MARCH 17, 2009 --

The 2009 baseball season is less than a month away. Accordingly, the LPR lead this posting is not about politics, the economy or Bernie Madoff. It is about opening day in The Bronx. A lot of Opening Day attention will likely be paid to Yankee Stadium II, April 16.

Count down: 34 days

(The first games at the ballpark will be on April 3 and 4, but they are exhibitions, against the Chicago Cubs -- and could have been scheduled to check all systems, before the official start of the season in The Bronx.)

A week or so, ago, LPR had a two year old roll of film developed and the images
showed Cleveland's Jacobs Field and vicinity. With Cleveland as the first opponent to play an official game at YSII, LPR thought it was fortuitous that this roll of film popped up, and appropriate to post them in an accompanying article, now.

A few observations: Boston has a statue of Ted Williams outside Fenway Park.
Cleveland, as an accompanying image below shows, has a statue of its Bobby Feller, its great pitcher. There is no statue of a Yankee outside the new Yankee ballpark. As one of the accompanying photos indicates, provision has been made for a Babe Ruth Plaza, between Gates 4 and 6 on the 161st street side of the stadium.

The LPR visit to Jacobs Field happened in July 2007. These photos as seen in the article below suggest that there is a lot more space around Jacobs Field than around Yankee Stadium II, which, as its predecessor, is a ballpark "in the hood."

LPR did not see many souvenir vendors near Jacobs field as there. in a row of shops along River Avenue, close to Yankee Stadium The Indians' souvenirs shown here are sold on a street not very far from Jacobs field, but out-of-sight of the Indians ballpark. LPR did not see many fans heading to the game that day on this street. The photos, here, show fans walking from a slightly different direction.

LPR here posts an image of Yankee Stadium II that was taken on Friday the 13th, this month. This is how the ballpark appears to drivers approaching from the Macombs Dam bridge -- with access from Manhattan at 155th Street,or from the Major Deegan 161st Street exit ramp.

YSII as seen by drivers approaching from the Macombs Dam bridge. LPR got this image, March 13 -- Friday, standing in the middle of this heavily-traveled roadway. LPR expects record-breaking gridlock unless: traffic patterns are changed; the area is off-limits to cars, or many drivers park beyond the the opening day gridlock radius.

It indeed appears to be a formidable structure. "Massive" might not be too strong a term to describe. A friend who saw another photo of the ballpark wrote that it reminded her of the Roman Coliseum.

LPR wonders if people will say that it looks the way the original Yankee Stadium would have look with steroids. (LPR, however, does not expect the ballpark will become known, popularly as "Steroid Field.")

The arches on the ballpark are open. Just inside are larger- than- life images of Yankee players. The apparently translucent ceiling, visible through the arches, reminds LPR of a ceiling one might see in a modern museum -- or, possibly, mall.

LPR Advisory for fans and media.

The Yankees will be driving into the ballpark at the River Avenue entrance to the garage below the field. This entrance is approximately in back of center field.

Fans, at Yankee Stadium, had gathered near the Yankee store for a glimpse of the players walking from their parking lot into the ballpark through the press gate.

The press gate at Yankee Stadium II is located to the right side of Gate 4 (see photo showing two small doors in a column next to Gate 4.) As remarked previously on LPR, we expect that most fans will take outside photos that will have Gate 4 in the center.

Garage Entrance

At the present time, it appears there will be little opportunity to see the players enter the building -- unless fans congregate near the garage entrance on the narrow River Avenue (which could be closed to traffic to accommodate the fans).

LPR does not, as yet, have the name of the umpire who will open a new era for the New York (Bronx-based) Yankees) by shouting "PLAY BALL"