New Yankee Stadium
Aug. 31st, 2009 08:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sdelmonteWas at the new ballpark yesterday, a Mets fans surrounded by Yankees fans (and maybe two White Sox fans - even if Pres. Obama loves them, they still aren't popular outside Chicago). As a place to watch a ballgame, it's very good. Good sightlines, good sound system, the same exact classic feel as the old Yankee Stadium. The barrage of graphics and noise was actually not as bad as it was at the old park, though I really wish they wouldn't use a sound clip of the annoying John Sterling's "THHHEEEEEEEE Yankees win!" (I cannot bear to listen to the Yanks not because I am not a fan but because he is all catchphrases and cliches.)
The park boasts lots of elevators, long overdue for a ballpark; a very cool little team museum with a collection of hundreds of baseball autographed by Yankees players from Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle down to guys even dedicated fans cannot recall; wide and airy corridors at all levels; and a strong but not overwhelming sense of Yankees history. (If only Citi Field had one tenth of this look back at the Mets' past, I'd be happy.)
That said, it was odd how much Yankee Stadium and Citi Field seemed alike, and not just because they serve the same function. You can tell that under the differing throwback designs, the parks were built by the same firm. Functional and comfortable, but not really that imaginative. I scoffed when I read a review by the architecture critic of The New Yorker that took both teams to task for not coming up with something really new. I thought, why does it need to be new? These are baseball stadiums, and aren't about innovation. But I think he had a point. There can be a way to salute the past without aping it.
For what it's worth, I think that Citi Field, with a slightly better selection of food, a miniature replica of the stadium for kids to play whiffleball in, and the soaring Jackie Robinson Rotunda as its main entry point, is just a bit better a place, even if new Yankee Stadium trumps it as a place that salutes baseball. But taken as a whole, both are not quite the sort of forward thinking edifices that you would think New York would demand.
Now if only someone can explain the Joba Rules to me.
The park boasts lots of elevators, long overdue for a ballpark; a very cool little team museum with a collection of hundreds of baseball autographed by Yankees players from Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle down to guys even dedicated fans cannot recall; wide and airy corridors at all levels; and a strong but not overwhelming sense of Yankees history. (If only Citi Field had one tenth of this look back at the Mets' past, I'd be happy.)
That said, it was odd how much Yankee Stadium and Citi Field seemed alike, and not just because they serve the same function. You can tell that under the differing throwback designs, the parks were built by the same firm. Functional and comfortable, but not really that imaginative. I scoffed when I read a review by the architecture critic of The New Yorker that took both teams to task for not coming up with something really new. I thought, why does it need to be new? These are baseball stadiums, and aren't about innovation. But I think he had a point. There can be a way to salute the past without aping it.
For what it's worth, I think that Citi Field, with a slightly better selection of food, a miniature replica of the stadium for kids to play whiffleball in, and the soaring Jackie Robinson Rotunda as its main entry point, is just a bit better a place, even if new Yankee Stadium trumps it as a place that salutes baseball. But taken as a whole, both are not quite the sort of forward thinking edifices that you would think New York would demand.
Now if only someone can explain the Joba Rules to me.
