Yankee Stadium to Host Baseball All-Star Game in 2008

Yankee Stadium to Host Baseball All-Star Game in 2008 (Update2)

By Erik Matuszewski

Jan. 31 (Bloomberg) -- The New York Yankees will host the Major League Baseball All-Star Game in 2008, the final season their 84-year-old stadium will be used.

Yankee Stadium, which opened in 1923 and was the stage for the team's record 26 World Series championships, is giving way to a new $955 million building after the 2008 season.

``It is the most famous cathedral in baseball and I think the most famous stadium in the world,'' Commissioner Bud Selig said at a press conference held at New York's City Hall. ``This is the way we can honor a place that has meant so much to this sport for so long.''

The game is scheduled for July 15, 2008. Yankee Stadium previously hosted All-Star Games in 1939, 1960 and 1977. After each of those seasons, the Yankees reached the World Series.

In addition to hosting the championship teams, the stadium was the home field for such players as Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio, who are among the 13 players in baseball's Hall of Fame who were inducted as Yankees.

Since 2003, the All-Star Game has been used to determine which league gets the advantage of playing at home for four of the seven games in the World Series. The American League has won all four All-Star meetings against the National League in that span and is 9-0-1 over the past 10 years.

``Nobody stages big events like the Big Apple,'' New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at today's news conference. ``We've got the experience, the resources and the spirit. We'll put on the best All-Star Game in baseball history.''

Ticket Prices

Tickets for last year's All-Star Game in Pittsburgh had a face value of $125 and some re-sold for between $450 and $2,000, ticket brokers said. The cost of seats at the game in the Bronx will probably be significantly higher.

``It's going to be a very tough ticket to get,'' Tom Patania, a board member for the National Association of Ticket Brokers, said in a telephone interview. ``The Yankees without having an All-Star Game have the highest attendance figures. To throw in an All-Star Game on top of that just adds to it.''

The Yankees drew more than 4 million fans in each of the past two seasons and averaged a major league-leading 51,858 for their 81 home games last season.

Bloomberg said city officials are expecting the All-Star Game to attract more than 175,000 visitors and have an estimated economic impact of $148 million. The highest previous economic impact for an All-Star host city was $65 million for Houston in 2004 and Boston in 1999, according to the league.

``This is something that all New Yorkers, not just baseball fans, should cheer about,'' said Bloomberg, the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News and its parent company, Bloomberg LP. ``This will showcase our city to a huge, diverse television audience and that's equal to millions of dollars of free advertising for our city and will help attract even more visitors and more businesses in years to come.''

All-Star Celebration

Selig said the league's All-Star celebration has changed significantly since 1977, when New York last hosted the game. It now lasts five days and features a home run derby, a fan festival and a futures game for top minor-league players.

Nine of the past 10 All-Star Games were held in new stadiums, including last year's meeting between the American League and National League at Pittsburgh's PNC Park.

Boston's Fenway Park was the only stadium more than 10 years old to host the All-Star Game since 1997.

San Francisco's AT&T Park, which opened in 2000, is the site of this year's game. St. Louis's new stadium will host the 2009 game and Selig said he's already considering the Mets' planned facility as a future All-Star site. Like the Yankees, the Mets are scheduled to open their new venue in 2009.

``This was unusual because one of the things I've tried to do is use the new stadiums, but the more we talked about it, celebrating (the Yankees') unprecedented history the overriding concern,'' Selig said. ``I can assure you, the Mets are on my radar screen when they get a new stadium.''