Scott Miller of CBSSports.com reports that George Steinbrenner’s health must be seriously failing if the treatment he received at Yankee Stadium for the World Series was any indication.

When Steinbrenner exited the stadium after Game 2, elevators were shut down (without warning!), stairwells were locked and …

Mechanized gates dropped suddenly from the ceiling to confine some officials to certain areas of the corridor — including some surprised major league baseball officials who were not told beforehand and were suddenly trapped — and keep them away from the vehicles transporting Steinbrenner. Temporary curtains were quickly set up as well to block views.

Oh, and it gets worse. Read more…

How strange an opening season has it been for the new Yankee Stadium? The ticket prices were so astronomical that thousands of empty seats remained even in the playoffs, Peter Gammons called it the biggest joke in baseball, and they served hot dog buns that were apparently cooked when Babe Ruth built their last stadium. Oh, and just for good measure, it’s already falling apart.

(What makes you think that these people would know anything about the ticket situation? Does it say “Tickets” somewhere? Oh crap, that’s exactly what it says. Uh-oh.)

The operative problem here is the tickets; since the Yankees have no qualms about pricing themselves out of a sellout, the possibility of picking up some remaining tickets lingered on through yesterday and today. And by possibility, of course, we mean “the team not telling fans that it was sold out.” Not a huge problem, until you realize that 200 of those fans happened to be camped out at the stadium waiting for hours and hours in the middle of a rainstorm, waiting for those nonexistent tickets. Then we’ve got trouble.

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• Is Ana Ivanovic gradually turning into Anna Kournikova, at least in terms of tennis winnability?

• WNBA star Candace Parker says she’s conscious of what she eats. But she won’t remain conscious for long by scarfing down some In ‘n’ Out.

• Irate Irish fans use billboard to complain about Charlie Weis.

• Could the Big Ten be bringing a bowl game to Yankee Stadium?

• A-Rod talks to teens about steroid abuse. Ironic or inspirational?

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One of the knocks on the Big Ten recently has been their performance in bowl games. Nowhere was it more starkly evident than just last season, when the conference went 1-6 in bowl games. Iowa was the only team to notch a win, prevailing over utterly hopeless South Carolina.

(”What’s with this football here, eh? Who are these guys in the pads? I want my Jeter!”)

But the gripe from the BXI has always been that aside from the Motor City Bowl in Detroit, the bowl games are essentially road games. The Rose Bowl date with the Pac-10 is in Pasadena, a scant couple miles from the USC campus. Up until this year, three of the conference’s bowl slots were in Florida - SEC country, basically - and the others were in Texas and Arizona. As a matter of fact, in none of the 7 games was the Big Ten team closer to the bowl site than their opponent. It usually wasn’t even close.

The Big Ten is looking to level that playing field just a little bit, though, and reports are that they’re looking hard at a site in New York. One tiny problem, though - there’s going to be lots of those guys in that picture above.

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One of the biggest allures of seeing a baseball game is the food. Sure, all sports’ stadiums sell food of some sort, but only baseball has the deep emotional connection to hot dogs, nachos, and all the other sensory overloaders that come with an evening at the ballpark.

(Yum.)

So it would seem that the best food - moldy hot dog buns aside - would have to come from Yankee Stadium, right? But how are you going to actually find out without buying a ticket then dropping like $15 on a pretzel or whatever they charge? Well, there is a way to get free food from the game. There’s a tiny, miniscule little catch, though.

You have to be homeless. Read more…

Boy, seems like a while since we’ve had any crazy A-Rod news, doesn’t it? Turns out that when the Yankees are actually playing good baseball on the field, the New York media doesn’t need to squeeze back-page headlines out of every move Rodriguez make and every word he says.

The latest rumor to make the rounds about the Yankees’ purple-lipped slugger was that he’d been seen getting mighty close to actress Kate Hudson. But yesterday, it went from gossip page fodder to Real News, and so here we are.

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In our previous episode, the New York Yankees were suing being sued by a fan who dared to leave his seat to use the restroom during the singing for God Bless America, and was thrown out of the stadium. Of course the Yankees prevailed in that lawsuit, thus preserving American freedom … no wait, they lost in spectacular, embarrassing fashion. So the Steinbrenner brothers learned their lesson about taking on the little guy, right? Apparently not.

Fed up with steroid use in baseball in general and with the Yankees in particular, Long Island resident Steve Lore has trademarked the phrase “The House That Juice Built,” and printed up some nifty t-shirts to that effect. Not so fast, says New York Yankees LLP. Cease and desist, or we will sue you back to the Stone Age, or thereabouts. Let’s watch the fun. Read more…

We’ve been quick to point out the comically fan-unfriendly practices by the New York Yankees, especially in the new Yankees Stadium. Unless $1500 seats and moldy hot dog buns are your thing, of course.

(Soon, this horrordemon of a map will be the antiquated relic it should have been a decade ago.)

But as the paragons of fairness we are, we have to point it out when the team does something good. No, check that; when the team does something awesome. The single greatest scourge of the MLB fan experience, Bud Selig the local market blackout rule, is in serious danger as the Yankees are about to roll out in-market video streaming online.

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One of the major criticisms leveled at the world’s most prominent athletes over the years has been that they are too unwilling to take a stand on issues or criticize anyone or anything, for fear of upsetting sponsors and consumers. Two people often targeted in this criticism are Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan, the world’s two most recognized athletes. “Republicans buy shoes, too,” the old saying goes, and we’re left with press conferences that feature a lot of vanilla cliches.

So it came as something of a surprise on Friday that Tiger, while discussing his pretty awesome commitment to allowing children free admission to his own AT&T National golf tournament this weekend, lashed out at the New York Yankees’ new much-maligned stadium.

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One of the biggest jokes in pro sports so far this year has been the neverending punchline that is the new Yankee Stadium. The Yankees’ billion-dollar monument to greed, excess, and everything else wrong with the modern American economy has hurt the team on the field and its vast oceans of empty overpriced seats has hurt the team off it. For Yankees fans, it would be an embarrassing position to be in - if they had the capacity for shame. Which they don’t.

And while the hubris of Yankees fans knows few bounds, they might want to sit up and take notice of a piece that appeared in the NEW YORK TIMES this weekend. If fans think this season’s rows of empty seats are no big deal, just wait - this could just be the beginning.

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