Dennis Hamill, a columnist I generally like, wrote an interesting piece on how the average Brooklyn families are being squeezed out of going to Mets games at the new, expensive CitiField. Of course he has to take a dig at the yuppies for pricing out the old Brooklyn.So, before I offer my 2 cents on baseball, let me say this: Enough with the negative yuppie sentiments.
A lot of us "yuppies" are the children or grandchildren of the candy store owner who "tawked like dat," born and raised in Brooklyn (or surrounding boroughs and suburbs) and wanted to stay home. Sorry if going to school to make enough money to stay in the New York City area hurts your sensibilities, but that is life these days. Youshow me all the great paying blue collar jobs left in this city for the average person to go. Heck, show me all those greats across America. They don't exist, at least in numbers that they used to and, even if we weren't busy outsourcing everything overseas, those blue collar jobs wouldn't exist like they did back then due to automation. Knowledge is power and if that makes me yuppie scum, so be it.
And New York City, while always a great place, was not the best place to live in the later portion of the 20th century.I had a lot of fun growing up in the outter boroughs in the 1970s and 80s, but I don't miss the budget cuts that closed schools and libraries, let parks and subways fall apart and let police protection decrease so much that we stopped being surprised that the car was broken into or one of our bikes were stolen. And though many of us who grew up in the city during the lean days are priced out today (yes, even us yuppies), that is the price of progress. For every yuppie who pays $1M for a walkup in Park Slope, there is a long time resident weho makes out like a bandit (my mother included, who got 4x the price my parents paid 35 years earlier forour home).
That said, no way will I be taking my children to baseball games as much as my dad took my brothers and me. The cheapest tickets (those $11 tix are on weeknights, not a great time to go with small children), excluding parking (or mass transit) for our family of 4 will set us back about $100 (much more if I aimed for the mid level seats). Not a lot, but I can think of a lot more to do with that money then see a baseball game. With today's prices, my children will be lucky if I take them to one game a season. The stories my mother tells of walking over to Ebbets Field almost every afternoon after school to see the Dodgers will seem quite alien to her grand-children.
Back when I was a teen, it was not uncommon for my friends and I to run over to Shea at the spur of the moment on a Friday night to see the Mets for $5 (assuming they weren't sold out, they were pretty good then). Even with inflation making those $5 seats probably closer to $10 in today's money, the cheapest seats at Citifield are still twice that for a Fri night game. And again, forget about the better seats which we also used to buy tickets for. Some of my best baseball memories come from those games. All that started with the games my dad took us to when we were young. Sadly, I will not be doing the same, choosing instead to see minor league games. Though I am trying to raise my son as a Mets fan, the closest minor league teams belong to the Yankees and the Phillies. Ugh.
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