The exterior of Fenway Park in 1914.
Now that Yankee Stadium has ended its 85-year tenure as the home of the New York Yankees, which stadium holds the title of dean of America's ballparks?
Actually, that much hasn't changed.
Yankee Stadium opened its doors in 1923. But the ballpark that has been open longer than any other was — and still is — Boston's Fenway Park, which, as baseball historians will tell you, was Babe Ruth's home for many years before the Bronx opened the House That Ruth Built.
In fact, Fenway Park opened in 1912. Ground was broken on the construction site 97 years ago tomorrow, on Sept. 25, 1911, and the first baseball game was played there the following April — a few days after the "unsinkable" Titanic sank in the North Atlantic.
And Ruth, who began his baseball career as a pitcher, played his first major league game with Boston in 1914.
Every other ballpark in the major leagues came into existence after Yankee Stadium. The oldest baseball stadium in the National League is Chicago's Wrigley Field, which opened in 1926.
With the noteworthy exception of Wrigley Field, all the other ballparks in the majors are mere infants by comparison.
In the National League, for example, the next-oldest ballpark after Wrigley Field is Los Angeles' Dodger Stadium, which opened in 1962.
All the other ballparks in the American League are still practically waiting for the paint to dry when compared to Fenway Park. The next-oldest baseball stadium in the American League — now that Yankee Stadium has closed its doors for good — is Baltimore's Camden Yards, which has been open since 1993.
Almost every major league baseball team plays in a ballpark that was built in the last 15 years. And almost all of those ballparks were said to feature something that distinguished the ballparks of yesteryear.
Why not renovate those ballparks instead of starting over from scratch? That seems like a fair question to ask. But the answer is different in each city. Maybe the location of the ballpark creates parking problems that can't be resolved or land can't be acquired to expand the seating sufficiently.
Maybe the stadium's location interferes with commerce. Maybe the financial operation has been poor and the owners had to sell to someone who doesn't care about history, just how much money there is to be made from buying and selling the land.
Sometimes, the structure is simply antiquated, unstable, and needs to be replaced.
Whatever the reason — and, in spite of the fact that the new stadium will be called Yankee Stadium and won't be given one of those hideous names that incorporates the sponsor's name (which could prove to be embarrassing if the sponsor goes out of business or has to endure a humiliating public scandal) — another monument to the past is coming down.
And we are the poorer for it.
It reminds me a bit of an episode of "Frasier," in which Frasier and his brother decide to buy and restore a restaurant that was significant in the family's history but is about to shut down permanently.
They decide to do this while having a one-last-time family dinner at the restaurant, after Daphne observes that, in her native England, they cherish their "antiquities," but Americans can't wait to tear them down.
It's not quite that simple. But it does strike me as ironic.
No comments:
Post a Comment