at least you could’ve said you were from the Yankees.
Willie: What language is this?
Jake: French.
Rick: They got chili dogs over there?
Jake: Don’t worry. I’ll order.
Rick: I look like a banker in this.
Jake: Sorry Rick, those are the house rules.
Jake: If you ever tank another play like you did today, I’m gonna cut your nuts off and shove ‘em down your fuckin’ throat.
Susanne: …coffee….anyone…?
Come on Dorn, get in front of the damn ball! Don’t give me this “ole” bullshit!
And when I started this up top, I knew you’d jump in Matt.
Willie: What the hell league you been playin’ in?
Rick: California Penal.
Willie: Well how’d you end up there?
Rick: Stole a car.
Haha, awesome. Speaking of baseball movies: I’m an avid lover of “The Sandlot” (my username at another internet message board was/is: thejetstolehome) and I saw that they made another version of it. I’m beyond pissed.
They made two new ones. Which I didn’t know until tonight, they were playing them all on ABC family and I saw them on the guide. I was disgusted myself.
Yeah, it’s awful.
Lars Anderson > Mark Teixeira
Junichi Tazawa > CC Sabathia
Brad Penny > AJ Burnett
Junichi Tazawa >
CC SabathiaJoba ChamerlainJohn Smoltz > CC Sabathia
Believe it or not, no correction was needed. Per Gammons.
Of course CC Sabathia will be a major contributor to the Yankees this season, but one NL scout said, “for the $158 million difference, [22-year-old] Junichi Tazawa might have been the most important long-term signing of this offseason. Seven years from now, Tazawa will be 29, have four prime years of his career performed for less than one year for Sabathia. CC will be 36 [in 2016].”
I was saying that Tazawa is the better relief pitcher.
Oh, and does anyone else think Theo and Gammons’ relationship is like Chris Griffin’s and his pedophile neighbor Herbert’s?
Get back here, you piggly son’bitch.
You don’t wanna hurt yourself dancing, you better stretch out those creamy hamstrings
That has to be the ugliest eighth grader ever.
Well, Oshkosh b’gosh! We got ourselves a new paper boy. That’s a mighty fine sack you’re carrying.
You boys wanna see my purple heart?
How do you feel about those computer websites that put a blue square on the home of a sex offender?
Pedroia > Babe Ruth
I went to the stadium last night and it was great how the rain held up enough. I was in the bleachers and had the back row so we have a back rest and an amazing view. Also, you can go anywhere in the stadium so you can just stand on the field level and watch until they tell you to go back to your seat and then, just go to the other side. The bleachers also have that concession area that gives a perfect dead center view to home plate. The new Stadium is so much more open and I LOVE IT! The dark blue fits because it matches the Yankees navy blue and overall the Stadium is magnificent. Definitely an upgrade and the food although expensive is better than the last Stadium by a million miles. This stadium is going to have a lot of good memories.
Also, you can go anywhere in the stadium so you can just stand on the field level and watch until they tell you to go back to your seat and then, just go to the other side.
That’s awesome, but I have a feeling that will be one of the “problems” they correct before the opening day.
To change the subject a little bit, does anybody have any idea who the Giants will get for WR, if they get a WR.
I know it’ll cost a lot but I’m hoping Boldin. Eli will be lost w/o a #1 target like that and the running game won’t be nearly as effective.
What do you think he will cost?
I’m hoping Boldin complains a lot about wanting to be traded and drives his value way down.
Probably a 1st and a 3rd? That’s what I heard on TV the other day.
More than a first and a third, but I’d do it in a heartbeat if thats all it took
Schilling predicts that the Sox will win 105 games this year.
He also predicted McCain would win.
Though you really have to like what he writes about the Yanks. No bashing, and he even gets into the prospects a bit with nothing but praise.
Have another hot dog! and then another and another. now touch your toes. can’t, huh? that’s because you’re a damn slob. you fat ass…i love ya schill. you make me laugh.
I went to the game today it was awesome. the seats are really nice and i felt like i was much closer to the game. The way the stadium is set up makes it completely different from the old one. The garlic fries were pretty good also. The only problem i had was there was no dip’n dots