There Are No Words for This

This was auctioned off in 2004 for charity, so we're way late to the game, but who cares? This is so unbelievably awesome. If you want to see close ups and a ton of angles of Fenway Park in Lego splendor, check out the full range of thumbnails here. Thanks to my brother-in-law for finding this at Uniwatch.

No, It's Not Time to Let Fenway Go

Yesterday, Boston Herald writer Steve Buckley wrote a column urging the Sox to replace Fenway. Today, someone from Sports Illustrated - although damned if I can find it again - echoed Buckley's statements, calling for the old park to bite the dust in favor something new, modern, and more comfortable. The topic is, of course, one that arouses great passions in partisans of both sides of the debate, but I have to wonder: what set off the hate to begin with? Buckley himself calls Fenway "a palace" when comparing it to the park's appearance a mere 10 years ago and while it's true that it's the team and more than the locale that keeps the ticket sales high, I wouldn't go so far as to say that going to watch a good team in a crappy stadium is fun. The late 80s/early 90s Athletics - for example - might have been excellent teams, but I'd hazard a guess that their fans would have enjoyed the games even more if the team wasn't housed in the Coliseum.

To my mind, there are two reasons why scrapping Fenway is a bad idea:

1. The Practical Reason. Have you seen the economy recently? Think ticket prices at Fenway are bad now? Imagine what they'd be like if the ownership pulled a Steinbrenner and turned most of the park into luxury seating to recoup the losses of construction. In fact, that's probably an optimistic view, because even the Red Sox don't have the resources the Yankees can generate.
   
   
2. The Emotional Reason. To defame Fenway is to forget one thing: Red Sox fans - and in some ways, Bostonians in general - are defined by the history of the team and their city. Do you remember in 2001 when Dan Shaughnessy said the Yankees deserved to win the World Series because the Pheonix newspapers were handing out guides to baseball and the Diamondbacks didn't have the proper sense of history? An asinine thing to say, to be sure, but the point is that his statement was emblematic of how closely Sox fans look at the history of the game. And while some of that historical obsession came from years of near-miss ineptitude, the feeling is still part of the culture of Red Sox Nation. We can't tear down Fenway, the shrine to the successes and failures of our team, our living link with the oh-so-important past: it would be tearing out a piece of ourselves; a piece that could never be replaced with wide-load injection molded seats with three feet of leg room and two cupholders, no matter how comfortable.
   

Yankee Stadium: Why No Protest at Closing Time?

This post started out as a comment on Soxlosophy in response to this post, but after hitting the third paragraph I figured we'd all be better served with a blog post instead:

The argument about keeping the Stadium alive for the historical value to baseball is slippery slope anyway. Next we'd be saying that the Phillies shouldn't have replaced Veteran's Stadium just because they were there for thirty years.

And before you object and say that Veteran's Stadium wasn't the historical park, I think the analogy is apt (and goes to my next point): all week I've been reading reminiscences from people who remember Yankee Stadium before the renovations, who've never really seen the 1970s version (the Yankee equivalent of Veteran's Stadium) as being the real thing. Clearly they wouldn't be particularly interested in saving the newer park as a relic; it doesn't have that kind of value to them. Younger fans who've written up memories always seem to focus on the games they saw (and the fights, oddly enough, although maybe that's just the Deadspin bias), not the Stadium itself. The collective consciousness seems to view the place as pleasant scenery with a few standout points (Monument Park, the angle of the upper deck, etc.); the real important points were the players and the crowds.

Fenway is different, for a few reasons:

• First, like Wrigley, it's a survivor of a much older era, an era that today's ballpark designers are trying to recreate. Its resultant air of historical authenticity grant it a cachet not seen amongst the megaparks of the 1970s, even if the survival of that authenticity is just as likely to stem from the historical accident of penny-pinching ownership choosing not to follow the course of 70s ballpark architecture as it is from any concerted effort to keep the old place alive.
• Second, it's Boston, a place so thick with history you can't walk five blocks without running into some sort of monument to the past...and that list includes Fenway Park. That type of environment makes history pervasive, even if the impact isn't on a concious level. Heck, even within the park there's a slew of historical features (The Green Monster, Pesky's Pole, the Triangle, the Red Seat) that form a defining part of the Fenway experience. Don't get me wrong: New York has historical places, too, but when you live in a city that defines itself as a place where anyone can reinvent themselves, a place that remakes its skyline so often the city had to found a commission to keep valued landmarks from disappearing under the steamroller of progress, history gets a lower priority.
• Third, and probably most importantly, the Red Sox equivalents of those fans who knew and loved the original Yankee Stadium were the fans who watched the Impossible Dream season unfold at Fenway, who helped break attendence records, make Fenway the most popular ballpark in baseball in 1967, and start the concept of Red Sox Nation. Unlike Yankee Stadium, the monument to their memories still exists; any attempt to take it away would meet (and, via Save Fenway, has met) with fierce opposition.
  

In Support of Wrigley

A moment of support for our (former?) spiritual national league brothers and sisters, the fans of the Chicago Cubs. Their team has fallen on hard times of a nature far more serious than "wait until next year": owners Tribune Company (in the form of CEO Sam Zell) has ignited a firestorm of incredulity by stating (and restating) that any deal by the beleaguered newspaper company to sell the team might just include new naming rights to Wrigley Field.

I think corporate naming rights are a little ridiculous, but I recognize they're a necessary evil - for the most part, and depending entirely on situation. The "new" Boston Garden (or whatever it calls itself now) is a modern edifice, devoid of the weight of history that we like to call character. The owners can call it whatever they like, because it's not a landmark. Same thing with the faceless monstrosities of the 1970s; you can sell the naming rights to the Oakland Colosseum and have it sport the logo of whatever antivirus company you'd like, because it's devoid of the history that makes a ballpark a ballpark. Or maybe I just hate the concept of baseball games taking place in football stadiums.

My point: I offer this public, electronic, and (I don't fool myself) ultimately irrelevant bit of support because I can empathize with anyone who bleeds Cubbie blue. I can imagine the tragedy (and the riots) if the owners of the Sox decided to sell the naming rights to Fenway, and when I see the overpriced tickets and food and the ridiculous scalping that goes on (legally, mind you) through sites like StubHub because there aren't enough seats for every fan who wants to go, I know these are the crosses that must be borne to avoid the specter of John Hancock Park or Raytheon Park or - horror of horrors - a new stadium that attempts to replicate the past with 5,000 more seats. I've never been to Wrigley Field, but I hope one day to go - and I hope it's still called Wrigley Field when I do.

Only Hours Away...

This is it. In a little over three hours, Gil Meche will throw the first pitch of the first game of the Red Sox 2007 season and we'll be off to the races, trotting along with the unbridled enthusiasm that April brings: spring is here,
the earth begins the cycle of life anew and baseball is back again. Who cares what the statisticians say; anyone can be a winner in these beautiful early days where cold still tinges the air and hope still tinges the hearts of every fan, no matter what their team's payroll.

I spent yesterday afternoon at perhaps the best place in the world to distract the mind from the wait for real baseball: the ancient confines of Fenway Park, touring the ballpark. Because Fenway is such an old venue, a place where, in keeping with its location in a historically-minded city, the keepers of the place do as much as possible to blend old and new in way both functional and preservatory, the ballpark tour is as much about the 95 year story of Fenway as it is sitting in the kickass EMC deck seats in what used to be the .406 club.

Being a historically-minded person myself, I got a bit lost in the tradition seeping out of the walls and running down the concrete causeways, mixing with the water used by the grounds crew to clean off the seats. Big puddles of tradition, spreading across the floors where soon thousands of fans will tramp once again to the slow progression of spring to summer to fall, to the sounds and smells of baseball, the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. I walked outside of the park, back into the cool Boston air on Yawkey Way, looked at the old brick walls and the stone Fenway moniker and knew: we're ready. Let the games begin.