Looking back on The Diamond in the Bronx: Yankee Stadium and the Politics of New York by Neil Sullivan I was overly impressed, and found myself heavily in agreement with Sullivan. Chronicling both the history of the New York Yankees and Yankee Stadium, the book looks to explore the connection of public funding to the building of sports stadiums. In his exploration Sullivan is critical of both team owners and city officials who allow the trend to continue. The method in which Sullivan treated each aspect of his study as there own individual issue. For example rather than treating the issue of white flight to the suburbs only in relation to its connection to stadium building, Sullivan further explored it to the core of why it was happening. He looked into the prosperity of the middle class and how rather than blaming the influx of suburb living strictly on race, he looked at from the perspective of as the middle class grew, their surrounding cities were deteriorating. The chapter that looked at race as it related to the stadium and baseball in general was phenomenal. Reflecting on the trials and tribulations of Elston Howard as he was the first black Yankee, and the process as a whole related to a subject that was not looked at by Sullivan, the impact of night baseball. Overall Diamond in the Bronx was a well written documentation of the New York Yankees and their accompanying stadium, but more importantly exposes the perils from continued use of public money to build sports stadiums. .
When looking at the early years of Yankee Stadium a growing issue was, who was coming to their games? The Bronx at the time of construction was described by Sullivan as a "bucolic region " (Sullivan 36). It was north of the hubbub of Manhattan, and had a cozy feel that was unique to Bronx. Therefore it made little sense to construct a major sports stadium in an area that had such a small population.
