New Yankee Stadium an Overall Dud

So, the new Yankee Stadium is open. The first exhibition games were played this weekend, and I was lucky enough to get tickets either late Saturday night or early Sunday morning.

And Saturday afternoon, as the Chicago Cubs played the New York Yankees, I felt like a kid on Christmas Day: Excited about the shiny new package, but disappointed by the content. And I’m not just saying that because I’m a Cleveland Indians fan, I’m saying that as someone who is an aficionado of ballparks.

Does it mean Mighty Casey has struck out? Probably not – marketers are still going to get their moneys worth either through television impressions or gameday traffic. OK, I didn’t want to run out and buy an Audi because they have the naming rights to one section of suites, or buy my office supplies at W.B. Mason because they had a sign on the right field wall. But their presence is known.

But New Yankee Stadium is Disney World. It’ll be a place tourists want to see because Babe Ruth played… across the street from it. Or because everyone will meet Derek Jeter. And they’ll pay for an overpriced sandwich and drink at the stadium’s Hard Rock Cafe, or wait five innings to get into the Mohegan Sun’s themed restaurant (without the poker tables or slot machines, I’m sure).

Ballpark junkies like me are going to find it to be sterile. OK, it does have the wall of numbers, the grand entrance, and… burgers by Johnny Rockets? Is this a ballpark or a tourist trap? It compares more to the new Comiskey Park on the inside (before its recent face lift) than the House that Ruth Built. Which is peculiar since the outside was designed to resemble the pre-1976 Yankee Stadium.

Oh well, it is what it is – a brand new ballpark that’s supposed to wake up the ghosts of Munson, Gehrig and Rizzuto. Instead, tourists will be looking for the cryogenically-frozen corpse of Walt Disney.