5 ADDITIONAL Reasons Why I Hate the Yankees

I took the day on Saturday to travel north, with my father, to The Bronx and watched the Yankees play the Blue Jays. Mind you - I've never had any love for the Yankees. I hate them because they have the most money. I hate them because their fans are, generally, unintelligent and obnoxious. I hate them because they win year - after year - after year - after year - after year... while the Pirates lose year - after year - after year - after... you get the point. But my recent trip has given me five additional reasons to despise the Evil Empire. Those are:

1. The lack of signage outside the stadium. Approaching the stadium from the subway, you have no idea where to go. We had tickets that said enter at gate 4. Well - we came up to gate 2 and there were NO signs as to which way to travel to get to gate 4. It's as if the ONLY people that come to this ballpark are Yankee Fans and how dare anyone come to our building who doesn't know where to go. (Never mind the fact that they play in the biggest tourist destination on the planet). I was asked by, at least, five people where a specific gate was. Clearly, we weren't the only newcomers to the stadium. The occasional sign offering assistance would be helpful, Mr. Steinbrenner. Please understand that, not everyone mindlessly worships the Yankees and not everyone knows where they are going when they come to visit your historic stadium. We finally asked a security guard and he said that Gate 4 was all the way on the other side of the stadium, but that we could enter at Gate 2 if we wanted to. "Excuse me - but my ticket says, 'ENTER AT GATE 4?'" The security guards response, "Yeah - you don't have to pay attention to that." WHAT? Do I have to pay attention to the other stuff on my ticket... like where my seats are... or can I ignore that, too? Stupid.

2. Lack of signage inside the stadium directing me to my seats. Now - I'm a veteran of ballparks (and I've actually been to Yankee Stadium before) but the numbering scheme at Yankee Stadium is dumb. The even sections are on the 3B side and the odd on the 1st base side. That's wierd to me - but I'll accept it. What is wierd is that we had tickets in section 631, but the section directly behind us (higher seats) was section 15. HUH? Also - the signs were not very clear telling me to go down or up, so we mistakenly sat up in section 15 (before being shooed down to our real seats). When we were shooed to our seats (RowE, seats 13 & 14) we walked into row E and the seats went ...10, 11, 12... and stopped at 12. HUH? Well - the row behind Row E was ALSO row E and seats 13 and 14 were in that row. Dumb.

3. Now this isn't directly related to the Yankees, but because I experienced it during a trip to see the Yankees, I'll put it on them. NJ Transit really needs to work on how it gets the people from the track into the station and vice versa. Hundreds of people on the train from Trenton got off at NY PENN station and there was ONE escalator to get up into the actual station from the platform. After getting off the train, it took 20 minutes just to get from the platform into the station. The same thing happened on our way home when we were going from the station onto the platform. Ridiculous.

4. The weather was listed on ALL major websites and weather authorities labeled the weather forcast as "Partly Sunny". Well - the game was delayed by rain for 92 minutes and started at 2:30 instead of 1:05. Not only was the game delayed - I didn't see the sun all day - not even part of it. Couple that with the fact that the game lasted well over 5 hours, forcing us to leave early so that we didn't miss the last train of the day (in Trenton) to get back to Philadelphia. I blame Joe Torre. Yankees Suck.

5. We sat next to an obnoxious, racist, loud mouth student from The University of Pennsylvania on the train ride back from NY. I'm convinced that this girl is George's granddaughter or at least related to him in some distant way.

Ok - so only 2 of these things are directly controlled by the Yankees but it doesn't change my opinion of them. I still hate them. That being said - I'd sacrifice signs and clarity at PNC Park for a playoff appearance any day of the week. It goes to show you that fans will put up with ANYTHING if your team is winning. Signs - don't need 'em... rain - who cares... unneeded delays to get to the game - doesn't matter... WE ARE WINNERS! Maybe the Pirates should try that...