JANUARY 20, 2009 --

The 2009 baseball season opens in the Bronx at 161st Street, between Jerome Avenue and River Avenue on April 16, with Cleveland as the visiting team. The first games at the new ballpark are exhibitions against the National League's Chicago Cubs, April 3 and 4.

The SW Corner

LPR stopped by "The New Yankee Stadium" as it is called on on the Yankee website, a couple of days, last week, and got images at Gate 2 (Jerome Avenue, up from 161st Street, through locked door and through open door.

The second day that LPR stopped by, last Wednesday, a Gate 2 door was open and LPR got these exclusive photos of the interior at Gate 2: looking straight ahead towards the field, and to the right, in the direction of Gate 4.

Opening day is only three months away and there seems to be quite a bit of finishing to do at Junior. Senior still has the sign that tells how many days remain until spring training. LPR, however, does not expect that opening day will be played at Senior.

Bleacher tickets will cost 25 cents and grandstand seats $1.10 for the exhibition games against the Cubs. These were the prices when Yankee Stadium opened in 1923.

Other sections will cost quite a bit more for the exhibitions, but the top price will be $50, a mere bagatelle compared to the prices for seats during the season, which will range from $12 in the bleachers to $2,500 in a luxury box seat.

Perhaps the economy is not as bad as the media has told us.

And for those of you who, not having invested with Bernard Madoff; Lehman Bros; Bear, Stearns; and so forth, can still afford Yankee tickets, the gate locations replicate the gate positions at "The House that Ruth Built." Gate 2 is on the left field side, Gate 4 is back of home plate, Gate 6 is on the right field side (along 161st Street) and Gate 8, leading to the bleachers, is on the River Avenue side, under the "el," which carries the IRT No. 4 subway train on its trip through The Bronx (said to be one of the three locations in the world whose name begins with the definite article -- the others being The Vatican and The Hague).