The Slanch Report

Finally!

The New York Yankees announced that at the end of this month at Home Depots around the state, saps will be able to purchase officially licensed Yankees grass in either seed or sod form. DeLea Sod Farms, the exclusive provider of turf to the Yankees since the 1960s has seen an opportunity to try and swindle some fans and are hoping to monetize their connection.

“It’s just capitalizing on what we have and what we’ve done,” said Rick DeLea, vice president of DeLea Sod Farms, which his grandfather founded in 1928. In south Jersey about 80 acres of Yankees turf are growing, the sod farm has other clients, a high school for instance in West Long Branch, N.J., had 16 acres installed last fall, only then it was just called sod, not “Yankees Sod.”

The impetus for the idea came from a former consultant to DeLea who is now the vice president for business development, David Andres. A self-described “sell ice to Eskimos kind of guy,” after receiving permission from the Yankees and MLB, Andres aggressively pursued this path, “It’s going to be one of those ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’ stories,” he said.

Buyers can get a patch slightly bigger than five square feet — 16 inches by 4 feet — for $7.50, meaning resodding your backyard might take a couple thousand bucks. But when you do it you’ll know that you have the officially licensed grass of the Yankees; complete with MLB authenticity hologram. If you don’t want the already grown sod, you could always buy Yankees Grass Seed — in a gift-friendly novelty size of three ounces or eight ounces — at Yankee Stadium; Home Depot will carry bigger bags of seed. I can just see all the little kids at the stadium now clamoring for their dads to buy them a hat and some grass seeds, they’ll be FLYING off the shelves.

Never fear though Yankees fans, in case there is some horrible grass disaster, the DeLea farms are still reserving 10 full acres of the grass just for Yankee Stadium, I guess because you never know…

[New York Times]