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Category Archives: Great Ballparks

Visiting great ballparks large and small, all around the country and the world.

On Stadiums

(Originally posted on February 17, 2000 and re-posted to the new URL on December 10, 2008)

I’ve waxed poetic before about Yankee Stadium, and well, I’m about to do it again. Yankee Stadium embodies, for me, the Platonic Ideal stadium. If my baseball history is right, it was the first three tier stadium, as well. Add to that the fact that it is The House That Ruth Built, and the tremendous amount of baseball history that has been made in that park, and, well… I could go on and on. (But won’t.)

It does occur to me, though, that my views on Yankee Stadium are a bit skewed by the fact that, well, I’ve never really been anywhere else. There was one year when the stadium was being refurbished in the seventies. I remember going to Shea for a Yankee game that time–but most of what I remember about it was that it poured rain. And I do mean poured; Niagara-like spouts of water were shooting from the upper decks. We arrived home sopping wet and wringing out our clothes. I was probably about seven years old at the time… (click post title above to read entire post)

October 8, 2008: Hold that Tiger!

You can Save Tiger Stadium. This from the Old Tiger Stadium Convervancy: Reports of Tiger Stadium’s demise are greatly exaggerated. For over a year The Old Tiger Stadium Conservancy has been quietly working on a plan to preserve the entire playing field and a significant portion of the beloved old ballpark. (See what is still […]

September 21, 2008: The Curtain Comes Down

Here’s a trivia question you’ll be able to stump your friends with in 2013. Who hit the last home run in Yankee Stadium? Answer: Jose Molina. Jeter tried to do it, but his line drive was caught just short of the wall. Johnny Damon tried to do it, blasting a three-run shot to put the […]

June 1, 2008: For the Birds

I have now initiated my friend Brian (let’s call him Brian…) to the fun and wonder of Major League fandom. I took a trip to Baltimore to take him to his first major league game, a tilt of Orioles versus Yankees. The reason I went all the way to Baltimore for this is that the […]

September, 7 2006: California Dream

“It’s really, really sunny in Anaheim. It’s so sunny that when corwin and I took in a beautiful day of baseball at the “Big A”–which they now call Angel Stadium–we got sunburned even though we sat in the shade all day. Perhaps it was just how scorching hot the Yankee bats are that left us reddened…”

June 11, 2006: Clean-Up Spot (That Time Me & Larry Lucchino Picked up the Garbage at Fenway)

“Bill Nowlin and I were at Fenway today to pass out flyers for SABR (Society for American Baseball Research) and recruit new members. (If you are into baseball history or love stats, you should join at www.sabr.org.) We had credentials for both games, so after the first game ended we were just supposed to wait around for the next one.

But just waiting around while groundskeepers, office workers, ushers, concessions employees (we could tell all these by their varying modes of dress and uniforms) were all drafted into trash pickup duty so that the park could be converted quickly for the surprise double-header was hard. We drifted down toward the group who were fanning out from behind the visiting dugout. Finally Bill asked someone “Where can we get a bag and help…?”

An American Holiday in Texas

(This is the story of my trip from July 3rd 2002 to Arlington, Texas.) If you ever want to take a patriotic vacation, I have a suggestion. See a ballgame on July 4th in Texas. Seeing any contest of our national pastime on Independence Day will make your blood run a little red, white, and […]

April 2 2001 – Opening Day: Part One: The Day Of The Fan

For those of you who had to miss Opening Day at Yankee Stadium, I decided to bring you a minute by minute recap of the entire day. It’s in two parts, one that’s just about the actual game, and then this one… 9:05 am — I woke up to the smell of bacon cooking in […]

June 19 2000: It Worked! Yanks Wallop Red Sox 22-1

Well, last night my team was down, and all kinds of drama, humiliation and heartbreak loomed potentially on the horizon. We were out of first place, suffered an unbelievable loss 17-4 in which our ace got shelled for 9 runs in the top of the first inning and came out of the game after only […]

February 17 2000: On Stadiums

I’ve waxed poetic before about Yankee Stadium, and well, I’m about to do it again. Yankee Stadium embodies, for me, the Platonic Ideal stadium. If my baseball history is right, it was the first three tier stadium, as well. Add to that the fact that it is The House That Ruth Built, and the tremendous […]