Jason! Take your set-up and shove it! Give me Eddie
Oilers go one up. Chase Field renovations closer to reality
Good morning, all!
According to an article in the Sports Business Journal, the New YorkYankees are pumping up the volume on their public address system.
We’re trying to meet our young fans where they are. There’s an elaborate speaker set-up in the ballpark. We didn’t install it to play Phil Collins elevator music.
-Jason Zillo, Yankees VP/Communications & Media Relations
Maybe that is another reason why I have never been to the faux Yankee Stadium, that opened in 2009. Nor do I have a desire.
You’re reading a newsletter written by a guy who first went to the only Yankee Stadium that matters in 1961. At one point I was going to 20 games a year. I attended the last game at the old Yankee Stadium in 1973 (I have the receipts to prove it) and the first game at the renovated stadium in 1976.
Jason Zillo is entitled to his comments but the loud music and constant sounds played at today’s MLB parks are an assault on my ears. It’s bad enough you have to put up with this static, when watching a game on television. If this is baseball’s way of “We’re trying to meet our young fans where they are,” then what does that say about the product being put on the field?
Call me old fashion if you’d like, but I miss the days of good ol’fashion ballpark organ music. I long for the days of Eddie Layton on the Yankee Stadium organ.
It used to be you could name a team’s organist. Layton with the Yankees and before that Toby Wright, when the Yankees first installed an organ in 1965 at the real Yankee Stadium. There was Jane Jarvis with the Mets, John Kiley at Fenway Park, the legendary Nancy Faust with the White Sox - still going strong performing on occasion at various parks, including Chicago - Nancy Bea Hefley and Helen Dell at Dodger Stadium and Gladys Gooding at Ebbets Field.
Heck, when I was broadcasting Richmond Braves games in the 1980s we had our own organist, Linda Johnston. And Rochester Red Wings organist Fred Costello is still going strong at 89.
And while we’re on the subject, those “young fans” which the Yankees are trying to appease, the last I heard they had no problem singing along to Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York.” So take that loud music and “stick it where the sun don’t shine.” I’ll settle for the ballpark organ music at a reasonable volume of days gone by.
Here are some other DAN ON SPORTS top stories for Thursday, June 5, 2025:
Good news for the Diamondbacks? Phoenix closer to deal on Chase Field
Oilers beat defending champs in OT in Game One of finals
Red Sox have big plans for new office building
MLB closer to automated strike zone
Controversy in WCWS, as Texas wins first game
Let the hand-wringing over this NBA Finals begin
Report: Suns to hire Cavs assistant to be next head coach
So long Solder Field?
LIV golf snags another golfer
Thank you for subscribing.
DAN