A personal message from our captain

Exclusive: We know what's buried under the old Yankee Stadium

What's all the hubbub over the Ortiz jersey? Stuff is buried under stadiums all the time. (Insert Jimmy Hoffa joke here.)

The IT IS HIGH I-Team has uncovered (insert laugh at cheap pun here) the dirt on some of the items known to be buried under Yankee Stadium!

Babe Ruth's body double -- Ruth the Babe!

Hideki Irabu's career!

The very "friendly" fan mentioned on page 176 of "Ball Four"!

Robert Merrill's kids!

The security guards from section 118, luge!

A haunted D-Train car!

No wait, that's redundant. They're all haunted. Make that ...

A D-Train car!

The Yankee offense!

Take the Cake: Our Last Year of Yankee Stadium Merchandizing Op!

With Yank fans trying to steal parts of the Stadium, anybody out there willing to go in on a little business venture?

Official Yankee Stadium Game-Used Urinal Cakes

These powder-blue, chemical-release washroom tablets have been a Yankee tradition for a half-century. At great expense and degradation, we have secured for your mantle or trophy case game-used sanitary cakes directly from the House the Ruth Peed In!

Each cake comes mounted on an oak wood plaque with team logo and certificate signifying a great moment in Yankee history. Look closely, and you'll see the punishment inflicted by Yank fans, testifying to the power and stream of Bronx Bomber faithful as they cheer the team to another victory.

Select from our Menu of great Yankee moments:

2003: Aaron Boone Home Run Beats Redsocks Cake: (Reduced to size of aspirin tablet from gallonage and length of game): $700

2000 World Series Game 4 Cake (with pee laser hole drilled by excited marksmen in Restroom #4): $500.

2004 Opening Day Cake: (Bright blue, used only for 30 minutes, after Restroom #22 backed up.): $50

2007 George Steinbrenner Birthday Cake: (Relive July 4 fireworks every flush.): $150.

Or consider our Yankee villain inscribed cakes, which let you vent upon bad guys in the privacy of your home.

Manny Ramirez Cake: (Let Manny be "Sani"): $100

Big Pappi Super-Size Cake: (His face requires four cakes.) $200

Brian McNamee Cake: (Be careful, it might take notes!) $150

Jacoby Ellsbury Cake: (A can't miss prospect!): $100

Remember the old Stadium fondly, while fondling!

Now, have your cake -- and Stadium too!

Play Ball II

OK, let's try this thing again ...

Family Fight: BernBaby you ignorant dupe

Heh, heh.

This is rich: A Yankee fan gnashing his teeth over the free enterprise system playing itself out.

How's it feel, BernBabyBern?

Baseball fans everywhere outside the Bronx, having watched their memories march toward New York's riches or to a handful of other teams thanks to the bar set by the Yankees, might find it hard to work up a tear.

Don't like watching your memories sold? On QVC, no less? Kinda sucks, doesn't it? Now you know what fans outside the castle wall have been wailin' about for decades while all of Yankeedom played deaf and dumb.

Your heart is aching over merchants selling off your temple?

Aww shucks.

Sold! Yankee Stadium on QVC

Quick. You've got a few minutes. Grab that remote and settle into the easy chair.

The Yankees kick off the "Farewell to the Cathedral" season at Yankee Stadium ...

.. on QVC.

Yep. Didn't even wait for Opening Day. It's a live broadcast from the baseball shrine. A "Yankee Stadium. The Farewell Season" two-hour sale-a-thon.

They're tearing down the greatest sports stadium in the world. But not before they can sell you something from it.

I'm already sick of the "new" Yankee Stadium, and they ain't even opened it yet. The $1.3 billion price tag. The $2,500 seats. The luxury boxes. The fucking concierge service!

But until the shiny happy new park is opened, they'll be content to sell our memories back to us. The first glimpse most of us will get of Yankee Stadium this year won't be Opening Day, but on a shopping network with some QVC shill fawning over Goose Gossage while telling us that all true fans will want this special limited-edition-certified-branded-official autographed something-or-other for just $249.99, plus shipping and handling.

Get ready for the marketing campaign from hell. This is just the beginning. They're going to milk every penny out of this Stadium that they can over the course of the next year before they tear it down like an old Ames store. Then, they'll bottle up the construction dust and sell that. Probably on QVC.

It's a hell of a way for the Shrine to go out.

We'll junk Yankee Stadium so Paris Hilton doesn't get coughed on

Today’s Times reports the price of progress:

The new Yankee $tadium pricing structure will welcome the diehard front row celebrities and CEOs that give baseball its universal appeal.

The wealthiest of the wealthiest of the wealthy.

We’ll be mired in recession, but let's all sleep well knowing that Lindsay Lohan’s pool man won't have to stand beside us at the urinal.

Here's the rub of spending $1.3 billion for a "public" stadium.

The (Legends) seats will start at $500 each and the tiptop ones — the $2,500, front-row seats — are sold out, said Lonn Trost, the Yankees’ chief operating officer.

And then this.

The second offering, which promises a “luxury suite experience one seat at a time,” is the 74-seat Club Suite, which is four luxury boxes combined into one. The $700 price includes food and beverages (alcohol is extra), preferred parking and concierge service.

But let's not forget the real high-rollers.

Of the 47 luxury suites available at the new ballpark, 29 have been leased, for between $600,000 and $850,000.

Great. Taking your family to a Yank game? Expect to pay the monthly mortgage on a house in Syracuse.

Read the economist, Andrew Zimbalist, and you’ll see how stadiums get torn down not because of outdated physical structures, but outdated financial structures.

Luxury seats. That’s all.

We’re abandoning the greatest shrine in sports so that the Pruits of South Hampton won’t get yelled on.

It’s as if they tore down the Louvre to build a movie multiplex… and then constantly tell us how lucky we are!

Well, it’s going to be harder to swallow in the House that Greed Built, when every game becomes the Republican National Convention.

We are sooooo going to hate this new stadium…

Poll: "I wish they weren't tearing down Yankee Stadium"

Siena College has polled 802 New Yorkers about sports. Most of it is the usual stuff about who's popular, who isn't.

Jeet wins with a 67 % fave, 6 % neg -- (even Redsock fans give him 44 % fave, vs. 30 % neg.)

Here are the names, blue positive, red negative.

Buried in the crosscheck is one totally sad and completely under-discussed issue.

"Agree or disagree: I wish they weren't tearing down Yankee Stadium."

AGREE: 46.5 %

DISAGREE: 17.8 %

NO OPINION: 25.8 %

Two-to-one margin. Eighteen percent want a new stadium; that's almost George W. Bush territory.

We've said it before, we'll say it again:

The day the new stadium opens, everybody will go home and say exactly the same thing:

"I miss the real one."

How are we letting this happen?

Would we let them tear down the Sistine Chapel?

We're going to let Boston have the only remaining shrine stadium.

We are really going to regret this.

Exclusive: Secret promotions to be unveiled this season at Yankee Stadium

Oh boy, the I-Team here at IT IS HIGH got its hands on a hot one today -- the super-secret plan for fan promotions at Yankee Stadium this summer!

First, a capital improvement.

They've installed a new organ!

There are two -- that's right, two -- twinbills on the schedule.

Conjoined twins get in for half price!

You won't want to miss Bill Belichick Night.

Signs from the opposing team will be intercepted and broadcast on the Jumbotron!


The first Monday game of every month will be
Balance a Pizza on Your Head Night!


And, finally, a novel twist on a fan favorite!
Helmet Night!

You'll love 'em!

Great Moments in Yankee Stadium History: # 100

With her final season just around the corner, let's look back at some great moments in Yankee Stadium history.

August 3, 1996, "Free White Castle Slyder® Day"

Cecil Fielder mysteriously broke free from what Joe Torre called "crippling" traveler's constipation following his trade to New York, and clubbed his first homer as a Yankee.

The former Syracuse Chief would go on to hit 12 more homers that memorable season.