Work is under way on the new Metro-North station at Yankee Stadium, and the railroad has proposed its fare for trips to the stop. Metro-North suggests it be in the same fare zone as all Metro-North stops in the Bronx; in short, if you’re paying five bucks to get from Grand Central to Fordham, you’ll pay that same five bucks to get to Yankee Stadium. A hearing will go down Nov. 17 at the Bronx DA headquarters to decide on the final fare.

The stop is located on the Hudson Line, just south of the Morris Heights stop. If you want to reach it from the Harlem or New Haven Lines, you stand to pay between 75 cents and a buck extra on a “via” fare linking you from Manhattan (125th, I presume) over the river to Yankee Stadium.

The new Yankee Stadium stop opens in the second quarter of 2009, just in time for the Bronx Bombers as they set out to defend this year’s third place finish in the AL East.

I have a soft spot for major leaguers who ride the subway to Shea or Yankee Stadium; the notion of a guy making several million a year eschewing the team bus for the unknown of the underground pleases me to no end. Anything can happen on the subway–you might fall in love, or end up bad-mouthing your way out of a promising career.

So, needless to say, I enjoyed reading about rookie Reds pitcher Daryl Thompson, a few hours from making his major league debut…in Yankee Stadium, no less…ending up in Brooklyn after taking the wrong subway.

Writes the NY Times:

[Thompson] and two other rookies, Jay Bruce and Paul Janish, left their Midtown hotel and decided to take the subway to Yankee Stadium. But they got on the wrong train and ended up in Brooklyn instead of the Bronx.

“I had a big old bag and I was going to ride the bus,” Thompson said, “but they said I could ride with them. They said, ‘We’re rookies, let’s take the subway and get there ahead of the bus.’ ”

After about 30 minutes, they realized they were going the wrong way.

“Janish was in charge at first,” Thompson said. “Bruce ended up asking a lady, and she told him which way we needed to go. He got us back on the right track.”

They arrived at the stadium shortly before 11 a.m. for a game that began at 1:08 p.m. “The guys in the clubhouse gave me stuff for trying to follow those guys because they didn’t know what they were doing,” Thompson said. “Bad impression.”

The 22-year-old Thompson went on to hurl five shutout innings against the most all-star rich lineup in the world. Maybe he’ll take the Borough Hall detour every time he pitches in New York.

A far cry from the saddest little ballfield in New York is the rebuilt Yankee Stadium, and the Journal News offers a peek at the $91 million Metro-North station stop that’s being built across from the Stadium.

The station platform will measure 420 feet–around six times the typical Metro-North stop, and more than large enough to hold A-Rod’s ego.

Amidst all the commuter excitement this week (Floods! Boiled asbestos-spewing geysers in midtown!), we almost forgot to give the latest Mileposts a read. Metro-North’s monthly publication has a baseball theme to it, as it “announces” the pending train station at Yankee Stadium (uh, the Times broke that back in May, folks).

“There’s been an exciting development regarding the Yankees,” Mileposts teases, “and it has nothing to do with The Rocket’s return [Editor’s Note: Uninspiring], Giambi’s foot [Editor’s Note: In dire need of HGH] or Damon’s hair [Editor’s Note: Hair the only part of Damon not injured].”

Mileposts later takes a gratuitous dig at the Yankees’ National League, first-place baseball brethren. “You remember the Mets, New York’s ‘other’ baseball team,” jibes Mileposts in a bit about express 7 trains to Shea.

As Long Island’s own Billy Joel once crooned, “The Yankees grab the headlines every time.”

In today’s commuter news, L train riders will wait until 2010 until an expansion of the L fleet is fully operational, and Yankee fans get their very own Metro-North stop near Yankee stadium around June 2009.

The new station will be a 10-minute walk from the Yankees’ new home, which is currently being built, and will cost around $91 million–about how much Roger Clemens makes while driving his Hummer to the ballpark (metaphor runner-up: About what Jason Giambi spent on human growth hormone from 1998 to present.)

The station isn’t quite a perfect fit for Westchester residents, who as Caren Halbfinger of the Journal News points out, will take the train to 125th, then catch the Yankee train and head back up to the stadium.

Still, it makes raising young Met fans in the borough a little more challenging.