In a sane world, the Yankees would have waited til Citifield was done, and played two seasons there while they renovated the old Stadium; making it look much more like the OLD Stadium.

Personally I would've held out for the pre-1976 301/402/457/344/296 field dimensions, monuments in centerfield for centerfielders to crash into, and being allowed to exit the stadium via the playing field and the Yankee bullpen. Those were the truest essences of the real House That Ruth Built.

I think the "CHARGE" came with the Coliseum, having been a long-time feature at SoCal Trojan FB games.

That part I hadn't known, since back then Southern Cal and UCLA seldom made the cut for eastern TV games.

In the Dodger/Coliseum days, though, it came after the simple 6-note run-up (da-da-da-DAH!-di-Dahhhh!), not the playing of "Revellie" that invariably proceeds it now.

In the Coliseum there were both versions, with the crowd providing the former and the loudspeakers the latter. Of course on TV back East it wasn't always that easy to distinguish.

I guess I understand buying food and drinks at the stadium if you've got the money, but I've never understood thinking it's a necessary part of the experience. Most people go through at least a couple of three-hour periods during the day without eating! It's not like there's food at the ballpark that you can't get anywhere else, either.

It's been at least ten years since I've eaten a hot dog anyplace other than a ballpark. It just doesn't taste right anywhere else.

No, but his ######## revenue sharing scheme (with the ludicrous deduction for debt service) doomed Yankee stadium. I don't want a nicer new Stadium, I want the old one back, on the same site.

I want some things, you want some things, Bud wants an endless torrent of free money to lavish on his cronies in exchane for consensus and secret under-the-table loans. Everybody wins!

Because sometimes a hot dog and cold beer under the sun at a baseball game is just pure bliss.

It's been at least ten years since I've eaten a hot dog anyplace other than a ballpark. It just doesn't taste right anywhere else.

Well, they sure do taste good there, all right. I've availed myself of dollar dog nights on a number of occasions, I confess.

I think the big deal is that they're allowed to deduct the cost of the stadium from revenue sharing, so it's free money.

Well, that's sort of getting it backwards. They'll pay revenue sharing on the extra revenue that the Stadium brings in. In order to make it still a good incentive for the team, they can deduct the debt service. Otherwise you'd have all teams acting overly conservative, as revenue sharing reduces the incentive to increase revenues.

Look at it the other way (with totally made up numbers): if the Yankees had to pay $75M in debt, and earned $85M in incremental revenue, there's no way this deal makes sense, as they'd have to pay a large chunk of that $85M into revenue sharing. This essentially makes it so that they pay revenue sharing on the $10M difference.

I think it's totally disingenuous to say, "Baseball's 29 other teams will effectively bear a third of the cost of the Yankees' new ballpark." No, the Yankees are diverting revenue sharing money into investing in further revenue streams. Other teams shouldn't complain about the "tax shelter"; they should appreciate that the Yankees are continuing to invest, so they'll have more revenue to share later.