Sure Yankee Stadium is gray, but it's grand, too

New York

The same clickity-clack subway brings you here -- to the Bronx for baseball.

Always different, always the same. A man reading a novel. A woman lugging a heavy bag. An infant asleep.

Many different languages. Many different cultures.

And a homeless person wishing each of us good physical, mental and spiritual health -- before saying that donations, in exchange for such salutations, would be welcome.

This is how we rode to the old Yankee Stadium all those years. It wasn't always a novel, not always a heavy bag, but always clickity-clack.

And then you'd get there. The Yankee Stadium stop.

Even if you arrived four hours before first pitch, as being a baseball writer requires, everybody would rush out when the subway doors opened.

In a pack, we'd head down the stairs and through the station turnstiles. One time as we were headed down, three rats were headed up.

Guess who turned around first.

The ride out was no different this time. But the arrival was.

Out they all went again when the doors opened, the Yankees fan speaking Spanish, the Yankees fan wearing a faded Maid of the Mist T-shirt, even the Yankees fan wishing us good spiritual health.

This time, though, the doors opened into the future instead of the past -- for down the stairs, and through the turnstiles, no rats this time, was a gleaming new ballpark.

We'd seen it being built the last few years. We'd heard it was going to be spectacularly new and appreciatively old at the same time.

And it is.

They've done a good job.

"It's like being in the old ballpark," Jim Leyland said.

"I like it," Justin Verlander said. "They retained the heritage, but it's not all on top of you anymore."

"I'm not sure, isn't it awfully gray?" said a whining Bob Wojnowski, also attending these games -- but more on him later.

Wojo has a good point, though.

Flaws, there are a few

The place isn't perfect. Those bench seats in the outfield are straight from Moscow vs. Kiev in the 1960s.

The highest-price tickets don't always sell out because they're too high-priced. Even in a strong economy, would you pay $2,800?

And the affordable $5 bleacher seats have a drawback. As in, "Thanks, Dad, I can't see right field" if you're cheaping out in left.

Overall, though, thumbs up. The concourses are wide and aren't blocked from a view of the field anymore. The old concourses were the width of prairie-dog tunnels.

The main gate was designed with the 1923 original in mind.

And the frieze atop the stadium is back, making new Yankee Stadium look like old Yankee Stadium -- like way back before-renovation Yankee Stadium.

That's more than you can say about Comerica Park looking anything like Tiger Stadium. No attempt was made at home to evoke the past. In fact, it was the intention not to.

That doesn't make one intention better than the other. Just different.

"It's beautiful," catcher Gerald Laird said.

"It's gray," repeated Wojo. "Too much concrete. Do you see brick anywhere?"

That does it. Truth be told, it took Wojo 22 seconds -- he says 31 -- to start whining about the new ballpark. Either time, however, is a record, even for him.

I don't think he liked the subway, either.

"How much does a cab to Yankee Stadium cost," he said, as the jostling began.

New era, old feel

Seriously, Bob, what do you think of the new place?

"It looks like a power-washed version of the old place," he said.

To some extent, that's true.

And if there was a way to market the grime of old Yankee Stadium, it would be marketed. Everything else is being sold.

You can buy freeze-dried grass from the old place for $80 -- plus there are any numerous outlets for Yankee Stadium dirt.

Piece by piece, they are tearing down, digging up and dismantling Yankee Stadium as it was.

But Yankee Stadium, as it is, stands as a worthy replacement. Even if it is a tad gray.

tom.gage@detnews.com">tom.gage@detnews.com