Putting aside your Yankee hostility for a moment, do you think it's..

[Princess Turandot]

right for them to build a new ballpark for them, next to the original stadium? They are hot to trot to do that. (I'm not speaking from a financial basis; I think the Yankees are planning to pay for most of it.) It is after all still perfectly serviceable and is the site of so much baseball history. It was renovated just a few decades back to eliminate some visual impediments and to pull the outfield in a bit.(They also took the monuments off of the active field lol.) This is where I do agree abt George's greed; I think their big thing is the lack of luxury corporate sky boxes. You dont really hear fans complaining abt the existing stadium.

They've made nebulous comments about retaining part of the park as a museum, but even so..

[JohnKleeb]

1. I dont know

and I will say one nice thing about the Yankees, I am glad they dont have a corporate name for their park, I hate corporate names for ball parks, its just sho cheesy. Yankee stadium is 82 years old, I believe. I havent been to it so I dont know what its like really.

[KitchenWitch]

2. Other than the lack of luxury boxes

I think Yankee Stadium is a perfectly serviceable ballpark. I think it is ridiculous for Boy George to be wanting to build a new ballpark. Ticket prices at Yankee Stadium are already obnoxious, imagine how much they will go up with a new ballpark.

[cruadin]

3. I don't know about the new ballpark in New York, but as far....

as ticket prices go, I think a larger stadium (i.e. more seats) would help to control ticket prices----supply and demand.

I'm a Red Sox fan, and part of the problem with Fenway Park's outrageous ticket prices is the low number of seats (33,871, lowest in the Major Leagues) that means that after tickets have sold out (which they pretty much already have for the entire season) your only recourse is scalpers. So, not only are you dealing with high prices to begin with ($45 for a GRANDSTAND seat), but you can expect to pay anywhere from about double to triple the face value of the ticket (or more, depending on the team they're playing) for a seat. If you're a working man who wants to take you family (4 people) to a game, you're looking at a tab of well over $200 for 4 f'ing BLEACHER seats.

I would welcome a new ballpark for the Red Sox. I know that's apostasy for a lot of Sox fans, (Fenway being steeped in tradition and history, etc. etc.) but a new ballpark with at least double the capacity, and a more modern seating design would be welcome to a lot of people. I've never been to Camden Yards in Baltimore, but from everything I've heard and read, that serves as a model of what can be done to modernize a facility and still retain its unique historical character. Unfortunately, the Red Sox have committed to remain at Fenway for the foreseeable future.

:rant:

[Princess Turandot]

8. Yes, Fenway is an unusual situation because it's so small..

I've read that they've sworn to never rebuild it.

[Jersey Devil]

10. The new Yankee Stadium is to be SMALLER

Something like 51,000 seats. Why? I have no idea. The current YS holds 55-56 thousand and the original held 67,000.

[Jersey Devil]

11. PS - seating 50,800

http://www.ballparks.com/baseball/american/nyybpk.htm

[cruadin]

12. That's weird that they would REDUCE the total number of seats.

I take it from your link that it is already a done deal--have the plans been finalized? I didn't read anything about the "memorandum of understanding" that was to be announced on May 1.

[Jersey Devil]

13. The deal was officially announced a month or two ago

I have no idea why they would have less seating. You can't get tickets now and even if you can good seats cost &75 and up.

[Reverend_Smitty]

4. My dad is a Yankees fan...

and every time he hears the new stadium mentioned on the news he starts hurling profanity in the TV's general direction...so I guess you know where he stands.

I personally think that they should not mess with a good thing. I mean the stadium has enough seats (isn't it 50+ thousand?) It's greed on the Boss's part plain and simple

[KitchenWitch]

5. I am in total agreement

Of course, I would have loved it if they kept Ebbets Field too!

[Reverend_Smitty]

6. It would have been great...

if they kept Ebbets Field, re-modeled it and had the Mets come there in 62. But that was back in the day where nobody really gave a shit about the historical look of the ball park. The 60's ushered in the era of those Gawd awful cookie cutter stadiums

[Princess Turandot]

7. Good for your dad!...

I think its capacity is 56,000 and they had already sold 3 million tickets before the season started. It's a beautiful old fashioned ballpark, more like the ones being built today like Camden Yards, as opposed to one like the old baseball stadium in Cleveland.

[bigwillq]

9. NOOOO! Keep the stadium where it is!

Make yearly renovations.

[dajoki]

14. yankee stadium must stay

some of my first memories of childhood are of yankee stadium. same goes for my kids. my wife and i still make a few trips a year to the stadium. there are a few things wrong with the stadium itself. walkways need to be widened, luxury boxes(stienbrenner greed), parking and access could be improved. the real problem is the neighborhood. they should take a tip from baltimore, what they did to the innerharbor is amazing and camden yards is beautiful. this could be done in the bronx also. probably would cost less than a new stadium too. but what big george wants big george gets.:)