A ballpark above Grand Central?

Came across an amusing anecdote in a collection of baseball stories (said to be true stories, pulled from various archives and news reports) first published in ... imagine this ... 1949. It seems that a man named Charles White proposed, back in 1912, of building a field on top of Grand Central Terminal in the heart of Manhattan:

A visionary named Charles White came forward with a scheme in 1912 which would solve one of the major problems confronting the owners of baseball clubs. The owners were often complaining in those days about their inability to construct adequate playing fields owing to the high cost of real estate. Mr. White told them to quit worrying.

He submitted plans for a baseball field of immense proportions, sodded with bright green turf and containing all the other conveniences of an up-to-date ball field. This field, however, would be up in the air -- built over the roof of the new Grand Central Station, extending from Lexington Avenue to Madison Avenue and from Forty-fourth to Fiftieth streets.

First off, that outline is huge. As it stands now, Grand Central is centered on the plot between Lex and Madison and extends from just 42nd to 45th streets. Park Avenue sits between Lex and Madison, then splits (southbound to the west, northbound to the east) around Grand Central, with all the platforms and tracks underground. A ballfield "over the roof" of the terminal wouldn't be like a rooftop garden (the terminal building isn't big enough), but probably more like the proposed West Side stadium that the city hoped to build in the last decade to lure the Olympics and the Jets -- a platform over the underground rail lines. Of course, this was 98 years ago -- who knows what the plans really were.

Not only does White's plan bear a similarity to the proposed West Side stadium, but it have drawn the Yankees down from Harlem (they were tenants of the Giants in the Polo Grounds until 1923)? Even if it had, however, I doubt there's any way the Yankees would still be there. They would've outgrown it by now, probably decades ago, and knowing what the area around the train station looks like now, there would be no room for much in the way of renovations or expansion.

Had they outgrown it in the '50s, might they have moved West and become the San Francisco Yankees? Imagine that: Seven years after Joe DiMaggio's retirement, his one and only team moves to his hometown. Not likely. They'd established such an identity in New York. But if they tried to relocate within New York then, Robert Moses might've forced them to his stadium site in Flushing Meadows that Walter O'Malley had rejected for his Dodgers. Or if the Yankees managed to last in the ballpark atop the terminal until the '70s, when Yankee Stadium was renovated, or '80s, might they then have moved to the West Side or New Jersey? Who knows what course baseball history might've taken had a ballpark been built atop Grand Central.

The Mets jersey in Yankee Stadium

The Babe has a presence

I finally made it out to Yankee Stadium '09 yesterday. It was a gorgeous, mid-70s afternoon and I didn't even need a seat in the shade to feel comfortable, but I had one, and I was.

After emerging from the D train, I walked around Babe Ruth Plaza to pick up my tickets near Gate 4 and took a glance over at the construction site that was once Yankee Stadia '23 and '76. It's nothing more than a dirt field, with the bat still standing behind what used to be the home plate area. I never had a particular affinity for the place -- my memories were of games in my childhood in the '80s, not of seeing great ballplayers -- but it was still a bit of a shock, as everyone says, to see it gone. It's definitely a good thing, though, that they're finally moving on with construction of the park.

Inside about an hour before first pitch, I took the time to walk the whole way around the concourse, a needed improvement from the last place. No longer do you feel like you're walking through the subterranian tunnels of some Cold War weapons base. Instead, the wider walkways -- though not quite as wide as Citi Field's, it seemed -- and high ceilings made for a much more comforting experience.

Out behind center field harkens back to the old stadium, though, as you pass through a tunnel beneath the bleachers and behind the casino sports bar. A set of oversized retired numbers line the wall by the doors to Monument Park (closed by the time I got there, after batting practice), one of three places where the numbers are displayed (Monument Park itself is another, and a third display -- visible on TV -- is behind the bleacher seating in left-center). Then the narrow corridor continues past the sports bar entrance and emerges in left field.

I bought some lunch and intended to eat it while standing at a ledge behind the nearest seating section, but then I noticed numbers on the ledge and an usher came to usher away two people to my left. That's when I realized you actually need a ticket to stand (or sit, because there are high chairs along the shelf) in any of these spots. I suppose they sell those tickets as reserved standing room, rather than general admission. I much prefer the traditional way -- the ledges are there for anyone to use as a convenience. There are just some times I'd prefer to buy my food and drink and consume it at the nearest possible spot rather than trudging back to my seat and risk spilling anything.

After taking in the first four innings or so from my seat, I spent a couple of frames exploring. I checked out the museum, with an impressive display of New York baseball history (even if it's there as much to assert the Yankees' dominance as much as to remember the Giants and Dodgers and acknowledge the Mets), and chuckled at so many instances of Other Teams' artifacts: jerseys and hats from the Dodgers, Giants and, yes, the Mets. Citi Field may have a Rotunda built to honor Jackie Robinson, but Yankee Stadium '09 has Jackie's hat, jersey and bat, plus jerseys from Mel Ott, Carl Hubbell, Pee Wee Reese and Mike Piazza. We won't be seeing a Derek Jeter jersey in the Mets' museum any time soon, and I'm fine with that.

The collection of autographed baseball is impressive, too, and I took special note of 15 of them, finding all randomly, except for Mike Pagliarulo's, which I looked up to get a shot for a friend of mine who loved Pags when he manned third base at the old place. It was cool to look at Thurman Munson's locker, too, which I had only glanced the one time I was in the Yankee clubhouse for a story and didn't have time to really look at it as I was keeping an eye out for Jeter, Jorge Posada, Sterling Hitchcock and Lee Mazzilli for the story I was working on. And next to Munson's locker is a replica of a current stall, with a touchscreen that allows fans to put their own names on the LED board above their heads and take pictures. One proud Mets fan with more guts and guile than I put "Let's Go Mets" on the sign and revelled in all of us taking his picture.

On the way back to my seat, I paused to look at all the overpriced baseball cards at one kiosk, including an uncut sheet of 1984 Topps for $100. Curious, I went on to eBay to see if any were available. One with a Don Mattingly rookie card (the attendant at the kiosk didn't say if either of the two sheets for sale had any particular players on them) could be had for $149, but another auction was only up to $4 or $5 with a few bids in.

I was back in my seat to see CC Sabathia struggle in the eighth, allowing Seattle to tie the score at 2. The guy next to me who had downed three Pepsis (that I had seen) by the bottom of the second had returned with another (no telling how many he had when I was gone) and expressed his displeasure at CC's inability to get outs and Joe Girardi's refusal to bring in Joba. It worked out OK in the end, though, because Alex Rodriguez hit his 595th home run -- a Yankee Stadium shot to be sure, landing in the first row in right field -- to give the Yankees a 4-2 lead that was protected in the ninth by Mariano Rivera.

In the end, I find the new place to be bright and welcoming, but no more intimate than the old place. It's still a colossus, certainly more stadium than ballpark, but it's a needed upgrade from the one it replaced. Even though the concourses are bigger and open to the field, it still felt in some places like we were inside, beneath the stand, rather than outside or under cover of the stands. That may be a feeling derived from the open space above our heads, sloped up and outward for the seating sections.

But it certainly isn't a bad place to see a ballgame -- if you can afford it.

What a destructive day!

March 26 is a big day in sports stadia demolition. Ten years ago today, the Kingdome was imploded; this is the demoversary.

In New York today, another stadium from the '70s saw the last section of its upper deck pulled down.

On Aug. 21, 1983, I saw my first baseball game. It was Angels-Yankees, and we sat in the upper deck. I remember wanting to keep going higher; at that age (I was a few weeks from turning 7), you don't get many bird's-eye views. These days, I do prefer the closer angles, as much for taking pictures as anything else, but I go to enough games that I like to mix it up.

Wonder what will turn out to be the last piece to fall.

Little Old New York

The still image above is from a British tourism film about New York City in 1963. Along with scenes from Idlewild (pre-JFK) Airport, Chinatown and the downtown skyline is a segment on Yankee Stadium. The footage was taken on July 25, 1963, which was the only home game against the Angels that year started by left-hander Al Downing. The announced attendance was 15,716, but it appears the actual figure was a bit less. There's also a segment near the end about the construction of the World's Fair attractions -- including the Unisphere -- for the 1964-65 exposition. (Thanks to Uniwatch for pointing out this video.)

LITTLE OLD NEW YORK

Photo Friday: Angels vs. Yankees, 1992

Donnie Baseball stands in

Didn't get around to today's slideshow as early as I have the past two weeks, so no attempt at a soundtrack today and no particular reason for choosing this set.

This was a late-August game between two teams going nowhere in 1992: the Angels and Yankees. California, as the Angels were known then, won, 7-3, and Tim Salmon hit his first Major League home run, which is why this particular game always stood out in my memory. Years ago, when I discovered Retrosheet.org and its archive of box scores, I wanted to track down every game I'd attended. Finding this one was easy, because I remembered Salmon's milestone. Same goes for Mo Vaughn, who hit his first homer about two months before this in Baltimore's Memorial Stadium (I'll eventually post my pics from that day).

Nothing particularly wonderful about this set. It was before I'd gotten my first SLR camera, so I'm using my mom's point-and-shoot, the first camera I'd used that had a zoom function. But the settings couldn't be adjusted, even if I knew what to do back then at almost 16 years old, so there is definitely some blurring that could've been prevented had I known what to do. So even though they might not hold up to my personal standards today, I've decided to include them for what they are: The memory and record of what I focused on and what I saw 17 years ago.

A brief college football aside

Temple's return to bowl play today in the EagleBank Bowl has stirred up a lot of mentions of the short-lived Garden State Bowl, which was played at the Meadowlands from 1978-81. I once had a program from one of those games saved to my watch list on eBay, yet never bothered to purchase it. I think it was only about $20, but I guess Temple's return has pushed sellers' hopes upward, perhaps thinking that Temple alums will eagerly want to commemorate the Owls' last bowl win before today's game.

Next fall, Yankee Stadium will host a college football game when Notre Dame and Army meet, and then in December, it will host a bowl game, the first in the New York area since those Garden State Bowls in the late '70s and early '80s. It's going to be quite a cold one if the weather's like it is today.

It'll be interesting to see how the Yankee Stadium bowl game -- date as yet unknown, however -- affects any plans for the NHL to plan a Winter Classic there. The last couple of years, when the game was played at Wrigley Field and Fenway Park (well, it will be on Friday), the rink has been set up before Christmas and opened to the public for skating. So maybe the Yankee Stadium bowl game -- at least next year -- will be several days before Christmas. Or maybe there won't be a public skating period.

Perhaps they would've been the Manhattan Maulers

So this just occurred to me. Have you seen the opening montage of Woody Allen's Manhattan? It's a slideshow of scenes from around New York -- pretty much all of them in Manhattan -- with Woody's voiceover and Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue." And yet, there at the 2:51 mark is Yankee Stadium ... in the Bronx. Heck, it's even the still frame of the embedded video!

Ballpark impressions: Yankee Stadium

I, of course, haven't hidden the fact that I'm a Mets fan. Nor have I made any attempt at being discrete in my distaste for the Yankees.


The olden days, with obstructed-view seats and the facade.
However, I have a deep appreciation for baseball, for the game and its history and for the dichotomy of how the game can be so simple -- throw, hit, run, safe or out -- yet so intricately complicated -- infield fly, double-switch, hit-and-run. I love looking at the sepia-toned or black-and-white images of baseball played only during the day (and, unfortunately for too long, only by white men) and I have it in my mind to establish a modest collection of black-and-white photographs of old ballparks. But that should probably wait for a new home and more wall space on which to display such an exhibition.

I love going to Wrigley Field or Fenway Park not just for the baseball and the talent on display these days, but for the unique feeling -- the icky, sticky feeling of layers of paint slathered over decades-old concrete tunnels and iron railings and the overhanging upper decks and small, darkened concourses. When walking into those ballparks, I feel like I'm walking through history, entering a structure that has been standing for 90 years.


Tight quarters.
I get the same sense navigating Yankee Stadium's tunnels, only the sensation leaves me the moment I walk out into the sunshine and see all that gleaming blue and find myself enclosed in a behemoth of a ballpark. Yankee Stadium was renovated in 1976, the same year I was born, so I didn't get to experience it as a 50-year-old relic, a monument to the dynasties and the days of Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio and Mantle. I don't know how it looked with Death Valley to left-center, what the original configuration looked like or just how much ground the Yankee Clipper had to cover.


The emerald diamond.
I've only known it as the home of Mattingly, Winfield, Pagliarulo, Bernie and Jeter. Yet I can appreciate the need to give Yankee Stadium the All-Star Game in its final season.

But to me, it's a 1970s multipurpose stadium since converted to full-time baseball use. It's not the dump that Shea Stadium is -- though I do love every trip to Queens, particularly because I don't have to fight off too many urges to overindulge on lukewarm food and overpriced crappy beer -- but it's not far off. I'm sorry, but I just don't get that nostalgic, historical feeling when I walk in, and no amount of camera angles or new black-and-white shots can change that.


Way out in left field.
Nearly two years ago, I used a day off I had during the week to go to a Yankees-Devil Rays matinee. (It turned out to be the last time Carl Pavano pitched at home for the Yankees -- June 22, 2005.) Though no plans had been announced yet for a new ballpark, my intentions were to take my camera to spend some time shooting the nooks and crannies, capturing the intricacies of a classic ballpark before its days are numbered. They are, of course, now numbered -- two seasons, 162 scheduled regular-season home games, plus an undetermined number of postseason contests are all that remain before the new ballpark opens in 2009. Finding the historic, old-timey corners is what I was hoping to accomplish, but in my long absence, I'd forgotten just what the park actually looked like.


Monuments in play.

It had been a couple of years since I'd been to the ballpark in the Bronx, and so my memories of it were not consistent with current reality. For one, I hadn't yet been to a post-9/11 game at Yankee Stadium, so I found that I had to consult a certain member of the security detail at a certain gate in order to bring my camera bag inside. Arriving just as the gates opened for batting practice, I was dismayed by two new discoveries. First, the line for Monument Park -- which I've never visited in all my trips -- was way too long to allow for an enjoyable, leisurely look while still leaving time to enjoy batting practice. I can remember games in the 80s when there was no line and it appeared that you had more than enough time to take in all the plaques that are on display.


Soon to be a new stadium over that way.
The other saddening discovery was the high netting that runs beyond the visitors' dugout and prevents foul balls from reaching the seats down the left-field line. It also stops fans from leaning over the wall to scoop up grounders that come down the line, a treat my friends and I always enjoyed during BP. (Except for that time in eighth grade when I had a cast on my left arm. I managed to get my glove on and hoped to finally get my first batting practice foul ball. On my best shot, I had it lined up until the last moment, when some dirtbag bratty Yankee fan deliberately knocked my glove out of the way with his free hand and grabbed the ball with his own glove right after it passed the spot where my mitt had been waiting. I hope that jerk is miserable at a dead-end desk job while I spend my days at what many would consider a dream job.)

Anyway, Yankee Stadium is far from what it was, not that I ever knew it that way. I wish I did. Instead, I can only look at the past in photographs and try my best to compose shots I can enjoy whenever I make it back there myself. But I look forward to exploring the new ballpark, which will be given a classic look, complete with elements from the original Yankee Stadium design.


It barely looks like the same stadium.
The entry way is what I'm most interested in. It once had a grand facade out front, a towering, regal welcome area that, I imagine, seemed to announce you were entering some place special. Now, you approach from a parking garage with a skywalk over the underwhelming plaza.

So many of the fans there today know less of this grand stadium's past than I do. The kids have grown up knowing nothing but Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera and division titles. They're spoiled, actually. In the 80s, the Yankees were regular outdrawn by the Mets, and it's almost unbelievable that Yankee Stadium never saw 3 million fans pass through its turnstiles in one season until 1998. And who knows how many fans would've showed up for a Sunday afternoon game against the Twins were it not for a Beanie Baby giveaway; otherwise, who knows how packed the park would've been for David Wells' perfect game.

So it's not a bad idea to give the 2008 All-Star Game to the venerable old structure in the Bronx. Give it one last hurrah. It's not like the Yankees have hosted it once a decade; the last one in New York was in 1977, the first season after the renovation. (The Mets hosted it at Shea Stadium once, in 1964, that stadium's first year.) Teams must request the game, and neither franchise has expressed much of a desire to have an All-Star Game in the past 30 years.

The 2009 game will go to St. Louis, which just opened Busch Stadium III this past season, and you have to figure that the frontrunner for the 2010 contest would be the new ballpark in Washington, where the All-Star Game would be held for the first time since 1969. The 2011 Midsummer Classic could potentially go to the new Cisco Field in Oakland -- if it is open by then. Otherwise, shortly after that year, when it is up and running. Is four or five years too soon to have it in the same area as the 2007 game, which will be in San Francisco? Possibly, though Philadelphia and Pittsburgh hosted in 1996 and 1994, respectively, with Pittsburgh of course getting it again this past season. The Twins might want it some year, if they ever get started on their new ballpark. And the Mets, should they want it, would get it sometime before 2015, showing off Citi Field, which is sure to be a gem of a facility that will quickly make us all forget about Shea Stadium.

Old home week for some Mets

The Mets seem to be on a reunion tour, or a You Can Go Home Again tour. Bon Jovi could sponsor it.

First, it was Carlos Delgado in Toronto, where he went 3-for-11 with two runs, a double and an RBI in the Mets' three-game series at the Rogers Centre.

Now it's on to Boston, where Pedro Martinez will pitch on Wednesday, in an appearance he doesn't want to make.

Then, on Friday, they'll send Orlando Hernandez to the mound at Yankee Stadium, where he's sure to get the warmest ovation for a Met in the Bronx since interleague play began in 1997.

John Rocker just needs to shut up. Who asked him? Why is he even talking about this? Though, it does raise some questions about how professional sports leagues follow through on their fines and other punishments.

And then there's Joe Mikulik, a manager in the South Atlantic League for the Rockies' Asheville (N.C.) affiliate. He, um, got a little upset at a call on Sunday.

An All-Star Game (or two) in Yankee Stadium's future?

Two weeks ago, the New York Post reported that MLB officials and the Yankees have discussed awarding the 2008 All-Star Game to Yankee Stadium. (Rumor is that one will count.) That's a great idea. Seriously, it's a fine way to cap off the historic site's long and storied history. It's something they should've done in 1991 or 1992 at Comiskey Park, where the first mid-summer exhibition was played.

But then, just a few days later, the New York Times cited a source who said MLB was also considering giving the Bronx the 2010 game at the new Yankee Stadium.

While it seems like an extension of the change in All-Star Game policy, I don't like that possibility. A few years ago, Bud Selig announced that the All-Star Game would no longer alternate between the National and American leagues each year because the Senior Circuit had so many new ballparks worth showcasing. Hence, the 2006 game will be played in Pittsburgh, to be followed by the 2007 game in San Francisco. With so many new NL parks opening up (by next year, that list will include St. Louis in addition to Arizona, Cincinnati, Philadelphia and San Diego), Selig said, they wouldn't be able to bring the game to some of the nicest and newest parks until 2018.

Not alternating leagues is fine, but I think they should at least focus on geographic regions, spreading the game out around the country each summer. From 2004 to 2007, it will have gone from Houston (South) to Detroit (Upper Midwest) to Pittsburgh (East) to San Francisco (West Coast) and then, potentially, to the East Coast in New York. The 2009 game should then go to San Diego, Arizona or St. Louis, but if it comes back to New York in 2010, it should be at the new Queens ballpark before the Bronx gets it again.

Furthermore, to me it just reeks of the rich getting richer. It's another example of how, even with the team in a three-team dogfight for the wild card entering play this weekend, Major League Baseball is comprised of the Yankees first and everybody else second.