Richard Kostelanetz
Stealing Second Base (1993)
Reading all the discussion of George Steinbrenner's proposal to move the Yankees, I wonder if any of the commentators actually buy tickets to see the games. If they did, they would know that neighborhood directly adjacent to the Yankee Stadium is scarcely unsafe. The subway exits on the intersection of a north-south avenue and a main cross street. As everybody who has ever lived in a marginal neighborhood knows, main streets are for obvious reasons a lot safer than side streets. Secondly, the Stadium stands right next to a subway stop, while the pathway to the stadium is well-patrolled by armed police. (That accounts for why, to my recollection, reports of crime there are scarce.) Whenever I read anyone writing about going to the Stadium as fearsome, my first thought is that he or she hasn't actually been there; they might as well be pontificating about the moon.
The real reason for declining attendance in the past few years has been the cost of general admission tickets (which is all you can get before the game, because others were sold out to season ticket holders) has risen since 1989 from $8.00 to $10.50, which is to say from a price competitive with a movie to one that isn't. (The cost of backless bleacher seats has risen as well since 1989 from $4.50 to $6.50.) No wonder previous customers decide against going to Yankee games as often as before.
Most of us would say that anyone raising prices in an economic slump was either a fool or a schemer. The scheme here is using self-induced lower attendance as a rationale for fleecing public funds for either neighborhood improvements or the construction of another stadium (probably with fewer seats, in the conspiratorial hope that selling it out would prompt additional increases in ticket prices). This threat is ultimately not local but national.
Mark my words: if Steinbrenner succeeds, every major league municipality and all major league fans will be similarly threatened. Let me propose instead that if the state has any function in a free market, it should be to hasten the departure of those who charge too much (especially if they display the chutzpah then to ask the state to compensate them for self-induced losses).