(AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)

Wednesday afternoon’s Game Five win gave Yankee fans a lot of reasons to smile, but a scary moment in the fourth inning had us all holding our breath. Ian Kinsler fouled off a CC Sabathia fastball, popping it up toward first base. Lance Berkman chased after the ball and overran it a bit, but when he went to slam on the brakes as he transitioned from grass to warning track, his feet came out from under him and he fell hard, flat on his back. In the unlikely event that you haven’t seen it yet, here’s video of the spill. Yeah, it’s rough.

The good news is that Berkman was pretty much okay; he knocked the wind out of himself but stayed in the game after changing into a pair of metal spikes. He didn’t even hit his head. Puma hit a deep sacrifice fly in the later innings and caught the final out of the game in foul territory, a similar spot to where he took the fall. Berkman said after the game that his entire back was sore, but he received treatment yesterday and is a go for Game Six tonight.

Berkman’s fall looked like another comedic flop to add to his defensive blooper reel, but it revealed a much bigger problem: the Yankee Stadium warning track is dangerous. One unnamed Yankee told Chad Jennings that it’s like running from grass onto a sheet of ice, and regular first baseman Mark Teixeira called it “basically concrete with sand on top.” The players have reportedly brought this up in the past, but it’s obviously not an easy fix. Certainly not something that can be addressed during the season, anyway.

It’s one thing to have complaints about the outfield dimensions and obstructed view seats in the New Stadium, but it’s quite another when the playing surface is an issue. That concerns the safety of the players, and in the Yankees’ case we’re talking about the safety of highly paid players. It took Berkman’s fall to bring the problem to our attention, but given the claims of past complaints, it’s something the team has been aware of for a while.

The warning track at the Old Stadium was made of red brick dust in the later years (based on what I’ve been able to find online, anyway), but the real concern is what’s under whatever’s on top. Some tracks are dirt, some rubber, but at some point there’s concrete under there. As long as there’s enough of a buffer on top it’s not an issue. Perhaps they need to chop out an inch or two of concrete at the New Stadium all around the warning track, but who knows. We have no idea about the construction of the actual track, we’re just going off Tex’s quote. Chopping out concrete may not be as easy as it sounds either, depending on what else is going on down there.

The important thing is that the Yankees make the warning track safer for their players this offseason, one way or the other. Players are investments, massive investments for this team, and they should do what’s best to protect them. In the grand scheme of things, making the warning track more fall- and slide-friendly is a no-brainer and not something to be ignored.

A 1999 book by Dean Chadwin, called Those Damn Yankees: The Secret Life of America’s Greatest Franchise, introduced the world to the dark underbelly of Yankee fans at the height of the club’s late-1990s dynasty. Using the Yanks as his storytelling device, Chadwin explored the problems inherent in baseball economics, the way the team used its influence to secure the promise of a new stadium from then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani and of course, the way Yankee fans are utterly ruthless in their taunting. For those who attend the games and follow the team, the short tome didn’t break new ground, but Chadwin’s writing highlighting some of the more uncomfortable aspects of Yankee Stadium.

As a highlight of the book, Chadwin goes inside the bleachers. Then holding court in Section 39, the Bleacher Creature at Yankee Stadium was — and still is — ruthless. Those who wear the colors of an opposing team into that section can be prepared for nine innings of taunts. One part, though, garnered headlines. Chadwin explored the homophobic nature of the taunts, and in the middle of the book, he republished the Creature’s version of Y.M.C.A. The chorus replaces the Village People’s line with “Why are you gay?” and the rest of the verse isn’t much better. It’s laid out on page 45 of the book for all to see.

When the book came out, the media focused a bit on this version of the song but eventually let the issue drop. Recently, though, with a rash of high-profile anti-gay incidents and a video from the bleachers on YouTube, the bleachers’ version of this song came under fire. Gay rights activists were up in arms over the song, and the Yankees quickly responded. Security guards, the team said, would no longer tolerate this version of the song.

GLAAD issued a statement on this little brouhaha. “We reached out to the Yankees, and were extremely pleased with their reaction. Yankees spokesperson Alice McGillion told us ‘the Yankees have zero tolerance for this and any kind of abuse.’ She said that security in the bleacher sections of the stadium will warn fans, before Y.M.C.A. is played, that any type of homophobic abuse ‘will not be tolerated’ and she assured us that any fans who take part in this ugly bullying will be ejected from the game.”

The Yanks’ decision to put an end to this practice is, in my opinion, about a decade too late, but while the club turned a blind eye to this practice, so too did anyone who covered the team. I’ve known about this chant for years and never wrote about it. Team beat writers or sports columnists could have chosen to attack this song instead of moralizing for the umpteenth time about steroids. But they didn’t. Homophobia has no place in sports, and while the Yanks should be applauded for vowing to stop it, albeit years too late, at their stadium, fans should not remain silent about it either.

Too many parking lots; not enough cars. (Graphic via Streetsblog)

As the plans for new Yankee Stadium took shape a few years ago, livable streets advocates and community activists bemoaned the seemingly ridiculous number of new parking spots included with the plan. While the new ballpark’s capacity would prove be around 7000 seats fewer than the old, the South Bronx would see over 2500 whose construction was to be subsidized through $237 million in tax-exempt bonds. To add insult to development injury, the company the city selected to build the parking lots had a history of defaulting on its bond payments.

It comes as no surprise then that Bronx Parking is in trouble. Because of the increased availability of public transit options and the smaller stadium capacity, fewer fans are driving to the games, and the company may soon default on its bond payments for the third time. According to Juan Gonzalez of the Daily News, revenue from parking was just $4.8 million through the first half of 2010, nearly half of Bronx Parking’s initial projections, and the company may have to run down its $4.5 million emergency fund, risking a potential default in the near future.

The company itself, says Gonzalez, blames three factors:

• More than 800 fans are heading on game days to the Gateway Shopping Mall five blocks from the stadium, where they pay only $10 to park instead of the stiff $23 self-parking fee ($35 for valet service) at the stadium garages.
• A new Metro North station has lured many fans (about 5,000 per game) to ride the train. [RAB note: Metro-North says it lures approximately 3200-3800 fans per game.]
• The Yankees prepaid for only 190 parking spaces this year for their season ticket holders instead of the 900 spaces they prepaid last year.

Some unnamed city officials, meanwhile, aren’t surprised. “If these garages are only at 60% of capacity after a World Series victory, you know it can only get worse from here,” one said to the News. “There’s just too much unused parking around the stadium.”

For Yankee fans who drive, the news will only get worse next year. Bronx Parking — or the surviving entity — will have no other option but to raise rates to cover the lost revenue. Parking at the stadium could cost nearly $30 next year, and such a steep price could perpetuate a cycle where even fewer people drive. Yankee Stadium is, after all, one of the most transit accessible ballparks in the nation, and the South Bronx neighborhood has very low car ownership rates.

It’s clear that the city, at the behest of the Yankees, botched this parking deal. The team wanted more modern and convenient parking lots, and now a South Bronx area suffering from a dearth of green space and high asthma rates has lots of vacant space surrounding the stadium. This parking decision was not the city’s Economic Development Corporation’s and the Industrial Development Agency’s finest hours.