It’s not so much a baseball stadium as it is an overpriced shopping mall with a ballgame going on in the background. Don’t believe me? Let’s start at the food court.
Oh, you don’t want fast food? Let’s go visit the *COUGH* upscale *COUGH* restaurant.
Oh, you don’t eat red meat? Sorry, my bad. Sushi?
What false pretenses?
Fly me to the moon?
Even worse than a mall, it looks like a mall inside of a casino. Oh wait…
I bet Pete Rose has a few words he’d like to say about this. You know the only way you can tell you’re not in a casino mall right now is that they would never tape a sign to the wall. Instead they would hire someone with an earpiece to stand there and tell you that you couldn’t take flash photos.
Luxury for the Ed Hardy set
(Future site of a Buffalo Wild Wings?)
Not enough places to consume alcohol for you?
How about the Delta Airlines bar (directly above the Mohegan Sun Bar)?
Or the Budweiser Porch, to which as I was snapping this photo a man screamed at me “What the *#&$ is wooden furniture doing at Yankee Stadium?”
It’s nice how even the bar has a piss stain.
Think they don’t know their customers well enough yet? How about the Tommy Bahama bar?
Here’s a trick question. How do you get someone to pay over $6 for a single can of Schlitz beer? You put it in a wooden-framed fridge.
What’s that? What’s a mall without shopping? Sorry I forgot to mention the NEW ERA “flagship” store..
True art connoisseurs (eyes rolling) will appreciate purchasing some priceless “works of art” at the Peter Max Gallery located behind home.
Why yes, there is a scrawny blond who never smiles in tight black clothes wearing glasses working there, how did you know?
And in our second to last stop at this mall which also boasts such atrocities as the “Boars Head Deli” which offers Pastrami and Corned Beef sandwiches (which no self-respecting New Yorker would touch with a ten foot pole), is this, the most confusing vendor in the entire ballpark.
Lobel’s butcher shop rented a window and hired two guys to cut meat for the express purpose of advertising. You can not purchase any of the meat there. Not that you would necessarily go to a baseball game to purchase lamb chops. The mail-order catalogs appear to be locked up behind the window where you can’t actually take one home to place a mail-order, if for some reason you as a New Yorker didn’t know where Lobel’s was. You can see from the reflection in the glass how close this window is to the baseball field itself.
I love a good design flaw as much as the next fellow.
You have to get on your knees and turn your head sideways to read the sign.
I will leave you with this final thought.
After an hour of looking around I got hungry and decided to get a hot dog. They were either $6.25 or $6.75, I don’t remember and I couldn’t get a receipt because the registers were broken. I know the registers were broken because I gave the man $10 and he needed to call a supervisor who had a calculator in order to figure out how much my change should be. After he gave me my change, five minutes later, he said “thank you!”
At this point I had to remind him that I had not yet received my hot dog. That would take another three minutes, during which I snapped this photo.
At the time I placed my order, I was the only customer there. The gentleman to the right was with me, he was the only other customer. You can see the supervisor figuring out his change on the calculator.
Count ‘em, TEN PEOPLE behind the counter and it was eight minutes from start to finish for me to purchase ONE hot dog.
This whole enterprise exists to drain tourists and executives of their money and expense accounts, it has nothing at all to do with baseball. It is typically staffed in a manner consistent with big box retail as opposed to the career-based employees who used to work food concessions in stadiums. These people are making peanuts, excuse the pun, and they don’t really care about the quality of service, they have no personal investment in it. As a consumer faced with this level of service and the disproportionate high prices it is probably best to just keep your money in your pocket. Let the tourists experience this “authenticity” for themselves.
Why call it “Yankee Stadium”? “Testosterone Sewer” seems more appropriate.
Hell, who am I kidding? I’d hang out there.
11 responses so far ↓
1 YaVonna // Apr 7, 2009 at 6:00 am
The stadium looks amazing. It’s the people that make the place look trashy.
2 Kay // Apr 8, 2009 at 3:47 am
Wow, it’s so tacky! What the F is retro beer? Has it been rented previously?
3 Jennjchris // Apr 9, 2009 at 9:17 am
With the Yanks at 0-2 I laughed at the end. And I regret not going to the old stadium. And it still funny.
Thanks!
4 Karen // Apr 9, 2009 at 11:16 am
Gee–Snarcky much? As an college educated woman, that just happened to be the very first beer vendor for the Colorado Rockies (Happy 16th Bday today Rocks!), I would like to give you something to ponder. Please don’t critisize an employment system that offers jobs to people that may very well be on unemployment or welfare without this opportunity. I too get frustrated when someone can’t count to ten, but I’d rather offer a modicum of patience than use my tax dollar to support them and their family.
5 Ellen K // Apr 9, 2009 at 3:13 pm
You think this is bad, wait until the JerryDome opens in Arlington TX. I wish we could deport this guy back to Arkansas.
6 Barry // Apr 9, 2009 at 5:09 pm
Visited the site after hearing you on NPR, but didn’t realize you’d have me in stitches with this Evil Empire riff. Please, please visit the new park in Queens to let us know if they are a pair of excesses, or did you already? I need to search.
7 John Q // Apr 14, 2009 at 10:18 am
I don’t think he was criticizing the employment system that gives jobs to people who would otherwise be unemployed or on welfare, he was criticizing the people who would be on unemployment or on welfare because it takes 10 of them 10 minutes to figure out change on a ten dollar bill and to get a hot dog.
8 James Bedell // Apr 14, 2009 at 11:54 am
Citi Field and the New Yankee stadium are principal reasons why i won’t see a major league baseball game for a long time. This industry is content to pay the tiniest sliver of people astronomical amounts of money for skills that help virtually no one. Meanwhile, the kid who we lose our patience with because he doesn’t make change quickly is getting paid less than a living wage. And when the private owners are making enough money they shake hands with the city and get tax breaks to tear down a perfectly good structure (or abandon it) to build themselves a shiny new one.
I don’t blame capitalism, I don’t even blame the owners or city officials. As long as fans and citizens will pay for their over-priced luxury product of a sport they will continue taking as much as they can from the masses and distributing it to the smallest group possible.
I for one won’t take part. Maybe when they lower ticket prices, make a beer a reasonable price and start paying ball players a living wage, maybe I’ll get interested again.
9 admin // Apr 14, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Don’t forget, you can always support your local IPBF team. They could use your patronage, and you will have a much more enjoyable experience for a lot less money.
Find your local team here:
http://www.independentprofessionalbaseballfederation.com/
10 Elaine // Apr 17, 2009 at 9:37 am
Sam, this was great. As I was reading it I could actually hear your astonished and at the same time-cynical voice in my head as you went from one over priced vendor to the next.
11 David W. // Apr 30, 2009 at 7:46 am
Hysterical. I don’t know whether to laugh or scream, so I’ll do both. Without sounding like an old geezer, my dad took me to my first Yankees game in 1959. As a lifelong Bronxite, I was born to root for the home team, but they do not make it easy. Thank goodness they cut the $2500 seats in half. Now, I only have to sell 50% of my vintage comic book collection to attend one game. “Buy me some peanuts and cracker jack and forego the mortgage payment this month.
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