yankees

Times are tough in Detroit. Many citizens of the city are struggling to find ways to keep their homes and find steady work. It couldn't get much worse.

But thanks to Jay Leno and eBay joining forces, it actually has gotten worse.

Jay Leno is planning a free stand-up comedy show for struggling Detroit residents. The tickets were made available Monday morning. By Monday night, Leno noticed that some of the tickets he gave away were on sale on eBay for "eight hundred something dollars," he said.

During his television monologue Monday night, Leno told viewers about the situation and explained that "you're out of your mind to pay $800 to see me." And then he asked eBay to cease all ticket sales for his live show. "I would like to ask the people at eBay to take the tickets down," he said. "There's nothing for sale here. It's just totally free."

By Tuesday, all instances of the sale were down from eBay. According to the company, Leno's request to have the tickets removed falls under its "Authorized Resellers Only" policy, so all would-be sellers were banned from selling tickets to the events.… Read more

I'm a die-hard Yankees fan and a season ticket holder for the most storied franchise in sports history. I've been buying the tickets online through the Yankees' "My Yankees" pane that it operates with Ticketmaster. Until now, I was happy with my package of games and the affordable seats I got.

But 2009 is a different story. The Yankees have a new stadium, higher pricing, and a relocation process that has caused Yankees fans to question the motives of their favorite team.

Right now, there are season ticket holders with seniority dating back more than five years that are still waiting for their season tickets, while others, who do have seats, have been moved from the infield to the upper deck. The main reason: Yankees brass decided to use the Web as their main source of adding new season ticket holders, which combined with more people wanting to see the new stadium, created demand that caught team officials off guard.

"As it turned out, we had an unexpected number of fans who wanted the full season, not dropping down because of the economy, but going up," Chief Operating Officer Lonn Trost told Newsday in an interview. "We didn't expect there would be such a demand for fulls and we have to salvage 6,000 or 7,000 seats a game for general sale."

To address concerns, the Yankees are now offering "premium seats" to displaced season ticket holders or newcomers for $325 per game for a full season package and $350 per game in a partial season plan. Those seats are located "dugout to dugout" just above field level. Good seats. But there's one problem: last year, a comparable seat in the old Yankee stadium behind home plate was selling for $100.

There's a lot of blame to go around. Some say that the Yankees shouldn't have been so "greedy" in their attempt to add more season ticket holders, while others are saying that it's the relatively recent availability of season tickets online that has substantially reduced the barriers to entry and made it possible for so many people to quickly and easily buy season packages.

Nowhere are both arguments more pronounced than in the place where the fervor started in the first place: online forums. As of this writing, NYYfans.com forum has a 177-page thread on the relocation process dating back to 2007. On average, more than 30 concerned fans are adding comments to that forum each day.

With under two months until the season starts, now is the time for most teams in the Major League to start making their big pushes for season tickets. Season ticket holders are important to any team because they basically guarantee cash for a certain number of games before the season even starts. That's precisely why the Web is such a key component in ticket distribution across Major League Baseball: Ease of use translates into more revenue.

I ventured around the league (online) to find out if fans in other cities were having as much trouble as Yankees fans trying to get season tickets and good seats. Fortunately, the Yankees debacle looks like an isolated event.… Read more

Our ongoing conversation about technology and urban spaces continues, with longtime CNET editor Matt Elliott joining us to discuss slumping e-commerce sales, the new high-tech Yankee Stadium, and competing plans for adding GPS and Wi-Fi to mass transit systems.

NEW YORK--Cisco Systems is teaming up with the New York Yankees to offer baseball fans an interactive experience at the ballpark and eventually bring that experience to their living rooms.

At a press conference in Manhattan on Tuesday, Cisco CEO John Chambers unveiled details of a new network the company is building for the Bronx Bombers to help them integrate voice, video, and data into their new stadium, which is set to open in April 2009.

The new network, which is costing the New York Yankees about $15 million to $16 million to build, will bring high-definition video throughout the … Read more

Cisco Systems is apparently teaming up with the New York Yankees to offer fans high-tech features in the new $1.3 billion Yankee Stadium.

Cisco CEO John Chambers and Yankees co-chairman Hal Steinbrenner are expected to dig into specific details of the partnership during a news conference at 10 a.m. EST Tuesday in New York, according to a Yankees media advisory.

The event will unveil "new fan-facing technologies" for the site, according to the advisory.

It could be a precursor of what Cisco has in mind for Cisco Field, a stadium project in the San Francisco Bay … Read more

What should we call this decade? The "aughts"? Come 2011, will we be in the "teens"? Audiophiliac blogger Steve Guttenberg philosophizes on the show today and shows off his math skills before abandoning all human decency in his disdain for Eric Clapton. Also, Senator John McCain and Daddy Yankee swap gasolina as Justin ogles pictures of his beloved Sarah Silverman.

Dan the Mantern here, blogging for Justin, who left the office to run off poster size color copies of Sarah Silverman. Speaking of nice Jewish girls, today's show was like Friday night services with Jeff, … Read more

I'd like to pass along a press release from one of my favorite Silicon Valley start-ups. It's a place you can go to make chips... but I'd better explain that.

A lot of people do woodworking at home. The equipment is moderately priced and there's plenty of support available from TV shows such as Norm Abram's New Yankee Workshop on PBS and a variety of woodworking shows on the DIY Network.

But for those of us who like working with metal instead of wood, things aren't so simple. The equipment, for example, is much … Read more

When it comes to the virtual world Second Life, we're definitely in the middle of one of the predictable hype backlash cycles that often surround hot new technologies.

Since the fall of 2006, when Second Life hit 1 million registered users, it has since grown to nearly 10 million. Of course, that number doesn't reflect how many actual users there are.

But regardless of the numbers of users, the hype part of the cycle really picked up steam when the media noticed that a lot of big-name companies were opening up shop in Second Life. And now, the … Read more

The Milwaukee Brewers hit a home run this year, landing the 10th ranked spot on Harris Interactive's list of America's favorite baseball teams.

Last year, the Brewers ranked No. 18, after having spent four consecutive years in the dugout with rankings in the low to mid 20s, according to Harris Interactive's announcement. The fact that the Brewers are leading the National League's central division is likely giving some froth to its rankings.

The online poll, which surveyed 2,372 adults in the U.S., ran from June 5-11.

And who was America's favorite baseball team … Read more