Yankee Stadium Eats

For years in Pasadena, my morning computer routine was the same: check email, check ESPN.com, check my blog, then check the sky is big in pasadena, Ben Wideman's daily photoblog of the Crown City. I don't believe there was a day in three years that I was in town and failed to check it. But I never actually met Ben. Then he graduated from Fuller last year, got a job in Pennsylvania, and moved away. 

Last month Ben sent me an email that he would be in New York City last night: it was his 30th birthday and he wanted to go see his beloved Blue Jays take on the Yankees. He asked if I wanted to go and I said sure. I had been to the old Yankee Stadium years ago, but had yet to visit the new one.

Before we get to the food, here are some photos I took from the game:

I took the subway to the stadium. $2.50. Ben and his aunt drove.

"Our four tickets cost forty bucks combined," he said. "And I just paid $35 for parking."

I showed up more than an hour before game time to walk around and take photos. I'm in my 30s and I've been to hundreds of games in more than a dozen states, and I still get a thrill every time I see a Major League field. So beautiful.

I guess there wasn't room for "of Anaheim" on the flag.

Wait a second... I thought The Beast destroyed that ball.

They were showing the sepia-tone clip of Lou Gehrig on the big screen, so I thought I'd make the whole picture sepia.

 Not too shabby.

 "Hey, guys! It's me, Tracy, the black guy from work!"

The Yankees won the game, but ARod struck out three times and grounded into a double play. The boos rained down like thunder and I laughed.

Now on to some pictures of the food options:

(I'm not sure what my favorite is: either the nine-dollar PBR "retro beer" tall cans or the farmers market stand.)

Now here's what I actually ate:

Many years ago I ate at Brother Jimmy's BBQ in Manhattan and thought it was pretty good. So I decided to get some pulled pork sliders with fries ($12) and a bottle of water ($5). 

I realize a stand at a ballpark can't take several minutes to carve up a customer's barbecue, so it's completely unfair to hold the stand to any standards close to what you would expect from a restaurant. Still, this pulled pork was awful. Just dreadful. Possibly the worst I have ever had, and without question the most dried-out. It was closer to jerky than barbecue. If you left a plate of pulled pork uncovered on a counter all night, it might taste like this.

And the fries were cold.

The one positive here was the vinegar sauce, and it was delicious. But the plastic container was only filled about one-third of the way. So I took that small amount, as well as the three small pickle slices that were buried under the fries, and put it all on one of the sliders. It made it... well, it barely did anything, the pork was that bad. But I guess it made it slightly better.  

So I got myself a footlong hot dog ($6.75) and covered it with French's spicy brown mustard. This was a very good ballpark dog, miles ahead of a Dodger Dog. I wish I'd bought this to start. 

When I left the game I bought a bag of cotton candy ($4.50) for Elizabeth, as that might be her favorite thing in the entire world. She loved it.

And so did Hawkeye.

It was fun seeing the new Yankee Stadium, though I liked the old one better. The new one certainly has a lot more food options, but I'm not sure if that's really a good thing. (Ben had regular sliders and he said they were pretty bad, too.) I don't know if I'll ever return but if I do I will be getting a couple of slices of pizza somewhere instead of eating at the stadium.