The Yankee Blog Universe is all a-buzz with news of a changed bag policy from Yankee Stadium. RAB’s own Leokitty first posted the news on Friday, and Ross and Andrew both picked it up over the weekend.

In a nutshell, the terrorists have finally lost as the Yankees will, for the first time since Sept. 11, 2001, allow fans to carry bags with them into the stadium. Similar to at an airport, bags must fit into this box, and the Yankees have amended their stadium rules:

Diaper bags, small backpacks, small purses and bags are permitted. However, in accordance with Major League Baseball security regulations, bags larger than 16 x 16 x 8 inches will not be allowed into the Stadium. Briefcases, large backpacks, large purses and bags, coolers and hard-sided bags and containers are also not permitted. All bags must be thoroughly inspected before they are permitted into the Stadium. Box templates shall be used at inspection points, and bags and their contents must fit without assistance, modification or adjustment. The Yankees reserve the right to inspect any bags, clothing or other articles prior to entry into Yankee Stadium and prohibit entry or require removal of any items the Yankees deem inappropriate or potentially injurious to Yankee Stadium, other patrons or field personnel.

I am quite relieved by this long-delayed rule change. During the summer of 2001, I journeyed to 12 stadiums in 10 cities and carried a backpack with me to every single game. After the 9/11 attacks, stadiums stopped allowing bags into ballparks, but over the next few years, those stadiums outside of New York relaxed their standards.

A few years ago, fans could once again bring bags into Shea Stadium, but the Yankees were obstinate in their bag policies. My apartment was, at one point, home to tens of cheap clear plastic bags with the Yankee logo on them. Last year, the Yanks started allowing any plastic bag into the park, and now, bags — messengers bags, small backpacks — are back. The terrorists have definitely lost.

The Yankee Stadium Farmers Market on a cold April day. (Photo by Benjamin Kabak)

I first saw this odd fruit stand right inside Gate 4 at the new Yankee Stadium on a cold day in April, and it seemed fairly gimmicky to me. After all, bananas were two for $3, and both navel oranges and Anjou pears carried the same price tag. For nearly one-third the price, I could just grab a banana at the fruit store on the way to the subway before heading up to the game.

Yet, over the course of the season, these fruit stands have become quite successful, and yesterday, The Times’ Manny Fernandez explored the stadium fruit stand phenomenon. Apparently, fans turned off by the high prices — and more importantly, the high calorie counts — of the regular stadium fare are turning to the fruit stand for relief.

At Yankee Stadium this week, in the entrance hall just beyond Gate 4, the fruits were arranged in baskets and trays on a wooden pushcart and on two other displays. It is a place of only-in-New York moments: men and women, some in Yankee pinstripes, shorts and sneakers, some holding tall half-empty cups of beer, squeezing fruit and asking if the peaches were fresh.

Several customers said the stand was a pleasant surprise. In the third inning of a game on Tuesday against the Texas Rangers, Randy Ian Brandoff, 33, an executive at a private jet company, had trouble deciding between a nectarine and a peach, and walked away with one of each. A few minutes later, Ronnie and Carole Meyer, a retired couple from Bloomington, Minn., bought two bananas. “There’s too much greasy food,” said Mrs. Meyer, 64, adding that she and her husband would probably have bought popcorn had they not found the fruit stand.

Angela Mangels, 31, a health-conscious architect from Long Island, was not planning to eat anything at the stadium. “I don’t normally buy anything at ball fields,” she said. She bought two nectarines, an apple and a banana at the stand for $6.

As Fernandez relates, the fruit isn’t as local as one would prefer. The stand is run by a Los Angeles-based fruit importer and distributor, and the fruit is shipped in from Washington, California, Oregon and even New Zealand. “I’m thrilled that it’s there,” Michael Hurwitz, the head of New York’s very successful Greenmarket program, said. “I just think that there’s a great opportunity to support our regional economy and our regional growers, particularly in this economy. You could have New York State apples, you could have New York State peaches, you could have New York State pears.”

The company, Melissa’s Produce, defended its cross-country shipping by citing the weather. A spokesman said that fall may bring some local apples as well.

Meanwhile, the fruit stand sells around 200 pounds of produce a game, and even at a mark-up of nearly 300 percent in some cases, that’s still an impressive total. Who would have thought we’d see the day a fruit stand thrives inside a baseball stadium?

According to critics, the plan to save Gate 2 comes with a hefty price tag.

As the Yankee Stadium demolition continues apace, the effort to save Gate 2 is gaining traction. Yet, despite the increased publicity and focus on the preservation effort, critics contend that it is far too late and far too costly to save this bit of Bronx baseball history.

The latest development in this fight over parkland and the historic parts of Yankee Stadium comes to us via the Daily News. Today’s article sums up the current state of the movement, and it doesn’t sound as though things are falling into place for those of us who wish to see a part of Yankee Stadium incorporated into Heritage Park.

Eitan Gavis and Larry McShane talked to a few unnamed critics of the plan, and these naysayers point to the price and historical modifications of Gate 2. According to those who oppose the effort, it could cost up to $10 million to restore Gate 2 to its historical image and stabilize the gate so that it stands without the help of the existing stadium. These critics also contend that the gate was “significantly changed” during the renovations to the stadium in the 1970s.

According to the Daily News and previous reports, the Parks Department plans to leave the giant bat in place. There is, however, a functional aspect to it as it serves as a vent from the physical plant located below ground. The department will also incorporate some of the frieze into plans for Heritage Park.

Proponents of the plan though hit upon the real reasons for saving Gate 2. For too many years, we have simply destroyed baseball history, leaving plaques in out-of-the-way locations or home plates buried under parking lots. “We visit some of these places where the original field is gone, and all we have is a brass plaque saying, ‘This is where home plate was,’” Bill Turner, a supporter of the movement, said.

Lloyd Ultan, Bronx borough president, compared Yankee Stadium to some of the world’s more famous architectural and archeological ruins. “If you go to Rome, you can get some idea of what the Forum was like from the ruins,” Ultan said to the News. “If it’s feasible, it’s worthy to save that part.”

As I said last week when I wrote about the plans for the park, the Yankees and the City should figure out a way to better incorporate the old stadium into plans for Heritage Park. The team could front some of the money for preservation, and Save the Gate 2 could fundraise for it as well. Too late will we realize what is missing if the stadium is demolished with no eye toward both the future and the past.

Despite efforts, Heritage Park will not incorporate much of old Yankee Stadium. (Image via Save the Yankee Gate 2)

New York City is one of the oldest towns in the nation. Founded by the Dutch in 1624, it was the capital of the nation for five years and has been the country’s biggest city since 1790. Despite this legacy, though, the city is shockingly lacking in history.

Stroll around Lower Manhattan, some of the longest continuously settled lands in North America, and the history is from the late 1800s and not the mid-1700s. Instead of historic preservation mixed in with modern development, New York City has continually built over and on top of its history.

More immediately, our city’s ballpark history is marked with gone and nearly forgotten stadiums. All that remains of Ebbets Field is a housing project in Flatbush. The Polo Grounds is also a housing project, and Shea Stadium, no one’s favorite place to watch a game, is a parking lot.

Across the street from the current Yankee Stadium sits the old House that Ruth Built, an 85-year-old Baseball Cathedral. Sure, it was gut-renovated in the 1970s, and many old-time fans feel it lost its character then. But the truth remains that Yankee Stadium after the renovation saw its fair share of historic games.

When the Yankees announced plans to build a new home, the old stadium was to be turned into a park called Heritage Field. Supposedly, this new field would incorporate Yankee baseball history and serve as a living monument to the stadium. Now, though, as details about the city’s plans for the park come into view, little of Yankee Stadium will remain, and the park may serve more as a monument to what could have and should have been than to what was.

In the current issue of The New Yorker, Paul Goldberger penned a Talk of the Town piece on the future of Heritage Field. The Parks Department and the Yankees convened a summit to discuss ways to incorporate the stadium, but the outcome was less than appealing:

Now that the Yankees have moved to their new $1.5-billion ballpark, the question has arisen as to whether their former home ought to disappear as completely as Shea did. The city has promised to turn the site into a park, complete with three ball fields. But the current design calls for the entire stadium to be demolished, its history recalled mainly through a series of panels and plaques in the pavement…

[Park designer Gary Sorge] explained that one of the three ball fields would be set in roughly the position of the old Yankee Stadium diamond, but shifted slightly, so that second base would be atop the original home plate. The plans also called for the reuse of two thirty-foot-long panels of the old Stadium’s famous scalloped frieze. And the designers proposed painting two of the park’s field light posts to resemble foul poles.

[Bronx borough historian Lloyd] Ultan, the historian, was the first to respond. “What is missing from the design is the architecture of the Stadium itself,” he said, holding up a souvenir cookie tin shaped like the old Stadium. “Some people came to see me recently who were trying to save Gate 2, which has not been altered. Couldn’t we preserve that as a monument?”

“Our research showed that Gate 2 had been altered,” one of the planners said. “It would have to be restored.”

So then restore it, I say.

Later on during the meeting, Sherida Paulsen, a former head of the city’s Landmarks Preservation Committee, posed a good question. “Putting second base at home plate doesn’t make sense,” she said. “Why can’t home plate just be at home plate?”

In the end, the city should do more than create a park that sort of resembles Yankee Stadium while telling a story through staid plaques and panels in the pavement. They should be able to create a monument to a great ballpark while keeping the essence of the park alive. It is a challenge in urban planning, but after decades of tearing down history, it is one the city should meet.

Parks Department head Adrian Benepe would seem to agree. “Yankee Stadium has had papal Masses, Billy Graham’s crusade, championship boxing matches, and the rally when Nelson Mandela was freed,” Benepe said. “Why can’t we create a great new park that acknowledges all of this?”

Why can’t we, indeed.

This is a guest post by Ross at New Stadium Insider.

According to the always-handy NSI attendance tracker, the Yankees broke their single game attendance record at the new Yankee Stadium last night. We’re only halfway through the inaugural campaign, but it is significant that the Yankees reached the 49,000 mark without the benefit of selling standing room only tickets. Even with this large crowd in attendance, something was still missing.

From the moment we walked into the stadium, it was obvious that this crowd was different than others thus far in 2009. Scanning the majestic new structure, empty seats were few and far between, even in the hard to sell “Legends” seats. Impressively, there was only a smattering of Red Sox fans in attendance, a significant departure from recent installments of the Yankees/Red Sox rivalry in the Bronx.

As Michael Kay noted on last night’s television broadcast, it seemed that this was the first time that fans had come to see the game and not just to tour the facility. Kay, while eternally hyperbolic, made a valid point – if you walked around the stadium, you would have noticed shorter concession lines and a seating bowl that was filled to near-capacity.

It was definitely a relief to experience this “big game” atmosphere, especially after embarrassing new stadium debacles such as the Phillies series, when visiting fans took over and made themselves heard . However, we still have a bone to pick with Yankees fans, or perhaps even with the stadium. At the old Yankee Stadium – and other great home parks such as Fenway – crowd noise builds in anticipation of a big moment. So far in 2009, the new Yankee Stadium has had small bursts of overwhelming crowd noise, but those have typically been in response to a big moment. The wall of sound that engulfs you and makes you feel like you are a part of something truly special conspicuously absent.

We are left wondering whether that wall of sound will ever return. Is the significantly further recessed (and partially covered) upper deck to blame? Are the fans that can afford to attend games at the new Yankee Stadium even more corporate than the fans at the old one? Did the 6,000 – 7,000 extra seats in the old place make a huge difference in terms of crowd noise? We probably need to wait until the new Yankee Stadium hosts a playoff series to draw any reasonable conclusions, but as of now, we’re disappointed.

Tom Kaminski of WCBS 880 took a bunch of aerial photos of the ongoing demolition at the Old Yankee Stadium this morning. The seats are all gone as are most of the field level sections, but the dugout is still intact. Head on over and check the pictures out, just make sure no one at work will laugh at you if you cry.

(h/t Sliding Into Home)

Ever the popular topic, new Yankee Stadium has been much in the news lately. I have three stories to highlight today. So let’s just jump in.

Stadium could host bowl games
As anyone who has been subjected to the endlessly boring mid-inning interviews of college football coaches and athletic directors on YES broadcasts of recent Yankee games knows, new Yankee Stadium will be hosting a slate of college football games over the next few seasons. Today, the Daily News reports on something far bigger than just the compelling Rutgers/Army match-up. Yankee Stadium may host a bowl game.

According to Bill Madden, Yankee officials — including Hal Steinbrenner — have been talking with the higher-ups at the NCAA about reviving New York-based bowl games. The two sides are targeting a December 2011 date as the inaugural match-up. As Madden notes, old Yankee Stadium hosted the Gotham Bowl in 1962. While I’m frankly tired of hearing about Army’s sub-par football program coming to Yankee Stadium, a bowl game in New York, BCS or otherwise, would be exciting.

Meanwhile, Fack Youk offers up a dissenting opinion. While Yanks COO Lonn Trost continues to proclaim Yankee Stadium “not just a stadium for baseball,” the dimensions and design are such that a football field can’t really fit properly. Baseball stadiums just aren’t meant to host football games, Jay writes.

Yanks face stadium construction lawsuits
During the course of any major construction project, injuries — and subsequent lawsuits — are sure to mount, and new Yankee Stadium is no exception. As Dorian Block details today, a 28-year-old worker who lost the use of his hand in a handsaw accident last July is suing the team and Turner Construction. Marc Kemprowski alleges that the powersaw was missing a $1.50 safety guard. His suit is one of many the Yanks and Turner face over accidents during the construction of the new park.

Biking options few around new Stadium
As many of you know, I’m a big transit buff. My other blog focuses entirely around mass transit in New York City, and every now and then, transportation issues and baseball intersect. Late yesterday, Streetsblog’s Ben Fried explored biking to Yankee Stadium. Playing off a recent article in Sports Illustrated for Kids, Fried notes that bike parking around the new stadium is severely limited.

According to Sarah Braunstein’s piece for SI Kids, the nearest bike parking for Yankee Stadium is four blocks away in front of the Bronx County Supreme Court building. For comparison, Citi Field has ten bike parking racks right outside, and Wrigley Field and AT&T Park in San Francisco both offer secure indoor parking for bikes.

As a few Streetsblog commenters noted, Yankee Stadium isn’t exactly isolated. Three subway lines service the park during games, and a new Metro-North station sees three commuter rail lines pass through it. The stadium is also serviced by a ferry. Still, for those brave enough to bike to and park in the South Bronx, the Yankees probably should have found a way to host a bike rack or two. After all, the Yanks have been pushing the fact that Yankee Stadium is environmentally friendly. With Heritage Field set to open across the street in a few years, there is still plenty of time to make Yankee Stadium even more access-friendly.

Way back in RAB’s infancy, we were a bit miffed at restrictive policies during the seventh-inning stretch. Namely, that security guards and police officers would prevent people from entering the concourse during the daily rendition of God Bless America. In April we learned of a fan filing suit against the team. Today we learn the result.

Yes, it has taken a court settlement to determine that fans have the right to move about as Kate Smith’s voice blares over the PA. The settlement came down with the help of a federal judge in Manhattan. No longer will we worry about harassment when we just want to hit the head while there’s a slightly longer mid-inning break.

Of course, there were ways before to circumvent the policy. At the game last Wednesday, I started my walk to the bathroom as Andy Pettitte recorded the second out in the top of the seventh. Risky, of course, because the inning could have gone a bit longer. But in the end I relieved myself at the perfect time, returning to my seat just in time for Take Me Out To The Ball Game.

Hat tip Pinto.