Long Live...

Yankee Stadium is dead. Long live the Palace.

The Yankees did more than close down the most historic sports venue in American history but opened another chapter in the saga of "The Boss", and we're not talking Bruce Springteen here, but, rather, the ego-endowed, master of greed, George Steinbrenner and his obnoxious, entitled offspring.

It was comforting to hear that the price George paid to originally buy the team is less than the cost of season tickets for 4 of the luxury boxes in the New Steinbrenner Palace. I'm no longer worried that investing over a half-billion dollars of taxpayer in the New Steinbrenner Palace might not sufficiently benefit the Family.

My fondest memories of the Stadium are a bit different that Picasners. I wasn't a Yankee fan as a kid. The first time I attended a game at the stadium was in the early 60's when the Stadium was still largely original, dusky green, monuments and flagpole in center field and the iconic facade. Laurie and I sat through a twilight double header and the 2nd game went 22 innings. Look it up.

My next trip in was after the "Renovation". Plastic, cheesy, a testament to Steinbrenner marketing and poor taste. And over the next 20 plus years the Yankees delivered 6 championships and the Yankees became the best branded collection of mercenaries available on the planet. And how the money has rolled in.

But like all organizations that obsess on money as the mission, product quality suffers. Remember the last 8 years? Record attendance, mediocre baseball. Tractor trailer loads of cash, personal humiliation for Joe Torre and Bernie Williams, who was in Yankee Stadium for the first time since "retirement". The incredibly lucrative YES network, 2 World Series wins for the Red Sox.
The New Palace built largely with the money of taxpayers who never will be able to buy a decent seat in the place.

The Stadium is gone and any class that was the hallmark of great Yankees of the past is gone with it.