Yankee Stadium is Dead. Long Live Yankee Stadium

Amidst much pomp and circumstance, the New York Yankees played their final game in Yankee Stadium last night. The old stadium, which opened in 1923, will be replaced by a new Yankee Stadium, being built next door with an estimated price tag of $1.3 billion.

As the season progressed, those who were charged with producing the final game spectacle were surely concerned with the potential schedule ambiguity that could arise from the vagaries of baseball's postseason. Depending upon what happens in a playoff series, a team could play its final home game of the year, and not know it at the time. Alternatively, a team could play its presumptive final home game, only to win a game or two on its opponent's home field, thereby prolonging the series, leading to another home game.

If you're an event planner preparing for such a grand extravaganza, it could really put a crimp in your plans.

Ah, but these are the New York Yankees. Exhibiting their trademark flair for the dramatic, the Yankees ensured that last night's game, their final regular season game of the 2008 season, would in fact be their final game at Yankee Stadium. When the playoffs begin in a couple of weeks, the Yankees will be on the outside looking in. This allowed for weeks of preparation for what turned out to be a memorable send-off for the old ballyard.

The team accomplished this by playing generally uninspired baseball from opening day onward. They didn't hit, didn't pitch, or play defense all that well. Sure, there were some significant injuries along the way, which certainly didn't help the cause. But, I can't help but feeling that even the presence of those players would have mattered much.

Typically, when you've got the type of team that only a payroll of $200 million + can afford, you expect that somebody would step up and have a decent year. Then again, this wasn't a typical year. This was the final year of Yankee Stadium, as we were all reminded, ad nauseum, throughout the season. 2008 was a year to be spent dwelling on past successes. No need to accomplish anything in the present, boys. Making a run at a 27th world title would only get in the way of the memories.

I've got two problems with the whole thing:

(1) The Yankees will miss the playoffs for the first time since 1993 (there were no playoffs in 1994, owing to the players' strike). This is all that matters. For a franchise that considers anything short of a World Series title to be a disappointment, missing the playoffs is a downright embarrasment. After such a disaster of a season, I'm really tired of hearing about this "final season in Yankee Stadium" thing. To me, the Stadium is clearly the #2 story here.

(2) Could someone please explain to me why, exactly, the Yankees need a new stadium in the first place? I know that the old stadium isn't the best-looking place around, but as far as I know, it remains structurally sound. Obviously, the absence of more luxury suites hasn't prevented the Yankees from winning over the years. Then again, this has never been about winning. It's about the team making more money.

Far be it from me to begrudge any man (or woman) the opportunity to make money. I'm all for free enterprise. If the Yankees are a big enough draw that they can convince corporations to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars per year for suites, more power to them. However, this new Yankee Stadium is not only being built with private money. The city is kicking in plenty of money of its own, whether in the form of direct subsidies, or in the costs of building the infrastructure needed to support the new stadium. Needless to say, with a massive budget deficit looming, New York City sure could use the money for other, more important things right about now.

Municipal leaders will always chant the familiar mantra. "The new stadium will create jobs. It will pay for itself many times over." These words have been stated in every city where a new arena or stadium has been built or proposed. New stadia are a great investment for any municipality, they'll tell us.

I don't believe it. Just once, I'd love to see someone's numbers. After all, if a city is so certain that a stadium will pay for itself, why not make your economic projections available to the public? Wouldn't that stop the dissenters right in their tracks?

While I think that would be a good idea, I won't hold my breath waiting for anyone to actually do this. If they did, we'd probably see the kinds of outlandish assumptions they needed to build into their models to make them work. Unless you also believe that, for example, a rust-belt city will suddenly go through a 10-year period of economic growth that would make China jealous. Or, that in the presence of a gleaming new stadium, the drug dealers, gang members and general urban decay that for decades have marked the neighborhoods in the stadium's immediate vicinity will suddenly disappear, to be replaced by high-end retail establishments, restaurants and hotels.

In the meantime, the Yankees will move into their new palace of a stadium. Lost among all the oohs and ahhs will be the fact that very few "regular people" will be able to afford to attend games (this has really been going on for the past several years, even in the old place). Eventually, someone will realize that the place has a really sterile feel about it, and the games have become more of a social event than anything else.

There will be as many gossip columnists as sportswriters in the press box.
The concession stands will sell stocks and bonds. (If you don't have enough money to buy a 20-ounce bottle of Coke for $5.00, you could always buy a share of AIG).

Me? I'm just going to stay stay home.

As for the Yankees, hopefully they'll soon return to the World Series...where they belong. Then, maybe, I'll watch the ceremony.