Adding Salt to an Open Wound

The fact that the House that Ruth built is being demolished unnecessarily is especially tragic compared with demolitions of ballparks in many other cities. A venue as rich in history and beautiful memories as Yankee Stadium is being wiped off the map just to provide more luxury seating to the most privileged Yankees fans. Most luxury box fans are the breed that uses luxury box tickets as a tool to entice prospective clients and force them into talking shop outside of the office. When my father worked at Houghton Mifflin in Boston, I often had luxury box seats at Fenway, but would abandon the area by the second inning (after pigging out on hot dogs and peanut M&M's) to go mingle among the true blue (collar) fans. The luxury box is no fun. I'll take my above-the-foul-pole, bridge n' tunnel section any day.

The fact Yankee Stadium is being demolished is the fault of the pampered elite and yet these affluent Yanks fans didn't show up to seize memorabilia at auction. In a recent New York Times article, I read that the last ball hit out of the park did not leave the auction block and other items failed to meet the reserve bid amount required for the auctioneer to sell a piece. Other items sold at laughable prices compared with projections.

With the economy in such a sad state, it is understandable that an auction would not do as well. It's simply a matter of bad timing. However, New York City is the financial capital of the world; there is a higher concentration of loaded people here than anyplace else. So it certainly feels like a hard slap across the face that the wealthy class responsible for Yankee Stadium's demise has further insulted its memory by failing to offer respectable bids in a so-called "buyer's market."