Historic Stadium Ramble (AL Edition)
Posted: July 16th, 2008 | Filed under: Baseball, Cleveland, New Words | 84 Comments »
So, while semi-watching Yankee Stadium refuse to die late last night, I did a quick calculation: It seems I have seen Major League Baseball games in 16 dead ballparks in my life. I, um, you know that’s a really depressing statistic. That should be one of the questions they ask on those medical forms they have you fill out before you see the doctor. Are you allergic to any medications? Is there a history of high blood pressure in your family? How many dead ballparks have you been to you old fart?
Wow, sixteen dead ballparks. And the number is about to go up by two when Yankee Stadium and Shea bite the dust at the end of the year. I can’t decide if the old Kauffman Stadium will count as a dead park when they finish the $800 billion renovations* and the Metrodome will mercifully be pushing daisies soon (I suspect there may not be quite the same love affair in the final days of the Homerdome … probably not quite as much teary sportswriter prose about the hanky). We’re going to get to the point where every single team in baseball will be playing in a different park from the one I first saw them in. Sigh.
*I do count the old pre-renovation Anaheim Stadium as a dead park because I want to believe it’s dead. I saw a game there as a fan back in the 1980s, and it was awful. I got a seat way up in the first deck where, I’m not kidding, two thirds of the stadium was blocked off. You couldn’t see up, you couldn’t see centerfield or left field, it was like watching baseball through a periscope. And the beautiful thing is that day Devon White (or Gary Pettis, I always get them confused**) made what was supposedly the greatest catch in the history of baseball; I think White (or Pettis) turned to catch the ball, slipped in the grass, did a full cartwheel, pulled his left cleat off his foot, threw it in the air, knocked down the ball, got it, caught it in his teeth. Anyway, that’s the way it sounded. I of course never saw it, and I never saw a replay, and when I left the stadium people were STILL buzzing over the catch, and I have never felt worse leaving a ballpark, not even after the Indians blew Game 7 in ‘97.
**There’s no logical reason for me to continuously get Devon White an Gary Pettis confused. True, they were both brilliant defensive centerfielders for the Angels at roughly the same time. True they were both sixth round picks. True they were both switch-hitters who stole a lot of bases. But … OK, yeah, it’s easy to understand the confusion. I need to remember that Devon was the one from Jamaica who hit with a little power and struck out a bajillion times and got 189 postseason at-bats and changed the spelling of his last name to Whyte. And Pettis was the defensive dynamo with no power who walked a surprising amount (his .336 on-base percentage is surprisingly decent for a guy who hit 100 points lower) and grew up in Oakland.
Anyway, with every living human being and several recently deceased frogs offering their own obituary for grand old Yankee Stadium, I think it’s a good time to remember a few of the ballparks of yesteryear. Yep. I’m old enough to remember yesteryear. It’s a sad time.
Dead: Cleveland Municipal Stadium
– Of course, I have to begin with my heart, my personal field of dreams, the ballpark where I grew up. Sure, I remember asbestos dripping from the rooftops and concrete floors that were always sticky, no matter the time of day. I remember bumping heads with the person in the next seat over and as we both tried to look around the same post. I remember an infield that had more bad hops than Schlitz. I remember that no matter what you ordered — lemonade, Coke, cotton candy* — it all tasted like beer, and you could get drunk just standing there I remember the turnstiles there (at least for a kid) were tougher to get through than the 1976 Pittsburgh Steelers … those things were rusted and old and they seemed determined not to let you in. I remember that a guy there taught me how to make an obscene gesture, and it wasn’t even the middle finger. I knew about the middle finger; but I was limited in my physical ability to be obscene until this guy showed me the correct way to salute Jeff Torborg. I remember the gigantic Chief Wahoo outside the ballpark, a proud symbol of insensitivity and 50-plus years of baseball heartbreak. I remember how cold it would get, how uncomfortable those seats felt, how the few cheers echoed, how the outfield grass always looked like it had just been the site of a rodeo or a rocket launching 12 minutes before gametime, how they served drinks in wax paper cups, how real it all was.
Here’s why I loved Municipal: It was Cleveland. It was gritty. It was brown. It was cold. It was my Cleveland, the place where I grew up. Jacobs Field, which I love too but in a different way, is not Cleveland. That’s like a night out. A trip to the Opera. It’s still shiny and new and green and clean and grit-free. It’s like this: I remember for years and years we as a family used to have this old blue Chevy Nova, and it was rusted out, it stopped and started, it had no air conditioning, it was about a 50-50 bet that we could make it to our destination without stalling out. Many years later, we got a new car, a Pontiac T-1000, and comparatively, it was like a Rolls, it had air conditioning, it did not feature a fasten seat belt buzzer that would not shut off, it was as reliable as a new car should be. But, in a weird way, I had withdrawal. I missed the Nova, not out of nostalgia exactly, certainly not because I had any feelings for that junky car, but more because I just viewed us a rusted-out, blue Nova family. And I viewed Cleveland as a Municipal Stadium kind of town. And I still do.
*OK folks, we’re about to start our very own pixipedia. You will recall the new word pixifood, loosely translated to mean, “Food that you loved as a kid but find tastes horrendous — like liver and crayon jello — as an adult.” Thats where we’re starting — with pixifood. From there will can go on to pixishows and piximovies and piximusic and all that. So you can send your own pixifood and description here, and we’ll get this thing started.
One thing though: There’s a format I’m looking for here. Please follow the format. It looks like this.
Pixifood: Now and Later.
As a child it tastes like: Refreshing fruity candies. They are a delightful mix of taffy and hard candy, and the come in a taste-bursting assortment of flavors from Apple to Melon, from Bubble Gum to Rainbow.
As an adult it tastes like: Plastic.
Tidbits: At my school, Now and Laters were used as barter, much in the same way inmates use cigarettes. You wanted a hall pass, it could cost you four Now and Laters … Even as a kid, i though Now and Laters’ flavor depended on the batch you got. Nothing worse than a stale Now and Later. Of course, it also depended on how well you unwrapped them. More than one child has found himself spitting out Now and Later Paper. … Why were they called Now and Laters anyway? I guess it was because you could have a couple now and a couple later. But nobody did that. We ate them all now. We were kids.
And so on. You can make your entries as long or as short as you want, but please include how it tasted as a child, how it tastes as an adult and any tidbits you like. Thank you. I promise to mention you prominently and with much affection in the PixiStuff book I plan to sell for a million dollars.
Dead: Memorial Stadium, Baltimore
– My most vivid recollection of Memorial Stadium is parking in someone’s front yard. I recall this because we were driving around a neighborhood looking for a parking spot — you remember how Memorial was just plopped right in the middle of this neighborhood — and there were none to be found. Then a guy waved us over and he said, “Park here for 10 bucks.” It might have been five bucks, now that I think of it. In any case, he said, “park here,” and we said, “Where? The driveway is full.” And he said, “No, it’s OK, park in the yard.” So we did. It was a tiny front yard too, you could not have parked another car in there. But hey it was really close to the stadium.
Well, then we started walking to the stadium and it all of a sudden occurred to us … we had NO idea if that guy owned the house and lawn where we parked the car. We had just sort of assumed that. And as we kept walking, we started to realize that, yeah, there was no possible way that guy owned the house and lawn where we parked the car. He did not exactly look like the home-owner type. Plus, it did not really seem economically viable to basically give up your front lawn for five bucks a day. So, yep, you know what we did. We walked back to our car and, sure enough, the guy was gone, and there was nobody home, and so we carefully moved our car to a faraway spot (for another five bucks, but this time not on somebody’s lawn).
The best part: After the game ended and we went back to our car … yep, there was a car parked on that front lawn. After that we were trying to decide if that guy was legit or if he was running the greatest scam in the history of the world — the get five bucks, then guilt relatively honest people into leaving, then get five more bucks, all night long scam.
Dead: Old Comiskey, Chicago.
– Loved it, of course, because I love Chicago, and the old park was dumpy and dirty and tough and the people watching seemed tough; it was a lot like home. Mostly, though, I remember the smell … it was different from other ballparks, more pungent, I couldn’t put my finger on it. And then it hit me. Years ago, for a summer, I worked in a sweater factory, and for part of the summer I worked where they mixed the chemicals that made the dye. Yeah. Smelled like that.
Funny, when they built the New Comiskey, at first I hated it because, honestly, from my view, it wasn’t a whole lot different from Old Comiskey — so what was the point? That was in the era when charming and precious new ballparks were the thing. Now I love New Comiskey precisely because it’s not charming and precious. That’s progress.
Dead: Tiger Stadium, Detroit
– My lasting memory of Tiger Stadium is something I did not do … I did not go into the right field upper deck. It was something I still regret. I loved that upper deck, I can just recall how bloody close it seemed to home plate. As a kid, I recall being MUCH more in awe of that upper deck than I was of the Green Monster. That Detroit Upper Deck just seemed to be sticking its chin out at a left-handed batter, “Hey, punk, hit me, if you have the guts.” Yeah, I kind of saw old Tiger Stadium as the Robert Conrad of baseball ballparks, you know, battery on its shoulder, daring you to knock it off.
So, when I went there the last time I said to myself, “OK, before you leave, you have to go out to the right field and sit in the upper deck.” But I never did.
Dead: Kingdome, Seattle.
– It was my favorite dome, in large part because you never knew what construction materials might start falling from the roof. Maybe it’s just me, but I like a dome that will keep you hopping. Of course, it was dreary and dreadful for baseball — like all domes. The thing I will remember the most about the Kingdome, though, was the wave. The wave was always great in Seattle, where it began (or at least where it was popularized). I know that it’s unAmerican to say this but … I don’t really have a problem with the wave. Yeah, I know, it’s generally stupid, and it means people aren’t paying attention to the game like they should, and fans often do the wave at the most inopportune times like when their own team is in the red zone or their pitcher is trying to get out of a bases loaded jam. I’m not saying I approve of the wave without restriction because I don’t.
Still, in a quiet moment of a boring game, when a wave really gets going and all those people are standing and sitting in unison, yeah, I think it’s a pretty cool thing. I know it’s wrong. But I don’t wanna be right.
Mostly Dead: Yankee Stadium, Bronx.
– Well, everyone else has a story about Yankee Stadium, so I might as well tell mine just at the time when everyone has grown sick of them. My very first assignment as columnist of The Kansas City Star was the 1996 World Series, New York vs. Atlanta. And the very first game I covered for the Star, Game 1, was rained out. That probably should have given me a hint how my Kansas City sports experience would be*.
*I have noticed a couple of comments from brilliant readers on the “Barry Bonds people never contacted Kansas City” post that I figure probably should be answered.
Comment 1: Barry Bonds’ agent, by being quoted saying that he had contacted all 30 teams to offer Barry’s services for the minimum, was in fact, in that very act, contacting all 30 teams to offer Barry’s services for the minimum.
I have to admit I appreciate the Twilight Zone logic of this reasoning … apparently the agent was lying and retroactively not lying all in the same statement. That is pretty cool. But, sadly, I don’t buy it. for three reasons
One, we all know the situation here. Nobody in baseball really wants to deal with the Barry Bonds’ garbage anymore. I mean there are 182 reasons to sign Barry Bonds (his career OPS+), but there are plenty of reasons not to sign him. He’s a pain in the butt. He’s under indictment. He’s pretty wildly unpopular. The commissioner would frown. The media overwhelmingly would rip you for signing him. He’s a pain in the butt. Nobody wants to manage him. Nobody wants to play with him. He’s a pain in the butt. And so on. I think these things might be overcome in the right situation, but let’s not pretend that signing Barry Bonds would be a picnic in the park. You’d have to deal with some serious headaches.
So if Barry REALLY wants to play baseball, if he REALLY wants to be a part of the club, if he is REALLY serious about wanting a chance to finish his career the right way, then hell, pick up a phone. If I’m going to stick my neck out for Barry Bonds, he damn well needs to make the first step.
Second, I don’t believe that Barry’s offer is legit. I have no reason to believe it’s legit. I’m a GM in Kansas City, and I read that Barry’s agent has offered him to all 30 teams for the minimum and I haven’t gotten a call, you’re telling me I’m supposed to pick up the phone and say, “Uh, Jeff, hey, um, does that count for us too?” Come on.
Third, it was a lie. It sounded good, all 30 teams, contacted them all, it was meant to create some sympathy and some outrage, prove to everyone that there’s collusion going on. Hell, there might be collusion going on, I don’t know. But it’s a lie. If you’re say you contacted ALL 30 teams, that’s kind of supposed to mean you contacted ALL 30 teams. It doesn’t mean, “Well, I contacted a lot of teams, and by allowing you to quote me I’m sort of contacting the rest through you.”
Comment 2: Did you actually ask Dayton Moore if he would sign Barry Bonds?
Well, of course I did. But, come on, you know it doesn’t matter what he said … signing Barry Bonds is not his decision. It is the decision of David Glass and David Glass alone. And I didn’t talk to him. But I feel quite sure that I know what he would say.
OK, back to Yankee Stadium, 1996, World Series, in the rain. While sitting in the dungeon/work area, I started thinking, “I wonder what it’s like to stand in centerfield at Yankee Stadium.” This is the sort of thing a desperate columnist thinks when a game is getting rained out, and he needs something to write. Unfortunately, I didn’t really know who I could ask — there was no, “New York Yankees Vice President of determining whether media can stand in centerfield during a rainstorm,” although I understand they are creating the position for the new Yankee Stadium.
In any case, I just decided to go. There were a few people out there under umbrellas, but obviously no one on the field. I started to walk out there and I saw a couple of New York City police officers. They were staring right at me. I wouldn’t say it was a threatening look*, but hey, it’s hard to tell with New York City police.
*Once I was staying at the Millennium Hotel in Times Square and the cab driver had never heard of it. Times Square, I mean. He dropped me off somewhere or other, and I was lugging a heavy bag, my computer bag, the whole works, and I was looking for the Millennium, couldn’t find it, and then I saw a New York City cop. He was glaring at me too. I said, “Excuse me, do you know where the Millennium Hotel is.” And he glared at me for about 10 seconds, and then — without saying a word — he lifted his right arm and pointed upward. I looked up and there was about 483,847 foot sign that read: MILLENNIUM HOTEL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!“ Yeah, with all the exclamation points. I’ve never quite lived that one down.
Anyway, the officers were looking at me, and so I had to make that decision that they don’t teach you about in journalism school. Should I ASK them if I could go stand out in centerfield in the rain or should I just GO and hope for the best? I tried to use my best poker skills to read their faces, and finally I decided that they were not glaring at me in the ”Hey buddy, where do you think you’re going“ sort of way. Instead, they were glaring at me in the, ”Hey buddy, are you stupid it’s raining out here, didn’t you’re mother teach you better?“ sort of way. Which was fine.
So I walked out to center field, and I was right, they just watched me go with that great New York look of bemusement on their faces, and I stood out in the rain for a while, pretended I was DiMaggio (though, of course, that was a different Yankee Stadium), and it really was pretty cool. Then I came in, wrote a column. This is my life.
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Finally, Costner back in the top slot where he belongs!
Joe, this is so close you’re going to have to establish a definitive end time for vote submittal so we know who wins.
At Cleveland Municipal in the mid 80s, I always sat in the same seats (section 23, row B, seats 7 and 8)(no row A as it was above the third base dugout). I always had a beer at Alvie’s if it was after work/school. Everything smelled like beer and urine and like a lawn smells after it rains (even if it hadn’t rained).
I remember one year, the Tribe had to play an exhibition game against their AAA affiliate (Buffalo?) because MLB had scheduled too many days off in a row. Couldn’t have been more than 1,500 folks in the 80,000 seats. Somebody got into the upper deck and began folding down seats to spell [BLEEP] YOU, TORBORG. It was awesome.
fasolamatt
Heights High ‘84
pretended I was DiMaggio (though, of course, that was a different Yankee Stadium)
You win an award for being the only member of the media to mention that in the past two months. Certainly in the past week. Definitely in the last 24 hours.
I loved the Old Comiski. Granted there were an awfully lot of limited view seats, but the old park really held up well, considering that Reinsdorf and half the city wanted it gone for about 20 years before they finally pulled the plug. The food was off the charts and the site lines were a lot better than Wrigley. Wrigley by the way is really coming close to jumping the sharp from charming cozy confines, to overpriced movie set of what some idiot thinks a ‘charming’ park should look like.
Did you ever have the misfortune to go to old Municipal Stadium in KC? That’s where I grew up watching the (pre-Oakland) A’s suffer thru another miserable season. The second-best (?) part was the local little kids offering to “watch” your car when you parked on the neighborhood streets during the game–if you didn’t pay the freight, you were always concerned that the same kids would be the one doing the damage. The best part (when a little older) was that the crowds were so small that the beer vendors didn’t care very much how old you really were–a sale was a sale.
930-930. nice.
I’ve only been to one dead one, old Busch. good ole cookie cutter. was there for the last game, when Oswalt knocked us out in game 6. Managed to chip a piece of a pillar on the upper deck and took it home, where it sits in my replica of new Busch.
Joe,
Did the last year tour think for a while. Returning from Baltimore Memorial (I think) heard a story that Comiskey would be closing the next year and from the back seat where I thought my daughter was sleeping I heard, “Guess I know where we’ll go next year.” Boy, did Comiskey look terrible that last year.
Other than KC’s old stadium, my favorite oldie was Tiger Stadium. I did go up into the right field overhang. Wonderful.
Always enjoy your stuff. Loved the Buck O’Neill book.
One of the most fun games I ever attended was at old Tigers stadium. I was randomly in town and didn’t even pay enough attention to note that the Tigers were in town to plan my trip around. So I checked into my hotel which was 2 blocks from the stadium. This was September 1996 — and Cleveland was in town. The Jake was new so Cleveland fans couldn’t get tickets in Cleveland, so many made the trip to Detroit for the game. I remember thinking that there may have been more Cleveland fans than Detroit fans there. I bought a ticket, and sat by myself at the game chatting with the others around me about baseball, the Jake, the Tigers, why downtown Detroit looked like a scene from an end of the world movie, etc. It was a great game, I have no idea who won. Roberto Alomar apparently made a ton of great plays at second base — I have no idea whether they would or not because the 2nd baseman was blocked from my view by one of the support beams in that held up the roof over the upper deck. It was a great time. It seemed to me like what going to a game in 1950 would have been like. It’s sad that they’re tearing that stadium down this year…it was a great time.
Ever since the new Nationals’ stadium opened up, I’ve become an old man on the stadiums issue: the old places are better. The seats were cheaper. The upper decks were closer to the field. The beers were cheaper. Hot dog vendors roamed the aisles. The PA didn’t play music after every damn plate appearance or foul ball or ball in play.
And we liked it. We loved it.
There’s a lot of great things about the new parks (the food is better, the seats often have the advantage of facing the field), but the old ones — with a coat of paint, a few mops, and ushers keeping an eye on the drunken jerks — could have been A LOT nicer than they were. The new Fenway proves it.
As a kid, I recall being MUCH more in awe of that upper deck than I was of the Green Monster.
Never been to Fenway, but I sure remember being in awe when I first walked out of the tunnel at Tiger Stadium. It was so huge, yet so enclosed – you couldn’t see outside the stadium at all.
Too bad you never got to sit on the porch. That was my favourite place to sit. It was important, when sitting on the porch, though, to sit right at the rail, because anything hit deep, you had to lean over the railing to see underneath. Otherwise you had to make do with the noise reaction from the crowd.
~
I ran into my ex-wife’s nephew the other day (I’m not sure if that makes him my ex-nephew or not), on our way to a Tiger game, of all things. He reminded me that I took him to the last game at Tiger Stadium that they let the kids run the bases after the game. He didn’t even like baseball then, he tells me, but now he splits season tickets with his dad, so there’s a happy ending…
I should also point out that they’re tearing down Tiger Stadium this week.
“more bad hops than Schlitz”
Joe, the rest of your article is sort of a blur; I couldn’t stop laughing at that line.
Forgive me if I “borrow” that one some time.
First off, everybody go to http://www.ballparks.com and waste some time there.
When I was a lad, growing up in the suburbs north of Chicago, I would attend games at Wrigley and both Comiskeys, but since parking and travel was such a nuisacne, and given the equidistance, I was able to frequent the now desceased County Stadium in good ole’ Mille’wauk’ay just as often. Being used to the city-block-squashed atmosphere of the Chi-town parks, I used to be mezmorized by the fact that they built a stadium in the middle of a parking lot. Imagine my amazement in seeing two of them side-by-side when I moved to Kansas City a few years later.
My two best memories from there:
1.) Getting on the video board during the seventh inning stretch. Though, looking back, I’m not quite sure there was a video board at County Stadium, so maybe I dreamed that…
2.) Jake Taylor buntinig Willie “Mays” Hayes around from first base to score the winning run to take the pennant from the Yankees, and County Staduim just ERUPTING. I know I didn’t dream that…
I’ve become an old man on the stadiums issue: the old places are better. The seats were cheaper.
Exactly.
I was totally opposed when they were talking about building a new stadium in Detroit in the late 90s. The problem with Tiger Stadium was that there were obstructed seats (this was the tradeoff for otherwise being right on top of the action, with all the seats so close to the field). But you only had to worry about obstructed seats once there were 35,000+ or so, which was never an issue with the Tigers in the late 90s. So when they started talking about building a new stadium, I’m thinking how the hell does this benefit me, the fan? There’s going to be fewer seats, there will be increased demand – so both fewer available seats and higher ticket prices. And as it turns out, you are a lot further back from the field than you ever were at Tiger Stadium.
As a freshman in college I watched the Cardinals at Sportsmans Park beat the Mets and Casey Stengel on the last day of the Phillies Foldo season of 64 to get into the Series against the Yankees. An old bandbox, but fun–at least that day. And I bought season tickets for the last season at Cleveland’s Muni Stadium in order to get an inside track at what became the Jake in 94. Couldn’t even give those ‘93 tickets away. Not only did place smell but the cinder block construction kept the winter cold locked up until well after the Fourth of July.
What, you never made it to Arlington Stadium?
[...] Read the rest of the post here: Historic Stadium Ramble (AL Edition) [...]
I’ve only been to one dead ballpark – Old Busch, seeing the new one in a couple of weeks – and I’ve been to a couple that are on the endangered species list, the Oakland Alameda County McAfee Coliseum Thing and the Metrodome. Good riddance to both. I’d love to see a new park in Tampa too, because the one they have is an armpit. Can’t say I was a fan or Rogers Centre/Skydome either. Maybe I just hate indoor baseball. No, scratch that; the “maybe” is really out of place. I just hate indoor baseball. It’s an abomination.
As a kid growing up in a tiny midwestern town at least 4 hours from any major stadium, the only time I ever got to go to see any baseball games was when I would go see the Twins in the Metrodome with my dad and a couple of his and my friends. I have so many amazing nostalgic memories of that place. I will honestly be sad to see it go. I will never forget how insanely loud all those air compressors were as soon as you walked into the place.
I realized a couple of weeks ago, with some level of terror, that I have seen games in more dead ballparks than live ones.
Living: the K, Camden, Minute Maid, Wrigley, Dodger
Dead: Municipal, Jack Murphy, Arlington, Atlanta-Fulton County, old Busch, Three Rivers, RFK.
There’s just something wrong there. Even if go torture myself with a Nats game, I’m still behind.
I’ve only been to a couple of dead ballparks, one of which was Exhibition Stadium in Toronto. Imagine watching a baseball game in a college football stadium. There was about 100 yards of open space from the right field fence to the back end of the stadium, and the seats in left center were probably closer to Niagara Falls than to home plate.
It was great.
I’ve just got to ask… when do we find out what your soccer team is? The transfer season provides the greatest offseason in professional sports with lots of entertainment. So who are you watching? The Arsenal could still use another fan. Especially while everyone once again pronounces doom as our players leave.
Really though… who are you picking?
I’ve been lucky enough to have been to 5 dead stadiums. Two of which were domes. Watching a baseball game in a dome is one of the most unfulfilling experiences in life. Luckily I also got to spend my youth in old Cleveland Stadium eating the best hot dog mustard available, and having the pleasure of watching my dad and his buddies wash those dogs down with some Carling Black Label….Mable….Black Label.
So does County Stadium in Milwaukee make the “Historic Stadium Ramble (NL Edition)?” County Stadium is an AL stadium to me and filled with guys like Yount, Molitor, Ganter, and Cooper.
I’ve been to two dead ballparks, 3 Rivers and the Astrodome. The Astrodome I was there for a Make A wish type of deal so I was sitting in the owner’s box as a 9 yr old kid, leaning on the dugout ceiling. I just remember the size of the place, to me being nine, it seemed like a great place to watch a game. Now being older 28, I would much rather go see a game outdoors. Also just got the book yesterday in the mail from amazon, I’m looking forward to reading it.
Reading Joe’s post and these comments, I can’t help but wonder if, in 20 years, there will be a retro-Modern ballpark trend, complete with 80,000 seat stadiums, odd sightlines, and fields that can be converted to football….given the (understandable, IMO) backlash against all the new parks, it wouldn’t surprise me. Plus sports teams just love milking cities for whatever they can get.
I haven’t been to any dead ballparks (actually, haven’t been to many ballparks, just Shea, Yankee, Fenway, Wrigley, Camden Yards and the new one in Philly), though Shea and Yankee will soon be on my dead list. I gotta say, as a Met fan, even though Shea is a dump, I always liked it – it was our dump. And even though it was bland, and cavernous, and the upper deck could get insanely windy (I remember going to one late season game on a chilly night, I think it was against Atlanta in 2000 after we clinched the wild card. Bobby V played all the scrubs, so Jay Payton was batting clean-up, but we actually won the game easily. Anyway, I was wearing short socks and kinda baggy jeans, as was the style for high school kids back then, and the wind just whipped up my jeans and my legs were f’in freezing), it was cool to be able to wake up one day, decide to go to a game and just head out to Shea, buy upper deck tickets for 12 bucks and then park yourself in the blue section (which was the loge, the second section up – they checked in the really close seats). No way you’ll be able to do that in Citi Field.
I loved visiting Fenway and Wrigley, but personally, I’d find it very annoying to have my team play in a park like that, having to buy tickets months in advance and shell out 50 bucks for crappy seats. I fear that Citi may be similar.
And, you know, for a lifelong baseball fan who grew up in NYC, I was only in Yankee Stadium once. I was a little kid and don’t remember it particularly well. I was always a Mets fan, but still…
I don’t participate in “the wave,” but, like you, Joe, I don’t have a problem with it either. Two reasons:
1. Anyone who says they didn’t like the wave the first time they saw it is lying.
2. Most people who love the wave are casual fans (maybe even a bit like me, doing the wave for the first time). And baseball should be doing anything it can to rope in casual fans, even if it means the occasional exploding scoreboard and dopey wave (as long as these things aren’t too distracting, of course).
This point was hammered home to me one night when I was watching the playoffs with my sister, and I started ripping on that talking baseball thing Fox has (Scooter or something). And my sister said that her 5-year-old son just LOVES Scooter. He runs into the room and watches the game whenever it comes on. And that’s when it hit me: that talking baseball wasn’t made for me. And considering you’re reading this baseball blog, it wasn’t made for you either. It was made for 5-year-olds, and, at least in the case of my nephew, it was working. Maybe even helping to turn him into a real baseball fan someday, the kind who might read baseball blogs and stuff.
I have a similar attitude when I hear hardcore sports dudes going off on “bandwagon fans.” What the hell is wrong with bandwagon fans? Shouldn’t teams be rewarded with increased fan interest when they’re doing well? Isn’t it silly to expect the threshold for fandom to be some intense, devotional, “Fever Pitch” kinda thing?
So, yeah, things like Scooter and the wave and bandwagon fans might dilute the purity of baseball, but I think it’s almost always good to keep the sport growing. The alternative is to wake up 20 years from now and discover baseball has turned into a sport for connoisseurs only, like horse racing.
Dead parks I saw: Comiskey, County, Cleveland Municipal (baseball and football), Riverfront/Cinergy, Three Rivers, Busch, Kingdome, Tiger and Exhibition.
I’ll have to agree with Chris up there. The only game I saw at Milwaukee County Stadium, the Brewers played the Red Sox. Obviously this was before inter-league play. I don’t care what Bud Selig’s wallet says, the Brewers are an AL team.
Joe, you still have a chance to sit in the right field over hang of Tiger Stadium. I drove by the park after Sunday’s Tigers-Twins game and they only have tore down the left-center portion of the stadium. Of course, you’d have to break in at night and get by the guard dogs, but dreams have their price.
I have been reading this blog and enjoying all your comments for quite some time-since my buddy from Cleveland turned me on to it. He mentioned something about a book you wrote and one you are writing. About the Reds, yes?
Anyway, the living vs dead parks topic intrigued me and makes me feel older than my 31 years. I am a New Yorker and a Yankee fan so I have been to many a game at the Stadium and some at the purple monstrosity in Queens. Comparing the two is like comparing apples and a colonoscopy. But I digress.
I have also been to Fenway(where I sat in the bleachers and a Sox fan proceeded to flick salt from his pretzel on my mom’s head. My dad grabbed him by the arm and shot hima death stare. His friends chattered the rest of the game, but there was not another word from him. I will never forget Fenway because it taught me to stick up for yourself and your family- I was 12) Wrigley was like stepping back in time, but looking at everything from a 90 degree angle. Kaufman and Turner, eh. The dead list includes Riverfront, Busch, Memorial and Dodger Stadium (the fans kill it). The worst stadium I have ever set foot in was Olympic in the dog days of summer. 98 degrees with no breeze and no end in sight, my parents suggested that we leave in the 7th. Mind you, we were on a Griswoldian family vacation in America Junior and decided to take in a game. I, in all my 10-year-old glory insisted that I would not leave early. Real fans don’t leave games early, even if it is the Expos vs the Padres in 1986. I held my ground, and still have never left as game before the final out.
I’ve only been to one dead ballpark in my life: Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington, MN. I can’t say I have any real memories of it, though — I vaguely recall being at a Vikings game once, and as an early teen I tagged along on a ‘family’ outing where my stepfather and a friend of his took their families to a doubleheader at the Met and all I recall is this desperate desire to impress the daughter who was about my age from the other family.
I will absolutely miss the Metrodome, though, even though I recognize that I’m probably one of about six people who feel that way.
- There were a lot of relatively insignificant games played at the ‘Dome over the years (but the same can be said of any ballpark). Going to a big game, though, was as close to going to a rock concert as can be imagined — the crowd would be cheering from before the first pitch, even, and when something major would happen, the sound would even drown out the radio and TV announcers.
- I’ll miss the late Bob Casey’s recorded ‘Nooooo smoking in the Metrodome!’ call; they’ll probably try to salvage some of it for the new park, which I imagine will still be ’smoke-free’ (unless they decide to allow a few designated smoking areas where it’ll be easy to clean up the butts thrown on the ground), but it isn’t even going to remotely be the same.
- In the summer of 1991, a friend and I were living together in the upper level of a duplex in south Minneapolis with no air conditioning, and we hit on a novel solution to the problem on muggy days when the Twins were playing a day game — pay $3 (at the time) to sit in GA seating and watch a game without mugginess or heat prostration (or being attacked by mosquitoes, for that matter). My friend ended up taking a job as an usher that season and worked three of the four home games in the ‘91 Series. It was a great year.
So, yeah, I’m going to miss the place, and I have no confidence that the new park will be anything but functional, pedestrian, and dull, with the added benefits of being unable to escape the mosquitoes and humidity when necessary.
But hey, someone will go there on a perfect late summer night, propose, and have magical memories of the place anyway, no matter how much I think it’s going to suck. That’s the way these things go.
Damn, I feel like the harbinger of death – I’ve been to more dead stadia than otherwise: Exhibition, Tiger, Municipal, The Big Owe and the Kingdome, vs. Comerica Park, Skydome and Camden. Given that I’ve also been to the Silverdome, I’ve been to *2* dead stadia for the same team (albeit football – the Lions played in Tiger Stadium & the Silverdome) – who else can say that? Actually, now that I think of it, I’ve been to Cobo too, so that makes 2 local teams (Pistons) where I’ve been to 2 dead stadia for each.
Riverfront, Cleveland Municipal, The Vet, Three Rivers, Tiger, Astrodome, Yankee ( soon ), Bush II, Of the closed stadiums that I attended,Municipal and Tiger were the best, they always seemed like you were transported back to the 1940’s just by going inside. I have seen Baseball, NFL football and major College football in Municipal, ( Ohio State vs Northwestern in 1991 ) Being from Columbus, it was always interesting to drive up for a night game wearing shorts when it was 90 in Cbus, and then freezing your butt off by the end of the game as it dropped into the 50’s by the lake. It was Ohio’s Candlestick park. Stadium Mustard and the vendors that sold the peanuts after the game “two bags for a quarter” were some of my best childhood memories. Well maybe peanuts for 12.5 cents a bag are a memory, but I actually have a jar of Stadium mustard in my refrigerator right now. No hot dog in our household is eaten without being covered with Stadium mustard! I hope the fish that live in the reef in Lake Erie that is the remnants of Municipal are having as good of time there now as I had back in the 70’s and 80’s!
Dead Ballparks memories:
AL Division
Kingdome. Saw a few games there in spring ‘79. Very different from Fenway and Jarry Park, hitherto my only MLB ballpark experiences. Concrete everywhere, including overhead. Crowds announced as 5,000 but looked more like 500. During the middle-of-the-seventh raffle at one game I was ONE SEAT AWAY from winning a sourdough breadmaking kit.
NL Division
Astrodome. 1986. I was in Houston pursuing a young woman who was Alan Shepard’s secretary. Got a VIP tour of the Johnson Space Center and an autographed photo of Shepard hitting a golf ball on the Moon, but not the girl. The Astrodome was probably the least memorable part of the trip, with the air of a condemned but brightly lit warehouse. It was less than 20 years old at the time, and seemed a little young to be so ramshackle. Even the beer (Lone Star?) was warm.
Stade Parque Jarry. Tiny even compared to Fenway, but a great game atmosphere. There are Montrealers who love baseball and they deserved better than the Expos. Maybe we can’t really call Jarry Park dead, since some of it is apparently still there as part of the Uniprix tennis stadium. Oddly, the beer was American, as I recall. Miller, I think.
The Vet. Seats in right-center so far away there was a three-second lag between sight and sound on batted balls.
Busch Stadium. I was in St. Louis for the CoSIDA national convention (college sports information directors) and the stadium was right across the street from the hotel. I ditched the evening activities every night and went to three straight games. Yeah, the beer was Bud, but it was cold and damn fresh — piped straight from the brewery, I don’t doubt.
Triple-A Division
The Ballpark, Old Orchard Beach, Maine. Home of the late Maine Guides, Cleveland’s IL affiliate. Got to see players like Cory Snyder, Otis Nixon and (later, when they were the Maine Phillies) Starvin’ Marvin Freeman on their way up. Mosquitoes and black flies the size of B-36 bombers had you so busy swatting and waving your scorecard that actually keeping score was almost impossible. And don’t even mention the fog.
I just realized: The only still-living ballpark I’ve been to is Fenway. That’s sad. And now that I’m in Mexico, there’s no way I’ll ever make it to Yankee Stadium (or even Shea). Even sadder.
I’ve been to 25 major league parks, 13 active and 12 retired. The gone parks are: Comiskey, Cleveland Municipal, Tiger, Arlington, Veterans, Stade Olympique (by far the worst — like watching a game in a dungeon), Riverfront, Three Rivers, Milwaukee County, Jack Murphy, Candlestick, and the Astrodome. (I don’t care much for corporate re-namings.) If Oakland-Alameda can be split into pre- and post-Mt. Davis, that’d be another one (that thing is HIDEOUS).
Can’t say I miss any of them beyond token wistfulness.
My stats shift to 11 active / 14 retired next season when Yankee and Shea go dark. I travel much less these days.
I feel the same way about Shea that you do about Cleveland Municipal. As a long time Mets fan, it’s the only park I’ve ever known for them and while it’s basically a hole in the wall, I’ll still miss it when they plow it over.
The only dead stadium I’ve been to is the Big O in Montreal, and while the park itself sucked, it had a great atmosphere. There were only 5,000 people there, but these were the hardest of hardcore of baseball fans in Montreal so there was lots of noise and a good baseball-knowledge vibe. I saw six or seven games there, and the highlights included….
* Youppi grabbing my bald skull in a headlock and rubbing it for luck, as my shame was broadcast to the crowd on the stadium video screen
* In 2001, seeing Barry Bonds go homerless in the first two games of a series and not being in the lineup for the third game. Then, in a key situation late in the game, Bonds came in to pinch-hit. The Expos brought in Graeme Lloyd to face Bonds…and Barry proceeded to crush a ball into the right field stands. The place went nuts. That was BB’s only at-bat of the game.
* Seeing Vladimir Guerrero single-handedly beat the Diamondbacks. Vlad had a five-tool game —- he hit a homer, got another base hit, stole at least one base, made a great catch and threw a runner out at third.
Candlestick and the former Oakland Coliseum: not dead parks, just undead like zombies. if that makes sense
Someone had to post it, right?
Kansas City Star (Kansas & Missouri)
October 20, 1996 Sunday METROPOLITAN EDITION
Yankee Stadium is still the king of baseball stadiums
BYLINE: JOE POSNANSKI
SECTION: SPORTS; Pg. C3; JOE POSNANSKI
LENGTH: 979 words
NEW YORK – Here we stand in center field, Yankee Stadium, the
first night of the World Series. Do you know how many kids have
dreamed this one? We stand in the exact place of DiMaggio and Mantle,
only we’re wearing better shoes, which are now sinking in mud. Also,
giant drops of rain crash down as if kids are pelting us with water
balloons.
And a security guard runs toward us.
“The sewer backed up,” he yells.
“What sewer?”
“The sewer,” he repeats and then, breathless, he runs off,
presumably to warn others.
Yes, just think how many kids have dreamed this dream. We stand
in center field at Yankee Stadium on the first night of the 1996
World Series, Yankees vs. Braves. Sure, if you want to be a cynic,
you might mention the nor’easter, a storm which has postponed the
game and put off the World Series and exhaled 60-mph winds and dumped
enough rain to bring out every umbrella vendor North of Hoboken, N.J.
New York umbrella market report: The World Series does not seem
to have affected umbrella prices. For $ 3, you can buy an umbrella
that will not turn inside-out for at least 12 seconds. For $ 5, you
can get the same quality umbrella in blue. For $ 10, you can get an
umbrella and a very nice ring.
We stand in center field in the rain in the middle of New York.
We stand in a puddle the size of the Hudson River. We stand near the
Utz Potato Chips billboard, close to the sign that reminds us that
nobody beats the Wiz. We stand near the spot where a kid stole a home
run from Baltimore Orioles outfielder Tony Tarasco, even closer to
the seat where Reggie Jackson’s third home run landed, even closer
still to the place where DiMaggio settled under fly balls.
Sirens whir from behind the monuments to Ruth, Gehrig and Mantle.
The Budweiser neon sign is turned off, but the scoreboard is on, and
it shows a blur of colors, as if someone is trying to pick up illegal
cable. Behind these very walls, no doubt, people with turned-out
umbrellas fight over cabs, and two things are clear.
1. We are getting really, really wet.
2. The New York Yankees are back, with their fans who throw
batteries, with their cab drivers who cut off traffic on the Triboro
Bridge, with their scalpers and vendors and ushers and dreamers and
historians and loudmouths, who have booed all the greats, from Ruth
to Mattingly.
“You talk about the World Series,” Yankees pitcher David
Weathers said, “and you talk about New York.”
So many teams have claimed to be king of baseball since the
Yankees faded into the Steinbrenner fog. In the 1990s, the Atlanta
Braves have become the latest team to love and hate, as if you could
really love or hate the Atlanta Braves. How much can you love or hate
a team that plays its games between “Bewitched” reruns? How much
can you love or hate a town of mall-walkers and shiny buildings and
Krystal’s burger shops? Hating the Atlanta Braves is like hating the
new car smell.
No, baseball was not the same without the Yankees. It was not the
same without this city, where cab drivers nearly hit pedestrians
while they tell you exactly what kind of an idiot the Yankees have in
Manager Jim Torre. It was not the same without those pinstriped
uniforms, which Yankees fans call “classic” and the rest of us call
“horrible.”
It was not the same without this place, Yankee Stadium. The last
few years, the baseball playoffs had become a tour of the newest
ballparks, shiny places with beer gardens and carpet and dress codes,
structures with names like huffy English castles, names like “The
Ballpark at Arlington,” and “Oriole Park at Camden Yards. ” At this
rate, they will alternate next year’s games between the Biltmore
House and Notre Dame, and well-behaved fans will be allowed to offer
light applause between wine tastings.
This place is a stadium. It’s not a field. It’s not a ballpark.
It’s not a retractable dome. It’s certainly not a yard. It’s a
stadium, a beer-soaked, smoke-filled, obscenity-laced,
pretzel-scented stadium so grimy that not even a nor’easter can wash
away its years.
“The only reason I ever wanted to play in the American League,”
Braves second baseman Mark Lemke said, “was so I could play at
Yankee Stadium.”
Lemke was born in Utica, N.Y. His father will be rooting for the
Yankees in this World Series.
The rain tumbles harder, and shoes sink in deeper, and it’s
quickly becoming apparent that the World Series may have to wait a
while. It’s becoming even more apparent that security will let us
stand out here in center field until we get pneumonia for all they
care. Home plate seems a hundred miles away, and the stands behind
blur out of focus, like one of those Hidden Eye pictograms. Nobody is
around. A car horn honks from somewhere in the Bronx.
And, even as rain soaks through the raincoat and trickles down
our backs, even as the drops splash the puddles, even as this World
Series swims in limbo, this is the place. Center field. Yankee
Stadium. Game one of the World Series. Nobody is looking, and we turn
for an imaginary fly ball, step over the large puddle at the warning
track, shake water from our hood, bump into the 408-foot sign in
center field.
“I don’t care what anybody says,” Weathers says. “If you
haven’t played or seen a playoff game here, you haven’t seen
anything.”
A million kids have dreamed this dream, though without the
nor’easter and the mud and the security guard who sits in a folding
chair under Yankee Stadium and says “Nice day for ducks, heh?”
The World Series waits another day. Our shoes are ruined.
My dead ballparks –
The Kingdome — it was like watching kids play sockball in the basement. And every game I saw there was on a beautiful sunny Seattle day…outdoors!
Arlington Stadium — to increase capacity to big league numbers, they squeezed in way more seats than “Turnpike Park” was built for. You kept whacking your knees on the seatback in front of you.
County Stadium — Sat through a slush storm on Memorial Day weekend, so I drank more coffee than beer. The concourses reminded me of hallways in old high schools. Municipal architecture at its most dismal.
Municipal Stadium — With George Toma as groundskeeper, the best part of a Kansas City A’s game was watching the grass grow.
Comisky Park — The City of Chicago had cracked down on people parking cars on their yards, limiting them to charging $5 or so to park on game day. The kid working the business asked, “Do you want insurance?” My friend, a South Sider, suggested I pay the additional $5 “premium.”
Tiger Stadium — With the covered seats, even a day game had a theatrical feel. The fans were in the shade and the game was lit like a Broadway show. You were so close you could hear the players talking. Only six rows of box seats on field level.
Yankee Stadium — The Bronx looked like Berlin, circa 1945, and the ballpark seemed like Emerald City as we walked from the subway (three graduate credits in Sociology for the price of a token). Really nice fans! Friendly, even though I was a Roylz; fan (but only because Oakland was in town that day). A lot of teams have dressed in pinstripes over the years, but they shouldn’t bother. I always kinda liked those drab 1920sy New York road uniforms. Because when the Yankees take the field, in the only pinstripes that really matter, it’s somethin’ else.
The ex-Big A — When they built the bleachers for the Rams, Anaheim ruined a great ballpark. Like an over-extended Colorado A-Frame cabin, that scoreboard was so 60s kitsch. When the football seats added, and the perfect weather, you felt like you were sitting in a dome. It’s the first ballpark I heard the fans in the right-field bleachers yell, “Tastes great!” and the left-field bleachers hollered “Less filling.”
Kudos for calling the White Sox Stadium “New Comiskey” and not the monster that is “U.S. Cellular Field.” Sponsored names are like the worst thing ever. It’s refreshing to know that the Royals stadium will continue to be known as Kauffman Stadium to honor the owner and not the company that paid $50 million for some silly advertisement.
Anyways, I’ve seen major league games in only four stadiums, and two of them are dead or just about dead. I was able to get to RFK pretty easily thanks to the Metro. I was willing to pay extra to get better seats, so the seats weren’t too bad, but the cookie-cutter nature feels absolutely claustrophobic, especially how the only stadiums I’ve been to previously were Kauffman Stadium and Camden Yards. (Kauffman is still better.) I did get to see some nifty moments: Roger Clemens striking out ten in a game for what turned out to be the final time in his career, and Ryan Zimmerman’s walk-off blast against the Yankees. The latter moment made me feel ambivalent. I was rooting for Wang Chien-Ming because of his connections to Taiwan, but at the same time the person who hit it was a UVA alumni.
The other dead park I went to was Shea. Maybe it was because the day was just about perfect, or because I never left my seat so I was spared from all of the mud and mire, but I actually enjoyed my experience there. Unfortunately, nobody homered for the Mets, so I didn’t get to see the big apple rise up, but I did get to see a nifty comeback by the Mets against the Cubs.
Oh, and thanks for posting the column, but…Jim Torre?
I grew up in rural Michigan (about 90 minutes west of Detroit without traffic) and listening to Tigers games on the radio (WJR, Ernie Harwell!) with my grandmother. So I love(d) that place. For a few years I even went to Opening Day, and I went to college in the Metro area so saw a lot of games between the ages of 18 and 21. The best place to sit was in the center field bleachers, upper deck–the tickets in the 1980s were only $4, which was great for a college student. Even with 440 to dead center, in the bleachers you could see everything, except the center field fence. The seats were good enough to enjoy the bizarre movements of Frank Tanana’s junk pitches, for example. (The right field porch was great, too, though.)
The center field bleachers were a little lawless, even in the 1980s. It was nothing to smell pot being smoked up there (even on Opening Day!). If I had a time machine I would go back and see a game there in 1976 or 1977. It must have been crazy.
I have a bunch of memories, but my favorite is from 1990 (I think). It was the Tigers’ last home stand of the season, and they had already lost 99 games. The Blue Jays were in town and had taken the first two. The stadium was packed with Jays fans, many of them with brooms (going for the “sweep,” bastards). The center field bleachers were about half full, but there was a feeling in the air of barely suppressed drunken rage found only in the Rust Belt and English soccer stadiums.
The Tigers were down, but came back in the bottom of the ninth to win. The Tigers fans should have been happy, but, no, not so much happy as ready to rumble with the Jays fans. Walking out of the stadium, down the circular ramps that led to the upper deck, drunk and angry Tigers fans were loudly taunting Jays fans: “Where’re those brooms now?” “Let’s see the brooms!” “I’ll put a broom up yer ass!” I was very glad to be wearing the Old English D that night.
Tiger Stadium had the parking in people’s front yards, too, which as a small child I found very strange.
Great site:
http://www.andrewclem.com/Baseball.php
I’ve been to RFK, the Vet, whatever they called Jack Murphy at the end, and Tiger Stadium. And I saw Olympic Stadium well after the Expos left.
Another great post. I’m just 32 but I’ve been in several dead parks (Tiger Stadium, Jack Murphy, Arlington Stadium, Astrodome, and Busch Stadium II)
The fact that so many stadiums are now gone is exactly why I think Bob Wood needs to do a 25th anniversary edition of Dodger Dogs to Fenway Franks in a few years. Almost every stadium from his 1985 tour (book came out in ‘88) is now gone or will be soon. The only ones left from those 26 in ‘85 will be Wrigley, Dodger Stadium, and Anaheim (sort of.) His book will be like a reference guide for anyone that wants to know anything about the old parks.
My favorite old stadium story is getting to see the Rangers beat Detroit in Tiger Stadium in an Aug ‘87 game. My brother and I got to meet Scott Fletcher before the game because he was using the pay phone in the concourse during BP. The stadium was so old it didn’t even have a phone in the visiting locker room so he had to use a pay phone under the stands. Funny.
The more bad hops than Schlitz is a priceless line, I’m going to use it daily and I’ll think about footnoting it. =)
I’ve been to 14 different ballparks and Yankee stadium is about seventh or eighth in a list of “Best Parks”. I understand why there is a big hub-bub around the last year, but the few times I went it was dirty, grungy and really plain. You take the history out of the park and it’s RFK north.
Two things:
1. I’m a Red Sox fan, but this has nothing to do with my feelings for Yankee Stadium.
2. I wish that they’d blow up Fenway, but for other reasons. If you live in Kansas City or Detroit Fenway is a fun little bandbox of a ballpark. If you live in Boston and go to more than two games and are over 5′7″ it just sucks.
I will give the new owners credit that they’ve made the park better, but it’s no Safeco, AT&T Park or Camden Yards (my top three).
I guess I’m probably one of the few people who misses Riverfront Stadium, the only dead ballpark I’ve ever been to (heck, the only ballpark I’d ever been to until my 20’s). Sure Great American BP is a nicer place I suppose, but Riverfront is where I grew up watching Pete Rose and Joe Morgan and Cesar Geronimo, and later Barry Larkin and Chris Sabo and Eric Davis. I remember my first impression of the place when I was a little kid, it felt like walking onto a starship! It was big and modern and, for it’s time, pretty flashy. Plus you could convert it into a football stadium! How cool was that! I always loved taking pictures of the place. I loved how the concourse and the stairs to the loge level made a wavy clamshell pattern on the outside. I loved how, when it was a sellout (almost 60,000 people) the place would totally vibrate with energy.
And the Waves…. man…the Waves went on forever. Round and round the red seats like an angry Red tide.
Hot dogs were cheap. Life was good. The Reds won every once in awhile.
Oh, I been to Riverfront, too both with astroturf and when they put in grass right towards the end.
My first baseball game(s) were a bat day doubleheader at the Old Old Yankee Stadium in 1968. My grandfather had me convinced that Ruth, Gehrig and Miller Huggins were actually buried under the monuments that were in CF, 490(!!) feet away. (Only 460 to the power alley in left–center). “And it rolls behind the monuments . . . . .”
Dead visits: Busch II, Astrodome, Three Rivers.
Live visits: Kaufman (nee Royals), MMP.
Yikes. I need to travel more.
Busch is the place of most memories. Saw NLCS game 1 in 1987 — on a school night! and home was 100 miles away! I was the king of 6th grade for the rest of that week.
The Dome was underrated I thought — especially in the last few years of life. I was at a playoff game (ATL-HOU) that went 12-13 innings and the place was rocking. No need to pipe the crowd noise through the PA or use a metal roof to make it seem louder like they do at MMP now. Now the Astrodome looks so sad sitting empty right next to the glorious monstrosity that is Reliant Stadium.
Saw the first game I remembered in KC, with Boston. John Tudor pitched and Yaz was playing his last year.
Wow, great baseball memories, but let’s get to the most important topic, pixifoods:
Pixifood: Fun dip
As a child it tasted like: Pure heaven. Three delicious flavors – blue, red, and purple (I prefer calling them by colors rather than “flavors” – what is a blue raspberry supposed to taste like anyway?)
As an adult it tastes like: Sugar. It’s a sugar stick dipped into sugar. And artificial sugar at that.
Tidbits: Don’t get your nose too close to the bag. One inhalation might set your nostrils back for weeks.
Pixifood: Cheeze Whiz
As a kid it tasted like: who cares? It came out of an aerosol can, and we loved it.
As an adult it tastes like: Kind of like foam, to me.
Tidbits: As a kid, I would always try to steal a pull off the cheeze whiz container. Now, I can’t even imagine eating it. Apologies to those in Philly who swear by it.
Pixifood: Marshmallow peeps
As a kid it tasted like: Delicious fluffy flavored marshmallows
As an adult it tasts like: who knows? I can never finish one before the vomit-inducing feeling takes over.
Tidbits: I know some people who *actually* enjoy these. They put them in a microwave to “soften them up”, and eat entire packs in one sitting. Incredible.
I’ve been to nine dead parks (fulton county, tiger, the vet, municipal, the astrodome, memorial in bal’mer, milwaukee county, rfk, and jack murphy) and 12 live ones (fenway, wrigley, yankee, shea, camden, tuner, new comiskie, the big A, At&t, ballpark at arlington, petco (just last week), and comerica).
I’m a Red Sox fan, and I’ve been to Fenway many times. Every baseball fan ought to go once, but its not a great place to see a ballgame. I do want to sit in the Monster seats, though.
I liked At&t in SF a lot. Great location, good food, gorgeous park. I also liked Memorial in Baltimore. Being in a residential neighborhood was very cool, and I liked the statues out front. Lots of good seats, too.
“Oh, and thanks for posting the column, but…Jim Torre?”
You missed the joke. Read it again.
Good story about the Millennium Hotel. I’ll do you one better than that. Just a few days ago, while standing in Penn Station, a guy asked me how to get to Penn Station.
Dead parks: Three Rivers, the Vet, Memorial, old Busch, Astrodome. Let’s count Yankee and Shea too.
I’d say that in six of those seven cases the new ballpark is so much better than the old that it’s laughable to even compare the two. The new NYC parks haven’t opened yet obviously, but it’s unfathomable that they won’t be huge improvements. The only one I’m not sure about is new Busch. I haven’t been there yet and firsthand reports are that they might have been better off with the old place.
Since this topic was sort of inspired by Yankee Stadium, I just want to note that this year’s All-Star Game was probably the most surreal baseball game I’ve ever been to.
The last six innings were like a dream. Not in the way that a fantasy is a dream, but literally like a dream that you might really have.
As in, “Man, I had this weird dream that I went to Yankee Stadium at 1am on the night of the All-Star Game and the game was still going on, but there was hardly anybody there and there weren’t really any big stars in the game. And Bud Selig was sitting by himself in a box of 20 seats looking very worried. And then they had a 14th inning stretch and played Take Me Out to the Ballgame. And then the game was over and the gave J.D. Drew a bus. It was weird.”
Dead Stadiums: Comiskey, Jack Murphy, Riverfront
But I miss Brian Gunn’s blog more than any of those places. I agree 100% with everything you say, (so long as “the wave” ain’t happening when its “close & late”).
Kids love Scooter. I remember when I was in high school stocking shelves at the grocery store, wondering to the “lifer” next to me what the point was of all the variations of chicken noodle soup. Stars, letters, shapes, etc. It’s all just noodles, right? “It’s for kids,” he said as I rolled my eyes. Now, 15 years later, I understand.
I’m pretty sure I would have hated Scooter back then, too. Now? My twin 4-year-olds love it.
riverfront and three rivers stadia were always the exact same place to me as a kid. we would go see a game every few years or so, and being roughly equidistant from both Cincy and Pittsburgh (we never went to Cleveland. my grandpa hated American League baseball.) it all just depended on where we could get cheaper tickets. we would always take our binoculars because the players looked like ants when sitting up in the upper decks of those places.
I don’t go to many ballparks… Shea, the Stadium, the old Vet (ugh, what a dump), and the former Joe Robbie Stadium. (Kevin Mitchell, then a Red, hit a home run that came down somewhere in the panhandle, as I recall.)
At the end of this season, the only active baseball park of the four will be… the football stadium.
Wait – I think I’ve been to Citizens Bank in Philly, with a Phillies fan friend. (They were playing the Reds, in fact.) Hm, thought that I had a point there for a moment.
No, I do, actually – one of the most fun things about my old High Heat 2001 game, which I still fire up for kicks – you can play in dozens of retired, now-demolished, or even a few minor league parks. Virtual Crosley Field is kind of fun, and I put the Rockies in Candlestick to nullify the thin-air advantage. The user mods to update some of the fields are also neat. I wonder if some of the newer games have updated graphics (with better crowds!) of these older fields… it’s not real baseball but it’s nice to spend a half-hour watching a game in old Tiger Stadium or even Ebbets Field.
“more bad hops than Schlitz” – really? Of all the cheap beer out there you choose one that actually tastes good? I will not defend it against imports or microbrews but it is a million times better than Bud/Bud Light/Miller Light/Busch/ect.
Thanks everyone for sharing. The “new retro” parks were great at first – I remember how absolutely floored I was when I first went to Camden Yards in ‘92. But now there are so many that they’re all beginning to look alike, which ironically was the main knock on the cookiecutters.
The impending demolition of Yankee Stadium is the knockout punch for me. I know they totally re-did it in the 70’s anyway, but somehow I don’t think I’ll get the same feeling walking into the new one.
I never thought I’d say this, but bring back the Vet! It was tough and hard and uninviting, just like the Philly fans. Come to think of it, it was a lot like old Municipal Stadium except instead of columns obstructing the view it had a fluorescent green carpet with dark stains in the shapes of puddles, on which the lines of the football field were always clearly visible.
First, I’d like to say that I don’t think that the Big A counts as a dead stadium. Yes, it has a new name and looks completely different than it did when the Rams played there but it’s still the same place. I’ve been to both versions. I also don’t think that it will count when Kaufmann’s face lift is complete. Would you count the Oakland Colliseum? I’ve been to both of those as well. I wouldn’t.
Second, you have to stop calling yourself an old fart and making comments about how old you are. I don’t think I’m old until I read one of your posts. I haven’t had a Now and Later for maybe 30 years.
For the deceased stadiums I’ve been to, there are two that are truly dead and not simply remodeled like the BIg A. There is Memorial Stadium which is where I watched my first ballgame. We used to get a package of 13 tickets from Crown Gas and then buy tickets for a couple extra games when the Royals were in town. Memorial Stadium isn’t near as bad as Wrigley (which I’ve seen but not been inside of) and Fenway is when it comes to being in the middle of a neighborhood though. It does have an area for parking.
I was also able to see games in the Astrodome which is the next place I lived. That was the most incredible stadium I’ve been to as far as the effect it had on me. Watching that back wall go nuts after a home run was unreal. Being able to sit in movie theatre seats with cushioned backs and bottoms was also sort of unreal.
It you include the ones you think count then that’s four. I suppose that Dodge stadium will fall by the wayside eventually as well. The last time I was there it was a dump. Far worse than the Big A/Edison/whatever. What they have done with the Big A is actually pretty remarkable when you consider the fact that it was a cookie cutter before the quake.
I confess I did the same thing outside Penn Station when the cabbie dropped me off — I had to get him to point me to it. At least I wasn’t already inside at the time…
Well, on the 7th Avenue side Penn Station is kinda confusing. That’s not so bad.
But INSIDE THE BUILDING! I mean, that’s an all-time low.
I’ve lived here a long time and been asked some dumb questions by visitors but that’s the all-time winner for me.
Dead:
Milwaukee County – It felt like walking into an oversized Little League park, but I thought it was kind of charming. I was quite moved when nearly the entire stadium sang the National Anthem. And I loved seeing Bernie Brewer slide into the mug of beer after a homerun.
Old Busch – For all the hype about St. Louis having the best fans, there was decidedly little enthusiasm for a Sunday afternoon game against the lousy Marlins. It was fun to watch Jim Edmonds roam centerfield, though.
Soon-to-be-dead:
Shea – A buddy and I scapled tickets to the home opener a couple of years ago. The stadium just seemed like it had an endless number of seats. Mike Hampton was pitching for the Braves after just leaving the Mets. The fans chanted “Hammmmptonnnnnn, Hammmmptonnnnnn!” all during the innings he pitched. Unsurprisingly, he didn’t pitch well. At one point during the game, the scoreboard informed us that it was David Letterman’s birthday. Since it was rainy and the Mets were pounding the Braves, we left and headed for Times Square. We wandered around looking for the Ed Sullivan Theater and saw a gathering of folks on the side street next to the theater. We waited around and were treated to the site of Letterman getting his birthday treat: He pitched batting practice to ARod with Posada catching and Billy Crystal shagging. It was great.
Yankee Stadium – My sister-in-law’s brother got us a VIP tour before the game and we got to watch BP from up close, tour monument park without waiting in line and saw Bob Sheppard in his announcing booth. We also got to see the press box and my friend the Twins fan waved to Bert Blyleven who promptly came over and shook our hands and chatted us up and posed for pictures. Another great time.
Still-kicking:
Kauffman: My home park. It really is a beautiful park without a bad seat in the house. It’s been fun to see my beloved Royals give up a homerun to Barry Bonds and be competely befuddled by Pedro Martinez and Randy Johnson. Thankfully, I was old enough to appreciate the World Championship in ‘85, which keeps me going to this day. Last month, my son and I got to participate in a Father’s Day Batting Practice at the “K”. It was beyond thrilling to be able to talk to old Royals like John Mayberry and Brian McRae and take the field as if I was a major league player. I can’t imagine anything topping it!
Fenway: The first game I saw there was a cold Easter Sunday. We sat right behind the red seat where Ted Williams hit his monster blast intot the right field bleachers. The game went into extra innings and David Ortiz hit a walk-off homerun over the Monster.
Wrigley: Sat in the bleachers on a perfect, sunny early summer day. ‘Nuff said.
Ballpark at Arlington: Not much memorable other than feeling like the upper deck seats were right on top of the action (unlike Kauffman) which I thought was pretty cool.
Toured:
Coors – It was in the winter and snow was on the field. I definitely need to go back there and see a game.
Grew up in New York as a Mets fan, so of course I’ve been many times Shea and Yankee. I see both sides of the Yankee discussion — the field is impressive, but on the other hand, the rest of the stadium, especially the concourses, is horriffic — I remember exiting Yankee after a Pink Floyd concert and the people flow was so compressed all you could do was walk with the crown and hope they didn’t walk you into a pole or something.
I have great memories from Shea (among others, I was at Game 6 in ‘86) but won’t miss the stadium. and as challenging as it is for baseball, it was even worse for football — seeing the Jets there was torture. I do wish they would transport the apple to citi — any of you who agree, or are interested, see a devoted fan’s efforts at: https://www.savetheapple.com
Dead stadiums I’ve seen:
-Olympic, which was a disaster and even worse once they put the roof on — the acoustics were miserable.
-Big A (I do think it’s a different stadium — so different you wouldn’t recognize it now.
-The Vet in Philly, a dump
- I also went to The Ballpak in Old Orchard Beach Maine to see the Maine Guides. The previous poster must have had a bad humid day — on a cool summer evening with the Ocean breeze it could be heavenly
Living:
-Oakland Mausoleum or whatever they call it these days — just a dump
-Dodger — I love Dodger, witht he sun setting over the San Gabriels. Also the only stadium I ever went to where you walk in at the top and have to go down.
-Edison — just a great remodel.
-Pac Bell or whatever it is today is glorious
-Fenway — I hope it never goes
-New Comiskey — mediocre stadium, but great food. You have to respect a ballpark that sells kosher hot dogs, which are vastly superior to Dodger Dogs, Fenway Franks or any other stadium hot dog.
- The BOB or whatever Phoenix stadium is now called. Not bad for a roof, and with the heat there, unlike many places, it is necessary on many days — it’s just too painful to sit in 120 degree heat.
-Cashman Field, where the 51’s the Dodgers AA team plas, is awful — a cement eyesore and it’s just too damn hot
Not sure if this tops the Penn Station guy, and probably only Tri-State residents will grasp the preposterosity, but while trying to meet up with someone, a friend once told them, by cellphone, that we were “at the corner of Seventh and Fashion.”
I’ve only been to four ball parks, and by year’s end three of them will be dead (Memorial, Shea and Yankee Stadium). The fourth will remain a jewel (Fenway). My only good, however, story is from Yankee Stadium.
On October 20, 2001, I went to Game 3 of the ALCS at Yankee Stadium, the Yanks against the 116 game winning Seattle Mariners. But I was raised to be a Red Sox fan, so I really rooting against the Yankees more than anything else. I decided to have some fun with this, and wore my Boston cap to the game.
I wore it in the subway on my way there, I wore it on my way in, and I wore it through the game. (Took it off on my way out, as planned, as the mere idea of thousands of drunken Yankee fans scare me.)
At the end of 6, New York led 9-2 — and they tacked on five more. The late innings were not interesting. The fans got tired of taunting the Mariners for the futility of their record regular season and two sections of them turned on me. Really! Two section of people started chanting “Boston Sucks” at me.
Of course, this gives me the opportunity to remind people of my my favorite story about what it really means to be a Red Sox fan. After the Patriots won the SuperBowl for the first time, beating St. Louis three and half months after I was at Yankee Stadium, a bunch of Bostonians went out to Fenway Park and started changing “Yankees Suck.” I did not live in Boston at the time, I heartily approved!
Dead:
Metropolitan Stadium – Nothing tops seeing your first big league game. 11 years old and seeing Catfish Hunter pitch for the Yankees in person.
County Stadium – very close feeling to me due to its reminders of the Met. Best food period.
Comiskey Park – another great park which could have taken a bomb going off outside and it wouldn’t crumble. Atmosphere was great – fantastic fans whether it was packed or had 10 000.
Municipal – only there once (1992) but agree with the author about the stickiness and griminess. I am not complaining, it was the way an old ballpark should be.
Tiger Stadium – best seats I ever had for upper deck seats. Looking over home plate. These seats top most seats I have had in lower deck seats at other ballparks. Maybe the saddest of the ballparks which have left because of its history and what has replaced it.
Exhibition Stadium – I came. I saw. I left when the game concluded. Nothing else to say.
Olympic Stadium – yes it was a dome….but it was the home of my beloved Expos. Toughest park to leave because I knew when I left that day (09/26/04 vs Philadelphia) I would never see my team again. Great beer and food.
Soon to be dead:
Yankee Stadium – I have been there before and will be there on September 21. My daughter will probably wonder why there are tears in my eyes when I leave there that day…..
Dead: Crosley Field.
I attended my first major league games there on Sunday, May 17, 1970. I was 11 years old. A double header with the Braves. In the first game Tony Perez and Pete Rose homered. In the second game, a 15 inning grinder, Hank Aaron got his 3,000th hit and went 3-5 with a home run, 3 RBI, and 2 runs scored. Rose, Johnny Bench, and Lee May homered for the Reds. Both teams scored 3 runs in the 10th inning, and the Reds won both games. Best day at the ballpark ever.
I don’t have many regrets so far in my first 46 years on this earth, but two are not going to see a hockey games at the old Chicago Stadium or Maple Leaf Gardens.
I hope not to regret going to Wrigley. Some year I will.
My dead parks are old Comiskey, Jack Murphy, the old Big A, and the LA Coliseum, if you count the exhibition the Dodgers played there this Spring. I basically grew up at Comiskey, and I loved that smell. It always smelled like cigarettes, pizza, and beer to me.
The main thing I remember about Jack Murphy was that the Christians on the Dodgers and Padres testified about their relationships with Jesus after the game. The place was mostly full for the game, but there were just a few hundred people there to hear Brett Butler talk about God. I’m pretty sure Ken Caminiti was another one of the testifiers.
Twayn,
Wow! What a day. I checked the box score for game 2 — you also saw Johnny Bench start in CF, one of only two games he played in CF in his career.
My own list — living: Coors, new Busch, Metrodome, new Tiger, Wrigley. Dead: Crosley, Riverfront, old Comiskey (great), old Busch, Astrodome. Kicking myself for missing old Tiger; I had a chance once, on a short visit to Michigan to visit my wife’s extended family, but would have had to go alone, from Saginaw, and opted to pass.
“New York Yankees Vice President of determining whether media can stand in centerfield during a rainstorm,†sounds like a pretty cool job.
Sadly, the promotion prospects aren’t great. The only place you can move up to is “President of determining whether media can stand in the centerfield during a rainstorm” and, you know, those decisions are all made by the Vice President. So that sounds pretty boring.
“didn’t you’re mother teach you”
Oh Joe…
(sic)
I’d like to say that the whole “Costner and Cruise are tied in votes!” thing is becoming kind of creepy.
Because whenever I watch, it’s always a few votes in favor of one or the other guy. I never see that tie.
I’m not sayin’ y’all are lying, but just, you know. I’m just sayin’.
The tie vote is like my personal bigfoot.
“And my sister said that her 5-year-old son just LOVES Scooter. He runs into the room and watches the game whenever it comes on. And that’s when it hit me: that talking baseball wasn’t made for me.”
No, it was made for five year olds. However, it also annoys the crap out of everyone over the age of ten. And I’m not sure that the benefit of getting a five year old to watch your game as a tradeoff for pissing off everyone over the age of ten is worth it.
Especially since your advertisers aren’t targeting the five year old demographic.
I haven’t stopped watching FOX’s baseball games solely because of Scooter, but it was definitely a part of it. Joe Buck’s sneering remark of “For all of you who complained about scooter, here’s scooter!” was the final drop. Yeah, if enough people complain about it that you have to mention it on TV, it makes perfect sense to just rub it in their faces, right?
Remember those people you pissed off when you whine about your ratings falling, Buck.
Joe, after you do the NL Ramble, how about your take on Dead Ballpark Music and Dead Public Address Announcers?
I’ll start.
Dead Fenway Park Music: John Kiley at the organ, a stirring and singable national anthem in about 17½ seconds, and NO artificial crowd-pumping BOMP bomp bomp bomp, BOMP bomp bomp …
Dead Fenway PA: The immortal Sherm Feller.
“Ladies and gentlemen.
Boys and girls.
The Red Sox remind you of the following American League rules …”
“Now batting.
Number 8.
Carl Yastrzemski.
Left field.
Yastrzemski.”
They use his picture to illustrate the word “laconic” in the dictionaries.
AND he wrote the sort-of-catchy song “Summertime,” recorded by the Jamies.
I have fond memories of Candlestick as a kid in San Francisco. Yes, it was a cold, windy, bleak dump, but as Vin said about Shea, it was *our* dump. Utility Company Park is a nice place, but it just lacks that essential dumpy quality.
I went to an Expos game at Olympic in ‘96, I think. Scoreless, top of the third, maybe two outs and none on, and all of a sudden the crowd (such as it was) went absolutely bonkers cheering and screaming. I still don’t know what that was about. I also remember fans throwing tamales into the outfield when Henry Gonzalez hit a home run.
my most vivid memories of my trip to cleveland’s municipal were that the area around my seat smelled like someone had just puked there (i moved) and that the weather that day in late august, was maybe the nicest single day i ever remember. light breeze off the lake, 70 degrees and sunny. just perfect.
i saw hundreds of games at milwaukee county stadium. singing roll out the barrel along with theresa brewer in the seventh inning stretch followed by god bless america. brats with secret stadium sauce. the day thousands of seagulls swarmed the stadium looking for food. the brewers sent a hunting dog on to the field between innings to chase them away, but all he did was sniff around the warning track in left center and relieve himself. and the day a skunk wandered out of the brewers bullpen (talk about symbolism) and held up the game for fifteen minutes because nobody wanted to get near him.
First wave: Dodger Stadium, 1984 Olympics, first game of the baseball venue. By the way, if you are ever in an Olympics city and can’t get tickets to the main opening venue, try for the first event at one of the side venues: there will still be pomp and festivities. Anyway, some loon in the right field bleachers started running trailing a large flag (I think it was South Korean). Repeated. Repeated. Repeated. Repeated. About the sixth try, some folks started getting the idea. Repeated. Wave rippled to the end of the right field bleachers and died in the center field gap. Repeated. Repeated. Then it was like a lawnmower engine that finally caught, and kept on going around and around for ten minutes. My only objection to the wave is that too often it is started when the home team is up; it’s more likely to distract a hitter than the guys in the field.
Favorite dead park: Tiger Stadium, Detroit. Left field bleachers. I think it was Lance Parrish who put a ball in the seats so fast I hardly had time to move for it, and I was thinking, “That doesn’t even reach the warning track in Dodger Stadium.” That was when I first decided that yeah, there is such a thing as ball park effects, before I ever read Bill James.
Favorite Stadium: Dodger Stadium. If you are ever there, near sunset, and have the time to waste (either climbing a WHOLE lot of stairs or waiting endlessly for the elevators that never come since McCourt took over) go to the very top deck behind home plate and look AWAY from the field. You get a stunning view of L.A. downtown, and if you’re really really lucky and it’s a clear day (not many of those) then you can see all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Just heart warming. The San Gabriels turning red in the setting sun are nice enough, but this view is the hidden secret of Dodger Stadium. Only the top level and its parking lot can see that way.
Unlike so many stadiums, Dodger Stadium doesn’t smell dirty. All view lines are clean. And the sound of Vin Scully echoing from thousands of transistor radios – ah, those days are gone in the era of ipods and earbuds.
Ballpark memories (great topic):
Dead parks: Arlington, Baltimore Memorial, Fulton County, old Busch, Astrodome, Riverfront
Live parks: Turner Field
It’s all baseball and it’s all wonderful
Sadly, I only got to two “dead” parks and both were horrible places to watch ball games – Exhibition and Olympic – the latter infamously called “the world’s biggest toilet” by Richie Hebner. Though, I’ve got to say that in the late 70’s, early 80’s with those great Expos teams featuring guys like Dawson, Cromartie, Valentine, Carter, Oliver, Raines, et al, Olympic Stadium did rock and was a party waiting to happen. It’s too bad none of those teams ever won – thanks Jim Fanning for bringing in Steve Rogers to face Rick Monday.
A few things on earlier posts – Jarry Park, even though I didn’t get there, was exactly the kind of park that the Expos needed. it was small and “intimate” like County Stadium in Milwaukee, and, say Memorial in Baltimore. An arbitrary decision by MLB required Montreal to have a domed/covered stadium, and so the Expos had to move to the Big O(we) – as if the weather in Montreal was so much worse than Minny, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, etc. all at pretty much the same latitude. If it could ever have been arranged, paid for privately (likely), a more downtown, small, uncovered stadium in Montreal could have saved Montreal baseball. As another poster said, there were a lot of hard core baseball fans, and there’s a good history of baseball there. It was the Expos who didn’t deserve Olympic Stadium.
I have been to the nearly dead Shea – I was meeting my brother for whom it was easier to get to when work brought us to the general area – and it actually was a pretty good night. We had seats just about where the ball “gets through Buckner’s legs” about five rows up, and watched the Mets-Jays, and it was just good to be at the ball park with my brother.
The live ones include Safeco, Camden, Skydome and Oakland. Love the first two, not so much the other abominations.
And to the poster who said he regrets not getting to Chicago Stadium (and Maple Leaf Gardens) for hockey, I’m with you on Chicago. I saw games in every one of the Original 6 rinks, though I wonder if you can count the refurbished Forum, and the constantly rebuilt Madison Square. My brothers and friends did tours as they closed Chicago and then Boston Gardens, and I couldn’t make the Chicago trip. A crying shame.
Anyhow, enough. I do love this blog. Thanks all.
Oops. Forgot that I also got to The Ballpark in Old Orchard Beach to see both the Pilots and the Phillies. It was a fun little park, but I have to agree about the mosquitos. Had to leave the Phillies game because we couldn’t take it anymore.
Between July 4th and 8th, 1970, I made a baseball odyssey to three dead or near dead ballparks. On Saturday, July 4th some friends and I went to Yankee Stadium to see punchless Bombers defeat Washington. By the way we saw Pat Summerall, but that’s another story.
On vacation for the week I drove from Rhode Island to Memorial Stadium in Baltimore on July 7th. The Birds had the bases loaded, no out bottom of the 11th. The Yankees’ Lindy McDaniel couldn’t control his forkball. The count on Brooks Robinson went to 3 and 1. Everyone in the stands knew McDaniel would throw his non-existent fastball, and Robinson would hit a grand slam to left. He did and he did.
I jumped in the car next morning and headed to the next closest stadium, Riverfront in Cincinnati. I got there in the late afternoon, rented a room for $9 (it was a different world), and went to the Padres-Reds game. Riverfont was not quite finished: the water fountains were not ready yet. The Padres won 2 to 1 in a remarkably tame game, except for the rain delay.
I started back to Baltimore for the Thursday game, but it was rained out, so I went home to the beach. Oh, to be young again.