Steroids Are Fine. Salt is Dangerous.

Every now and then, TAC reserves the right to blog about whatever the hell he feels like. Today is one of those days.

I had a chance to visit new Yankee Stadium a few weeks ago and here are some thoughts about it.

1. It's impressive but not beautiful. Nice wide corridors, grand main plaza, comfortable seats (at least where I was.) But it does not have the beauty of some of the newer parks.

2. In spite of its grand scope, it has a great "close to the action" feel to it.

3. Love the fact that you can still see the elevated subway tracks from the stands. Gives it an authentic Bronx feel.

4. Compared to a West Coast ballpark: More guys with yarmulkas, fewer guys with tattoos.

5. Too much tacky self-promotion on the jumbotron. The Yankees have a remarkable history and don't need to keep hitting you over the head with it.

6. They spent a billion and a half on the ballpark. They couldn't spend a few thousand to clean up the subway station?

7. Without being too provincial here, I can't see how this ballpark cost four times as much as AT&T park in San Francisco.

8. The menu boards lists the caloric content of everything they sell. I'm sure it's some idiotic city regulation. Do I really need to be reminded that an order of Nathan's french fries has 1200 calories when I'm trying to enjoy a ballgame? Can't we have any fun anymore without government busybodies sticking their pious noses in our business?

9. Someone please explain this to me: there is no salt to be found anywhere in the ballpark. WTF?

And Now For Something Completely Different...
George Tannenbaum over at Ad Aged said something very scary, but very true yesterday. "There's no room for ambition in advertising today. Against the machine-like hegemony of massive holding companies and massive client "marketing" structures."

It's amazing that anything good gets done anymore.