Yankee hater that I am, I’m glad I got to go to see a few games there, but really don’t see what’s so great about that stadium as it currently stands. Sure, its history gives it an aura similar to what I wrote about Tiger Stadium above, even surpassing it, but that aura is tough to see through the haze of captivity. The Yankees, frankly, are Microsoft, and are now being run by a cretin who had the temerity to suggest that the National League was destroying the game by not adopting the DH.

I recently went to see the Newark Bears, of the Independent League, play a Friday night game at their nice little ballpark. An interesting experience; looking at the rosters, most of the guys in this league are veritable Moonlight Grahams, having had a cup of coffee in the big leagues, and, for some reason, not stuck. The game was played at a high level, and the stadium was about half-full. Between each half-inning, a guy went into the crowd with a mic to quiz fans with Jersey trivia, led potato-sack races on the field and other novelty games, and hurled repeated insults at the Governor. It was annoying — though no where near as bad as what we see in the majors — and reflective of the point Ryan is making above that it’s just nearly impossible for baseball front offices to let fans sit in peace and take in the beauty of the park.

I’ll note here, also… the Tigers are climbing up the AL Central.

And, here’s more on the death of Tiger Stadium from my favorite blogfather.

I wonder what the new Yankee stadium will be like, because while so much of what you talk about was always in evidence at the greatest stadium in the world, I would be interested in seeing how the design of the new park changes the dynamic of seeing and reading the game.

Oddly enough, I discovered this post right after watching the first two episodes of Season 3 of The Wire, the first one shows Camden Yard and Jimmy’s wife with a lawyer dude with expensive seats behind home plate –how does class work into this new ballpark with all the special seating arrangements and corporate boxes? While watching it I really wanted to go to a game, but as I read this I tend to agree that sometimes watching it on the TV is far less annoying. The public spaces have become truly assaulting, and the idea of a ballgame that doesn’t cost one a couple of hundred dollars for a family, no less the endless intake of corporate messages, is, indeed, depressing. The public has surrendered any sense of dignity in its shared public experiences, so much so that we even go through those moments alone (echoing Ryan’s point here). We can’t help but sell everything, and the idea of design, advertising real estate, and the decline of all that is holy in America’s favorite pastime is yet another foreboding sign that we, to quote Jay-Z’s Lucifer, “gotta get our soul right!”

Although you’re careful in this post to acknowledge that, in the old Tiger Stadium, “there were hawkers and ads and plenty of consumption,” I think it’s worthwhile to point out that the ties between baseball and advertising run so deep that they might well be inseparable. Here are a few links to check out:

AMNH: “Enterprise and Opportunity”
BERA: “The Business of Basball”
ESPN: “The tangled Web of Sports and Advertising”

Now, I’m not arguing with your contention that recent changes in technology (and new stadiums) have intensified the advertising “pitch” at the ballpark. But I would say that the purity of which you speak was only made possible by an earlier form of information filtering that was much stronger than you remember it to be.

Anyone else hungry for a Reggie bar?