SOUTH BRONX — It looks like the main rival of the Yankees this season might be Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr., not the Boston Red Sox.
Diaz harshly criticized the team in a letter to Yankees President Randy Levine for its new ticketing policies and comments recently made by Yankees COO Lonn Trost that he described as "incredibly insensitive."
The team has announced that it will no longer accept print-at-home PDF tickets, making it tough for fans to use ticket resellers such as StubHub, and Trost's comments to the media about the reason for the new policy have been widely denounced as elitist.
“The problem below market at a certain point is that if you buy a ticket in a very premium location and pay a substantial amount of money,” Trost reportedly said an interview with WFAN. “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-and-a-half and sits there, and it’s frustrating to the purchaser of the full amount."
“And quite frankly,” he continued, “the fan may be someone who has never sat in a premium location. So that’s a frustration to our existing fan base.”
Diaz called the team's new ticketing policy "Draconian" in his letter and said it discriminates against baseball fans who would like to see a game for a more reasonable price.
The team has defended its new policy as a way of preventing fraud and counterfeit tickets, but Diaz sees it in a different light.
"It is hard not to think of this as a blatant money-grab by the New York Yankees that hurts the pockets of the most die-hard fans," he wrote.
He said the new policy would also hurt season-ticket holders trying to sell tickets for games they cannot attend and argued that fans should not get caught up in any feud the Yankees might have with StubHub.
"I ask that the Yankees reconsider this new ticketing policy that is extremely punitive towards the most devoted fans," Diaz wrote. "I would also suggest that Mr. Trost be more mindful of his words, given his recent inclination to insult the vast majority of the Yankee fan base, myself included."
Levine said that Trost's comments were taken out of context and stressed that everyone is welcome at Yankee Stadium.
He also issued a brief statement saying that he had a "good and productive meeting" with StubHub on Wednesday.
"It lasted about an hour and we agreed to continue talking," he said. "There is nothing to announce at this current moment, but we will update everyone when we have news.”
