Aug. 22--The New York Yankees, whose old home was nicknamed "The House That Ruth Built," now play in The House That Ruthlessness Sustains.
A fan's pilgrimage this past week to the newish Yankee Stadium, now 6 years old, found the latest iteration in the Bronx yet another baseball palace.
But more than that, it is a monument to Wall Street and the great flood of money it's engineered to tap at all cost.
So much of the place speaks to, plays off and reflects conspicuous consumption, ostentatious wealth and elites having dollars to burn that the masses of more modest means can be forgiven for suspecting it's not the game but the money they're supposed to watch.
Then again, maybe that's our real national pastime these days.
After all, it seems, as much attention is paid to how much a movie cost and recouped at the box office in its opening weekend as to whether it's any good.
The size of a campaign war chest often is seen as greater validation of a candidacy than whether there's any substance to the politician's agenda or realistic hope to advance it.
And share price tends to be the accepted measure of business success, rather than the quality of its work or workforce.
Sports in general, and baseball in particular, has historically sold itself as escapism for the common man. Yet Yankee Stadium -- and bless the Yankees if the numbers actually work for them in the long term as well as short -- offers an unavoidable, in-your-face reminder of how the middle class can feel it's squeezed tight enough to turn coal into a diamond.
Or maybe away from a diamond, in this case.
This isn't one of those tired laments of how much ballpark beers and hot dogs cost and embellished memories of watching games through knotholes in the fence for free with Spanky, Alfalfa and the rest of the gang.
Everyone knows sports is business, business is business, and the prime directive is to make the most of what a market will bear.
This is about the virtual moat -- and very real class distinctions and economics -- separating those in the first nine rows of Legends Suite seats around the infield at Yankee Stadium from those in the Field MVP Club section, where merely rich season-ticket holders still pay as much as $245 per game, almost 20 grand a pop for the regular season.
The face price of the cheapest ninth-row Legends seat, including licensing fees, is $600, or $48,600 a season, not counting playoffs. The most expensive first-row seat is $1,575, or $127,575 a season. For one seat. Possibly to see Oakland or Cleveland.
If those numbers don't make you a little queasy, consider that the most recent available census figures peg per-capita income in New York City at $32,010 in 2013 dollars and median household income at $52,259, while 20.3 percent of all people are below the poverty level.
There are perks with those pricey seats, such as club membership and free food and beverages, but still. Only the wealthiest of wealthy financiers and big companies, the kind presumably also in the market for upper-level luxury suites at the stadium, can swing those numbers. And judging from the number of empty seats, even their interest level is unclear.
Some distant Yankees seats list for just $15 and cost even less with certain promotions. No one, though, wants to be reminded of just how far removed -- physically and financially -- he or she is from the most elite tiers.
What the Yankees have built is tailored to 21st-century baseball in which the once-welcoming dazzle of green outfield grass and pop of a ball off the bat have been all but eclipsed by whatever's coming from the outsized, now-requisite TV screens.
The video boards may make lesser seats more palatable. Yet there are cheaper places to watch the Yankees on TV than the $1.5 billion replacement for Babe Ruth's 1923 showcase.
This is the state of play today. Other teams in baseball and other sports charge a pretty penny for top seats, just not so much for so many seats over so many games. The families Ricketts and McCaskey, Jerry Reinsdorf and Rocky Wirtz are all constantly looking to add premium seating and services.
With every special section that teams carve out for a price, however, they have to know there's a cost in making others feel less special.
It's one thing to consider income disparity as a concept, quite another to rub noses in it.
philrosenthal@tribpub.com
