TICKET BLITZ
Yankee-StubHub feud heats up again
IN THE Yankees’ ongoing ticket battle with StubHub, it looks like the Bronx is burning! Bronx borough president Ruben Diaz Jr. is siding with StubHub in the team’s heated battle with the ticket exchange, his spokesman confirmed Tuesday night.
“The borough president is a lifelong Yankee fan. The borough president’s favorite player was Graig Nettles,” John DeSio, communications director for Diaz, told the News.
“He lives and dies by the Yankees, as do many people in the borough, the city and the world. This new policy on tickets, combined with their COO’s elitist comments, are not very fan friendly for the borough president or anyone else who loves the Yankees.”
Yankee president Randy Levine didn’t waste time tearing into Diaz.
“It doesn’t surprise me given that we’ve stopped his endless funding requests,” Levine told ESPN’s Darren Rovell, who first reported in a tweet that Diaz may be taking StubHub’s side. “It does surprise me because the only time he showed up to Yankee Stadium was when he was on official business when he was comped.
“I guess there are no greater problems in the Bronx,” Levine continued to Rovell, “that he needs to spend time on, than ticketing.” The battle royale between the Yankees and StubHub got heated last week when the Bombers — who have an official deal with Ticketmaster — said they would no longer accept print-athome tickets in the Bronx. The Yanks said the move would protect fans from fraud, but the Bombers have been battling StubHub for years over the resale of tickets. Ticketmaster sets a price floor for the ducats, while on StubHub, tickets can be resold for any price. After the decision, Yankees COO Lonn Trost made things considerably worse for the Bombers in attempting to explain the team’s policy with this elitist rant:
“It’s not that we don’t want that fan to sell it, but that fan is sitting there having paid a substantial amount of money for a ticket and (another) fan picks it up for a buck-anda-half and sits there, and it’s frustrating to the purchaser of the full amount,” Trost said.
Then added: “And quite frankly, the fan may be someone who has never sat in a premium location. So that’s a frustration to our existing fan base.”| — Mike Matvey
MEMORIES OF YOGI
Joe Girardi got another reminder that pal Yogi Berra is gone when he drove past one of Berra’s favorite spring training eateries — Lee Roy Selmon’s local barbecue joint.
Not having the Yankee legend, who died last Sept. 22, in camp is hard, Girardi said.
“Obviously, it was very difficult the day he passed away, the weeks and months after,” Girardi said. “You get into your offseason, and you miss the call at Thanksgiving; you miss the call at Christmas. It kind of hit me hard, too, when we drove by Lee Roy Selmon’s because that was one of his favorite places to dine.”