Bondy: Yankees need to win big to justify excesses of new Yankee Stadium

The other day I rode by the new Yankee Stadium sticking out of the ground…I sure hope Nova was comfortable in the back.

It is a very impressive place, if you are a Yankee or a visiting player or a member of the media.

If you are a fan, however, it is not all that much different from the old stadium that still eats up projected parkland across the street. There is more space on the concourses and a far greater variety of restaurants. The scoreboard is bigger and considerably clearer. But basically, the place looks the same - only a bit grayer and dingier around the bleacher areas, for some reason, and with a surprising surplus of unpainted wire.

Haughtiness abounds, yet there is little charm to the place.

...There is the rub, or the deep massage. The day this stadium opened, the Yankees officially became the most pampered professional team in any sport, maybe in the whole wide world. And while we can view them amiably as 25 lottery winners, we must now also expect at least two more things from them:

The owners must finally follow through on their fading promise to the South Bronx to produce expansive greenery for the area’s children.

And the players in pinstripes need to win important games again, to justify the amount of money New Yorkers have invested into this franchise and this building.

Otherwise, the Yankees are not just disappointing anymore. They’re spoiled rotten.