Fri August 7
My three-week stadium tour across three countries and 11 stadiums ended tonight in the most memorable fashion, with Chloe and I attending a sell-out clash between traditional Major League Baseball rivals New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox at Yankee Stadium.
That we were able to obtain tickets at all – excellent second level seats looking over the first base umpire’s shoulder – is testament to the kindness of Ben Fuller and his colleagues at the Melbourne and New York offices of Ticketmaster. Thanks Ben!
Having toured the stadium two days earlier, it was ideal to then see it in event mode, which certainly provided some interesting insights.
After taking the subway from our hotel to the stadium, we successfully collected our tickets at the VIP Will Call office before approaching Gate 6 for the obligatory bag/body search that accompanies most New York venues (we had gone through airport-style security at the Statue of Liberty ferry entrance the previous day, which took forever).
On arrival at the gate, I was informed that my backpack was not allowed into the stadium. Not because it contained any prohibited items, but because it was apparently too big, which I found flabbergasting. My only option? Walk two blocks down the street and cloak it at Stan’s Bag World for US$7 and collect it afterwards.
Perhaps the owners of Stan’s also have shares in the stadium, because it seemed like a nice setup they had going, as dozens of people paid their money and left their belongings in the hands of strangers. Unfortunately it meant Fred the Ted spent the evening in a bag storage office across the road from Yankee Stadium rather than at the game!
After settling into our seats, it was time to consider our food options. Generally, it seems that the food at Yankee Stadium is more expensive than at the New York Mets’ Citi Field and not necessarily better.
A hamburger costs US$9, a double burger US$12, plastic bottle of beer US$9, bottle of soft drink US$5 and so on. I had a slice of cheese pizza (US$5) and an Italian sausage in a roll with onions and peppers (US$8) – as did Chloe - which wasn’t too bad. But it seemed there was no food court style area to sit down and eat, which was a feature of Citi Field.
Vendors sell beer in the seats at Yankee Stadium although, like elsewhere in the stadium and much of the USA, everyone has to provide identification to show they are over the legal drinking age of 21. This seems a little silly and does make for funny moments as patrons in the centre of a row of 20 seats passes his/her ID card along the line of people to the vendor, who then passes it back along the line, followed by the beer and change!
The vibe of the 48,262 crowd was certainly different to my visit to Citi Field. Perhaps it was because of a contest between two fierce rivals, but the Yankees crowd was more vocal than the Mets the other evening. A bit like the difference between a Richmond-Collingwood match compared to St Kilda v Hawthorn in terms of “feralness”.
The game itself will go down as one of the longest in Major League Baseball history (five hours 36 minutes) and tested our resolve as non-baseball aficionados. The match was dominated by the teams’ respective pitchers, with the score locked at 0-0 after normal time.
The match had started at 7.05pm and did not conclude until 12.41am when Yankees star Alex Rodriguez hit a walk-off, two-run homer to break the scoreless deadlock at the bottom of the 15th inning, with two out and two strikes. We were that close to deciding to leave so it was quite lucky that we hung around long enough to see the winning hit.
The whole night was a great experience and capped off what has been a memorable three weeks. All that is left is a spot of weekend shopping and taking in a Broadway show (Wicked) before commencing the long flight home.
I hope you have enjoyed these updates – see you all soon!
