At age 98, Bob Sheppard announces his retirement

Whether or not you hate the Yankees, you have to appreciate the iconic Bob Sheppard, who has been the team's PA announcer since 1951. Now, at age 98, he's retiring. Yankee games will never be the same. (Via Gothamist)

Looking at the Audi Yankees Club

Received the New York Yankees Ticket Information & Fan Guide 2009 yesterday in the mail. (And why me?) It's a slick, 82-page booklet that probably cost the combined salaries of Brett Gardner and Melky Cabrera to produce.

I'm sure it's full of amusing reading. But I haven't still haven't gotten past the first page I opened to -- Page 35, which discusses the team's new Membership Clubs, Audi Yankees Club and the Mohegan Sun Sports Bar.



I particularly like the half-assed Edward Hopper attempt in depicting the Audi Yankees Club. What a random group of people.



No drinks. No food. No crowd. No game. Fun!

A sign of spring

Baseball...Handsome Dick's Yankees (and other teams) report to camp soon...
Taken in front of Manitoba's on Avenue B.

P.S. Snapped this photo while walking by last night...Check out the TV screen behind Joba...Braindead?

Yankees now handing out money faster than the US Government

By giving Mark Teixeira $180 million, the Yankees now have the four highest-paid players in baseball. Well, guess that means beers will be $40 next season at the new Yankee Stadium.

Lousy economy preventing people from overpaying for Yankees memorabilia

The last ball hit out of Yankee Stadium, courtesy of Jose Molina, was one of several big ticket items that failed to sell in early bidding yesterday at Madison Square Garden on a trove of Yankees artifacts. It was expected to fetch up to $400,000, but was pulled after offers fell short of the suggested opening bid of $100,000. (espn.com)

NYC's boutique baseball teams

Pablo S. Torre on SI.com:

If you're a typical sports fan -- you know, the kind who worries about gas prices, tuition and the trade deadline -- New York's new stadiums might look as if they belong behind a boutique window.

In the Bronx looms the skeleton of Yankee Stadium 2.0, a coliseum with half as many bleacher seats as its predecessor but more than three times the luxury boxes. In Queens, the Mets traded Shea's 20,420-seat hull of an upper deck for Citi Field and its 54 suites, burnished by leases priced firmly in the six figures.

And now a word from our sponsor

In honor of the last game at Yankee Stadium. Or an excuse to run a silly commercial featuring Mickey Mantle.

And now, another word from our sponsor

Ditto.



Hmm, Dextrose food energy...

A fool and his e-mail (New York Yankees/Ticketmaster edition)

My good friends at the New York Yankees and Ticketmaster sent me a nice e-mail yesterday with this subject line:

"Only three series remain at Yankee Stadium."

No kidding. It has been well reported that tix for the final 10 home games are going for a premium via StubHub and scalpers. But!



Hmm, well, maybe they released some tickets. Maybe I'll nab a decent seat in Tier Reserve or something! So I click on the links in the e-mail to Ticketmaster for the individual games. Guess what? Every game is sold out! Just like I thought. Thanks for the e-mail!

No pressure or anything

City businesses stand to miss out on making $141 million this fall if the Yankees fail to make the playoffs for the first time in 13 years, according to a study commissioned by the Post. The report conducted by NYU adjunct professor John Tepper Marlin shows that if the Yankees snag at least a wild-card berth, a first-round appearance could fill the coffers of bars, restaurants and other businesses across the city with $26 million. [New York Post]

What season-ticket holders will be paying next year at Yankee Stadium

The Yankees announced the prices for their 2009 season-ticket plans the other day. As the AP notes, "Even seats behind the outfield fence will be costly at the new Yankee Stadium."

But!

"Behind those four sections of seats, and to the rear of the bullpens closer to center field, are nine sections of bleachers priced at $12, the same as the cost this season in the final year of the 85-year-old ballpark."

Team COO Lonn Trost said other than 4,300 pricy seats, the tickets are "not being raised significantly. And remember, 24,000-plus seats will have no price increase at all."

Individuals game prices haven't been set.

Meanwhile, wonder how much these seats will cost next season:



From That Touch of Mink.

Previous ticket stories on EV Grieve: Go here.

NY baseball fans: "Some of them are also facing startling increases in ticket costs during a serious economic downturn"

The Times hits on one of EV Grieve's favorite topics today: New Stadiums: Prices, and Outrage, Escalate.

No American market has witnessed anything like it: two baseball teams and two football teams will open three new stadiums within 17 months and 20 miles of one another, with everything set to be in place by the fall of 2010.
But even as fans of the Mets, the Yankees, the Giants and the Jets look forward to state-of-the-art stadium architecture, better sightlines, wider concourses and more bathrooms, some of them are also facing startling increases in ticket costs during a serious economic downturn.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Even rich people can't afford to see the Mets or Yankees next season

Any bets that S.I. Yankees and Brooklyn Cyclones ticket prices go up as well?

Now we know why the new Mets stadium is named after a bank

I've had several posts this summer about how expensive it will be to see the Yankees or Mets in their fancy-schmancy new stadiums next season. Well, the Mets just announced their 2009 ticket prices. How bad are they? Bad enough the Post made it part of its Page 1 cover package.

No wonder it's named after a bank - Met fans are going to have to open up their safe-deposit boxes to afford seats at Citi Field next season.
The choicest seats will cost $495 - a 79 percent increase.

On the lower level, where tickets at Shea were an average of $77 to $85 - depending on the opponent, day of the week and the Mets' five-tiered pricing system - comparable seats at Citi Field will average $150 to $225.

Michael Bakal, 27, of Baldwin, LI, hanging out at Virgil's in Midtown, expressed the frustration of many a Met fan.

"It costs more to put gas in the car, or to take the train, and now it costs more to get a seat in a stadium that we paid to build," Bakal said. "It's kind of insulting to New Yorkers. Go find the money somewhere else. Give us a break, leave Joe Public alone."

Even rich people can't afford to see the Mets or Yankees next season

Yesterday I mentioned how expensive tickets were to see the Home Run Derby at Yankees Stadium. That should prepare everyone for what will be charged for normal, everyday tickets next season. No surprise, steep ticket prices will be the norm once the Yankees and Mets open their schmancy new stadiums in 2009. In the Post last Friday, EV Grieve favorite Phil Mushnick wrote about a rather wealthy fellow who has been a Mets season ticket-holder since Shea opened in 1964. As Mushnick reported, this man decided he's not renewing his tickets. His four box seats cost him $5,837 in 1993, $11,836 in 1998, $23,702 last year and $33,300 this season. Last week, the Mets informed him that comparable seats next year will cost him roughly $60,000.

Yesterday, Mushnick wrote that his Friday column "led to a pile of missives from Mets and Yankees season and partial season ticket-holders; those who now realize that they, too, have reached the point of can't return.

"Friday, one wrote that he's one in a group of friends who have purchased the same box seats in Yankee Stadium the last 20-plus years. The first year, the seats were $12.50 per. By 1996, they were $25 per. Last year they went to $150 a seat. This year they are $250 a seat. And, he added, the seats have been in disrepair the last three years."


(Sidebar: And, given the insufferable John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman calling games on NewsRadio 880, you can't even listen to the Yankees...And why does Sterling insist on saying "an A-bomb for A-rod" as his signature home run call?)

Still, there are options left for those of us who like watching baseball: For the price of one draft beer at Yankee Stadium, you can get a good ticket to see the Staten Island Yankees. Better scenery along the way too. And, of course, there are the Brooklyn Cyclones and Newark Bears. And Long Island Ducks. And Atlantic City Surf.

The All-Star baseball theme continues: The Roger Clemens edition

In keeping with this all-baseball theme in honor of tonight's All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium (which I don't plan on watching...)... If you're looking for something to wear for the big game, the Yankees gift shop has some nice team jerseys on sale:


I'll be wearing my Jose Canseco Yankees jersey.

Bonus! Roger Clemens sings (sort of) in this 1987 commercial for Zest!