While we enjoy baseball from the comfort and privacy of our own home, the terms of our plea bargain require that we air ourselves out from time to time. And so it was last week that we decided to marry our twin loves of baseball and flouting public-obscenity laws with a visit to the ol’ ballyard. Which is to say: the new ballyard in the Bronx, the New Yankee Stadium (cue the pyrotechnics!).

Corporate atrocity or 21st-century shrine? Temple of awesome or fortress of evil? Come with us on as virtual a tour as you can get from somebody with a cheap camera and bad seats.

You have never experienced–and “experience” is the right word–a JumboTron like the one that hangs high over center field. Its images are crisper than anything we’ve ever seen. It dwarfs everyone and everything in its path. It is kind and merciful. We have accepted it as our savior.

There is a high-end butcher shop on site, plus a high-high-high-end year-round steak joint (think $225 French fries) near the main entrance. Mr. Butcher Guy sure seems thrilled to ply his trade under the watchful eyes of thousands of passersby.

You can have the dry-aged prime rib sandwiches (and the pulled pork and the sushi and the tortilla platters and the miso soup and the Asian noodle bowls). We’ll have eight of these, thanks.


Ooh, looks like somebody’s trying to score points with Al Gore!

Ooh, looks like somebody’s trying to score points with furry-pitted, patchouli-drenched tree-huggers!

Never again shall the asses of lower-deck patrons endure the massive indignity of hard, uncontoured plastic. Free at last!

Escalators? We don’t need no stinkin’ escalators.

Joba Chamberlain                                                                                   Not Joba Chamberlain

Is there any other kind? Separately, the Yankee Stadium beer vendors now wear little badges that state calorie information.

This is a full section of lower-deck seats along the third-base line that, likely due to their $300+ price tag, sat completely empty on a beautiful 65-degree day in mid-April…on the second day of the season in a shiny new baseball palace. Damn you to hell, AIG!

That white doohickey thing up top? It’s a frieze and not a façade. A frieze, according to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, is defined as “a sculptured or richly ornamented band (as on a building or piece of furniture).” A façade, on the other hand, is defined as “the front of a building; also: any face of a building given special architectural treatment.” Don’t say we never taught you anything.

The Yankees are the only team that continues to play “God Bless America” during the seventh-inning stretch. Clearly, they appreciate freedom, liberty, the troops, grandma, apple pie, and Ronald Reagan more than the Red Sox do.

There are lots of helpful people at the new Yankee Stadium–as opposed to the old one, where grizzled ushers with overflowing ear hair snarled at nine-year-olds who were separated from their parents (OK, not really, but stereotypes are always more entertaining than boring reality).

There are roughly 9,295 flat-screen monitors posted around the stadium, all tuned to YES Network’s programming-masquerading-as-propaganda. But these look puny and insignificant next to this inside-JumboTron, located in the Great Hall right inside the main entrance. Remember when scoreboards merely displayed a hitter’s batting average and home-run and RBI totals? Yeah, us neither.