Tuesday, April 21, 2009
"Money . . . it's a gas"
A damp night in the Bronx with scattered showers still in the forecast. Andy Pettitte is doing his typical balancing act of allowing base runners and then getting out of major trouble. Yanks are up 4-2 in the top of the 4th, and the A's have the tying runs at the corners with two outs.
Fly ball to left for the final out of the inning as the precipitation is picking up.
It's a sleepy Tuesday night to begin with, and this game in a dank Yankee Stadium is just adding to it.
More empty seats scattered throughout the "prime" seating areas tonight. I'm sure you know, but this topic has been getting plenty of attention, both in the mainstream media and the blog set. Neyer had a post on it today. Accompanying pic from Friday afternoon's game here.
Look at that picture. There is something obscene about the whole design of that section. The good patrons of these sections (and look, just because someone is "rich," whatever vague connotations that volatile word holds, doesn't make someone a bad person) are barricaded off from the rest of the fans as if they are at a totally different event. Maybe they're getting to call pitches, or are flashing signs to the baserunners. The effort to separate these people from the rest of the congregation strikes me as something ironic, if I could only pin down the exact irony . . . A railing's not enough; they actually had to build a concrete wall to quarantine this section off. The message is consistent now with these ballparks; and I'm saying this now about Yankee Stadium and Citi Field and the new Giants/Jets football stadium: the large majority of fans who have attended these sporting events for generations, and who made going to these events a central form of leisure in their lives, are being shuffled around, shushed down and being told they really don't matter. "Well . . . you kind of matter (wink, wink), but you don't really matter."
The upper deck is filled pretty well tonight, and I suspect for the majority of people braving 50 degree weather in rain gear it's important to be there. Going to a baseball game is a big deal, and an important thing. And for people with a really lot of money, who could be spending it on really good seats, it's just not as important.
Just one conclusion out of the many to be drawn from this unexpected socioeconomic experiment in the midst of the baseball season.
A damp night in the Bronx with scattered showers still in the forecast. Andy Pettitte is doing his typical balancing act of allowing base runners and then getting out of major trouble. Yanks are up 4-2 in the top of the 4th, and the A's have the tying runs at the corners with two outs.
Fly ball to left for the final out of the inning as the precipitation is picking up.
It's a sleepy Tuesday night to begin with, and this game in a dank Yankee Stadium is just adding to it.
More empty seats scattered throughout the "prime" seating areas tonight. I'm sure you know, but this topic has been getting plenty of attention, both in the mainstream media and the blog set. Neyer had a post on it today. Accompanying pic from Friday afternoon's game here.
Look at that picture. There is something obscene about the whole design of that section. The good patrons of these sections (and look, just because someone is "rich," whatever vague connotations that volatile word holds, doesn't make someone a bad person) are barricaded off from the rest of the fans as if they are at a totally different event. Maybe they're getting to call pitches, or are flashing signs to the baserunners. The effort to separate these people from the rest of the congregation strikes me as something ironic, if I could only pin down the exact irony . . . A railing's not enough; they actually had to build a concrete wall to quarantine this section off. The message is consistent now with these ballparks; and I'm saying this now about Yankee Stadium and Citi Field and the new Giants/Jets football stadium: the large majority of fans who have attended these sporting events for generations, and who made going to these events a central form of leisure in their lives, are being shuffled around, shushed down and being told they really don't matter. "Well . . . you kind of matter (wink, wink), but you don't really matter."
The upper deck is filled pretty well tonight, and I suspect for the majority of people braving 50 degree weather in rain gear it's important to be there. Going to a baseball game is a big deal, and an important thing. And for people with a really lot of money, who could be spending it on really good seats, it's just not as important.
Just one conclusion out of the many to be drawn from this unexpected socioeconomic experiment in the midst of the baseball season.
