Associated Press
The new Yankee Stadium, with the old one in the background.
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Sam Donnellon: Yankees' new stadium a diamond that's rough on pitchers
NEW YORK - The old stadium is still here, sitting vacant across the street. It's being dismantled slowly, seat by seat, piece by piece. Seats have been pulled out and laid on the outfield grass. The big, tall baseball bat in the plaza that once welcomed you like a character at a theme park is now a gray pole, stripped down, bare, uninviting.
"You know what? I don't look over there quite as much as I did the first few times coming in," lefthander Andy Pettitte was saying last night as he sat at his stall in the expansive clubhouse of the new Yankee Stadium. "It's just like anything else. You don't ever want to leave your first home. I drove by the first home that I bought for a couple of months after I moved into my new one. Now I don't ever think about it."
Well, that's not altogether true. When a couple of well-placed pitches blew into the rightfield seats during one of his early starts here, Pettitte gazed at the wall as if he had been duped. Wednesday, after the Orioles' Nolan Reimold's first home run of the year cleared the right-centerfield fence, Yankees closer Mariano Rivera stared at the bleachers as he would an error-prone umpire.
That said, the new place is a gem, a true diamond in every sense of the word, including cost. The Yankees have made waves both with the price range of their best seats near the two dugouts, and lately, their decision to reduce those prices in the wake of persistent criticism and - in full camera view - unsold seats.
Once priced as high as $2,500 per seat, tickets to the notorious Legends Suite seats are now being sold for half that and - on certain days - even less.
Last night, I typed in "Best available" for two tickets to tonight's game with the Phillies.
They put me five rows behind home plate.
For $900 apiece.
Oh, yes, and a $46.90 convenience charge.
But think of the thousands I saved by last-minute shopping.
The stadium cost $1.5 billion to build. There is a boxy-looking restaurant in centerfield and big-screen television that would frighten Godzilla, but it looks more like the old park than it does not. The tall facade still envelopes the foul poles, still casts those late-day shadows that once inspired Yogi to say of leftfield, "It gets late there early."
And although an aerial shot has determined that as much as 5 feet has been chopped from the power alley in right, the foul pouls and centerfield are the same distance to home as they were in the old place.
So why are the balls are leaving the place at a rate that Rivera, their longtime closer, yesterday called "very stupid"?
There have been 75 home runs hit at the new stadium so far, 39 by the Yankees. Both are tops in the majors, and the total after 20 games is higher than that of any first-year major league ballpark.
Geographically, the new stadium aims in the same direction as the old one, but there has been much speculation that in expanding its width and allowing air to pass through the facade, a wind tunnel has been created. There is also speculation - hope, really - that when the old building finally comes down, that will disappear.
Here is what is known: Over the last six seasons, Rivera has pitched at least 70 innings and appeared in as many as 74 games, and no fewer than 63. Not once in those six seasons has he surrendered more than four home runs in a season.
Rivera has surrendered five already this season, in 18 2/3 innings of work. Three have come here, including, for the first time in his career, back-to-backers.
"It's different: Let's put it that way," Rivera said. "Not all of it is bad. But this park - it's hard to adjust to something when you've been in this one, great place, so many years. The young guys might tell you different. But for me, it's a lot different."
"Both teams have to deal with it," Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. "I think it should be an advantage for you."
Well, maybe if "you" were a little younger. Rivera is 39, with a lot of miles on his tread. Same with Pettitte, who will turn 37 on June 15 and is pitching in his 15th major league season. Pettitte allowed 19 home runs in 33 starts last season. He has given up six this year. Four came in a single start here, May 7 against Tampa Bay (the same game as Rivera's back-to-backers). Two were opposite-field floaters that Pettitte said, "would not have gotten out in the old Yankee Stadium."
"I'm starting to get used to it," said the Yankees lefty, who will face the Phillies tomorrow. "No doubt, it was new. The first couple of series was . . . well, everyone's starting to settle in . . . "
The Yankees won for the ninth straight time last night. They have pulled to within 1 1/2 games of Toronto, which lost to second-place Boston. Seven of those wins have come on this recent homestand, a homestand in which their bats have exploded and their pitchers have, well, managed better.
"It's not that you have to relearn or act any different pitchingwise," Rivera said. "You just have to throw the ball low. You have to throw the ball exactly where you want to."
Then again, isn't that the case everywhere? *
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