Yankee Stadium to see the Phillies

A few weeks ago Evan called to let me know he had purchased a plane ticket to NYC. School would be over, so he was free. He didn’t have any plans for when he arrived. He checked the baseball schedule after booking the ticket and saw that the Phillies were in town on Thursday and the Mets would be there for the weekend.

Phillies? I’m in. I checked with Janos, he was in too. Evan’s sister’s boyfriend John rounded out the group.

I went on to StubHub and got 4 tickets in the very top row of the stadium, in a section where I thought we’d get a good view of everything. I think that goal was accomplished.

There were Phillies fans everywhere. By the end of the game, they were all that was left. The 9th inning took forever and the Phillies put a few more runs on the board, leaving to a slow exodus of the rest of the stadium.

I’d been to the old Yankee Stadium twice. Once when I was about 11 and during the last season because Evan hadn’t been there so we made the trip. The new one certainly doesn’t have the charm of the old one. I feel like they tried to copy how the stadium looked at the end. Meaning they attempted to make the new building look old instead of letting it age. It either will look great in many years or will fall apart very quickly. To me, the biggest improvement is the amount of extra space. The lines for food used to fill the concourses so you couldn’t even walk through. Now there is almost too much space, which is a good thing.

Any points gained by design improvements are lost by that ridiculous restaurant in center field. There is no excuse for the bleacher seats being blocked from seeing the other outfield. TV screens are not enough.

The video screen in center field looks amazing. I’m just not sure why they don’t use it for replays. I saw a few early on, but later in the game, there was nothing. Especially in the 9th when the Yankees left the field and no one could figure out what had happened. When I got home I saw that Ibanez had been hit by the grounder to end the inning. No replay or anything in the stadium to let us know what happened.

On last thing, every seat in the stadium has a warning: “Be alert for bats and/or balls.” Every seat. Even all the way in the upper deck. This picture isn’t even from all the way at the top where we were sitting, yet still, really, really far. No bat was making it’s way up there.