HOCKEY
NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE:
Maple Leaf Gardens,
Toronto, ON - August 19, 2008
Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale, NY - February
27, 2014
Pittsburgh Civic Arena, Pittsburgh, PA - January
18, 2009 (4 pages), December
7, 2009 (6 pages).
The Spectrum, Philadelphia, PA - February
6, 2009 (6 pages), February
10/11, 2011 (4 pages)
MINOR LEAGUE:
Albany River Rats vs.
Hershey Bears
- November 2, 2008
Cambria County War Memorial, Johnstown, PA - January
17, 2009 (Home of the movie Slapshot.)
Cincinnati Gardens, Cincinnati, OH - December
13, 2012
Onondaga County War Memorial, Syracuse, NY - December
7, 2012
BASEBALL
MAJOR LEAGUE:
Forbes
Field, Pittsburgh, PA - August 15, 2008 (Outfield
wall, home plate)
Polo Grounds, New York, NY - February
28, 2009 (Staircase, site of home plate)
Tiger Stadium,
Detroit, MI - August 17, 2008
(Since demolished)
Wrigley
Field, Chicago, IL
- July 1, 2007
Target Field, Minneapolis, MN - December
19, 2008 (Stadium Under Construction. Also, Metropolitan Stadium home plate.)
MINOR LEAGUE:
Heritage Park - Colonie,
NY (Off-site Link)
NEW YORK:
Shea Stadium, Queens, NY:
April
25, 2008 (1 page), July
8, 2008 (3 pages), August
5, 2008 (3 pages), September
26, 2008 (3 pages), September
27, 2008 (8 pages), October
10, 2008 (2 pages), Neon
Ballplayers.(2 pages).
January 2,
2009 (page 1), January
29, 2009 (Night Photos - 2 pages),
Shea Stadium Panoramas:
First
base side, Loge (April 25, pre-game), Home
plate, Loge (April 25, pre-game), First
base side, Loge (April 25), Citi
Field from Right Field Upper Deck (July 8), Third
base side, Upper Deck #1 (August 5), Third
base side, Upper Deck #2 (August 5), Citi
Field and Shea from Loge, Left Field (September 27), First
base side, Mezzanine, (September 27), Right
Field, Upper Deck (September 27). View
all 2008 panoramas, resized down, on one page.
Exterior
10.10.08 #1, Exterior
10.10.08 #2, Exterior
10.10.08 #3, Exterior
10.10.08 #4.
View
all 10.10.2008 panoramas, resized down, on one page.
Citi Field, Queens, NY:
January 2, 2009,
April 4, 2009,
Yankee Stadium, Bronx, NY:
October 10, 2008, November
7, 2008 (excavating home plate).
Yankee Stadium Panoramas:
Exterior
10.10.08 #1, Exterior
10.10.08 #2
New Yankee Stadium, Bronx, NY - October
10, 2008
MUNICIPAL /
MULTI-PURPOSE
Memorial Field - Mount
Vernon, NY (Off-site Link)
Richmond Coliseum, Richmond, VA - February
23, 2011 (Exteriors)
LINKS
There's
No Place Like Shea
Fond Memories Endure as Shea Crumbles - The Journal News, February
16, 2009, by Len Maniace. (I'm quoted in the article and shown in the video. I
happened to be at Shea taking photos in the parking lot just as the JN reporter
and photographer arrived, separately.)
Ballparks by Munsey
and Suppes - Tour professional athletic arenas and stadiums, past,
present and future.
Ballpark Reviews - Devoted to
Major League and Minor League Ballparks in the United States and Canada. Including
stadiums present and past.
There are many many websites dedicated to stadiums past and present. I wish I
could suggest one, but they are all very much similar. I also find that most
sites are lacking in the modern-day photo department (which is what I intend to
make up for with this page), though they are thoroughly informative. Use an
internet search engine to find out more about these other stadium websites by
searching for the name of a particular stadium that interests you..
MY
THOUGHTS : (Originally written 2008)
I am a fan of the older stadiums, especially the vanished ones that I never got
to see, and of some of the stadiums that have been, or are being, torn down now.
Sure, Citi Field may be more aesthetically pleasing than Shea Stadium, for
example, but Shea was perfectly serviceable. It's been called "a dump"
but people never tell me specifically why - maybe because of its location? The planes to and
from LaGuardia Airport are going to fly over the new stadium too, and the new
stadium will still be surrounded by acres of parking lot. Does that make Citi
Field a dump too?) The new park
may be a more pleasing place to watch a game, but only be default it is more intimate than Shea, holding
10,000 fewer seats. Of course the highest seats are going to be
closer to the action. What that means is less seats and higher prices, and the average
fan get shut out. It does not necessarily make for a more fan-friendly built
stadium.
The new parks aren't being built better for baseball playing or watching, but only to house more
food-stands, souvenir shops. And for places for people to stand and hang out, as if
the builders are attaching malls to the new stadiums. I still go to a stadium to
watch a baseball game, not eat five hot dogs or drink ten beers. But it sounds
like I might be in the minority - baseball executives now acknowledge that many
people go to the games simply to socialize, and these "fans" barely pay attention to what is
happening on the field. Seems strange to me to pay upwards of 30 dollars per person
for the right to do that.
I think it is funny too, that the multi-purpose venues of the 1960s and 1970s
have been largely decried as "cookie-cutter," while the new parks are
hailed for being something, different? Having been to a few of the newer
stadiums (mostly on the east coast), from the 1990s and 2000s, I can't help but
feel that they too are "cookie-cutter." In a different way from the
older venues, but
still they are all largely similar to each other. Quite a few buildings were designed by the same
architectural firm. (I'm sorry, but having an asymmetrical outfield does not a
unique ballpark make. Be more creative than that, please.)
Of the newer stadiums, I think my best all-around experience was at the new
Pittsburgh park (forgive me if I can't remember the corporate name - they change
so often to render the names irrelevant). The stadium is one of the
"neo-retro" parks but unlike many others, isn't too neo as to render
it utterly non-retro. We got a tour of the stadium for 6
dollars (compared to 25 dollars for a tour at Yankee Stadium), and our seats about 20 rows
from the visiting dugout cost twenty-seven dollars. In New York, that same seat
might go for hundreds of dolars. And the fans in the midwestern towns are so much more
friendlier than in Boston, New York or Philadelphia. (Not to say that there
aren't friendly people in the northeast, but you can wear an "away team" jersey
in Pittsburgh, Cleveland or Detroit and not get hassled - try that in
Philadelphia or New York). And Pittsburgh actually had vegetarian food. Imagine that, having a
diverse menu. Many of the new parks claim to offer so many different restaurants
and food options, but most all the concessions stands serve the same exact food, just under
different banners.
Regarding hockey rinks, I think the new arenas are all entirely bland and
utterly boring, and all are *exactly* the same, both inside and out. Blind-fold
me and drop me inside the Bell Centre, the Comcast Center, or the XCel Energy
Center and I would not be able to tell you what rink or city I'm in. The new
arenas generally hold more seats than the rinks they replaced, and by way
of design, put spectators much farther from the action. And ticket
prices are ridiculously expensive across the US and Canada for hockey. Far more
so than for baseball games, especially if you want to be anywhere but the upper deck.
I think it is criminal that Yankee Stadium is being demolished. Sure, it was
completely overhauled in the 1970s, but the outside is very much the same as the
original, and it is the same playing area. If Rome can hang onto its Colosseum
for a few thousand years, I think we can deal with the original Yankee Stadium.
It
is the original Field of Dreams; people would still pay to walk in there even if
no one is playing. Better yet, it should have been designated for use by local
colleges, high schools, and little leagues, and summer baseball camps.
I think it is even more criminal that Tiger Stadium was demolished. It was one of the three intact original parks (along with Fenway in
Boston and Wrigley in Chicago; one of four if you count revamped Yankee
Stadium). On top of the stadium's historical merit, Detroit isn't exactly
hurting for development space or experiencing a building boom, so it will only
be replaced by another empty lot. Tiger Stadium stood empty for ten years; what
was the rush to tear it down? Too bad that the Illitch family, which has
done good things with their money to preserve several Detroit landmarks,
abandoned Tiger Stadium and left it for dead.
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