Here’s How Yankees Can Improve Stadium Experience
- Paul Semendinger
- Aug 13, 2025
- 5 min read
By Paul Semendinger
August 2025
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NOTE - This article was originally published in the IBWAA's daily newsletter Here's The Pitch on July 19, 2025
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On July 11, 2025 I attend the Yankees game with my son Ethan. We had a great time. As big Yankees fans, although we've been to hundreds of games, it's always a thrill to go Yankee Stadium.
The game we saw was one of the best of the year. Aaron Judge made three spectacular plays in the outfield. Carlos Rodon pitched eight scoreless innings. And Cody Bellinger blasted three home runs (and just missed a fourth)! The Yankees won the game, 11-0. It was fantastic!
While we had a terrific time, I have some recommendations for the Yankees to make the experiences for fans that much better:
While it may be legal in New York City, the Yankees have to make a rule that there is no drug use at or around the stadium. If the Yankees need to hire tons more security to enforce this, then they must. Fans of all ages, especially kids, do not need to be smelling pot as they stand in line waiting to go to a baseball game. We arrived half-an-hour before the gates opened and the place reeked of marijuana. It was overwhelming. The atmosphere, right from the start, gave the absolutely wrong impression. Something needs to be done about that. Going to a baseball game is supposed to be something special. It supposed to be a place to bring the family. Being overwhelmed with the smells from people getting high makes the atmosphere feel less inviting and less welcoming.
Before the game some man, I have no idea who it even was (they announced his name, but did not say why he was significant) threw out the first pitch. I don't even believe a Yankees catcher received it. It is fine to let important people throw out a first pitch, but there are a host of former Yankees players who have never thrown out first pitches at Yankees games. Ever. I know that Roy White has never been asked to do this. This is a huge problem to me. The Yankees need to do a better job recognizing many of their past heroes. Great Yankees from the past should be welcomed back and given an opportunity to throw out a first pitch before they let some random person have that honor. Players such as Roy White, Graig Nettles, Chris Chambliss, and so many others are now in or approaching their 80s. It is way past time to give them some positive recognition. That needs to happen immediately. A former Yankee should be throwing out the first pitch at every Yankees game. These players gave years to the Yankees. The Yankees of today can give them a few minutes to receive some applause from the fans.
It is time for the team to bring back ushers. One wouldn't think that ushers are necessary because it isn't all that difficult to locate where one's seats are located. The sections, rows, and seats are clearly labeled. That being said, throughout most of the first half of the game, there were dozens of people who walked into our section (upper deck, 419), stood there, looked around, paused, and then want back down the same stairs obviously having no idea where they were supposed to sit. We also saw people sitting in the wrong seats (on purpose or by accident) many times. If fans can't figure out where to sit, ushers are needed to guide them.
The Yankees started a new tradition of having a person (that night it was a young girl) place the game ball on the pitcher's mound. Who this person was and why she was doing this was a mystery. If the Yankees are going to honor someone by having them place a baseball on the mound, tell us who that person is and why she was given that special honor.
I love that we honor America with the singing of The Star-Spangled Banner before the game, but let's truly honor America by showing respect when that occurs. I counted a grand total of 17 uniformed personnel (baseball players, coaches, and managers, I assume) on the field as the song was played. Seventeen. That's 17 played combined — when one counts the personnel from both teams. There was a time when both teams would line up reverently during this ceremony before each game. No longer. Some players were up the right-field line, while a few other people stood in front of the dugout. The National Anthem used to be played just before the start of the game, with the starting players at their positions. That needs to happen again. Now they play the song about 15 minutes before game time. I think baseball can afford to give our country three minutes at the start of the game. The way it is handled now it is as if it is an obligation that they cannot wait to get over with as quickly as they can. That is the wrong way to have the National Anthem represented before the start of a baseball game.
During the game, the Yankees blast (I should put this in all capital letters, BLAST!) sound effects and loud music continually and constantly. They have added flashing colorful lights that flicker on and off the scoreboards. That happened between every single pitch. Every single pitch. Baseball is supposed to be a pastoral game. The game itself is supposed to be the attraction. I understand having some music, but the Yankees have taken this to the extreme, both by the amount of music, sound effects, and noise all played at extremely high decibel levels. It was too much. If the Yankees cut the noise by half, it would still be too much, but they need to. I don't go to baseball games to be blasted into deafness by the non-game noise.
The Yankees have all sorts of special days at the stadium. I am suggesting a new one — "Turn Back The Clock Games." Once a month, the Yankees should, for a day game, give the fans a stadium experience in the manner in which the games used to be played. The sound effects during the game should come only from the organ. No loud music. No DJs. No sound effects. Nothing. Just the organ (and with that, the organ toned down also by at least 50% of the volume it is played at now). This would make the stadium experience greater. I suspect fans would love this which might send a message that the overwhelming noise they create, not based on the game play or the fans' reactions, has gone way, way, way too far.
One final suggestion (for now, at least): the Yankees (and Budweiser) used to give free sodas to a person who promised to be a designated driver. They should bring that back. Encourage sobriety by giving those who promise to be safe a free soda (or water). I think both corporations can afford that.
In closing, we had a great time at Yankee Stadium. If the Yankees follow my suggestions, more fans will have even better times.
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Paul Semendinger, Ed.D. is a retired school principal who teaches as an Adjunct Professor at Ramapo College. He is the award-winning author of The least Among Them, From Compton to the Bronx (with Roy White), Scattering the Ashes, Impossible is an Illusion, and more. Paul also runs the Yankees site Start Spreading the News.
I agree about the sound. It's not appropriate for baseball and reaches hazardous levels - I've got a decibel meter app. I wonder how loud it is on the field. Baseball is a leisurely game and conversation is pretty impossible except, ironically, when play is happening and you want to pay attention, not chat. The smoke is a little bit tricky. Pot is legal now, and there's certainly a lot of beer drinking built into the Stadium experience and that's not going anywhere.
One of the maxims I learned in law school was, "De minimis non curat lex," which translates colloquially as, "The law does not concern itself with trifles." With two exceptions, I respectfully suggest that the rest of the list is trifling. Who cares who throws out the first pitch, or brings the ball to the mound, or why? It affects the experience of being at a game not at all. Likewise, when the National Anthem gets played doesn't affect my watching the game. (Heck, if we're doing song complaints, mine is I think America the Beautiful would be much better, with the added bonus of having been written by a respected educator instead of by an enslaver.) If that…
1) edibles, of course.
and, BTW, what about selling ethanol inside the stadium? seems to me that, over the years, I've seen
some quite boorish behavior from ethanol consumers, people who've purchased the stuff from stadium vendors
and free sodas for one sober person in a party of two or four is not a solution nor much of a palliative.
if you wish to end public intoxication, I'm with you
but it's difficult to take seriously someone who objects to the odor of burning cannabis without objecting to the odor of stale beer and the reek of the regurgitated flotsam and jetsam that too often accompanies the overly enthusiastic ingestion of demon rum.