As the Yankees worked throughout 2008 to build their new stadium, a story about one of their contractors — and a subsequent indictment of that contractor — came to light. In June 2008, a Times story revealed that the city was investigating Testwell Laboratories for skimping on its concrete testing, and last October, the company was indicted. On both occasions, the Yankees said an independent contractor had verified the tests. Everything was supposedly a-OK with the new stadium concrete pours.

Today, The Times tells us a different story. William K. Rashbaum and Ken Belson report that cracks have appeared in the stadium ramps. Although the Yanks say these cracks are cosmetic, it could cost a few million dollars to repair the problem and may involve chipping out the entire ramp in order to rebuild it from scratch. Says the article:

The concrete pedestrian ramps at the brand-new $1.5 billion city-subsidized Yankee Stadium have been troubled by cracks, and the team is seeking to determine whether the problems were caused by the installation, the design, the concrete or other factors, according to several people briefed on the problems.

The ramps were built by a company accused of having links to the mob, and the concrete mix was designed and tested by a company under indictment on charges that it failed to perform some tests and falsified the results of others. But it is unclear whether work performed by either firm contributed to the deteriorating conditions of the ramps.

The Yankees have hired an engineering company to take samples from the ramps — they ascend from field level to the stadium’s upper tiers, carrying thousands of people each game — to determine the cause and the extent of the problems as the team finishes its first season in the new stadium and prepares for what could be its first World Series there.

While no one yet knows if Testwell is responsible or if any of the other concrete companies who worked on the stadium are, if the troubled company is found to be the cause of this problem, it would be the first time Testwell’s work was found to be defective.

The key takeaway here, though, is this from Rashbaum and Belson:

The problems also underscore the inadequacies in the process by which the city vets contractors on projects like the stadium, which was financed in significant part by the city but built by a private developer, Tishman-Speyer. The procedures for screening contractors on projects financed by the city’s Economic Development Corporation, as the stadium was, are less rigorous than for projects built and paid for by the city.

Hopefully, tonight, the stadium will be rocking, and in a few weeks, the Yanks will fix this concrete-related problem.

On Friday, a few hours before the Yanks’ classic ALDS Game 2 victory, ESPN.com unleashed a rather interesting Outside the Lines on us. Wright Thompson went quasi-undercover to experience the $2500 $1250 Legends Seats at the new Yankee Stadium, and he wrote a treatise on sports ticket prices. He piece goes a long way toward explaining why the Yanks’ premium seats were priced so high, why the prices will crash and whether or not this experiment in ostentatious stadium experiences was a success.

Generally, we know the story. In April, the Legends Suites were embarrassingly empty and not until the Yanks halved the sticker price did the seats start to fill up. Meanwhile, Thompson, who bought his one seat on StubHub, got just a print-out to show for it. For $1250, he doesn’t even get a real ticket stub. This trend in digital ticketing, writes Thompson, is just one part of the death of fan faithfulness. How can you make an archive of ticket stubs if all you have is a black-and-white 8.5×11 print out?

As Thompson explores the champagne and Chilean turbot that Legends fans can enjoy, he talks about how Wall St. created this new Yankee Stadium seating monstrosity. The demand created by a flush Wall Street fed the Yankee Stadium ticket market throughout the late 1990s and into the 2000s. Seats in the lower ring became more and more expensive simply because firms were willing to pay for them. But the Yankees, says Thompson, overplayed their hand:

In the same way, the use of tickets has changed, though it has less to do with the market collapsing and more to do with the Fidelity guys getting busted. You can probably guess what happened next: a proposed SEC rule governing expenses that could forever alter the way Wall Street entertains. To get out front of the SEC, many firms have instituted their own internal controls requiring gifts worth more than $100 to be reported. A computer program has been purchased by more than 200 companies that, for the first time, allows statistics to be kept on ticket use, including how much business each one brings in.

So … just as companies were trying to limit extravagant spending, the Yankees came out with the most extravagant tickets in the history of sports, designed in part for a group of people who could no longer buy them. “They killed the golden goose,” a former Bear Stearns guy says. “When the new prices came out, everybody said, ‘Are you kidding? We can’t even give these to clients.’”

Why? Well, first of all, the sell-side guys now face greater scrutiny about what they can gain by using the tickets. I talked to one Barclays big shot who explained it like this: “The real issue is: Do you want to go to the trouble of taking your client to the Yankee game when you know your boss has an expectation of what’s supposed to come out of the game that’s different than what the client has. Before, the firm’s expectations were low because the investment was low and the client’s expectations were low. Now we’re laying out eight grand on these tickets and you get paid on a 10 percent rate. That’s 80 grand worth of commissions that needs to get done before you get back to even. And 80 grand of commissions at 2 cents a square, in the equity business, what’s that, 4 million shares of stock? If this client does 4 million shares of stock with you, then you’ve made your investment back.”

Second, the buy-side now believes the tickets cost so much that they’d feel a quid pro quo. Yankees games went from something small to something like a trip to the Masters. One buy-sider told me: “I’ve been offered really good seats a couple of times, but I haven’t taken tickets from a broker in the new stadium. I’d feel like I owed the guy.”

As the piece goes on, we know where it’s going. Thompson talks to Louis Gimble IV, a hops magnate whose family had owned Yankee Stadium season tickets since the Great Depression. The Yanks wanted to move Gimble and up his per-game ticket price from the unaffordable $225 to the outrageous $900 level.

In the end, I know where I want to be. I’ve grown to like the new park. While I was opposed to it at first, the stadium is here for good. I’ll stick with what Thompson calls the “regular fans” in the 400 level. Those are my seats.

Meanwhile, the Yankees will have to come to terms with a failed experiment. They couldn’t get $2500 a seat and are already reducing next year’s ticket prices for the Legends Suites. It was worth a shot, but the bad economy, market regulation and the economics of commission-driven deals on Wall Street eluded the stadium planners. Greed might have suited Gordon Gecko, but the Yankees will be subject to the whims of the open market when it comes to pricing their tickets.

New York City Transit will roll out the Lo-V Nostalgia Train for an afternoon ride up to Yankee Stadium. (Photo via NYCTSubwayScoop on Twitter)

With tonight’s and Friday’s 6:07 p.m. start for the first game of the American League Division Series between the Yankees and Minnesota Twins, the MTA is facing something of a logistical challenge. In the past, playoff games have started toward the end of the evening rush, and the MTA never really had to juggle service. This week, though, Metro-North is beefing up its pre-game service, and New York City Transit is rolling out the Nostalgia Train for a ride to the Bronx.

We’ll start with the fun news. At 3:45 p.m., the four-car Lo-V Nostalgia Train will leave Grand Central Terminal en route to the Bronx. It will make all express stops along Lexington Ave. and should arrive at Yankee Stadium at around 4:20 p.m.

To read more about the Nostalgia Train and to find out about the planned increases in Metro-North service to and from Yankee Stadium during the playoffs, click through to Second Ave. Sagas.

No matter how we slice or dice the numbers, the Yankees had a down year at the gate. Playing in a new ballpark, the team sold out just two home games, and although MLB’s overall attendance declined by 6.65 percent in 2009, the Yankees saw a 13.5 percent dip in home attendance. A perfect storm of overpriced seats and a bad economy led to this dip, and the Yankees are already working on correcting the problem for 2010.

On Monday afternoon, with all but one regular season game left in all of baseball, Maury Brown released his 2009 attendance wrap-up. For the Yankees, the numbers tell an interesting story. The team drew 3,719,358 in paid attendance this year for a per-game average of 45,918. According to the Yankees’ figures, this total represents just 87.8 percent of capacity for the season.

Let’s put these numbers in perspective. Their overall attendance and per-game average were both second best to Joe Torre’s Dodgers, but for the Yankees, second-best is a new position. They have led the league in attendance every year since 2002. This is the first year since 2004 that they have failed to draw over 4 million fans, and their per-game average had not been below 47,788 since 2003. Their 87.8 percent capacity rate is also a five-year low.

One of the primary causes of this attendance dip is the new Stadium’s capacity. With an alleged capacity of 52,325, new Yankee Stadium never saw a crowd larger than 49,005 pass through the gates. To those who have followed our coverage of the new Stadium, this development comes as no surprise.

Meanwhile, the other driving factor behind this dip were the ticket prices. Early in the season, the empty Legends Seats made the headlines, and although the Yanks eventually lowered the prices on those seats, pockets of empty blue marked those high-priced areas throughout the summer. Last month, we reported on adjusted ticket prices for 2010, and yesterday, the Yankees announced a few new ticket policies for 2010. The team is breaking up the Legends Suites and will be adding a second tier of lesser-priced-but-still expensive seats with fewer amenities. The AP reports:

A total of 538 seats along the foul lines will be called the Champions Suite and will no longer have access to the duplex restaurant behind home plate, according to the team’s 2010 premium seat plan. Those seats cost $500 to $1,000 this year as part of full season tickets but will sell for $300 to $500 next year. They will still have waiter service and access to lounges down each foul line with free food to take to the seats and soft drinks.

Their removal leaves 1,357 seats in the Legends Suite. [These] seats behind the plate, which fetched $850 to $2,500 this season, will cost $650 to $1,250 next year, while seats behind the half of the dugouts nearer to home plate and the section just to the plate side will go for $800 to $1,500.

Apparently, the Yanks’ great ticket pricing experiment was a little to rich for the tastes of 2009. We’ll see how the team fares next season, but if the playoff plans for standing-room only work out and ticket demand increases as the costs go down, the Yanks should see an increase in attendance next year.

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Meanwhile, as a brief post-script, the Yankees will not be allowing backpacks into Yankee Stadium during the playoffs. Although stadium security regulations had been relaxed during the regular season, per order of the Office of the Commissioner and the NYPD, the team is asking its fans to mindful of heightened security efforts during the playoffs. I’ll be there in the new SRO areas behind section 229 for Game 2 of the ALDS, sans backpack of course.

For the better part of 2009, I’ve covered the grassroots movement by a group of preservationists and Yankee fans to save Gate 2 and incorporate it into the plans for Heritage Field. While the city officials say the plan is cost-prohibitive, the group claims Gate 2 could be saved for around $1 million. Now, with the Parks Department set to gain preliminary approval for its Heritage Field plans, the Gate 2 movement may be nearing a conclusion, but early reports indicate that Gate 2 will not be a part of the Heritage Field plans.

Benjamin Peim, writing for the Daily News, has more on this development:

The city Parks Department plans to seek preliminary approval next week for plans to commemorate the stadium at Heritage Field – the future park after the House That Ruth Built meets the wrecking ball. Gate 2 is not in the plans. “If it gets approved, I think we’re through,” said John Trush, one of the fans fighting to save the gate.

The Parks Department presented its plans last May to the Design Commission, which approves all permanent works of art, architecture and landscape architecture proposed on or over city property. It granted preliminary approval, with the caveat they make revisions to better incorporate the stadium’s history.

At next week’s meeting, with Gate 2 crusaders making their pitch, the commission will decide the department’s revised plans for the old Yankee Stadium. A Parks spokesman said the revised design will have some of the old stadium’s frieze, historical plaques and markers, and one of the baseball diamonds will follow the same alignment as the old infield.

At the heart of this debate is the city’s tendency to disregard its history. As I wrote in August, early Heritage Field plans basically ignored Yankee Stadium. Although a few plaques would commemorate the spot, no aspect of Yankee Stadium would have remained, and even the replacement fields would not align with the old Yankee Stadium infield.

For the city, this disregard for history is nothing new. Lower Manhattan contains few remnants of its 400-year-old history, and even newer landmarks — Ebbets Field, the Polo Grounds — are nothing but memories we recognize from sepia-toned photographs. The Save the Gate 2 movement wanted to preserve an original part of old Yankee Stadium before it was too late. As Bronx borough historian Lloyd Ultan has repeated said, the preserved gate “would serve the same function for future generations as the Roman forums serve in Rome today.”

Now though, it is the proverbial bottom of the ninth. I’ll reserve judgment on the Parks Department’s final plans until they are released. The early word is somewhat promising but also a bit hypocritical. Although the Deparment claims that saving Gate 2 would be futile because the substantial parts of the gate date only to the 1970s renovation, most of the new plans seem to preserve Yankee Stadium II memories while glossing over the original stadium configuration. “The [Parks Department] argument falls down when you take a look at the [revised] plans for the site,” Ultan said. “Most of what they’re saving is from the 1970s structure.”

We might have to eulogize Gate 2 next week and tip our caps to those trying to save it. If the effort fails, it was a valiant one. Hopefully, the city won’t come to rue a mistake if it tears down the entire stadium while just giving a perfunctory nod to history. The House that Ruth Built deserves better.

The Yankees announced their pricing schedule for 2010 season tickets last night. Only one section — Main Level, Rows 1-22: 216-217, 223-224 — increased in price, from $100 to $125. Every other section is either the same or decreased. The decreases were pretty significant, too: 38 percent in Field Level Rows 12-30: 115, 125, and 30 percent in Rows 12-30: 116-124. There is also a decrease in Legends Suites pricing. Everything else in the park remains the same, including the bleachers.

Here’s the full chart:

Doesn’t seem like there will be many complaints. Except for the people in Main Levels 216 to 217 and 223 to 224.

Here’s CNBC’s Darren Rovell on Legends:

The much publicized $2,500 per game suite tickets, which were not part of the seats whose price was cut in half in April, will cost $1,500 in 2010. That’s despite the fact that many people who bought the suites before the stadium opened this year agreed to pay between 3 and 6 percent more for their seats each year, depending on how long of a commitment they made to the team.

That means a person or company who agreed to buy the most expensive seats in the stadium on a 10-year contract was on the hook to pay $834,300 ($2,575 per game per seat for 81 games) for four suite tickets in 2010, but will now pay $486,000.

Good to see the Yanks coming down from these prices. Perhaps now we’ll see the best seats in the house filled on a nightly basis.

Jess Willard and Floyd Johnson square off at Yankee Stadium in 1923.

On September 28, 1976, Yankee Stadium hosted its final boxing match. Muhammad Ali took on Ken Norton in an event that marked the end of an era. Under the backdrop of a New York City police protest, the streets ran wild with gangs and hoodlums. Most fans stayed away from the park, and those that came out created near-anarchy. The event was a financial disaster for all involved.

That night marked the end of an era of boxing in baseball stadiums. As Don Stradley wrote in a fantastic piece earlier this year, boxing and baseball stadiums once went hand in hand. He wrote of Yankee Stadium:

When Yankee owners Tillinghast L’Hommedieu Huston and Jacob Ruppert splurged for the $2.5 million stadium in 1922, they had boxing in mind. With second base the logical spot for a ring, a 15-foot vault was installed directly under the ground; it was wired so members of press row could telegraph stories to their editors. During the next 38 summers, the stadium hosted 48 nights of boxing, including 30 championship fights, the first of which was the 1923 lightweight bout between champion Benny Leonard and challenger Lew Tendler.

Yankee Stadium wasn’t alone in its love of boxing. The Polo Grounds, Ebbets Field, Griffith Stadium and Fenway Park, among others, hosted epic fights, but it’s been over 30 years since a baseball venue served as a stage for a fight. Now, the Yankees may bring boxing back to the Bronx.

Earlier today, Miguel Cotto and Manny Pacquiao stood with promoter Bob Arum to announce a November fight in Las Vegas. During the press conference, Arum spoke of his desire to bring a fight to Yankee Stadium, and the Steinbrenners seem to be on board. “We have a history of bringing big fights to the Yankee Stadium,” said Arum. “It’s something we’d like to do again…Yankee Stadium had a great tradition of boxing, and hopefully with the new Yankee Stadium, we’ll start a new tradition.”

Both Arum and Lonn Trost, the Yanks’ COO, spoke of their desire to see a boxing ring at second base. “I think one of the reasons we had the press conference here is a precursor for a big, big event,” Arum said. “Certainly a big fight is going to happen next year, and it’s going to happen at Yankee Stadium.”

As the Yankees look to maximize the revenue streams from their new stadium, an off-season boxing match would be the perfect attraction. “There’ll be a winner of this fight and a winner of the Mayweather fight,” Trost said. “Where better to hold that fight than Yankee Stadium?”

Tom Kaminski is starting to pull out our heartstrings. The man behind the camera in WCBS’ Chopper 880 has been making the rounds over old Yankee Stadium as crews work to tear down the park, and the pictures are heartbreaking. As the shot above shows, the stadium will soon be without its frieze. A full photogallery of these shots is available here.

Meanwhile, over the last week, Kaminski has spotted some interesting goings-on inside the House that Ruth Built. The stadium is being reclaimed by nature. Weeds and wispy plants are sprouting out of the former infield and outfield areas while the stands are covered in moss. The foul poles have been removed as well.

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While the old stadium will soon be but a memory in the minds of Yankee fans, the new stadium has become a campaign issue in the Bronx. Helen Foster, City Council representative from the 16th district, is facing Carlos Sierra in the primaries in two weeks, and both politicians are unhappy with the stadium. Gotham Gazette’s David King had more:

For both candidates, the stadium symbolizes how projects the rest of the city might want are not necessarily best for their low-income district. During her time on the council Foster has been outspoken in her criticism of the stadium. “I was the lone voice on the council against Yankee Stadium,” she said, “and now we are seeing a lot of what we were afraid of come to fruition. Local vendors have been left out. There was a recent article about a fruit stand there that is bringing fruit from out of state, from Washington and New Mexico.”

Sierra has been active at protests at the stadium and says he intends to keep pressuring the team to build parks to replace the ones that existed where the stadium now stands.

While stadium supporters pushed the local angle turning construction, most urban policy experts are not surprised the stadium has not been a boon for near-by neighborhoods. This is a nation-wide trend, and sports stadiums continue to exist uneasily with the surrounding areas. That’s why sports economists generally do not support public investments in private sports stadiums.

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Finally, the Chicago Tribune reports that the Yankees are courting a Big Ten team for a football game at the stadium. Northwestern has been in talks with team officials about playing a game in the new park, and the Big Ten and Big East may turn to the Bronx for a bowl game.