BLEACHERS BREW EST. MAY 2006

Someone asked me how my blog and newspaper column came to be titled "Bleachers Brew". It's like this, it's an amalgam of sorts of two things: The bleachers area in the stadium/arena where I used to sit when I would watch baseball, football, and basketball games and Miles Davis' great jazz album Bitches Brew. That's how it got culled together. I originally planned on calling it "The View from the Big Chair" that is a nod to Tears For Fear's second album, Songs from the Big Chair. So there.

Friday, April 24, 2009

Off to Boston

It's off thataway!

A 4-2 homestand with a game-winning homer by Melky Cabrera gives the New York Yankees a 9-7 win over Oakland, a 4-2 homestand, and a 9-9 record.

Now they're off to Fenway Park where the Boston Red Sox, like the Yankees, are starting to round out into form. Just as the Celtics leave town for Chicago, the Yankees fly in for a big match-up.

Both teams are at 9-6 and the three-game series is crucial as they try to stay close to Toronto which at 11-5 is atop the American League East standings.

Funny how things work out for some people. At first Nick Swisher was supposed to be a bench player but he's been playing so well that he's given the chance to play even more.

As for Cabrera, he lost out the starting spot in the outfield to Brett Garnder, and now he's back in the outfield.


In the six games at Yankee Stadium, attendance has been less than stellar. Even as plans were made to move to the new stadium, there were concerns about filling up the cavernous and expensive venue.

At this point, I would attribute that to the increase in ticket prices at a time when there's an economic crisis. Yankee management misjudged their fan base would fill it up.

Well, they will eventually.

At the start of the recent economic crisis, it was postulated that sports fans would rather watch events on television rather than go out where they have to pay for gas, parking, food etc. Easily whenever I would go to the old Yankee Stadium, my Upper Tier tickets cost $20 then my food another $10 and it wasn't like I was full after that. If I bought a Yankees program (usually once a month) that was another $10. Subway was $4 so that was like $44 max.

The crowds will come back eventually especially when the team gets hot or when maybe the Red Sox, the Mets, or the Dodgers are in town.

Back when the Izod Center was called the Continental Airlines Arena, the public announcer would ask fans from the upper boxes to come down either at the half or the third quarter. It would look so bad on television and to the corporate sponsors to see all those empty seats on the tube so they filled it up with fans.

Of course it didn't sit well with those patrons who paid top dollar to get the expensive seats so they didn't do this all the time.

When the New Jersey Nets announced that they were going to move to Brooklyn, then the fans came back. But that was also because the team was headed for the NBA Finals with Jason Kidd leading the way.

As for the Stadium, I'm not worried. As for some, now's the time to get tickets. It's always a blast watching live matches.




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