Ranking the best in-game experiences for each MLB team

New York Yankees: Monument Park

The new Yankee Stadium will never quite be able to capture the magic and history of the original House that Ruth Built. The old Yankee Stadium was just too iconic to ever be replicated. That’s not to say that the current Stadium isn’t gorgeous and a spitting image of its predecessor, but try as they might, the Yankees just couldn’t quite transport the history across the street.

Yankee Stadium has drawn plenty of criticism from fans for being too corporate and too expensive, and those criticisms are certainly valid (not that it was ever cheap to attend a game in the old park). There has been more emphasis placed on catering to the wealthy crowd that can afford to sit in the exclusive seats that ring the lower level, derisively referred to as “Steinbrenner’s Moat” by some Yankee fans.

Look, I do get the critics of the new Yankee Stadium, but to a non-Yankee fan like myself, the new one really is an upgrade. All of the design features that made the old stadium special have been brought over. The concourse is wide and glistening. Quite frankly, the old park was getting dumpy and there just wasn’t much that could be done to modernize it. It also wasn’t an old, tiny neighborhood park like Fenway or Wrigley. When a building that large gets outdated, it becomes painfully so in a hurry.

The highlight of the new Yankee Stadium is the glistening Monument Park. In the old stadium, Monument Park was cramped and hard to find. Now, the Yankee heroes of yesteryear are properly honored in a wide-open space. The Yankees also added a spectacular team museum that could function as a second wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame.