The Yankees' new stadium is barely a week old and the observation/complaints keeping piling up. Here's the latest—but it may be too early to declare whether the Red Sox jersey should have been left under the new stadium.
Unofficial Yankee Stadium "mascot" Freddy Schuman—aka Freddy Sez who carries a tin pan to rally fans—has been having trouble making it into the new digs for free. The Post explains the one-eyed 84-year-old used to get season tickets from sponsors or "was simply let through the press gate with a wink from a Stadium official." While he made it through the press gate on Opening Day, Freddy had to beg fans for tickets for the rest of the Cleveland-Yankees series, "The Yankees say I am a part of the Stadium. What part am I, the toilet bowl? But the fans have come through. They gave me $40, and even $100 tickets. I feel guilty though." The Yankees claim the fan was shut out due to "miscommunication"; the uber-fan sniffed, "Frankly I don't know how some fans are going to afford these new prices."
Speaking of those expensive tickets, the TV coverage of the Yankees' home games showed many empty seats behind home plate (empty seats were also evident near Citi Field's home plate). WCBS 880 found "Through four games, average attendance at the new stadium is only 45,401 - compared to 54,045 for the first four games at the old stadium in 2008. The new park has been filled to only 82.9 percent capacity. The old park, through the first four games last year, was 95 percent full."
And getting back to the possible wind+stadium-design home run machine at Yankees Stadium, Yankees GM Brian Cashman said they conducted a wind study during construction, "There was nothing in the study that indicated the ball would be jumping to rightfield. There was a curiosity about leftfield or not, to be honest, over time, once the old stadium came down, whether that would have an effect or not on the balls carrying to left. But nothing to rightfield. There was no indication that this (stadium) would play any different than the other ballpark." Newsday adds, "Cashman, manager Joe Girardi and several players noted that the ball did not seem to carry to rightfield on Sunday as in the previous three games."
