Archive for Yankee Stadium
Steiner reaches settlement in suit over stadium seats
Posted by: | CommentsIn October, during the Yanks’ World Champion run, John Lefkus, a 22-year season-ticket holder and disgruntled purchaser of authentic Yankee Stadium memorabilia, filed a class action lawsuit against Steiner Sports. In his suit, he said that he paid $2000 for his season ticket seats only to receive a different set of Yankee Stadium chairs. He alleged deceptive acts and practices and false advertiser, among other charges, and requested both injunctive relief and compensatory damages.
This week, with little fanfare, the State Supreme Court announced a class settlement between Lefkus and Steiner Sports. As first reported yesterday by Ross at NYY Stadium Insider, the settlement covers those who purchased seats between May 1 and August 15, 2009, and those looking for a piece of the action must have retained their sales receipts.
Those in the affected class have two choices: Purchasers can return their seats for a full refund or receive one of two coupons — either one for $65 if the seats were a non-specific pair or one for $95 if the seats were a specific set from the old stadium. “In addition to this relief,” wrote the court, “Steiner has agreed to change its future advertising of Yankee Stadium Seat Pairs and to notify resellers of its advertising changes.”
The settlement, however, isn’t yet finalized. The court will hold a hearing on it on September 22 to determine if it is in the best interests of the class — and not just Lefkus, the named plaintiff. If the settlement is approved, those who wish to secure their part of the package will have until December 21 to do so. This settlement should close an ugly chapter in the recent history of both Steiner Sports and old Yankee Stadium.
After the jump, the claim form as well as a copy of the court’s notice of the proposed settlement. Read More→
Outfield at the Stadium in poor shape
Posted by: | CommentsOn June 3, as fans filed out of Yankee Stadium following a 6-3 win over the Baltimore Orioles, the preparations began. While the Yankees would spend the next week on the road, the Stadium would not cease activity. Instead, it would host its first boxing match in 34 years. The event went off without a hitch, it appeared, and they got the Stadium back in order for the Yankees’ return on Friday the 11th. Yet not everything was right.
The first thing I noticed after taking my seat in the bleachers that night was the condition of the outfield. You could see the outline of a stage, which did not come as a surprise. But that wasn’t the worst part. Instead, it looked like half the outfield had been overrun by a football team running drills for the past seven days, from morn till night. My friend commented that the grass looked brown, unwatered. It wasn’t that, though. It was that in many places there was almost no grass at all. The outfield was a shambles.
Photo from Flickr user baseballoggie, who also writes about the games he attends on his blog.
The Yankees played nine games in 10 days there before hitting the road again. They spent eight days on the West Coast, but that wasn’t enough time to get the field back in shape. That was the first thing I looked for when I got to my seat on Tuesday, and I was disappointed to see that it actually looked worse. That was just aesthetics, though. They patched up some parts, but clearly not all. Some parts are light green, others a darker forest green, and others are an even darker mix of green and brown.
In his notes column in the NY Post today, Brian Costello relays Curtis Granderson‘s take on the matter.
“It’s not necessarily better,” center fielder Curtis Granderson said. “They put some new grass out there, but it’s not everywhere. It looks like there’s a lot of seed stuff maybe. There’s a lot of green stuff out there. I don’t know what it is. Before it looked like paint. [Brett Gardner] slipped and his uniform turned bright green. I’m not sure what’s out there.”
The grounds crew will have to do their best to maintain the field as the Yankees play the next four games, but after that they’ll have 11 days to get the outfield into better shape before the team returns on July 16 to play Tampa Bay. While it sounds like they could get the job done in 11 days, they had eight days last time and didn’t accomplish much.
I’m not sure that they’re going to get much accomplished before the off-season, and even then it’s going to be a pain. Jay-Z and Eminem come to the Stadium on September 13th and 14th, so that’s going to take a further toll on the outfield grass. Just in time for the postseason, too. After that maintaining the lawn will be difficult not only because of the winter conditions, but because of the Pinstripe Bowl on December 30.
It’s nice that they’re getting more use out of the New Stadium than the old park, but this is first and foremost a baseball stadium. Are we going to have to look at a half-dirt, half-grass outfield every year?
Bronx parks opening, but residents want more
Posted by: | CommentsHeritage Field finally has an opening date. With old Yankee Stadium now fully demolished, the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation says the replacement park at the old stadium site will open in the fall of 2011, more than five years after the city shuttered Macombs Dam Park. Meanwhile, other green spaces — a skate park and a track and field area with initial completion dates of 2007 and 2009 respectively — are going to be feted with ribbon-cutting ceremonies in the coming weeks.
While South Bronx residents are thrilled to be getting some of the park land that was lost to the stadium back, many community activists still feel shortchanged. The new stadium shanghaied 25 acres of the old Macombs Dam Park, and the new green areas amount to just 22 acres of replacement parks. “It’s a dog and pony show, and they basically shrug their shoulders and act like everything is okay,” Geoffrey Croft of the NYC Park Advocates said to the Daily News. “The thing is a mess. It’s just a mess.” For more on Heritage Field and the city’s plan for this new park across the street from Yankee Stadium, check out our coverage from February.
Leave the vuvuzela at home
Posted by: | CommentsA few weeks ago, few Americans knew what a vuvuzela was. The hard plastic horn that resembles a beer funnel often makes its presence known in South African soccer games, and it took the World Cup to introduce the droning sounds to a nation not so keen on having its ears assaulted. The backlash, it seems, has already begun. During last night’s Yankees-Phillies affair, security guards in the bleachers confiscated a vuvuzela from one endearing fan, and The Post speculates that the Yankees have pretty much banned them outright as the team’s policies say that fans are not permitted to “blow horns and all other distracting noisemakers.” My ears approve.
Why the wave doesn’t belong at Yankee Stadium
Posted by: | CommentsThe video above comes to us from our friend Ross at NYY Stadium Insider. He shot it in April as the crowd did the wave while Curtis Granderson legged out a triple. Few fans were paying attention to the actual game, and the audio on Ross’ video is quite hilarious. It serves as a great introduction to this morning’s guest column on the wave.
Written by Larry Koestler of Yankeeist, this piece explores why many die-hards and more than a few newcomers can’t stand the modern phenomenon of the wave. I’ve always enjoyed the “Take the wave to Shea” chant, still relevant today even if Shea is just a parking lot.
A disturbing trend has come to pass at Yankee Stadium during the 2010 campaign. No, it’s not the seemingly automatic way in which the Yankees continue to compile wins at their beautiful ballpark. Or the proliferation of ridiculous Yankee paraphernalia that fans deign to wear to the Stadium. No, I’m talking about something much more sinister and disturbing: people at Yankee Stadium have — shockingly, and much to many long-time Yankee fans’ collective chagrin — resuscitated The Wave from its rightful place in the mausoleum and have been seen performing this paean to boredom at nearly every Yankee home game thus far this season.
That’s right. The Wave. At Yankee Stadium. God help us all.
The Wave began in the 1980s as a way for fans of National League teams to pass the time, because nothing says fun like a lame human ripple effect ringing around the upper deck of a baseball stadium. Then again, if I had to watch my pitchers hit I’d be bored as hell, too.
Kidding aside, participating in The Wave is basically the most insulting thing you can do to your team. You are literally telling everyone — as you wait to see if it’s going to make it all the way around and back to your section — that (a) You absolutely do not care about the fact that you are fortunate enough to be attending a baseball game, and (b) You have absolutely no interest in what or how your team is doing. You may as well have switched caps with a fan of the opposing team, because seeing as how they made the trip out to Yankee Stadium from wherever they’re from, they actually give a damn about the fact that a baseball game is being played.
In addition to displaying a complete and utter lack of interest in the events unfolding directly in front of you, The Wave also serves as a distraction to the folks who showed up to watch a ballgame. While playing at home may not statistically hold much of an advantage, a team’s fans still play a large role in both cheering the team on and trying to psyche the opposition out. Perhaps the most frequently recurring comment from opposing teams — at least about the old Yankee Stadium — was that once those 55,000 fans got going, there was no other noise on earth quite like it. The sound was deafening. The acoustics of new Yankee Stadium don’t allow for quite the same decibel level, but the proceedings can still get pretty loud, especially come playoff time. If people are trying to start up a Wave, it can be an immense distraction to the paying fans who know better, and also takes the crowd out of the game — how can 45,000 people will their team to victory through intense cheering and clapping when forced to shake their heads in disbelief that their fellow fans would rather throw their arms up in the air than clap for two-strike fever?
As far as I’m concerned, real Yankee fans don’t do The Wave. I attended well over 100 games at the old Yankee Stadium, and I honestly can’t remember a single instance of people even attempting to do The Wave. While I’m sure it broke out several times over the years — most likely during the dark late 80s/early 90s — it must have dissipated as the Yankees got better, because I seldom recall seeing it this past decade. At the old house, if you tried to do The Wave in the Bronx you’d have been more mercilessly razzed than a Red Sox fan.
Speaking of which, do you ever see fans at Fenway Park do The Wave? If you have, it probably happens fairly infrequently — I don’t remember seeing The Wave take place during any of the Yankee-Sox games I’ve watched over the years. Do you know why? Because Boston fans are obsessed with baseball and love and respect their baseball team. The idea of The Wave rarely if ever crosses the mind of a Boston Red Sox fan, because BoSox fans live and die with every single pitch. Every single pitch. And it should never be crossing the mind of a New York Yankees fan.
Clearly one of the reasons behind this atrocity is that a good number of classic, die-hard Yankee fans have been priced out of the new Stadium, and their seats are now being filled with people who barely even realize they’re attending a baseball game. However, that does not excuse things, and also begs the question: Why are you spending money to attend a baseball game if you’re going to be that bored? Do you know how many Yankee fans would kill to have your seats on any given night? Additionally, I don’t care if the team is losing 30-1; I’d rather you leave in the 6th inning than feel the need to participate in this atrocity.
I can’t believe I even feel the need to write about this; but it keeps coming up and something needs to be done about it. I was apoplectic when I saw The Wave at the first Yankee game I attended this season and actually had to stand up and put both hands up in an effort to “stop” The Wave while scolding everyone in my section. The Wave reared its ugly head again when I was back at the Stadium a couple of weeks ago, and I once again went hoarse yelling at people to quit doing it. And last week, Michael Kay even pointed out that people at Yankee Stadium were doing The Wave on the YES broadcast, which was the last straw.
So to the people who have been attending games at Yankee Stadium this season, I implore you: Stop doing The Wave. It’s incredibly disrespectful to the game and the players and makes all Yankee fans look like we couldn’t care less. Obviously that couldn’t be further from the truth, and I know not everyone attending a baseball game at Yankee Stadium is going to be hanging on every single pitch through all nine innings like obsessives such as myself, but if you’re really that bored, then go home. Or if you absolutely must do The Wave at a baseball game, then become a Mets fan and bring it to Citi Field, where it belongs.
Larry Koestler eats, drinks, sleeps and breathes the Yankees at his blog Yankeeist.
Under Armour to sponsor Stadium Slugfest
Posted by: | CommentsWhen Yuri Foreman and Miguel Cotto take centerstage at Yankee Stadium this Saturday evening for the highly anticipated Stadium Slugest, Under Armour’s presence will dominate the ring. As CNBC’s Darren Rovell reported this afternoon, the sports apparel company has signed on to sponsor the title bout. The company will get signage throughout the ring and will air a commercial on the stadium’s giant jumbotron.
“We liked the opportunity of being part of the first fight in new Yankee Stadium and being live on HBO,” the company’s senior VP of brand Steve Battista said to Rovell. “We’re also focused on our current campaign of combine training and boxers go through a level of combine training that is levels above anything else.”
In other fight news, Todd DuBoef, president of Top Rank, the company promoting the fight, said that sales have been going “very well.” The stadium will be configured to seat 30,000 on Saturday night, and the coverage of games on YES has been inundated with ads for the bout.
A state-of-the-art stadium with no technology allowed
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At CitiField, iPads are welcome, but the Yankees have banned this technology. (Photo by Amanda Rykoff)
For Bronx-bound patrons coming from work, Yankee Stadium security represents a unique challenge. In the days of 24-hour connectivity, many workers need to cart laptops back and forth from home, and few have the chance to make a pitstop on the way up to the ballpark. Yet, the Yankees have long banned laptops from the stadium, leaving fans with no choice but to pay the exorbitant bag-check rates at the bowling or Stan’s across the street.
According to the team’s vague security guidelines, the technology ban in a stadium equipped with state-of-the-art, well, everything extends beyond just personal computers. Included in the ban are “any other devices that may interfere with and/or distract any sports participant, other patron, audio or audio/visual telecast or recording of the game or any technology-related service provided in Yankee Stadium.” Based on recent reports, that ban now includes iPads as well.
This odd news broke when a woman on the IGN tech boards wrote about how security denied her iPad entrance into the stadium. Eventually, she was able to sneak it in, but fans were confused as to the ban. Maybe the Yankees don’t want to risk someone’s retransmitting the game from their seats. Maybe the Yankees are afraid that laptops will distract from the game experience or bring unwanted noise to the stadium. Yet, the team made a show of touting the way technologies would be able to interact with the new stadium.
The TSA, according to Mashable, doesn’t consider the iPad a laptop, but the Yanks have extended their security policies to encompass what could be personal wireless device. Yet, the inherent contradiction is laid bare when we realize that the entire stadium is one giant wireless network. The Yankees provide free wireless but do not allow the technology into the stadium to take advantage of it. They want Yankee Stadium to be state of the art but do not want people to take full advantage of it. As other parks allow iPads, laptops and similar devices in because they understand the way people commute and the inconvenience of not doing so, the Yankees are content to slam that door. What exactly is the point of that ban?
Yankee Stadium to host Jay-Z/Eminem twin bill
Posted by: | CommentsSupposedly, Jay-Z makes a Yankee hat more famous than a Yankee can. Although I don’t believe that claim for a minute, he will be making Yankee history this September as he and Eminem will be the first two artists to play a concert at the new Yankee Stadium. The hip hop duo announced last night their plans to play in Detroit at Comerica Park on September 2 and at Yankee Stadium on September 13. Jay-Z will headline in New York while Eminem will carry top billing in his native town.
Jay-Z, who performed “Empire State of Mind” at Yankee Stadium prior to Game 2 of the 2009 World Series, issued a statement about the date: “These shows are like a dream come true. I’ve always hoped that hip-hop could play any stadium like other genres of music. How perfect is it that Eminem and I get to play our hometowns and show how far the live rap experience has come? Fun and historic — a great combination all around the board.”
Record low attendance at last night’s game
Posted by: | CommentsVia Ross, last night’s game against the Orioles was seen by just 41,571 fans, a record low for the New Stadium. The rain earlier in the day probably had a little to do with it, and I can’t imagine many Orioles’ fans made the trip up to see their 7-19 club either. The previous low was set last April, when just 42,065 fans watched the Yanks beat the A’s.
Ticket sales for the 2010 season are ahead of last year’s pace, so last night’s game was probably just a blip on the radar.
Take your swim trunks and flippy-floppies
Posted by: | CommentsExciting news, Yankee fans: It’s once again possible to take a boat to Yankee Stadium. If the 4 train is too crowded for you, just hop on the Water Taxi — brought to you by Delta Airlines — at Pier 11 near Wall St., 90 minutes before game time. According to the Water Taxi’s website, these boat rides take an hour, and those on the boat can buy cocktails, beer and food while floating up the East River. It’s first come, first serve, and the boats are limited to just 147 passengers. Unfortunately, the Water Taxi isn’t offering rides back to Wall St. after the game, but for Will Leitch, that doesn’t matter. He’s very excited to travel to his baseball games this summer on a boat.
