So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[Hercule]

Being in Cleveland, we recently could not help but be assaulted at every turn with broadcasts of the Cavalier's (basketball) games. In most places the assumption is that everybody wants to hear the game so it's usually piped in so you can dine, shop etc. by the (usually deafeningly loud) sound of play by play coverage of the game. In one retail establishment, I forget where or what type, we actually paused for a moment to actually listen, and I have to say I didn't understand a single word that was spoken. My wife simply commented that she swore she heard them say they were rounding the turn with ten furlongs left. Jargon indeed! My particular bugaboo, other than having to experience all this* when I really don't give a hoot, is that, sportscasters seem to feel the need to yell the sports at you.

*Wednesday's celebrations made for an absolutely insane commute. The only way to describe the traffic is that it was downright apocalyptic in scope. I dropped my wife off to catch the train to go across town to work, but had to circle back to pick her up because there was an estimated 4 hour wait just to get on a train!

 

[Fading Fast]

...My particular bugaboo, other than having to experience all this* when I really don't give a hoot, is that, sportscasters seem to feel the need to yell the sports at you...

The era of low-key broadcasting is, sadly, over. Just like the era of low-key (or no) celebration by the players is over (now, every catch or sack in the NFL is celebrated like a game winning play). Is it because there are so many more options that the broadcasters believe they have to "break through;" they can't risk you switching channels or devises if there is a moment of quiet?

I went to a Yankees game this week and the amped-up sound system was ridiculous - celebrating every minor good thing and egging the crowd on at every opportunity with insanely loud snippets of rock songs tangentially related to the "good" play on the field. It's like I went to a baseball game and a haphazard rock concert broke out.

There once seemed to be a cultural norm that respected controlled emotion (Tom Landry stoically coaching [most of the time] no matter - good or bad - what was happening on the field), now the louder, the more gesticulating, the better. I think we lost something - a self respect, maybe - when we decided as a culture to live "out loud" all the time.

 

[Harp]

I went to a Yankees game this week and the amped-up sound system was ridiculous - celebrating every minor good thing and egging the crowd on at every opportunity with insanely loud snippets of rock songs tangentially related to the "good" play on the field. It's like I went to a baseball game and a haphazard rock concert broke out.

There once seemed to be a cultural norm that respected controlled emotion (Tom Landry stoically coaching [most of the time] no matter - good or bad ....

I look forward to visiting the new Yankee Stadium. I had hoped Army and Notre Dame would meet for a football match there before the Irish revised their schedule.
Interesting societal commentary.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I can't stand the use of "entry" music for players at ball games -- if I wanted to watch the WWF I'd watch the WWF. I can't stand the use of loud rock music in public anywhere, but especially not when I'm a captive audience.

I don't mind loud, abrasive fans at ballgames -- I've shouted GO WAN YA BUM YA as loud as anyone, and anybody who thinks such behavior is a recent development never heard of Ebbets Field. There were plenty of occasions pre-TV where players got just as loud and abrasive back at the fans -- Ted "The Splendid Spitter" Williams comes to mind. As for managers, Leo Durocher was not a manager known for controlled stoicism on the field, nor were such managers as John McGraw, Frank Frisch, Casey Stengel, Jimmie Dykes, Billy Southworth, Eddie Stanky, Birdie Tebbetts, Earl Weaver, Dick Williams, Billy Martin, and so on. Even Connie Mack used to send one of his coaches out now and then to scream at a bad call. I don't mind that stuff as long as it's legitimate and not hammed up for the cameras. Some of these umpires today really *are* idiots.

I think the main problem with modern sports broadcasters is that they don't understand their role. Red Barber used to preach incessantly that the only job of a sports broadcaster is to "broadcast the ball," to report what is going on on the field as clearly and as specifically and as comprehensively as possible, but the broadcaster was not to try and compete with the game on the field or to attempt to manufacture excitement where there wasn't any. The game, in his view, should drive the broadcast. Barber's last surviving disciple is Vin Scully -- and his descriptions have always followed Barber's philosophy. They report, but they don't exaggerate or embellish or try to create false excitement. This is Scully's last season, and when he retires, there will be no more like him, which is broadcasting's great loss.

Too many -- perhaps all -- modern sportscasters see themselves as the attraction, the main focus of the broadcast. There were broadcasters like this in the Era -- Bill Stern was the worst offender, and there's a direct line from Stern in the thirties, manufacturing controversy for its own sake, down to Howard Cosell in the '70s. Most of today's broadcasters are products of the Cosell era and philosophy, strained thru the filter of ESPN schlocky Sportscenter gimmick/catchphrase driven broadcasting. They should all be locked in a room with the collected works of Red Barber and kept there until they see the error of their ways.

 

[Fading Fast]

I look forward to visiting the new Yankee Stadium. I had hoped Army and Notre Dame would meet for a football match there before the Irish revised their schedule.
Interesting societal commentary.

It's an outstanding modern stadium for baseball. Excellent sight lines, reasonably comfortable seats, spacious "behind the seats" area where the concession stands, restrooms, etc., are. The large video screen is clear and the sound is clear. My only complaints are 1. the one above (but that's not a physical stadium complaint) and 2. they use so much light and video (huge rings around the ball park) that it can be too much (but overall, I just ignore it - easier to do for a day than night game).

That said, my guess is it would be kludgey for a football game as all stadiums are when used for something other than their primary purpose and this stadium was clearly built for baseball. Hope you do get to it as, overall, it is an impressive venue.

 

[Fading Fast]

Lizzie, as always, make several great points. And is correct that in "the Era" there were bombastic coaches and broadcasters, but there was also the offset. Both styles had representation. My dad hated Cosell and loved Scully - he had a choice. There was a not-bombastic set of players, broadcasters and coaches to respect / today they are a very small minority.

The loud, abrasive fan is and alway was part of the game and, IMHO, adds character except if you end up sitting near a non-stop one. Pick a number, five, ten, twenty outburst a game - hey, go for it. But I've sat near some who screams the entire game - that's a bit much.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I liked Cosell in very small doses -- he was at his best as an interviewer, as with his long-running comedy-team act with Muhammad Ali, but even when he wasn't clowning it up he could be very insightful and journalistic when he wanted to be -- his pre-game show for the Mets in the early sixties was very well-done. But I couldn't stand the whole "Humble Howard" personality he adopted in the '70s, when he was unavoidable on TV -- guest shots on sitcoms and talk shows, his own variety hour, etc. etc. etc. McLuhan would have called him a "hot personality' on a "cool medium," which was a recipe for unlikeablity.

I think another thing they do today is that they ramp up the crowd mics to create an artificial mood of excitement even when nothing is happening. I can prove this thru comparision between modern sports broadcasts and recordings of old broadcasts going back to the 1930s -- the crowd noise was picked up in the Era by a single parabolic mic hung out the broadcast booth, and it was kept at a much lower level across the board than it is in today's broadcasts, which draw from an array microphones around the stadium, which are run at a substantially higher level. The broadcasters, in turn, are even louder to keep heard above the incessant din.

 

[Harp]

It's an outstanding modern stadium for baseball.... overall, it is an impressive venue.

...AND...the Dodgers should have never left Brooklyn-with its cobblestone streets, the Bridge, and everything else xcept the team.
The Yankees are and always will be the Yankees, but the Dodgers were and are Brooklyn.

 

[Fading Fast]

...AND...the Dodgers should have never left Brooklyn-with its cobblestone streets, the Bridge, and everything else xcept the team.
The Yankees are and always will be the Yankees, but the Dodgers were and are Brooklyn.

Agreed on the Dodgers. My father went to his grave cranky about that (and a few other things).

Also, I chose my words carefully saying it is an outstanding "modern" stadium. I prefer Fenway with its narrow seats, dungeon like "back of the house" and crazy quirkiness to the new stadiums, but for a new one, Yankee Stadium was thoughtfully built.

 

[Harp]

Also, I chose my words carefully saying it is an outstanding "modern" stadium. I prefer Fenway with its narrow seats, dungeon like "back of the house" and crazy quirkiness to the new stadiums, but for a new one, Yankee Stadium was thoughtfully built.

I ride the Rock Island Blue Island Express past US Cellular Field twice daily on the office commute, and admire White Sox stadium from the distance but being a Cubs fan have never ventured inside.

 

[LizzieMaine]

...AND...the Dodgers should have never left Brooklyn-with its cobblestone streets, the Bridge, and everything else xcept the team.
The Yankees are and always will be the Yankees, but the Dodgers were and are Brooklyn.

"It wasn't just a franchise shift. It was the total destruction of a culture." -- Pete Hamill.

What ticks me off is the revisionism, since the 1980s, which lifts the onus of blame off Walter Francis O'Malley's shoulders and places it on that of Robert Moses. While Moses was an intractable enemy of the working class in Brooklyn and elsewhere in New York, and he refused to bend the law to suit O'Malley's plans for a Dodger Dome at Altantic and Flatbush Avenues, it was O'Malley, and not Moses, who wanted to move. He owned the most profitable franchise in the National League -- its radio-TV contract alone ensured a profit before the first pitch of the season, and the team made more money from broadcasting than some franchises made from their entire operations -- and he wanted to leave because, very simply, he wanted more.

Los Angeles *gave* him 315 acres just a mile from downton LA -- land which was siezed from the working-class Hispanic families who lived there under a bogus interpretation of eminent domain law by a corrupt city council under a corrupt mayor -- and Whalebelly kissed off the people who'd made him rich without a second thought. There is a special place in hell for that kind of "businessman."

I have strong feelings about all this, as you might imagine. A sports franchise isn't just a toy to be carried from one side of the sandbox to another on the whim of its owner. The entire foundation for a franchise is the emotional bond between a team and the community it represents. It *becomes,* in a very real sense, a living avatar of that community. The Red Sox have long been that for New England -- and we nearly lost them here in the 1960s, when Tom Yawkey decided Fenway Park was getting old and he wanted a nice concrete doughnut like they were building in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. But he, fortunately for the soul of New England, recanted and stayed put. He understood what the team meant to the people who'd supported it thru good times and bad, and he, in the end, couldn't bring himself to break that bond. Whatever his other sins may have been, Yawkey was a better man than Walter Francis O'Malley -- who owed everything he ever accomplished to the people of Brooklyn, and he spat in their faces for it.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Also, I chose my words carefully saying it is an outstanding "modern" stadium. I prefer Fenway with its narrow seats, dungeon like "back of the house" and crazy quirkiness to the new stadiums, but for a new one, Yankee Stadium was thoughtfully built.

The only modern stadium I've been to is Olympic Stadium in Montreal -- I used to go up regularly to see the Expos, who, may they rest in pieces, were "my" National League team.

The Big Owe, as the locals call it, was a ridiculous concrete flying saucer with a retractable roof that didn't work and all the under-the-stands atmosphere of a subway station. But for all its faults, it was *sincere.* It never pretended to be anything other than what it was -- there was no faux "quirkiness" or fake brickwork or manufactured nostalgia to it. You went there, with 5000 other people, to watch a ballgame, and that's what you got. Except for Youppi and the Pom Bakery "Shake Your Buns" cam on the scoreboard, it was a pure baseball experience. I hope I live long enough to see Montreal get a team again.

 

[Fading Fast]

... land which was siezed from the working-class Hispanic families who lived there under a bogus interpretation of eminent domain law by a corrupt city council under a corrupt mayor -- and Whalebelly kissed off the people who'd made him rich without a second thought. There is a special place in hell for that kind of "businessman."...

Agreed and I'll add, IMHO, hell should make room for the corrupt city council members and mayor along with O'Malley. Further, colluding with government officials is the opposite of business and the opposite of good government - it's corruption.

For some reason, our society seems to get more incensed when businessman collude, than when gov't officials screw them; I personally get even more offended when gov't officials aid and abet the corrupt businessman as they are directly paid by taxpayers to protect taxpayers. All of them - the corrupt businessman and the corrupt "civil servants -" belong in hell.

Their collision on the Dodgers made my Dad's last two-odd decades on this earth crankier and God knows he didn't need any help in that department.

And "eminent domain" is Latin for gov't officials + real estate "developers" = screwing citizens (usually working class or poor) out of their private property.

 

[Fading Fast]

The only modern stadium I've been to is Olympic Stadium in Montreal -- I used to go up regularly to see the Expos, who, may they rest in pieces, were "my" National League team.

The Big Owe, as the locals call it, was a ridiculous concrete flying saucer with a retractable roof that didn't work and all the under-the-stands atmosphere of a subway station. But for all its faults, it was *sincere.* It never pretended to be anything other than what it was -- there was no faux "quirkiness" or fake brickwork or manufactured nostalgia to it. You went there, with 5000 other people, to watch a ballgame, and that's what you got. Except for Youppi and the Pom Bakery "Shake Your Buns" cam on the scoreboard, it was a pure baseball experience. I hope I live long enough to see Montreal get a team again.

The new Yankees Stadium has a faux "traditional" looking facade that, while not totally offensive, does have a Peter Keating feel to it as, coming to the stadium on the elevated subway, you can see that the "real" stadium was built inside the ersatz front. But if you let that go, the rest of the stadium is very form follows function as the people flow is thoughtful, the interior areas have great light and air and the seats are well designed to give maximum views and reasonable comfort. There's not a lot of fluff and, other than the already noted faux front, not a lot of "cute" retro nonsense inside.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Agreed and I'll add, IMHO, hell should make room for the corrupt city council members and mayor along with O'Malley. Further, colluding with government officials is the opposite of business and the opposite of good government - it's corruption.=

The really greasy thing with the whole Chavez Ravine affair is that the land had been specifically earmarked for public housing under a 1949 Federal law -- and giving it to O'Malley for private use was clearly in contravention of that law. The city managed to swing this by buying the land from the FHA at a fraction of market price on the condition that it be used for a "public purpose." O'Malley, in turn, promised to develop and maintain a public recreation area on part of the site which would be deeded back to the city after twenty years -- which he never did. The entire plot of land was handed over to a privately-owned business for private for-profit development, and Walter F. O'Malley made hundreds of millions of dollars. In return he gave the city the site of the old minor league park he owned in Compton, a plot of land which was nowhere near as valuable as what he got in return -- and which would not be put to any sort of public use until the 1970s.

The deal stunk to high heaven, and there were a few people in LA who didn't have orange juice for brains. There was a referendum on whether or not to approve the land exchange, and the Hollywood establishment, bribed by O'Malley with season tickets and other considerations, cooked up an elaborate "pro-Dodgers" TV telethon to push approval of the deal. A lot of big, big shots in Hollywood got involved with this -- in fact it was one of Mr. Reagan's first significant forays into politics.

Norris Poulson, the LA mayor who made the whole deal happen, was a genuinely odious man. A hard-core opportunist who red-baited his way to power, he got control of Chavez Ravine both by appealing to the red-baiting mentality -- "public housing is un-American creeping socialism" -- and by not-so-subtle anti-Mexican racism. But he was Sammy Sunshine when Walter O'Malley came to call, and O'Malley, who wasn't unsympathetic to Poulson's politics, was all too happy to do business with him. It was a sleazy partnership from day one.

In a final up-yours to Brooklyn, O'Malley presented the last home plate used at Ebbets Field to his new best buddy. Roast well, boys, roast well.

 

[tonyb]

I'm pretty much okay with the retro parks. At the very least, they are a damn sight better than the concrete flying saucers they supplanted. I am reminded of the HHH Metrodome in MSP and the almost as bad King County Multipurpose Domed Stadium (aka Kingdome) in SEA and the ersatz atmosphere of their replacements becomes easy enough to overlook.

Let us not forget that so many of our now historic buildings are themselves examples of "revival" architecture.

My impulse is for preservation. I'm a longtime supporter of the Nat'l Trust. I'd much rather all those early 20th century ball yards that got demolished in the 1960s and '70s (and even since then -- Comiskey, Tiger Stadium, Cleveland Municipal) were still standing. But I shed no tears for the Kingdome.

 

[LizzieMaine]

What happened to Tiger Stadium was a damn shame. There were viable plans for reusing it -- but they were ignored for reasons of political expediency, and the place was torn down after ten years of wrangling over its fate. I hear they're finally putting something up on the property, but no matter what it is it won't be what it could have been.

To this day I don't understand why Comiskey Park had to come down other than Jerry Reinsdorf being a tool.

There is one feel-good story among all the ballpark tragedies, though. The site of League Park in Cleveland --where the Indians played before Municipal Stadium -- has been restored into a municipal ballfield, incorporating surviving elements of the original stadium, and it's breathing new life into what had been a rather desolate neighborhood.

 

[Fading Fast]

I'm pretty much okay with the retro parks. At the very least, they are a damn sight better than the concrete flying saucers they supplanted. I am reminded of the HHH Metrodome in MSP and the almost as bad King County Multipurpose Domed Stadium (aka Kingdome) in SEA and the ersatz atmosphere of their replacements becomes easy enough to overlook.

Let us not forget that so many of our now historic buildings are themselves examples of "revival" architecture.

My impulse is for preservation. I'm a longtime supporter of the Nat'l Trust. I'd much rather all those early 20th century ball yards that got demolished in the 1960s and '70s (and even since then -- Comiskey, Tiger Stadium, Cleveland Municipal) were still standing. But I shed no tears for the Kingdome.

I agree that retro can be done well. They have put up several new apartment buildings in New York that have a pre-war retro feel that I think have been done thoughtfully - respectful to the surrounding pre-war architecture and not pandering to cuteness (after all, as you said, those original pre-war apartment houses were "retro" in their own way). Conversely, some have - like Yankee stadium - just a little slapped on retro that, while not overly offensive, seems silly and others have an aggressive pandering retro - look at how cute/cheeky we are - that turns me off.

Skill, thoughtfulness, sensitivity to the surrounding area and what feels right to the building itself are all part of it - always have been - and the good architects know how to do retro well and the bad ones...

 

[LizzieMaine]

The retro stadium that got it right was Camden Yards -- because its quirks were dictated by the lot where it was built and the surrounding neighborhood. When you stick short walls or terraces or this and that onto a park that's built in the middle of a parking lot a la Citi Field, it's just dopey.

I approve of the frieze at new Yankee Stadium -- it's much chintizier than the old one, but at least it's there. Renovated Old Yankee Stadium always looked to me like someone had scalped it.

 

[Fading Fast]

... Renovated Old Yankee Stadium always looked to me like someone had scalped it.

Yup