Yankee Stadium and Citi Field.

So I figured it is about time I add my two cents about the new Yankee Stadium and Citi Field.

I may get to see them in person next year, until then, I am living vicariously through others.

Where to start?

I suppose I'll start with the $1.5 billion behemoth called Yankee Stadium. The house that Steinbrenner built, or perhaps the house that Greed Built.

I think it lives up to the price tag, but reviews are mixed. To steal an appropriate word from this article, I think grandeur describes the stadium very well. It seems appropriate to call it Yankee Stadium once again, in all its glory for better or worse. Although I am not sure how it feels compared to the original with all the politics and everything involved in it.

Here is a brief review with pictures from the Field of Schemes website, The new Yankee Stadium: What we got for all that money. In that article it links to a couple proper articles the author (Neil deMause) wrote about the new Yankee Stadium. For your convenience, New Yankee Stadium Opens Its Vast, Expensive Gates (from The Village Voice) and Out at the Ballpark, A Visit to the New Yankee Stadium (from Baseball Prospectus).

I am not sure it could be called The Friendly Confines, if they ever felt like stealing the Wrigley nickname. This from ball snagger extraordinaire Zack Hample blog entry. His entry, 4/18/09 at Yankee Stadium, has plenty of pictures and descriptions. Temple, Shrine, a couple words that come to mind seeing some of the pictures!

Before the home runs were flying out of Yankee Stadium, the most discussed issue with the new Stadium was the overpriced seats. Add the recession to the equation, and that will equal many seats not sold. This post, This is Ridiculous, from the Sliding Into Home Yankees blog, captures it well.

Bleacher creatures can now move into other parts of the stadium, I believe I heard sarcastically, so they can buy more high priced merchandise. Although I would not be surprised if it were the case. In fact it probably is one of the reasons. From the Village Voice article, they cannot go to the field level. Security being tight, as you can read in Zack's post.

Certain bleacher seats in center field, left and right center have an obstructed view of the opposite side, as the Mohegan Sun sports bar, which is behind the batter's eye juts out. Here is a picture from the above Village Voice article. I can only imagine sitting right beside the wall of said bar a few good rows back, one would only be able to see half the outfield!

Speaking of jutting out, check out this picture from Keith Olbermann's mlblog. It is George Steinbrenner's private box, towering above the masses, and several feet out as well. With a clear view into the Yankees dugout as Keith stated! I am reminded of the Simpsons episode where they find their way into Rupert Murdoch's private box on Super Bowl!

I am going to devote a post to the home runs hit out of new Yankee Stadium, in the meantime, Keith Olbermann's entry titled The Home Run Menace raises the issue.

So I suppose from what I hear, Yankee Stadium is huuuuge, but the field plays small. Whereas Citi Field is smaller, yet the field plays big.

Through six games at Citi Field, 10 home runs were hit. 26 were hit through six games at Yankee Stadium. This is counting only regular season games. The two worst games were of course the third game against the Indians, when they won 22-4, and the Yankees 9-7 walk-off win over the A's Wednesday. In the Indians win, 8 home runs were hit, 6 by Cleveland. In the recent Yankees win, 5 were hit, 4 by the Yankees.

In the first proper game at Yankee Stadium, spring training, Cubs at Yankees April 3, the Yankees hit 3 home runs off of Ted Lilly. The next day they hit 3 off Rich Harden, and 1 off Luis Vizcaino. In that second game, the Cubs only managed 1 off Andy Pettitte. So that is 8 more home runs, for a total of 34, in a total of 8 games there!

So Citi Field. I'd have to say I lean more towards Citi for being smaller, and maybe more a park to see a good ballgame at. Maybe. Still I hear about how it compares to the old venue, that would be Shea, for atmosphere, and if it has the history within.

For a good critique of Citi Field, again, Zack Hample has a good aptly titled post, Citi Field critique. This entry, Flushing in Flushing, a fairly comical entry from Uni Watch blog has a few good pictures, some as the stadium was still a work in progress (at the paragraph that starts "as for the stadium itself").

I also prefer Citi Field for being modelled after Ebbets Field. As I like old time baseball.

So I guess that is about it for now, if I come upon more posts of interest, I'll add them at the end of future posts.

Winter Classic 2009 at Wrigley Field

There is plenty going on this baseball offseason, but the baseball news I am most looking forward to at this moment is the second NHL Winter Classic, taking place New Year's Day at Wrigley Field!

It is the second regular season NHL game to be played outside in the US, and third overall. The first was Montreal at Edmonton in 2003, it was dubbed the Heritage Classic. It will face the Detroit Red Wings against the Chicago Blackhawks.

Both teams are part of the Original Six. (From Wikipedia: The Original Six is a well-known term for the group of six teams that composed the National Hockey League (NHL) for the 25 seasons between the 1942-43 season and the 1967 NHL Expansion.) And as Wikipedia states, there were other teams prior, and during that time, however those are the ones still around. The Detroit Red Wings and Chicago Blackhawks were both founded in 1926. The Western Canada Hockey League (WCHL) folded, and the Portland Rosebuds became the Chicago Black Hawks (They were known as the Black Hawks from 1926 until 1986), and the Victoria Cougars became the Detroit Red Wings. The Portland Rosebuds, of Portland Oregon were originally the Regina Capitals for the short time the WCHL existed, but moved to Oregon for what would end up being their final season. The Victoria Cougars were from Victoria, British Columbia.

As last years Winter Classic (Pittsburgh Penguins at Buffalo Sabres), they'll be wearing vintage jerseys. Chicago's dates back to 1937 (till 1955), and Detroit's dates back to 1926, as an alternate logo. They were know as the Detroit Cougars from 1926 to 1930, and the Detroit Falcons from 1930 to 1932. Thus being the Red Wings from 1932 to the present.

I wouldn't normally post videos in this blog but this is worth it. The sweet commercial for the Winter Classic, using "Take Me Out to the Ball" Game as background music. See the game on NBC in the US, CBC or RDS in Canada January 1st at 1PM EST. (NHL Send me a Winter Classic jersey for the plug!)