Yankee Game

Game five of the 2001 World Series between the New York Yankees and Arizona Diamondbacks was one of the best moments of my mother’s life. My mom, who is from Los Angeles, was born in Brooklyn and grew up a die-hard Yankees fan and she took me and my family to that amazing game. She loved Yankee Stadium’s energy, its winning tradition and most of all the excitement from the fans. In an effort to relive that wonderful experience she took me again to see the New York Yankees take on the Philadelphia Phillies in the 2009 World Series. However, this time the series did not live up to the hype my mother and I expected.

For starters, the new Yankee Stadium did not share the same energy that the old Yankee Stadium did.

The fans were more reserved, most of them were sitting for good portions of the games and many were spending more time in the concession stands eating hot dogs and buying memorabilia.

The Yankees also got blown out, 6-1. They were in the game for a few innings until the Phillies blew the door open.

One Yankee fan, on the subway ride home, tried justifying to me why the New York fans were so “weak” this time. “When you are getting killed it kind of takes the fight out of you,” he said.

But even after game two, when the Yankees beat the Phillies to even the series, Jimmy Rollins of the Phillies said he was surprised that Yankee fans were so quite. Phillies fans were much more energetic according to Rollins.


The reason why the fans sucked can be summed up in three words; high ticket prices.
Rich people are typically the only ones who could attend a game with the kind of prices being asked for, especially a World Series game in the new Yankee Stadium. In the old park, it was still plausible for a middle class worker to save up for a few weeks, bite the bullet and pay for a ticket. But now-a-days that same person would probably have to give up eating for a month to afford a seat.

For some reason, being rich is synonymous with being a lousy fan. I see it in Los Angeles all the time; poorer fans who are the most energetic in the cheaper seats during the season, only to be replaced by wealthier ones during the post season and championship games. I don't know why rich fans cannot be as crazy as poorer ones but maybe because money blinds them to being passionate about their sports teams.

Whatever the case, maybe one day a seat to a championship game will be measured on a fanatic’s passion not their paycheck. Hopefully for a city like New York, whose pride themselves on being the best fans in the world, the rich people don’t ruin it for everyone else. Especially not for my mother and I again.