The New Yankee Stadium Is Geeky

The New York Yankees and Cisco Systems are turning the new Yankee Stadium into a Technogeeks paradise with 1,100 flat-panel HDTV screens all over the place, even in the restrooms, and the technical capability to send different information to each one. The folks in the 51 $600,000+ (per season) luxury suites can order up hot dogs and merchandise on touch screen phones. (No, they didn't mention the iPhone.) The long-range plan is to connect the system to fans in their seats, first in the stadium and later at home. There's a good article on it in today's New York Times. (Registration required.)

Trivia note: Rice University alumnus John Cox ’27 gave his alma mater his ownership of the old Yankee Stadium, including all leasing rights, in 1962. Rice made several million dollars off the gift, leasing the House that Ruth Built to the Yankees for almost a decade. In the winter of 1966, the stadium was painted blue and white, but perhaps that was a coincidence. The city of New York eventually forced Rice to sell Yankee Stadium in 1971 for the meager price of $2.5 million.

Trivia compounded: I was a grad student at Rice in 1962 and the story I remember was that Cox owned the land under the stadium, not the stadium itself. But I found the stadium story in a 2006 copy of the Rice Alumni magazine, then called The Sallyport, so I'll take their word for it.

What's a sallyport? I thought you'd never ask. It's the passageway through Lovett Hall, the administration building at the entry to Rice.