Thank god for Stan’s, is all I can say. Louie and I went up to the Bronx for our first game at the new stadium on game two of the first home stand. We met at Stan’s, per usual, and the gang was all there — Joe, Mike, little Mike, Carl, and Lou (the owner). It was like we never left. We congratulated them on their fine article in the Sunday New York Times “City” section, and settled into getting caught up on life’s happenings durning the long dreary winter months. Ah, the rites of Spring. After about an hour and a half of beers (not me, I was doing diet coke, another story), we headed on over to the new edifice, monument, mausoleum, whatever. We were initially blown away by the openess, light and airiness of the grand concourse. So up we go to our second level seats, and a surreal Yankee Stadium concession and seating experience begins. Starting with young, bright shining faces in pinstripes holding up signs that read, “May I help you?” Huh? We shook that off and looked at the concession stands to see what was being offered. Beers starting at $9 (Budweiser.) Ugh. Heineken — $11 for 16 oz. Okay, but do we need to know the caloric content? Apparently we do, because every food and beverage item comes with that piece of information. Am I in a dream or a nightmare? I had this experience once at a San Francisco Giants’ game, but I expected it there, not here.
After taking this all in, we shrugged it off and took our seats. Very nice. The Stadium is the Stadium, on the field. Same dimensions, pretty much the same layout, with the exception of the Mohegan Sun Sports Bar in centerfield. We kinda felt that we were actually in Yankee Stadium, until the home runs started flying out of the park. Five for the Yanks, a couple more for Cleveland. Weird, but we lived with it because we won. But throughout the game we just felt that something was missing. Like people in those ritzy seats in and around homeplate. That can not look good on television. Then those skyboxes with nobody home. Then the craziness — there was none. That was the most telling difference. We felt like we were in some civilized place, like Kansas City or Minnesota.
I don’t know. Maybe the stadium needs to be broken in and not treated like some precious new thing. Time will tell. We won, and that was good. By the way, if you’re interested, a 16 oz Heniken is 363 calories.
