Detour
Take M
(New)me Out to the
(New)Ballparks
This season, t
more to the g
than just basemMajor League baseball in New York has
always been a larger-than-life experience:
Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Robinson, Mays,
here’s Mantle, etc. But this? Not even baseball-
ame crazed New Yorkers have seen the likes
ball of what awaits them in the 2009 season.
Over the course of four days in April,
BY CHRISTOPHER HANN
the Yankees and Mets will put nearly
130 years of collective baseball history
behind them when they christen a pair
of shiny new ballparks.
The Mets open their home schedule
April 13 against San Diego at Citi Field
(the official name as of press time),
a brick-faced ballpark built to resemble
Ebbets Field, erstwhile home of Brooklyn’s beloved Dodgers. The Yankees’
home opener, April 16 against Cleveland,
begins a new era at the new Yankee
Stadium, whose own retro look—the
limestone outer wall, the upper-deck
frieze—evokes the original stadium,
circa Opening Day 1923.
The similarities to classic ball yards
of yore, however, quickly give way to the
modern world as you step inside the cavernous main entrances to Citi Field and
Yankee Stadium. Although the seating
