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There's a lot of whining in baseball, at least among baseball fans. For as long as I can remember, I've been told the game isn't as good as it used to be -- and my first major-league memory is of a man running out of a barbershop, shaving cream on his face, to dance in the street when the San Francisco Giants won the pennant in 1962. Old-timers said that even Willie Mays, whom we regarded as a god, was losing his stuff. Still, you could've seen game three of the World Series that year for $4. Which brings me to my point: When did going to a Major League Baseball game become more expensive than going to the opera?
Don't get me wrong. I like the trend in new ballparks, which began with the opening of the Baltimore Orioles' Camden Yards in 1992. It's a gem, as is the Giants' new home in San Francisco, which began as Pacific Bell Park, then became SBC Park, and is currently called AT&T Park. (Corporate sponsorship can be so confusing.) I appreciate the padded seats, the unobstructed views, the variety of food. I used to go to the Giants' old home, Candlestick Park, which was so cold and miserable that they tried to market fan endurance: Anyone who stayed extra innings there was awarded a Croix De Candlestick pin, which featured icicles dripping from the San Francisco logo and the Latin phrase "veni, vidi, vixi" -- roughly, "I came, I saw, I survived."
The new Giants home is paradise in comparison, especially if your picture of paradise includes garlic fries. And the park is relatively affordable: My brother and I went to see a game there in May, and our lower box seats cost $42. A steal compared with Fenway Park's $325 "Dugout" seats, the L.A. Dodgers' $285 "Baseline VIP" seats, and the average $73 Yankees ticket.
Average! That's a 76 percent increase over last year's Yankees ticket average, and the most expensive seats, directly behind home plate, were priced at $2,625. That was not the price for the season, or a month, or even a week. That was the price per seat, per game. For that kind of money, they should let you choose the batting order. Instead, all you get is free braised short ribs on a Taleggio cheese baguette with fresh watercress.
When I visited the new stadium this summer to see the Yanks host Toronto with my pal (and Pittsburgh Pirates fan) Steve, I purchased two seats for a total of $240. They were on the third level above home plate, a great vantage point from which to see the game but not one where you are likely to catch any foul balls.
The new Yankee Stadium looks a lot like the old Yankee Stadium from the outside, and you don't have to rely on your memory to make that comparison: The original sits right across the street while they tear it down in slow motion.
Sure, the old stadium was about as welcoming as JFK Airport and as confusing as Penn Station, but you could see the field pretty well, no matter where you were. The seats were uncomfortable, but if you wanted comfort, you could stay home and watch the game on TV.
In the new stadium, you feel as if you are watching the game on TV: There are 1,400 screens and one LCD giant that's six times bigger than the former stadium's JumboTron. All the better, it seems, to broadcast animated figures telling you when it's time to "make noise."
"See, that's what I really hate," said Steve. "Shouldn't you know when to clap?"
It's hard to put 'em together when you have an $11 cheeseburger in one hand and $7 "russet" fries in the other. Our $120 tickets entitled us to enter the Jim Beam Suite Lounge to buy our burgers -- tickets were checked at the door -- and I have to say they were pretty good. Maybe not $11 good, but once you've paid $120 to sit in the third tier and watch a regular-season game between two teams you don't really care about, it's all relative.
Honestly, the velvet-rope treatment is my biggest complaint. It just seems un-American -- not to mention ill-timed. When the team set out to build its $1.5 billion stadium, it was counting on Wall Street's former Masters of the Universe to be putting their feet up on those $2,625 front-row seats. But now those same masters are building their résumés at home, and it's embarrassing to televise games with empty front-row seats. So twice during the game, giant screens announced promotional upgrades in which lucky fans were picked out of the cheap seats and ushered into the "luxury" area.
But what were the Yankees thinking in the first place? When did baseball become a rich man's game? What happened to the game a kid could afford by working a paper route, with the dream of catching the game-winning home-run ball? These days, that kid wouldn't stand a chance. He could never sneak in (what with the airport-level security), and he certainly couldn't buy his own ticket. Nor could he get anywhere near the players; the now discounted dugout seats, where fans used to plead for autographs during batting practice, are still $1,250. Steve told me he had actually jumped on Willie Mays at an all-star game in 1965. A kid doing that to A-Rod today would probably be Tasered.
Steve and I had a great time at the game that day. Burnett pitched seven excellent innings. The Yankees won 4–2. But as I left the stadium, I thought about the long-term effects of excluding the majority of baseball fans from the experience of watching the game live. And I wondered what The Mick would have done with a Taleggio cheese baguette.
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