"Because no one will ever care whether anyone hits a home run out of the 'new Yankee Stadium'"

October 30, 2009 11:56 PM

Why Yankee Stadium sucks: "Its design is profoundly un-American. Baseball has traditionally played a unifying role. The ballpark is where people of different classes and races and religions actually mingled. The box seats, where the swells sat, weren't physically separated from the proles. The new stadium is like an architectural system of class apartheid."
posted by bardic (89 comments total)

Damn, sounds like the new stadium is a real slap in the face of New York City (that is, all but those who one author calls "the I-bankers"), and would appear to be a perfect manifestation of the intensifying class distinctions in NYC and in the US as a whole.

Some good writing here. Thanks bardic.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 12:22 AM on October 31

The new stadium is like an architectural system of class apartheid.

Every time I think easily-outraged people have exhausted their capacity for weird hyperbole, they prove me wrong.
posted by ripley_ at 12:23 AM on October 31 [8 favorites]

This is great, thanks. I don't really give a toss about baseball, but I do love inflamed, animated and amusing criticism of architecture!
posted by Flashman at 12:24 AM on October 31 [2 favorites]

Let's hope none of these folks ever leave NY and end up in that new Cowboys stadium!
posted by boubelium at 12:26 AM on October 31

...easily-outraged people...

Taxpayer money funded it. Public land was reclaimed/used for it. People have a right to be outraged.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 12:29 AM on October 31 [20 favorites]

added to the list of things that are broken in our system is how private sports franchises acquire public monies to build expensive buildings that the public has to pay to get into.
posted by edgeways at 12:29 AM on October 31 [29 favorites]

they kinda had to stretch to find stuff to bitch about for camden yards (being a baltimore fan, i had to check the archives)
posted by empath at 12:33 AM on October 31

See also.
posted by milquetoast at 12:40 AM on October 31 [1 favorite]

Pfft. Get back to me when this country takes ADA compliance seriously, and then I'll worry about class segregated architecture.
posted by spaceman_spiff at 1:49 AM on October 31 [3 favorites]

I have no love for George Steinbrenner; I blame him much more than Michael Bloomberg.
posted by christhelongtimelurker at 1:50 AM on October 31

Martin Pedersen, quoted in link: Its design is profoundly un-American. Baseball has traditionally played a unifying role. The ballpark is where people of different classes and races and religions actually mingled. The box seats, where the swells sat, weren't physically separated from the proles. The new stadium is like an architectural system of class apartheid.

... just like the old one.

*ducks*
posted by koeselitz at 1:53 AM on October 31

It is hard not to hate the current Yankees. It is even harder not to hate the fact that Monument Park was transplanted into a new place. I see this as the equivalent of pissing on an Indian burial ground and the final straw in Baseball's losing its claim as America's favorite pastime.

Phillies in 6.
posted by clearly at 3:06 AM on October 31 [1 favorite]

Phillies in 6.

... and a sucky stadium as well
posted by nangua at 3:30 AM on October 31

Wonderful dudgeon! And well-deserved. This was the City government that perpetrated this outrage. With taxpayers money! Here's my advice to other cities about to be marred by similar projects: Don't let them start pouring the concrete. It all starts with the concrete pourers. They are the opening act in these circuses of corruption (such as that from which the Olympic Committee recently saved the city of Chicago). The luxury boxes and restaurants are a distraction from the real beneficiaries of these tax-financed money pits, who are the concrete companies. How much federal stimulus money is going to concrete? Who are these people who are covering the world? Nobody looks too closely into the concrete companies, because no one wants to end up in the pylon of a freeway overpass.
posted by Faze at 4:40 AM on October 31 [4 favorites]

Is the place not a perfectly American snapshot of the "corporatism" of America in the early 21st century -- the belief corporation were infallible, the way governments helped them out even while they insisted that they needed free markets, etc? It's almost fitting the stadium got cracks in it.
posted by skepticallypleased at 4:43 AM on October 31

Don't let them start pouring the concrete. It all starts with the concrete pourers. They are the opening act in these circuses of corruption...

Well, they pretty much always dig a big hole before the concrete trucks show up. In this particular case, the park was destroyed by that point.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:46 AM on October 31

I went, grudgingly, to a game at Yankee Stadium this year. We sat in the bleachers. You can't understand just how obstructed the view is until you sit there--nearly half the field is out-of-view for many seats. Seriously, it's shameful.
posted by uncleozzy at 5:40 AM on October 31

It would have been so much better had they not dug out that sox jersey the worker embedded into the concrete.
posted by djduckie at 5:52 AM on October 31 [2 favorites]

To a degree greater than I expected, the reasons cited why New Yankee Stadium sucks is that it contains Yankees fans - which, however you feel about them, could only have been expected.
posted by Joe Beese at 5:53 AM on October 31 [3 favorites]

I think it was Kurt Vonnegut who wrote that rooting for the Yankees was like rooting for General Electric.
posted by meadowlark lime at 6:14 AM on October 31 [10 favorites]

What is wrong with that "Father of the year" pic under the link? It's uncool for dada to take thier daughters to a ballgame, or what? Wrong seats?
posted by dabitch at 6:22 AM on October 31

Went there this August. Already expounded on the experience, but I'll simply say that it felt hollow and fake. Once I stood at the high water mark at Gettysburg and it felt as if I stood at the crosswinds of history. It felt the opposite of that at the New Yankee Stadium.
posted by Atreides at 6:31 AM on October 31 [4 favorites]

Taxpayer money funded it. Public land was reclaimed/used for it....

And in at least two cases I know of (myself and one other friend), some of those tax payers are RED SOX FANS.

People have a right to be outraged.

Damn STRAIGHT.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:40 AM on October 31 [2 favorites]

dabitch, take a look at the paragraph or two above that picture:

"A foul ball came towards us and my klutzy brother, who was sitting on the aisle, got up, turned around to try and catch it, and tripped over the step, falling into the person sitting across from him us in section 112. This man [father of the year], who was at the game with his wife and three daughters (who looked to be about ages 5-10), violently shoved my brother back and threatened that if he touched him again, he would punch my brother in the face. My brother is fifteen years old."
posted by Infinite Jest at 6:44 AM on October 31

What is wrong with that "Father of the year" pic under the link? It's uncool for dada to take thier daughters to a ballgame, or what? Wrong seats?
posted by dabitch at 9:22 AM on October 31 [+] [!]

Well, oddly enough, if you read the text above the photo you will learn that this fellow behaved like a boor in front of his children. OMG SEXISM!

I do <3 a good screed about bombastic, classist architecture. Bitchin'.
posted by GodricVT at 6:46 AM on October 31

*sigh* Sorry- slow typing. Didn't mean to pile on.
posted by GodricVT at 6:50 AM on October 31

I'm sorry, I read articles like this and giggle at the idea that the Yankees are some exception to an otherwise solemn and respectful concept in the form of "professional sports." The only thing that makes the Yankees so noticeable is how blatant they are in financial excesses. Holy shit, a sports team that pays nine figures to a few dozen people to play baseball charges shit tons of money for tickets and bleeds taxpayers dry in backroom deals for land rights? Did you just only now take a bite of a seven-dollar hot dog and realize this?
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 7:09 AM on October 31 [3 favorites]

When I moved to Boston, I was overwhelmed by everyone's obsession with baseball. College football is the game where I'm from, and in any case I come from several generations of poindexters and none of us cared much about the sports, so I had a lot to learn. Although I still don't understand a whole lot, I quickly grasped the easiest and most important thing about it: hating the Yankees.
posted by Countess Elena at 7:14 AM on October 31 [5 favorites]

Yea, Fenway Park is nice, isn't it.
posted by R. Mutt at 7:27 AM on October 31 [1 favorite]

2009 MLB Payrolls
posted by gimonca at 7:27 AM on October 31

Did you just only now take a bite of a seven-dollar hot dog and realize this?

All sorts of information in this world comes to different people at different times. As for myself, I have little interest in baseball, so I didn't really know about any of this new Yankee Stadium stuff, particularly. I never attended a big-league baseball game and I certainly never took a bite of a seven-dollar hot dog. But I found these essays interesting and entertaining and enlightening. People post things to Metafilter that wouldn't have blipped on my radar otherwise, and I'm thankful for that. If you already knew all about what the authors of these essays had to say, and didn't need to read them, well, hey, good for you. As for myself, I'm glad bardic made this post.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:34 AM on October 31 [6 favorites]

i've been to the new yankees stadium 3 times this year, and generally, it is much nicer than the old one. sure its got problems and quirks, but every stadium does. i'm sure you can make an article like this for every new venue ever built to replace an old one (except shea).
posted by Mach5 at 7:36 AM on October 31 [1 favorite]

As far as I see it, the US (within the small group of Western, post-industrialist countries) has one of the biggest gaps between the have-a-lot, the haves and the have-nots. In that sense, being outraged over the new Yankee Stadium is more a symptom of not waking up to the facts of how the American society has changed.

To add to that, for some reason, the vitriol hurled at any perceived tendency of "socialism", "leftism" or any other, you know, projects undertaken with equality in mind, is staggering. Though the persecution is a lot subtler than back in the day, McCarthy would be proud.

The US is no longer about equality. It stopped being about liberty after 9/11, though the illusion lives on. The huddled masses yearning to be free better get the hell out of the Predator Drone's way.
posted by flippant at 7:39 AM on October 31 [2 favorites]

note to $7 hot dog whiners: you can bring in your own food into new yankees stadium
posted by Mach5 at 7:40 AM on October 31

(except shea)

Pretty much the nicest thing you could say about Shea was that sometimes the flooding in the men's rooms was only half an inch deep.
posted by uncleozzy at 7:41 AM on October 31 [1 favorite]

i do have to admit though, i got hooked up with box seats (thanks sun! solaris still sucks!), and it is one of the most luxurious experiences i have ever had. at no time do you interface with the plebes who have to sit out in the elements. you enter through a separate gate, and get your ticket scanned by a staff of gorgeous women. You then take a private elevator to the box seat level, and walk down a tastefully lit hallway full of photos of all the old yankees. at one point you can see the regular folk out in the stadium concourses through tinted glass. the box i was in had a private bathroom, 4 LCD TV's, a yankees branded hot-dog roller, a sink, microwave, stove, and a few couches and stools. the seats outside the box are padded and the floor is carpeted, and you can tailor the amount of heat or AC those seats get. let me say that again, you can heat or air condition THE OUTSIDE. there was also free beer and some of the best wings i've had. here's the view. it was a disconnected but enjoyable experience.
posted by Mach5 at 8:05 AM on October 31 [3 favorites]

Pretty much the nicest thing you could say about Shea was...

that those four talented young lads from Liverpool played a few songs there years back?
posted by flapjax at midnite at 8:07 AM on October 31 [2 favorites]

I can only hope the new Giants Stadium, built largely so they could add more luxury boxes, doesn't give us the same treatment. Still open to the elements the way a football stadium should be and I've been hearing good things, but I have my reservations.

At least my seats seem to be in roughly the same place.
posted by JaredSeth at 8:16 AM on October 31

By contrast, the new San Francisco ballpark has turned out pretty well. I'm not a baseball fan, but I've been to a couple of games and it's beautiful. A fine way to spend a few hours drinking beer and hanging out with friends. And the park has really succeeded in anchoring a new urban development. It made Mission Bay be a place, not just a bunch of overpriced lofts and new box construction.

I think it's appalling how a private anti-trust exempt corporate syndicate gets public money to fund their for-profit activities. Extra bonus of the SF park: privately funded. Too bad the Yankees are so broke and in a city so impoverished for private businesses that they couldn't afford to build their own park.
posted by Nelson at 8:17 AM on October 31 [3 favorites]

I always thought Yankee stadium sucks because that's where the Yankees play.
posted by HumanComplex at 8:29 AM on October 31 [15 favorites]

Good criticisms, but I dunno about "un-American". Do you really swallow that line about America being a classless society? The same criticism could be made of the Yankees as a team. They are all about heroes. Idols. Home run hitters. And as if in some Disney movie we must witness Madonna or Kate Hudson fawning over A-Rod as he wields his bat. Compare this to the co-operative team play by Japan and Korea that dominated the recent World Baseball Classic.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 8:34 AM on October 31

Its design is profoundly un-American

Its design is very un-New York. In New York, the rich intermingle with the poor all the time.

Most of (North) America isn't like that. (North) America isn't particularly well-designed either. The stadium is profoundly (North) American in design. What's a stadium, after all, if not an overinflated cul-de-sac?

It sucks that a huge segment of the population is shut out of Yankee Stadium, but it could at least be argued that the Yankees are worth the price of admission. Here in Toronto, going to an NHL hockey game is similarly exorbitant, and that's to see the shitty fucking Maple Leafs lose again, goddammit.

Now, that said, if tickets are so expensive that the stands are empty, lowering the ticket price couldn't hurt.
posted by Sys Rq at 8:36 AM on October 31 [1 favorite]

The article references Yankee Stadium as the number two terrorism target. Surely this is the final proof that the terrorists have replaced the Soviets.

I heard that the number two terrorism target was the Mall of America, about three miles south of my house.
posted by norm at 8:40 AM on October 31 [2 favorites]

I think it is insulting to label Red Sox fans as terrorists.
posted by geoff. at 8:55 AM on October 31 [1 favorite]

Pretty much the nicest thing you could say about Shea was...

that those four talented young lads from Liverpool played a few songs there years back?

I thought they played at Che Stadium.
posted by Herodios at 9:15 AM on October 31 [1 favorite]

That's true. They're far too drunk and noisy to pull off anything sneaky like a terrorist would.
posted by middleclasstool at 9:17 AM on October 31

You can buy a $25 ticket, bring on your own food and drink and stand behind home plate for the entire game at the New Yankee Stadium.

The blogger "forgot" to mention that. But that's probably why he writes for something called "Deadspin" and not for a legitimate media outlet.
posted by Zambrano at 9:30 AM on October 31 [1 favorite]

I'm sure you can make an article like this for every new venue ever built to replace an old one (except shea).

Off the top of my head: Baltimore, Houston, Seattle, San Diego, and Brooklyn have all been blessed with new stadiums that are vastly superior and "more baseball" than the ones they replaced. One could also make arguments for South Chicago and Detroit, though those are less clear improvements. These went in the right direction: the article is about how NYY went in the wrong one. It's not just the fan-hostile design, it's the myopia: empty "luxury" seats right in the camera's eye all year long is an embarrassment that I can't believe they didn't see coming.

Minnesota and (fingers crossed) Tampa might be on the right track, too, though improving upon those two disasters shouldn't be difficult.

Overall, ballparks are getting better. Yankee Stadium III is an outlier.
posted by rokusan at 9:54 AM on October 31 [1 favorite]

Zambrano, you should read more Deadspin. It's better than many "major media outlets", in that the writers tend to have a clue about, like, baseball.
posted by rokusan at 9:55 AM on October 31 [1 favorite]

> I always thought Yankee stadium sucks because that's where the Yankees play.

I came here to say that, so since it's been said, I'll just stick to: Go Phils!
posted by languagehat at 10:07 AM on October 31 [4 favorites]

Hm. Yankees are pompous, Phillies are rude... a tough pick for us humble, mannered folk.

So I'll just raise a polite huzzah for seven good games. Two for two so far.
posted by rokusan at 10:32 AM on October 31

Yankee stadium was approximately half-funded by taxpayers. By contrast, Nationals Park in Washington, DC was built entirely with public funds, with no contributions from the team owners.

In addition, the original Yankees stadium was built in 1923, lasting 85 years before being replaced. The Pittsburgh Pirates are on their 3rd stadium since 1915 (the 2nd stadium only lasting 30 years). Cincinatti, likewise, is on its 3rd stadium.

I think the Yankees got a lot of mileage out of their original stadium, and other cities have gotten fleeced a lot worse when it comes to taxpayer funds, though I'm against these sorts of taxpayer-funded boondoggles on principle.

Also: suck it, Yankees haters. No one is ever going to make a movie entitled Pride of the Mariners.
posted by deanc at 10:34 AM on October 31 [2 favorites]

I went, grudgingly, to a game at Yankee Stadium this year. We sat in the bleachers. You can't understand just how obstructed the view is until you sit there

... again, just like the old one. OBS VU!

Yea, Fenway Park is nice, isn't it

Not really. OBS VU!

Its design is very un-New York. In New York, the rich intermingle with the poor all the time.

Perhaps (if you count riders and taxi drivers and bodegas, etc.), but it's very clear (at least in Manhattan) who makes all the rules and who all the rules benefit. I'd say the design is the epitome of today's Manhattan.

By contrast, the new San Francisco ballpark has turned out pretty well.

Agreed. Three cheers for Pac Bell, er, SBC, er, AT&T (?) Park!

It's simply unconscionable for a city, with children attending classes in janitor's closets, to spend money on for-profit sports franchises.

Cannot be stressed enough, unless, of course, the city get a good ROI that goes to necessary social services .. does it? What did the city get for its investment? Anything more than sales taxes?
posted by mrgrimm at 10:41 AM on October 31 [2 favorites]

and I hate the Yankees and Phillies as well, so I'll just say: Go Cliff Lee! Make Arkansas proud.
posted by mrgrimm at 10:42 AM on October 31

I thought they played at Che Stadium.

Which was named after the famous Cuban revolutionary....Che Stadium.
posted by gimonca at 10:57 AM on October 31 [3 favorites]

I was just there a few weeks ago for the first time. Yanks in xtrys. It felt like watching a game at the mall. Thats distinctly American. If hadn't been for the drunken morons sitting two rows behind me yelling "Ordonez sucks" repetitively for 7 fucking innings, I would have been annoyed at the loud music between batters.
posted by sfts2 at 11:13 AM on October 31

gimonca: Which was named after the famous Cuban revolutionary....Che Stadium.

Argentine, Mr. Basil G. Exposition, but yeah.

BTW, if you search for "che stadium" in wikuhpedia, it redirects to the article on Shea Stadium.

If you search for, say, "shae stadium", "she stadium", or "sha stadium" you get the reg'lar ol' "Did you mean: shea stadium?" page.

Means something, but I'm not sure what.
posted by Herodios at 11:15 AM on October 31

Oh, I love the writing in this post. I have hated the corporate, spoiled Yankees forever, but feel warmly toward Yankees fans, who are truly knowledgeable and passionate about the wonderful sport of baseball. When I lived in NYC we loved hopping the subway to go to games at the old park, where we soaked up the comments of the fans around us. They knew their history, understood the strategy of the game, and had wit to spare. They are the Mefis of baseball!

Off the top of my head: Baltimore, Houston, Seattle, San Diego, and Brooklyn have all been blessed with new stadiums that are vastly superior and "more baseball" than the ones they replaced.

And yes, Seattle has a fantastic new stadium. What a place to see a game, rubbing shoulders with everyone, whether or not the Mariners ever get to the playoffs. Meanwhile, we root for our ex players, like the classy Raul Ibanez, who are playing for the Phillies. Go Phillies!
posted by bearwife at 11:37 AM on October 31

Well, from my perspective, as someone who very rarely goes to sporting events, I've haven't gotten a decent seat at any venue in the past 15 years. The same can be said about music concerts. It seems you have to pay a fortune these days or be "hooked up" to come away with a memorable time. So 10, 20, 30 years down the road, none of the great traditions in my family will include sporting events or concerts and that influence will probably carry down to future generations.
posted by crapmatic at 12:41 PM on October 31

Well, from my perspective, as someone who very rarely goes to sporting events, I've haven't gotten a decent seat at any venue in the past 15 years.

Sidewalk scalpers, 10 mins before start time, can get pretty desperate to sell tickets.

I usually get the sort of high first-level first-base side seats I like for $30ish. (A bit more at BOS and NYY, a bit less at CHC and LAA.)
posted by rokusan at 12:45 PM on October 31 [1 favorite]

Ahaha, the descriptions of Kauffman here in Kansas City are pretty dead-on. This is the year they replaced a pleasant green and $5 ticket sections with standing-room 'seats' and a Benjamin-shredding restaurant, relegating the Hy-Vee General Admission to the binocular decks and getting rid of local barbecue for some trucked-in Sysco shit. They also moved the smoking area from the rear of the upper deck to a little ghetto out by the entrance.

It's hard to get mad that you can't adequately see a Royals game, though.
posted by maus at 1:01 PM on October 31 [2 favorites]

In other great "Yankees suck" news: A-Rod has paintings of himself as a centaur in his bedroom.
posted by MegoSteve at 1:17 PM on October 31 [5 favorites]

Buck 65: "Centaur"
posted by Sys Rq at 1:27 PM on October 31

Blah blah blah Yankee hate.

When your team has anywhere near 26 championships, come see me.
posted by mr_crash_davis mark II: Jazz Odyssey at 2:27 PM on October 31

"Also: suck it, Yankees haters. No one is ever going to make a movie entitled Pride of the Mariners."

Heh. Yeah, this.
posted by mr_crash_davis mark II: Jazz Odyssey at 2:30 PM on October 31

The Yankees have not won a World Series since 2000. What's noteworthy about that is that they've spent over a billion and a half dollars in the intervening years trying to buy themselves another title. Cost a lot of money and doesn't deliver, just like the new stadium.
posted by azpenguin at 3:14 PM on October 31 [3 favorites]

azpenguin: all owners are flush with cash and can spend like the yankees, its just that the steinbrenners reinvest the money back into the team. i'm sorry your team sucks.
posted by Mach5 at 3:53 PM on October 31 [1 favorite]

"When your team has anywhere near 26 championships, come see me."
Heh - when your team has a payroll of less than a fifth of a billion dollars come see me ;)
Extra-extra SF Giants bonus "Four field-level, free standing-room only gaps in the right field wall along the Portwalk at AT&T Field offer fans an opportunity to drop in on a game in the tradition of the old Knothole Gang."
posted by vapidave at 4:25 PM on October 31

"Heh - when your team has a payroll of less than a fifth of a billion dollars come see me ;)
Extra-extra SF Giants bonus..."

Take a shot at the Yankees and pipe up with a team that paid Barry Bonds?

Yeah, I'm swayed.
posted by mr_crash_davis mark II: Jazz Odyssey at 5:35 PM on October 31 [1 favorite]

Hey, those steroids don't buy themselves. Particularly the high grade clear stuff.
posted by Nelson at 5:53 PM on October 31

You're just mad because Bonds got more out of his steroids than Giambi did.
YES, it stopped raining.
posted by vapidave at 6:00 PM on October 31

Rather relevant, this today from Tom Ricketts, new owner of the Cubs and Wrigley Field:

Premium seating, if we can build in amenities that support higher ticket prices at certain places in the stadium over time, then we'll charge more. But I think that's just a matter of increasing the value of what you're getting. You can't charge someone $2,200 for a seat and then have them wait in line for an inning to go in a trough.
posted by dhartung at 6:01 PM on October 31

: azpenguin: all owners are flush with cash and can spend like the yankees, its just that the steinbrenners reinvest the money back into the team. i'm sorry your team sucks.

Riiiiiight.

I can see that criticism when Boston fans complain about the Yankees having too much money; the Sox have almost as much, and yet nobody in New England seems to notice. But are you really saying that anybody in the MLB could afford the Yankees' payroll? That seems a little, well, unrealistic.

The most glorious World Series of my memory is still 2003, when those fresh young kids from Florida knocked the mighty Yankees off their pedestal. And to think that half of those players were guys I watched during their farm-team years on the Albuquerque Isotopes back in New Mexico.
posted by koeselitz at 6:02 PM on October 31 [1 favorite]

Can I just say that as a Mets fan, watching the current World Series is like watching Hitler play Stalin?
posted by jonmc at 6:08 PM on October 31 [4 favorites]

As a Mets fan, you can say pretty much anything you like, but no one's going to listen.
posted by mr_crash_davis mark II: Jazz Odyssey at 6:12 PM on October 31 [2 favorites]

I'll listen. It'll cost you about $50 an hour.
posted by Atreides at 6:44 PM on October 31

beers at the yanks new stadium: $9.
beers at the mets new stadium: $6.

the boxes are too expensive, so the brews are regressive. shame that.
posted by archibald barisol at 7:36 PM on October 31

Colin: Hello, Ray.
Ray:Morning, Colin, and before you say another word, of course I've noticed all the football stuff.
Colin: Oh, right, yeah, of course. You're a Spurs fan, aren't you...
Ray: Well, my family are. I'm not really into football, as I said last time, you suddenly-discovered-you-were-a-massive-Liverpool-fan twenty seconds after they won the European cup.
Colin: Spurs, eh? Well, I'm gonna let you off after what we did to you last week.
Ray: I'm sorry?
Colin: I said I'll forget that you're a Spurs fan after what we did to you.
Ray: What - what you did to me? You didn't do anything to me!
Colin: We're a man down, you fluked a penalty, but we walloped you with two in extra time. That ninety-second minute, mate? Oh, you had it coming.
Ray: Perhaps you've mistaken me for a professional goalkeeper or something, but I wasn't actually on the pitch, you know.
Colin: We're gonna trample you in the league.
Ray: We? We? You weren't on the pitch either! As far as I know, you were in the back bar of the Red Lion watching the game on the television with your mother.
Colin: (God, she can drink these days.) I'm telling you, Ray, the way we're playing, we're gonna be unstoppable this season.
Ray: For god's sake shut up!
Colin: Twelve points ahead, with a game in hand? You don't stand a chance. We've got it in us to go all the way!
Ray: Can I ask you a question, Colin? Do you remember when we were chasing the Germans, and we were punched through the windscreen, but then we fell under that lorry but climbed back onto it and beat the driver up?
Colin: What?
Ray: When we were chasing the Nazis. They'd stolen the Ark of the Covenant, and we were trying to get it back.
Colin: You've lost me.
Ray: In Raiders Of The Lost Ark. It's a film I like, so I've decided that myself, and anyone else who likes it, was actually in it, taking part. Do you like Raiders Of The Lost Ark?
Colin: Not particularly.
Ray: Oh! You were not one of us. Right, well, at the end, we're tied to a stake stuck in the ground, and you lot open up the Ark of the Covenant, and the wrath of God melts your face.
Colin: No. You can't do that.
Ray: Yes, I can. I really like that film, so I'm in it.
Colin: That's... not the same.
Ray: It's exactly the same! I've as much claim to be personally involved in Raiders Of The Lost Ark as you've got to be in whatever it was your football team did last week.
Colin: You... don't understand football.
Ray: Well, I'll admit, I don't quite follow how you, a man who lives over two hundred miles away from the home ground of your chosen team can claim some deep attachment to a bunch of overpaid hired hands from all four corners of the globe who temporarily wear the same colored shirt as you're currently wearing. But then... maybe I'm a bit slow. It must be brain damage from all that boxing I did in Raging Bull.

— That Mitchell And Webb Look, Season 2, Episode 6

posted by koeselitz at 7:58 PM on October 31 [5 favorites]

Also: suck it, Yankees haters. No one is ever going to make a movie entitled Pride of the Mariners.

Whatthefuckever. Casting's already underway for the Ichiro biopic.
posted by xmutex at 9:11 PM on October 31 [2 favorites]

> When your team has anywhere near 26 championships, come see me.

Come with me to the year 2209, when many other teams have exceeded what now seems as pathetic an ancient record as the Babe's 29 homers from 1919. Meanwhile, the Yankees (a perennial doormat) have not won a Series in over two hundred years. Their remaining fans, oddly, try to maintain a lordly attitude, claiming that all other teams are parvenus and their fans Johnny-come-latelies simply chasing victories. "What do victories matter? We have pinstripes!"

And George Steinbrenner is still running the team from his cryogenic locker, getting advice on firing managers from Walt Disney.
posted by languagehat at 6:06 AM on November 1 [2 favorites]

Say what you will about obscenely overpaid athletes, Mike Illitch, the city of Detroit, the financial woes many Michiganders have had, sports teams that can't quite seal the deal or yet another simplistic article about Detroit, but at any rate, SI wrote about all of this in a Comerica Park piece recently:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/lee_jenkins/09/22/hope.in.detroit/index.html
Don't follow baseball that closely right now, but the only time I ever rooted for the Yankees was the 2001 World Series. (And I probably would've anyway because I always root for North over South or West.)
posted by NorthernLite at 7:51 AM on November 1 [1 favorite]

DUH!
The only reason it was built was because the old one didn't have enough slick corporate boxes.
posted by HTuttle at 11:17 AM on November 1

koeselitz : I don't quite follow how you, a man who lives over two hundred miles away from the home ground of your chosen team can claim some deep attachment to a bunch of overpaid hired hands from all four corners of the globe who temporarily wear the same colored shirt as you're currently wearing. . . .

That was brilliant. BAFTA-award winning, y'say? Thanks, Koeselitz.
posted by Herodios at 1:26 PM on November 1

The original Yankee Stadium was in fact demolished after the 1973 season. The Yankees played for two seasons at Shea Stadium while Yankee Stadium II was constructed. Opening in 1976, Yankees Stadium II was a sad imitation of the building it replaced built in the 70's concrete doughnut style and was funded largely by the City. In the 1980's most New Yorkers admitted that the Mets had the better stadium of the two New York teams (an opinion flavored by the fact the Mets were packing in Shea year after year in exciting pennant races, but it still tells you something about what people thought about Yankee Stadium II unclouded by Yankees' victories). In the 1990's when the Yankees were PED-ing there way to 4 championships, the Yankees PR myth-makers erased the fact that Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle never played at Yankee Stadium II and suddenly the 70's-era pisshole was widely accepted as a cathedral of baseball. The Steinbrenners and their wealthy friends didn't accept their own PR lies though so they masterfully conned the City into building Yankee Stadium III as their playground while somehow preserving the myth that the 32-year-old building they were leaving behind was the House that Ruth Built.
posted by Rarebit Fiend at 5:12 PM on November 1

Herodios: That was brilliant. BAFTA-award winning, y'say? Thanks, Koeselitz.

'Tis a fantastically hilarious show, Mitchell And Webb is. And if you like it, you should check out Peep Show, their sitcom, many episodes of which appear to be on Youtube.
posted by koeselitz at 10:34 PM on November 1

Also: FOOTBALL! FOOTBALL! FOOTBALL!
posted by koeselitz at 10:43 PM on November 1 [2 favorites]

Did you see the headline on the front page of the Guardian website yesterday?:
City 0
City 0

(It reminded me of that sketch. It was Man City v Stoke, I think)
posted by Flashman at 6:21 AM on November 2 [1 favorite]

I'm not a sports fan in the least, but I found the recent ESPN Seats of Gold article about this to be pretty fascinating and depressing.
posted by Caviar at 1:32 PM on November 5

Also, Sidewalk scalpers, 10 mins before start time, can get pretty desperate to sell tickets is no way to plan memorable events with your kids.
posted by Caviar at 1:34 PM on November 5