The signing will be at the Grey Flannel Gallery in Lakewood Ranch, Florida.

The gallery is located between Tampa, Bradenton, and Sarasota, Florida. If you’re anywhere nearby drop in and say hello!

Thank you for putting me in touch with Manager of Guest Relations. She and I had a very nice conversation Friday with regard to the use of my camera at Yankee Stadium.

Although I enjoyed speaking with her and she was very friendly, I am greatly disappointed that she, representing the New York Yankees, did not clarify whether I will be able to use my camera at Yankee Stadium next season.

According to her, there will be a new fan guide in 2011 that is more precise than the current guide with regard to the use of cameras, but it will not be published until March 2011.

However, the Yankees require renewal of annual accounts well before March, meaning that the Yankees expect me to make a $7,000 commitment to the New York Yankees while the Yankees are so far not willing to make a corresponding commitment to me.

Given that lack of reciprocity, I am inclined not make such a commitment.

Just so you and the Yankees management team know what kind of Yankees fan you will be throwing away if the organization decides to interfere with a hobbyist’s photography:

I have been a loyal Yankees fan since 1961, attending games at Yankee Stadium since May 26, 1962, when my father, a World War II veteran, first took me there as a child. That’s more than 48 years of loyalty.

Since 1997, for more than 14 years, I have had an annual account and during the period attended 15 World Series games, plus scores of ALDS and ALCS games.

I estimate that I have contributed at least $75,000 in ticket revenue to the New York Yankees during those years, often selling your less-than-desirable mid-summer day games with non-contenders to my friends. That’s not to mention the many thousands of dollars in food, beverages, and souvenirs I have purchased at Yankee Stadium. I have brought scores of new Yankees fans: friends and relatives, including parents, my wife, brothers, cousins, children, and grandchildren to games, many of whom would not otherwise have come to Yankee Stadium.

In 2009, the Yankees effectively forced me from my longtime infield location at section M14 in the old Stadium because, when you changed Stadiums, you raised the price of such a location from roughly $6,000 per year to $16,000. So now, I must sit more than 300 feet from home plate, which is the reason I need a stronger camera lens to take photos.

Throughout nearly half a century of loyalty to the Yankees, under the owners Dan Topping, Del Webb, CBS, and George Steinbrenner III, I have always been able to photograph my heroes without interference.

As I mentioned, the photographic equipment I use is a hobbyist’s. It’s not professional equipment, but it is superior to the inexpensive pocket cameras that parents use to take photos of their kids at the game. It poses no threat to the New York Yankees or the professionals who photograph each game. (For your reference, I use a Nikon D300 SLR and a 70-200mm. zoom lens).

I urge you, in the name of the pride and respect for which the Yankees are known, to respect fans like me who get pleasure from photographing their heroes. Let me know, and let all of us know, before you ask us to commit thousands of dollars to your organization, that you will respect us and let us continue to take photographs as we have for more than a decade.

There is nothing more I can say. This is a matter of your conscience and decency. I think that Boss George, if he were still alive, would respect the fans for whom he worked so hard for more than 40 years to bring winning teams to the Bronx.

Do the right thing.

Sincerely,
Jeffrey Fox

Starting in late September, I was repeatedly harrassed at Yankee Stadium for carrying my Nikon D300, with a 70-200 lens. (This is hardly a pro lens, especially since it’s the minimum I need to shoot from the outfield where the Yankees have forced me to move due to their drastic increase in ticket prices since 2008). I managed to get into the game with it, but my complaints to the Yankees have so far fallen on deaf ears.

I have been told that, come next year, there will be an even stricter definition of what cameras you can’t use at Yankee Stadium, than this policy that’s now on the Yankees.com site:

Single-frame flash photography is permitted. Tripods, extended length zoom lenses, other professional camera equipment, movie cameras and any other video or audio recording equipment are not permitted in Yankee Stadium.

Hey, Yankees: Is it really a threat to the pros from Sports Illustrated and ESPN if I take a few decent shots per game from 300 feet away? So far, no magazine has bought any of my shots. And I’ve been shooting happily since 1996. Why do you suddenly want to clamp down on me, and thousands of other photo hobbyists?

Is it just me? Or is anyone else fed up with this greedy organization, which has routinely pissed away our money on deadbeats like Carl Pavano, Javier Vazquez, Kevin Brown, Hidecki Irabu, making it less and less pleasant to enjoy a game at a Stadium for which we and our parents and grandparents paid billions over the past 87 years?

Hank and Hal: WE Built This City.

Not you, the carpetbaggers from Cleveland. We, the true New Yorkers who showed up even when you fielded dreadful teams. Horace Clarke. Stump Merrill. Jack Clark. Ed Whitson. Rainbow Trout. We watched all of them fail. It’s our team, our city, and OUR Stadium.

So stop trying to turn Yankee Stadium into a Rikers Island on the Major Deegan. Let fans take photos to their hearts’ content. Stop frisking little old ladies. Return Yankee Stadium to Yankee fans!!

If you are, know, or love a Yankees fan, you must get this book. See details at the book’s web site, or order it at Amazon.com:

My exclusive photo of the bunt by Brett Gardner on September 26 at Yankee Stadium that the Sox bungled, leading to the elimination of the Red Sox for 2010. Notice the baseball bouncing off of Gardner’s back.

A glorious moment in 2010 Yankees history!

Yankee fans: If you love this photo, you’ll love my photo book, Yankee Stadium: The Final Game

And for the Yankee fans in your life who have everything, it’s the perfect gift…for the holidays or simply to celebrate the 2010 postseason. You can be sure they don’t already have this book. What a great surprise!

Don’t forget to see this one time event on Oct 22: My multi-media presentation about my 46 years of seeing games at the old Yankee Stadium. It includes more exclusive photos, plus music and sound clips.

I’ll also be signing copies of my book, Yankee Stadium: The Final Game. It’s Friday, 10/22, 10 AM, at the Teaneck Public Library at 840 Teaneck Road in Teaneck, NJ 07666.
See you there!

Author, photojournalist, die-hard Yankee fan and former Teaneck resident Jeff Fox will present some of the great moments in Yankee history and talk about his book ‘Yankee Stadium: The Final Game’ at the October 22, 2010 meeting of the Teaneck Library Friday Morning Group at 10:30 A.M.

Fox’s presentation will include some fantastic photos that he has taken over the years at Yankees games (dating back to 1965) along with pictures of fun 1960’s Yankees memorabilia you can’t see anywhere else, interspersed with Yankees music and sound clips of historic broadcasts.

Fox’s book “Yankee Stadium: The Final Game” is a visual and written account of the final game played in Yankee Stadium, told from the perspective of a devoted fan and professional writer who eloquently delivers a fond final salute to the grandest of all stadiums. The book takes readers from the pre-game activities and ceremonies through many of the Stadium’s key aspects-including Memorial Park, the familiar decades-old walkways and ramps, and the food stands-on to the most memorable moments of the historic game itself, with a brief stop to savor the final setting of the sun behind the grandstands and on to the bittersweet post-game celebration and sad final trek through the exits.

Jeff Fox is the President of Veridico Publishing, as well as the Technology Editor of Consumer Reports magazine. Several of his articles have been nominated for National Magazine Awards. As a nationally recognized journalist, he has appeared on CNN, CBS-TV, WNBC-TV, and CNN Headline News; and been quoted in the New York Times, Washington Post, MSNBC.com, USA Today, US News, ABCNews.com, CBS Marketwatch, Reuters, Bloomberg.com, and Fox News. He has served on several panels convened by the Federal Trade commission.

The public is welcome to attend this free program to be held in the library auditorium and to the coffee and socializing session that precedes it at 10:00 A.M. The library is located at 840 Teaneck Road at the corner of Cedar Lane in Teaneck.