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Police after the game
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View From our seats
More pics can be seen at my flickr account.
This weekend I’m spending my Easter long weekend in the USA. We drove by Safeco field in Seattle, one of my favorite ballparks. I usually take in a few games a year and want to take in a few more this year. This is the opening month for baseball and the big event of this year is the opening of the new Yankee Stadium. Its replacing the old stadium that was built 1923, with the new stadium being built right across the street. This stadium is second most expensive stadium at 1.5 billion dollars behind England’s Wembley Stadium at 798 000 pounds. April 3rd hosted the very first game against the Chicago Cubs, with the first regular season game on 16th of April against the Cleveland Indians.
Last year I was lucky enough to get to the old stadium before it wasn’t around anymore. We caught a Mets vs.Yankees game and was one of the coolest experiences. Yankees lost the game but it didn’t seem to matter because there was a lot of Mets fans.
How did we get tickets? 2 months before on Craiglist in New York. We did a little research and figured we got a good deal for 250. We asked around when we sat down at a pub in Mid-town New York (after the game) and the locals confirmed we did pretty well. We were a little hesitant to buy off the net, but we did all the steps to make sure it was not a scam. We had them mailed out once the seller had them printed, so we got them about a month before we headed to New York. It all ended up working out and now I need to make plans to check out the new stadium.
A cool little side story has to deal with Mariano Rivera and Monument Park. He wanted to move the team’s bullpen, as well as to have access to the park directly from the bullpen so the relievers can access it . They added the door and moved the bullpen at his request, he’s got some pull.
Safeco seating at peak 54,ooo
Old Yankee stadium sat just under 58,000, new stadium just over 52,000
Broke ground for new Yankee stadium August 16, 2006
The exterior of new Yankee Stadium was made from 11,000 pieces of limestone.
Kentucky Blue grass surface, same a previous Yankee Stadium.
Total of 227 miles of Ethernet cable that wraps the New Stadium.
Demolition of Old Yankee began in March 2009
The “new” Wembley stadium is the largest covered stadium in the world.
Here are some shots taken from the NY Times of the new stadium.
