ATTENDING A GAME AT YANKEE STADIUM

It was on Craigslist under the free section where I was looking for bubblewrap. The title of the ad read: Free Ticket to Yankees Game Tonight. I thought it might be a trick or some kind of spam to collect email addresses, because it's hard to understand why someone would give away a Yankee's ticket to a stranger. I took a chance and sent off an email. I got a quick reply with a name, Sol, and a phone number to call which happened to be a business in Brooklyn. We talked for a short while until I became comfortable that this wasn't a scam and he told me I could pick up the ticket at Yankee Stadium "will call." 

 It's not hard to get to Yankee stadium on the B-train, but it's a long trip. I had to leave right away.

I'd never been to a Yankees game, and to be candid, I figured the stadium was pretty much all I'd see. I'd sat in the high mezzanine section at a couple of Mets games and I could see so little.  It was like watching the game from the window of an airplane - that is, when I could see anything of the ball field since people were constantly getting up for snacks or whatever and blocking the view. [Again I will tout the Coney Island Cyclones games where every seat has a perfect view and the stadium is on the beach].

Anyway, this is how it worked out. I got the ticket and followed the number system around the stadium to find the gate number that was printed on my ticket. I walked down a ramp and I was stopped by an usher who looked at the ticket and showed me to the seat. I was six rows from the field, right behind the dugout. The players were right there. I had a very expensive field seat. And all around were loads of empty ones. A waitress came by and asked if I wanted to order anything - my hotdog was delivered to me. It was amazing.

I sat next to Sol, the man who gave me the ticket, and he explained that his usual baseball buddies were away, but they'd be coming back and he just thought it would be fun to give away such great tickets (he had 4 and only used his own). The other two seats were taken by teenagers that he knew.

The game wasn't terribly exciting - no stealing home, grand slams or fights - I don't remember much about it. I was too amazed at sitting close enough to hear the players talking and watch them warm up in the batter's circle. And it was nice to look around The Cathedral of Baseball. Although, I'm not sure why they had to build a new stadium - it has less seats than the old one and was designed to look the same. And it cost the New York taxpayers about a $1,000,000,000. 

Old Yankee Stadium

New Yankee Stadium

Seems to me the Yankees make enough money from the sales of their tickets and gear - besides the stadium shops and online, they've got five stores in Manhattan - to pay for their own stadium. But in New York, sports teams can make the front page of The Post or the Daily News and the Yankees have the best PR of any sports team in the country so maybe it was about tourism.

Anyway, that's the only Yankee's game I ever attended, and I don't see how I could top it. Field seats are not for sale generally. They are purchased year after year by the same people or businesses. I went back to watching baseball on TV which I prefer since you get to see the best plays in slow-motion instant-replay a few times.

But the evening ended on an up-note. Since he lived in Brooklyn, Sol gave me a ride home.

Tearing down Old Yankee Stadium

THE OLD STONE HOUSE – circa 1699

The Old Stone House was built in 1699 as a Dutch farmhouse by the Vechte family.  The original house burned down in 1897, but was rebuilt of the same stones.  The house is still standing (336 – 3^rd Street) and it’s worth a visit because one of the major battles of the Revolutionary War took place around it.

Control of The Old Stone House was a measure of who was winning that Revolutionary War battle.  256 men died in that battle and were buried in a mass grave at what is now the southwest corner of 3^rd Street and 7^th Avenue.  The gravesite actually stretched to 4^th Street, which is now a block of row houses turned into apartment houses where apartments rent for around $4,000 a month.  One has to wonder if the graves of hundreds of men who died bloody deaths and are buried underneath them, gives off some kind of eerie vibe in those homes.

The Old Stone House is now managed and maintained by the New York Parks Department and welcomes visitors.  They’ll tell you that it’s not only a memorial to the Revolutionary War (and there are lots of war memorials in New York City), it used to be a clubhouse for the Superbas baseball team.

The Superbas – later known as the Brooklyn Dodgers – played at Washington Baseball Park (long ago torn down) which was built between 4^th & 3^rd Avenues and 1^st and 3^rd Streets in Brooklyn – near the famous Gowanus Canal.  The Gowanus Canal is renowned for being so heavily polluted that at one point the EPA actually demanded it be cleaned up, which may have happened.  (It’s hard to tell).  The baseball park was built next to The Old Stone House and the players used it as their clubhouse and a place to store their gear.  The Superbas used to play the Boston Beaneaters, who eventually became the Boston Braves. 

The Dodgers got that name because when the Superbas started playing at Ebbets Field – near the intersection of Flatbush and Ocean/Malbone Avenues – people had to dodge the trolley cars.

Besides being a place of interesting historical value, The Old Stone House hosts events, parties, and weddings.  The King’s County Fiber Festival will be held at the Old Stone House in October.  Artists, dyers, knitters, crocheters, quilters, and weavers will be giving exhibitions and demonstrations.    

http://www.kingscountyfiberfestival.org

post by Alana Cash

BROOKLYN CYCLONES BASEBALL TEAM

In the city of baseball, I attended one game at Yankee stadium and several Mets games at Citi Park in Queens where I sat in the nosebleed seats trying to keep track of the game while people wandered back and forth getting their refreshments for most of the game.

And I found that, by far, the best place to watch baseball in New York City is at MCU Stadium in Coney Island, home of the Brooklyn Cyclones.

http://www.brooklyncyclones.com/splash/  

There isn’t a bad seat at MCU Stadium so you can clearly see all the action, and it’s right at the beach so you have the sea breeze with seagulls flying overhead.  Farther down the boardwalk, as it gets dark, the colored lights on the Wonder Wheel and Cyclone rollercoaster come on like a promise of more fun.  The stadium is family oriented with lots of games for the kids to win prizes and tickets are very affordable.    

The Cyclones are one of the New York Mets’ farm teams, and while player performance may be uneven on different days, these are still some of the best baseball players in the country [including major league players, there are about 6,000 pro baseball players in the US].  MCU Park is where major-league Mets players on the disabled list work their way back to Citi Field in Queens.  So there’s a possibility of seeing some legends up close [I saw a Mets player every time I went to a Cyclones game].

The pleasure here is in watching skilled players play the game.  There aren’t a lot of loud drunks carrying on and blocking your view.  There won’t be fights in the parking lot after the game either.  It’s just baseball.

Post by Alana Cash