Yankee Stadium remains home to absurd ‘teachable moments’

Since Yankee Stadium opened in 2009, it has become a headquarters for absurdities.

On the first day, “Bottom Line” Bud Selig, aware of complaints about absurd ticket prices ($650 for a low infield seat, $1,500-$3,000 for a back seat surrounded by the pit) told Michael Kay on YES that he had “personally inspected” all of the seat prices and found them “affordable.”

Beginning on Day Two, that absurd claim became apparent as the best seats in the ballpark began to appear empty, and they remain mostly that way today, 15 years later. Yet Kay and the rest of the obedient propagandists among the Yankees’ legions of broadcasters, as well as most of the independent media outlets operating in the ballparks, have failed to take note, much less make an issue of, a greedy embarrassment that cannot be ignored.

Then came the absurd explanation from Yankees executive Lonn Trost, who said in a radio interview that charging less for those seats would be unfair to those who had already bought them. So reducing their cost for everyone was not an option?

Trost also said those seats often just appear empty, but they belong to customers who choose to watch the games on large televisions located in the luxurious dining room.

So those seats — the best in the house and just a few feet from those TVs — are being purchased for tens of thousands of dollars by those traveling to the Bronx to watch the games on television?

Also, having checked this twice during games, once on a very hot and sweaty night, I know this is not true.

Now, the absurd comes daily from Aaron Boone, who defends the indefensible: his overpriced team’s lazy, sloppy baserunning, posturing at the plate, fundamentally lacking “skills,” and his pregame pitching changes that invite unnecessary and unwanted intrigue.

Last week, Boone left town shocked and amazed that he had done what he should have done seven years ago when he began managing the Pinstripe Pride Yankees. He benched a player, albeit for only a few innings, for not trying hard.

Gleyber Torres stood watching one of those “I thought” home runs, landing on first when second base was just a short sprint away.

These days, these kinds of moments of shamelessness are more frequent and repetitive in baseball than sacrifice bunt hits in the final moments of games. Why? Well, “the game has changed.” The half-answer that now explains everything (and nothing).

But the absurdity was just beginning. After the game, Boone:

“I felt like I needed to bench him in that spot,” Boone said. “… He and I have talked and I hope this is a great learning moment for all of us.”

Torres has been with the Yankees for seven years. Does he still have to learn why running to second base is better than jogging to first and then stopping?

Even Torres knew better, saying he’s been a major leaguer too long not to know that.

However, Boone also said that “playing hard is overrated.”

Fascinating! He played 12 years in the majors, got to the top and stayed there because he played hard. He hit 216 doubles. How? Running?

Giancarlo Stanton, twice one-dimensional and ridiculously overpaid, was disabled because he was forced to slide awkwardly to second after jogging to first.

For God’s sake, Boone was the manager when Stanton hit a home run that I “thought/hoped” would hit the left field wall at Fenway and become a single, during a one-game wild card loss in 2021! Wasn’t that a “great learning moment”?

But watching baseball destroy baseball has been a lot like watching NBC ruin these Olympics, tied to a mumbled Snoop Dogg freak show, and watching Colorado hand over its football program to Agent of God con man Deion Sanders. It’s just a matter of time before you keep what’s left beneath your dignity.

Two television promos have appeared in recent days.

One of them, narrated by Derek Jeter, shows only moving images of MLB players showing off. There is no baseball, just the antithesis of how Jeter played the game.

The other, seen at YES to promote “Juan Soto Bobblehead Night,” included not a single glimpse of Soto playing baseball, just posing, bat flipping and other acts of self-aggrandizement.

On Sunday, two days after Torres’ brief suspension, Soto imitated him — or was it the other way around? Soto hit a fly ball to left field that was a home run by an inch as it bounced off the top of the wall. Soto was seen standing and watching. There was no suspension, no scolding from the Yankees’ television booth, as if we had been watching with our eyes closed.

Boone was right: “Playing hard is overrated.”

Serena’s self-proclaimed act invades the Paris Olympics

Not that the tennis voices at ESPN or the ESPYs are going to stop telling us that we all love her, but Serena Williams is still a loser. In Paris for the Olympics, she publicly fumed that she and her children were “denied” entry because the restaurant was booked.

He did not add that he was offered a table on the patio, but his crass boasting and misleading versions of the truth, as told on ABC’s Wide World of Sports, “spans the globe.”

But what did you expect from such an antisocial message? Universal sympathy or mockery?

If I were the maitre d’, I would have handed him the list of reservations and asked him to pick a few customers to call over and say, “I’m Serena Williams! YOU are being denied entry tonight, so that I, Serena Williams, and my children, can have your table!”

“And if you don’t like it, as I told a line judge at the US Open, I swear to God I’m going to take this fucking ball and shove it down your fucking throat!”

In French, of course.

Ron Darling, on SNY Sunday, said what many of us have long thought: Catchers “framing” pitches to “steal” strikes is too often a television-driven fantasy. Good umpires ignore it, or at least don’t delay their decisions to lean forward and consider it, while lesser umpires are too busy concentrating on the pitch rather than the catcher’s glove after he catches it.

NBC consistently abandoned the idea of ​​padding Olympic storylines to sell the “USA, USA!” message. For example, after the two-woman U.S. beach volleyball team beat Italy, did the teams exchange handshakes? NBC left the answer guessing, as it cut to slow-motion replays of the American women celebrating and shots of people waving American flags. As if that couldn’t wait five seconds.

Class dismissed, continued: Was Jays’ Vlad Guerrero Jr. publicly disciplined or suspended for reaching second base and then greeting the Yankees with a vulgar “full arm”? Under Rob Manfred’s direction? As if he gave a damn about baseball.

Someone at SNY—if there is such a thing—should tell Steve Gelbs that the next time he replaces Gary Cohen he should appear as Steve Gelbs and not as a poor Will Rogers imitation.

Reader Joe Napoleone advocates for New York to host the next Olympics: “Instead of swimming in the polluted Seine, they can use the Gowanus Canal.”