[Insert Quippy, Perhaps Pun-Filled “Headline” Here]

[Introduce link here, perhaps by rewriting lede in stylish, snarky fashion]:

For the adult kickball teams battling it out in front of Public School 142 on the lower East Side this week, the game is about bonding with friends new and old, getting some open air exercise and reliving long-forgotten schoolyard exploits.

. . .

“It makes you feel like you are 10 years old,” said Ryan Stuczynski, 27, a banker and kickball player who also moonlights as a paid umpire for the league. He says the players take the game pretty seriously, even though they are on a playground.

“People are pretty adamant,” he said. “I try to run down the line and show everyone that I am into it, too.”

This Will Be Even Cooler Once A-Rod Starts Underperforming After The All-Star Break

[Crowd In Right Field Bleachers Hurls Double AA Batteries and Chants “Ass-hole, Ass-hole”]:

At the new Yankee Stadium, deaf fans can experience “everything” — even the boos.

. . .

When ex-Yankee and current Cleveland Indian pitcher Carl Pavano was announced, the Bronx boobirds were out in force.

As the jeers fell on the chronically injured righty, the centerfield scoreboard read: “Number 44, Carl Pavano [Crowd Boos].”

The captioning is done by a person, not a computer program, said team spokeswoman Alice McGillion.

“Everything that happens goes up there,” she said.

Location Scout: New Yankee Stadium.

No One Expects A 22-4 Drubbing!

In the realm of entertainment — whether it be sports or music or whatever — there is difference between a “game” and a “performance.” With the former, time was, you’d go to the ballpark, pay some nominal admission fee to get into a “game” and watch two teams slug it out. With the latter, you go to Broadway to pay for your Cynthia Nixons or Judd Hirsches and have some reasonable expectation that you’re seeing a performer at the top of his or her game giving you a “performance.” It’s the same in Vegas; you get the Celine Dion “performance” or the Dean Martin “performance” and Celine makes you cry during “My Heart Will Go On” or Deano brings you to years with his routines and bits. That’s entertainment!

But the thing is that when you inflate ticket prices of sporting events to absurd heights, people then start expecting something more than “a day at the ballpark.” In short, they want a performance. And then it becomes a case of Dance, Monkey, Dance:

The new Yankee Stadium was spotless and the weather stunning, but the Bombers stunk it up in The Bronx yesterday, subjecting their fuming fans to a putrid performance against the Indians, who scored an eye-popping 22 runs.

The loss — one of the worst in team history — was the Yankees’ second in three games in their new $1.5 billion ballpark.

But this one stung the Pinstripe faithful, who forked over as much as $2,625 to see the pitiful play, like few ever before.

“It’s a tragedy. This is the worst game I’ve ever seen,” said a seething Erich Wald, 28, of Toms River, NJ.

“You can’t afford to buy anything at this Stadium,” he added, “and the players are going to go out and have $50 steaks when it’s over.”

Jon Brawn, 26, of White Plains, couldn’t agree more.

“I woke up this morning expecting to see something great in this brand-new Stadium,” Brawn said, “and what I got was a calamity.”

. . .

“I paid $10 a beer to see this chop-shop team? They suck!” cried Shawn McCarthy, 28, of Hoboken, as he fled during the seventh-inning stretch.

“George Steinbrenner,” he added, “should take down ticket prices if we’re just gonna see a home-run derby by the Indians.”

A couple that had trekked all the way from West Palm Beach, Fla., to check out their favorite team’s spanking-new digs said they, too, were leaving with a sour taste in their mouths.

“I’ve been a fan since 1958,” said Fred Bingiano, 57. “We used to come back in the ’90s, and it was $36 a ticket. Today, we paid $350 each.”

His wife Deborah, 45, was just as disgusted.

“Families can’t come together anymore,” she noted before speaking for a lot of disaffected fans by tossing out the quintessential New York judgment: “Fuhgeddaboutit.”

Location Scout: New Yankee Stadium.

A Brand New Season, A Brand New Stadium And A Really, Really, Really Obstructed View

New Yankee Stadium is the best of the old and the new:

With a concrete wall turning much of right field into a mystery, Picone and McNevin were far from thrilled with their seats [in Section 239, one of two blocks of seats, along with Section 201, that flank the Mohegan Sun Sports Bar in center field, leaving a heavily obstructed view of the outfield with regular season ticket prices of $5]. “But for that price,” Picone said, “it was definitely worth it to be here.”

They were helped out by three televisions bolted to the wall of the sports bar that showed a live feed of the game, though many fans said a few extra screens would have been appreciated, particularly in the glare of the sun. Still, they could make out enough of Jorge Posada’s long drive to know it was a home run once it disappeared from their own view of the game.

For the fans in the bleachers who did not have ticket plans, the afternoon was more expensive. Earlier this week, tickets for Sections 239 and 201 were selling for over $200 on StubHub, without the sellers’ necessarily mentioning that the view was obstructed. Though the Yankees had previously recognized that these seats were not ideal and lowered the price for them, independent marketplaces like StubHub and eBay leave it up to the sellers to disclose whether or not a view is obstructed.

That is how a visibly upset Adrian Rea, a Yankee fan from Binghamton, N.Y., wound up spending $1,200 for four tickets in Section 201. Rea had no idea that he would not be able to see right field.

“If I’d known, I wouldn’t have bought them,” he said. “I would have even paid more if I could have had seats that weren’t obstructed.”

Sitting in the row in front of Rea, Scott Placona, 26, jumped in. He had bought his ticket for $250 from a scalper 10 minutes before the game and insisted that it was worth every penny — just to be able to tell his grandchildren he was at the first regular-season game at the new Yankee Stadium. What did it matter that he couldn’t see left field?

Location Scout: New Yankee Stadium.

Citi Field Opens!

Mets Disappoint!:

For a night, Queens was the hot spot in town and New York glowed orange and blue. The Mets, not the Yankees, opened their gleaming new ballpark first, and Citi Field was primped and primed for the occasion, as if it were preparing for a date. Monday was Citi Field’s night to shine, and the Mets, after two rehearsals and a week on the road, were eager to show it off.

Reality soon intruded, however, and the Mets bumbled their way to a 6-5 loss to San Diego, the game turning for the second straight day on an outfield mishap. Long after Mike Pelfrey got his cleat stuck in the dirt, falling off the mound, and Jose Reyes slid past second base, Ryan Church misplayed Luis Rodriguez’s sixth-inning fly ball into a three-base error.

Almost fittingly, Pedro Feliciano balked in the eventual winning run, and the Mets’ final 10 hitters went down in order. In a somewhat comical twist, two of their bullpen castoffs — Duaner Sanchez and Heath Bell — closed out San Diego’s win.

. . .

After throwing out the final pitch at Shea on Sept. 28, Tom Seaver and Mike Piazza left through the center-field gate. They entered Citi Field with their arms locked, chatting and waving on the long, slow walk toward the mound.

Nervous he would bounce the pitch, Seaver threw a strike. A few minutes later, at 7:11 p.m., Pelfrey threw a first-pitch strike to Jody Gerut. The next strike he threw landed in the right-field stands, Gerut hooking a 1-1 pitch inside the foul pole for the first regular-season homer at Citi Field.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Gerut is the first player to lead off a game with a homer in the first game at a new stadium.

Location Scout: Citi Field.