RinaseaofDs,
I have never been to Chicago, let alone Wrigley Field. Thank you for the first-hand description of it! I did not know, for example, about the concession stands and the wind.
I hope, when they renovate, that they do not do to Wrigley what happened to Shea (which did NOT need to be demolished).
Not sure about, Yankee Stadium, as even though I am born and bred in NYC, I have never been there. But at least THEY got to keep their stadium’s name. WE got stuck with CitiField. BLECH.
Speaking of CitiField, while I have nothing against Jackie Robinson, I simply do not understand why a NY Mets stadium is so obsessed with him. IMO, if they wanted to name a rotunda after somebody, it should have been a NY Met somebody. William Shea, perhaps, without whom there would not even be a team. Or Gil Hodges. Or even Joan Whitney Payson, who used to be at the games ALL THE TIME, right there in the stands with the rest of us. I’d say Tom Seaver, but naming stuff after people who are still living gives me the willies.
Oh well...I still hope they don’t screw up Wrigley Field.
Let’s Go Mets!
Regards,
And how ‘bout those Mets? They look like world beaters this year!
Yankee stadium has a hall of fame in the outfield out behind center field, or at least it had one. I don’t equate sports with church or religion, but walking through it you were just floored by all the great names that wore the pinstripes.
I guess from that perspective too, I sort of wonder why so many hate the Yankees. I’m as far from a Dodger fan than any man will be, but how can you not admire and respect Lasorda?
Yogi Berra? Little guy had a ring for every finger and both thumbs. To his dying day he was happy to have played for you and sort of looked at you as you congratulated him with this, ‘Wasn’t that fun?’ look - like you were on all those great teams with him. (He believes we all were, same as Gehrig.)
Yankee stadium was dated, too be sure. The best things about it were getting off the subway and walking through the Bronx, past all the sporting gear stores, hot dog stands, candy and popcorn vendors, and then you come up on it, with a ventilation shaft shaped like a Louisville slugger.
I was active duty, and Steinbrenner’s unwritten policy was that if you were active duty, you were to go around and enter at the Press Gate. You were met there by a man in his 80’s, a vet himself, who would ask to see your green card, and then ask for a single US dollar. He’d then escort you to the stairs. You climbed to the third deck, where you were met by another vet, who would look at your bag lunch and your binoculars, and then greet you with a smile and a gesture to pick any seat in the nosebleeders.
You settled in, brought out your ham sandwich, and you’d watch them take BP and wonder why it was the government paid you in addition to being able to do this.
The concession stands were forgettable, but that’s about it. There was the bridge the ringed the outfield, and the sound of the announcer’s voice - he himself was probably some angel who was impervious to death who was also in his late 70’s that reverently and with distinguished gravity announced the line up, and each batter that took the plate.
He wasn’t emotionless, like a robot. He just had seen enough baseball miracles in Yankee Stadium to know when to get excited about any individual player. He announced baseball by respecting every name that put on pinstripes, because becoming a Yankee was no mean feat, but he wasn’t going to get excited about them either.
I’m not sure if he’s still their, but the stadium announcer at Yankee Stadium in the 1990’s was the very best in baseball, and I’d heard most of them by then. Had he run for mayor of New York, he could have won, and said less than 25 words in the entire campaign doing it.
I’m convinced one of the reasons the Yankees did as well as they had for so many years was knowing you didn’t want to screw it up in front of him. No idea what the man’s name was, but I also imagined God’s voice sounded just like his.
Consider that the place became ‘hallowed ground’ in 1955 in that series with Brooklyn. Likely one of the best ever played, and that was 1955. Add to that all the other miracles witnessed - Jackson in the 1970’s for openers, and you get a sense for what I believe was lost in the fire, as it were.
So, that’s Yankee Stadium to me. I’m sorry you never got a chance to experience that. I was able to watch a series in Montreal before they shut down. The stadium announcer calls the game in French. That was different.
What has been palpable about our current situation is that baseball always seemed to have some palliative effect on us as a country once. I don’t think that’s true any more, not the way it used to. Still, there are guys you root for because they embody that quiet boyish love and humility that great players once almost universally shared about the game. Andrew McCutcheon is probably the breathing embodiment of it today. I remember when Pulhols used to play like that too, when he was a Cardinal.
It’s been fun to see playoff baseball in Toronto too. I love that they share baseball with us.
In fact, I think this is the great failure of Kennedy - he should have invited Castro back to Yankee Stadium for a series with Boston, and hammered everything out in the Yankee boardroom. I’m absolutely convinced he’d have found a way to forge a peace and save Cuba. Eisenhower failed there too. Castro tried out for the Yankees and didn’t make it. Anybody with that much respect for baseball couldn’t use a nuke on Yankee Stadium.