Neil deMause: The Website

More on what those empty seats at Mets and Yankees games mean:

I went to a Mets game last week, and speaking as a Yankee fan, I have to admit that in the battle of the ballparks, the Mets won. Citi Field is far from perfect, but at least it feels like you’re at a baseball park — unlike the new Yankee Stadium, which bears an uncanny resemblance to a new Marriott with a really garish big-screen TV in the lobby.

What I noticed most, though, was something I’d never seen at a baseball game: The upper deck was packed to the gills, while the acres of hyper-pricey seats down below were half-empty… [read more]

It strikes me as a bit odd that I’m posting my Baseball Prospectus blog item on the Marlins’ stadium deal and not my much more in-depth Field of Schemes item, but I don’t make the rules here — oh wait, yes I do. Well, anyway, one links to the other, so you’re welcome to read ‘em both:

It’s official: After more government hearings than you can shake a fungo bat at, the Miami-Dade County Commission gave final approval yesterday to the Marlins‘ plan for a $634 million stadium on the former site of the Orange Bowl. Assuming bonds can be sold by July — never a sure thing in our new economic reality — construction will begin this summer, with the team’s big bagel slicer opening in 2012, at which point the team, as part of the deal, will become transmogrified into the Miami Marlins… [read more]

Don’t assume the San Jose A’s are a foregone conclusion by any means, but moving the team there is more likely than it seemed last week:

During my chat a couple of weeks back, I wrote of the Oakland A’s future now that their Fremont stadium plans are dead:

I still say the most likely scenario is [owner Lew] Wolff stays put in Oakland for the next few years, and hopes either the housing market recovers or a couple of million people unexpectedly move to Fresno in the interim.

That’s certainly the scenario that made the most sense, but apparently Wolff had other ideas… [read more]

So I went to buy Mets tickets today, and got a hard lesson in cognitive dissonant post-crash economics:

Mets tickets for April and May went on “presale” today to the lucky few — that is, anyone on the Mets email list — allowing the great unwashed to get their first look at what it’ll be like to get into the team’s new, downsized home. Let’s roll the dice and play Mets ticket roulette:

Citi Field’s 42,000 seats have been divided into a daunting 28 price categories, which when combined with the Mets’ five different game levels (from “Platinum” for the Subway Series to “Value” for Tuesday nights against the Marlins) create an incredible 140 different ticket prices… [read more]

So while up in the Bronx the other day, I was looking at the Yankees’ side-by-side old and new stadiums, and realized one needed to go soon to make way for public parks to replace those destroyed by the new construction. Then it occurred to me…

This whole building a new stadium thing just isn’t going the way Yankees execs had planned it. Instead of celebrating the opening of the $1.3 billion palace this has turned into the winter of the Yanks’ discontent.

First, the final season of the old Yankee Stadium was ruined when the team missed the playoffs. Then, Assembly member Richard Brodsky spoiled team officials’ offseason by continually subpoenaing them about what he called “Soviet-style” tactics in getting city money for the project…. [read more]

NOTE: This op-ed got sliced by about 20% as part of Metro’s continuing efforts to be sensitive to those with limited attention spans. You can read the original version here.

Also, Metro did a web redesign, so it’s only the headline that makes it look like I’m going to be filling in at third base for A-Rod.

More on the Great Yankees Ticket Kerfuffle:

Give the Yanks credit for trying: It may not have pushed A-Roid off the front pages, but Ticketgate is certainly starting to give him a run for his money. More tales of fan woe keep emerging, with the Times’ Richard Sandomir dumping out a bucketload of sob stories on Saturday.

Team COO Lonn Trost’s response has essentially been “RTFM,” but recent days have revealed some undocumented features. First off was Trost disclosing to WFAN’s Mike Francesca that the stadium’s 1,886 standing-room tickets will go for “around $20″ a pop — and that holders of $12 bleacher seats will for the first time be free to roam about the stadium at will… [read more]

With the opening of the new Yankees stadium just weeks away, there’s growing discontent among fans about where the team expects them to sit this year, and how much they’re being asked to pay. I take a look at one especially egregious tale experienced by my friend and colleague Jay Jaffe, and speculate about what this could mean for the future of sports in the worsening economy:

Now that the city has finished throwing money at the new Yankees and Mets stadiums, fans can settle in for the next debate: What will the House That The David Ortiz Jersey Defiled and Bankrupt Bank Field actually be like as places to, you know, see ballgames?

For my Baseball Prospectus colleague (and creator of the old-school blog Futility Infielder) Jay Jaffe, the answer came this weekend, and it wasn’t pretty… [read more]

The new edition of Baseball Prospectus is out, with my essay on the last year in baseball stadium developments, and I’ll be hitting the road - okay, the keyboard and the subway - to help promote it. This Thursday, I’ll be at baseballprospectus.com doing a live online chat (feel free to submit questions ahead of time).

Then on Thursday, March 12, at 6 pm, I’ll be appearing on a BP panel discussion, along with Kevin Goldstein, Steven Goldman, Jay Jaffe, and Cliff Corcoran, at the original Barnes & Noble store on 18th St. and Fifth Ave. in Manhattan. C’mon out and say hi.

To go along with my essay in Baseball Prospectus 2009 - now in stores, and available via the interweb - I provide some updates on the latest in baseball stadium goings-on (subscribers-only, sorry):

If you’ve received your brand-new copy of Baseball Prospectus 2009 this week, you’ll have found an essay by yours truly on teams’ plans for new stadiums. It’s a piece that I filed back in simpler times known as “January,” when we still shopped at Circuit City, the president was some former Texas Rangers owner, and A-Rod was only reviled in the press for his relationship with Madonna. The basics that are laid out in BP2K9 are still accurate, as the Marlins, A’s, and Rays are all pushing for new homes, with the Marlins way in the lead; the Mets and Yankees, meanwhile, are preparing to open their new stadiums amid controversy over who’s paying the $2.7 billion bill. Since then, though, there have been a few unexpected twists… [read more]

After sorta kinda liveblogging the Florida Marlins stadium vote for fieldofschemes.com, I recapped the mayhem for BP’s blog:

The Miami city and county commissions both had hearings scheduled today to vote on approving the Florida Marlins stadium deal, but that’s now in doubt after the city hearing erupted in chaos after two of its four members balked at approving the deal.

The resistance was led by commissioner Marc Sarnoff, who said he would only vote for the deal if the Marlins: 1) agreed to pay cost overruns on stadium parking garages, 2) gave the city a cut of naming-rights revenue, which is currently slated to go only to the Marlins, and 3) promised to use any proceeds from the sale of the team to pay back the public’s costs before pocketing any profits… [read more]