Grass Is Newest Source of Yankee Green

After the final game at Yankee Stadium last September, many members of the Yankees could be seen filling containers with dirt from the field. It made sense. This was a place they called home, and a historic place to boot, so it made sense to take a little bit of it with them before the place went away forever.

Surely there were Yankee fans who would have been thrilled to do the same thing, and some would probably pay for the right to own dirt spat on by a Yankee. Or a blade of grass, for that matter.

That's what Rick DeLea and David Andres of DeLea Sod Farms are counting on to make their new idea a big success. DeLea Sod supplies the Yankees (and many other places) with their field, and Andres, their vice president for business development, saw a chance to exploit Yankee fans' love for their team. He got a license from the Yankees and Major League Baseball to sell the sod, at $7.50 for five square feet, at New York City-area Home Depots.

You'll also be able to buy seed so you could sow your own field of dreams, although you'll have to provide your own team of groundskeepers. The only problem with the idea seems to be the urban reality of much of the Yankees fanbase. How much of your 750-square foot apartment do you really want to turn over to grass grown from the same seeds as the grass at Yankee Stadium.

It's interesting that the people most likely to buy this sod are the people who most deeply venerate the Yankees and Yankee Stadium. It isn't the grass or the seeds that make Yankee Stadium special any more than it is the paint on the seats or preservatives in the hot dogs. It's what's happened there, which is why people want to have ashes spread there or want a little slice of it for themselves. 

You could buy the same apples that your favorite baker uses to make pies and never duplicate his or her efforts. Because an apple is just an apple until something happens to it. Sod is just sod until something happens to it.

Josh Alper is a writer living in New York City and is a contributor to FanHouse.com and ProFootballTalk.com in addition to his duties for NBCNewYork.com.

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