New Yankee Stadium Snapshot: Roaming the Concourse

NEW YORK--Just went down to check out this "Great Hall" they have here. Pretty nifty. Long, high, wide hallway with open archways all along to give it an open-air feel (not ideal on this night, as it means you get rained on, but the effect is good). They have banners lining it, with pictures of Yankee greats on them. (Line of the day from Lou Piniella, on whether he saw any pictures of himself: "No, I didn't go into the men's room.")

They have monstrously huge hi-def flat-screen TVs broadcasting the game. And they have noise -- they play highlights in between innings with John Sterling's voice bellowing the narration.

They also have a variety of concession stands down there. And not that I want to be pegged as the guy who always blogs about food, but I did notice a couple of interesting things. Sure, there's the typical hot dogs/peanuts ballpark fare, but the new Yankee Stadium has a couple of concession quirks that skew a bit more modern.First, tucked away around a corner behind home plate, there's a Farmer's Market fruit stand selling fresh pears, apples, bananas and other fruits. Which is a nice touch. There's also a kid-specific concession stand right there, selling kid-sized hot dogs, fries and other goodies for prices that are a little more kid-sized than the rest of the concessions you're going to find.

Also, all of the concession stands list the calorie numbers for the food. (Ed Price, a Manhattan resident, points out that this is a New York City law and the same will be true at Citi Field in Queens.) These numbers take turns being more or less alarming than the food prices that list next to them. For example:

Premio Italian sausage (hot or sweet): 500 cal, $9.00
California roll: 255 cal, $9.75
Johnny Rockets onion rings: 790 cal, $6.00
Carolina pulled pork sandwich at Brother Jimmy's BBQ: 470-710 cal, $10
Nathan's kids hot dog: 210 cal, $3.00
Jumbo popcorn: 1,484 cal(!!), $7.00

My personal favorite was along the first-base side, toward the far end of the "Great Hall." They have a stand selling "Retro Beers." These are tall-boy cans of Schlitz (195 cal), Schaeffer (189 cal), Ballantine (217 cal) and Pabst Blue Ribbon (204 cal), each for $9.00.

It's a steal, folks. The Budwesier drafts are $10.00 apiece. But you get a souvenir cup with those...