Baseball memories

My son asked today what my feelings were about the end of Yankee Stadium...

To be honest, I knew it was ending, but did not pay attention to the fact that today was the last game to be played there.

As a kid, I was a Yankee fan. Why? My father had grown up near Yankee Stadium and was a Yankee fan so we listened to Yankee games on the radio. The same way my son grew up to be a Red Sox fan - he heard and saw Red Sox games all his life.

The difference being that at some point in my late teens I tuned out baseball and only go back into it when living in Boston - but that team "took" and I am still a Red Sox fan.

Back to Yankee Stadium... It was the place I saw my first live baseball game at some point in the 50's. It was an old timers day and so the day started with a game featuring famous players... it was exciting and I loved being there....but never went back as I left NYC.

Since then I have been to many stadiums that have come and gone. Seems to be the nature of what we call progress. I had been to the old Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Had also been to the old Madison Square Garden and the old Boston Garden and I think the old St. Louis park.

My son has seen the Bullets at the old US Air Arena in the burbs and the new Wizards at the Verizon arena in downtown DC. [Had to look up the name to see if it was still MCI - it isn't.]

Buildings come and go - even those with historical significance - money speaks and it speaks loudly. If players make millions a year, stadiums must have more seats for corporations so the team owners make a profit...and as corporations come and go so does the name of the building...yikes!

[Sigh] By the time my son has kids, no one will be able to afford to take a family to ball park and the parks and arenas will continue to be demolished and bigger ones built...

But Fenway Park and Wrigley Field will always be here....Some cities respect their baseball history and their baseball fans.