Opening Day - And More to Pay!

[top-Yankee Stadium, bottom - Citi Field]

Opening Day, Christmas for baseball enthusiasts, is today and what better gifts for New York to receive on this soggy day than TWO beautiful baseball fields.


2 Billion combined dollars have been spent to bring forth both the Mets throw-back, cozy offering and Ebbets Field themed "Citi Field" - which has brought about itself some negative press due to Citibank's status in the bank bailout crisis (The bank has signed a 20 year $400 million dollar naming-rights deal with the Mets for the ballpark prior to the crisis hitting), and the new, mammoth, state of the art Yankee Stadium, located across the street from its former setting which attempts to capture the grandeur of the original 1920's stadium.


With a price tag of about 1.3 billion spent, Yankee Stadium is the costliest sports facility ever built. Given the nature of the economy today, many feel it's a bit 'overdone, overzealous, and overpriced'. With that comes a 73% increase in ticket prices (in the papers this weekend), also the largest increase in ticket prices in sports. This surely, as well as its half-priced ($700 or so million) cohort Citi Field, will push out the blue-collar everyman from having the opportunity to watch a ball game at a reasonable price. Be prepared for many empty seats in the lower seating levels when you watch the next Yankee or Mets game.


Are you still going to head out to the ball game and buy peanuts and crackerjacks? (a combined 11-12 dollars, surely) We are interested to see what the reactions are to the new ballparks on this wonderful time of year known as the beginning of the baseball season.