Stadiums That Didn't Happen (For Better Or Worse)

THE SHEA DOME?
Long before they designed the not-so-distant-future new home of the New York Mets, Citi Field, there was talk of slapping a roof on Chez Shea.  Sometimes ideas—even those with the best of intentions—should just remain ideas...


 
FENWAY PARK II?
There was talk for a while about replacing venerable Fenway Park with a neo-modern replica just behind the original (complete with faux Green Monster and all), but that fell by the wayside in favor of just plain renovating Fenway I.  Good thing, or Bostonians might've wound up with this monstrosity instead.










WELCOME TO THE DODGER DOME...
Long before The Astrodome was ever conceived, this is what 'Dem Bums could've played in if Brooklyn Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley had his way in the late '50s before bolting for Californy.  Revolting, ain't it?  No offense to the good people of Brooklyn, but if this was the only alternative, it's just as well the Dodgers landed in L.A.

HOW MANY RIVERS DO YOU NEED?
Here be a mock-up of what eventually became the penultimate cookie-cutter stadium, Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh.  Looks kinda like a cross between R.F.K. Stadium in D.C. and Kauffman Stadium here in K.C., don't it?...




WRIGLEY FIELD WEST?
Here's an interesting tidbit—the original home of the Los Angeles/California/Anaheim/Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (by way of El Segundo) Angels, not to mention the original home of TV's "Home Run Derby" show, Wrigley Field in Los Angeles, had serious consideration for renovation at one point during the '60s.  The Major League Angels only played one season there before jumping ship to Dodger Stadium for a few years until Anaheim Stadium was finished in 1966, but this proposed renovation looked an awful lot like Chicago's Comiskey Park I crossed with the late '70s renovation of Anaheim Stadium to accomodate the L.A. Rams foosball team.

TOTALLY SICK!
Long before the dreaded Kingdome was envisioned, the expansion of Seattle's Sick's Stadium was considered to keep those dreaded expansion Pilots from jumping ship in 1970 to Milwaukee.  Sadly, too many of the new seats were located in the outfield, and the Pilots flew the coop.  Just as well, the team sucked anyway...

Fan Appreciation Day

I'M MELTING!!!
Well, not quite, but damn near!  It's hotter than a snake's ass in a wagon rut (thank you, Robin Williams) here in good ol' K.C., and it ain't gonna cool down anytime soon, evidently.  Against my better judgment, I mowed my yard this morning before it got too hot, and I nearly drowned in my own perspiration.  Since then I've been hanging out in my little 9' x 12' air-conditioned cocoon (my bedroom), and I'm ever so thankful to the dude (or dudette) who discovered freon!  Today is also Day One of a week's vacation for me, but I'm not leaving town this time.  I chose this week originally because I was planning a big trip to New York, but I pushed that back to next year, and since I already had the time off anyway, I decided to keep it.  I might just do the Al Bundy-style vacation instead and spend a couple days camped out in my living room...

METHINKS I DOTH SMELLETH A RAT...
Tickets to the Elton John concert at our new Sprint Center sold out in 90 minutes on Monday.  Nothing wrong with that, except that I don't seem to remember there being that high a demand for EJ tickets the last couple times he came to town.  Even factoring in that it's opening night for our new arena and all, I can't help but wonder how many of those tickets got snagged up by these ticket broker outfits on the Kansas side for resale (scalping is legal in the Land of Oz) instead of by the average fan with a credit card who logged on to TicketBastard.  As Col. Potter on "M*A*S*H" would say, "Beaver biscuits!!"

JOE GARAGIOLA WAS RIGHT...
...when he said "Baseball is a VERY funny game."  Take for instance the story of St. Louis Cardinals player Rick Ankiel, who used to pitch for the Redbirds at one time until he struggled with his control to the point where he couldn't find home plate with a Rand McNally road atlas and a decent compass.  He threw more wild pitches than strikes, so they sent him to the minors and converted him into an outfielder, and it turns out the boy can hit better than he once pitched.  After feasting on Minor League pitching, the Cards called him up this week, and he proceeded to hit a 3-run homer in his first Big League game as an outfielder.  He had two more dingers today, too.  That's what I love most about baseball—the sheer quirkiness of it sometimes.

THE COOKIE CRUMBLED
While I'm on baseball, tonight is Cookie Rojas Bobblehead Night at Kauffman Stadium.  Since the Royals have no current superstar players to promote with bobblehead dolls, they have to reach back to their distant past to find worthy players, and Rojas was the Royals' 2nd baseman near the end of his career in the early '70s before being supplanted by Frank White.  Great player, but my memory of Rojas was soured forever by the time my mom took me to get his autograph at a Sears store appearance he made when I was about nine.  He was sitting at a table and talking to some guy standing behind him, and when I got to the head of the line, I worked up the nerve to actually speak to him, wishing him good luck in that night's game, etc.  He just went on jabbering away with that guy and didn't even acknowledge my existence while he scribbled his name (poorly) on his 8 x 10 photo.  I wasn't scarred for life by this or anything, but it feels good all the same to say the following some 34 years later:  Fuck you, Cookie—you're a dick!

CLASSIC MISHEARD LYRIC #46
"The Sounds Of Silence"—SIMON & GARFUNKEL (1966)  "And my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light..."  I thought it was "scared" instead of "stabbed".  Hey, it was AM radio and I was only four the first time I heard it...

TURN OFF THE HYPE MACHINE, ALREADY!
This obsession the sports media (especially ESPN) has with soccer icon David Beckham is bordering on the absurd now.  I watched the game on Thursday where Beckham actually managed to suit up for his first MLS game (mostly because nothing else was on worth watching), and you'd swear it was the Second Coming or something.  Wow, he played a whole 21 minutes!  And to think some idiots actually played the whole damn game—what were they thinking?  Don't get me wrong—I'm a soccer fan, and would love to see the MLS succeed, but they're mortgaging their whole future on one overrated superstar, and I'm telling you they're going to regret this more than they know...

WHAT MIGHT'VE BEEN...
I watched a half-decent flick last night on DVD, the film Bobby from last year, directed by Emilio Estevez, all about the day leading up to the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in 1968.  The movie was a bit slow to develop at first, but it was surprisingly good, overall.  Now, I'm hardly a fan of the Kennedys—I like them just about as much as I like those nice Clintons—but one wonders what American history would have been like if RFK had lived.  Most assuredly, he would've blown Nixon's doors off in the '68 election, and probably would've been re-elected in '72, thus sparing us from having The Big Dick in the White House.  Food for thought, anyway...

The Day After

A MOST APPROPRIATE REACTION
Regular readers are already aware that I was in a quandary about how I would react to Barry Bonds breaking Hank Aaron's career home run record.  I had narrowed my choices down to yawning, farting or scratching my balls (or any combination of the three), but I inadvertently came up with an even more ingenious response last night—I slept right through it all!  And slept well, I might add.  Just an observation here, but ain't it amazing how whenever Bonds hits a home run, the Giants usually lose the game?

Okey fine—Barely Bonds is now officially the home run king, but I still say Hank Aaron is the real home run king.  I even had the honor of seeing him hit one of his 755 home runs in person.  It was on June 11, 1976 (easy to remember--my 12th birthday) at Royals Stadium during Aaron's final season with the Milwaukee Brewers, and "The Hammer" jacked one into the left field corner seats.

JUST TELL ME WHAT TIME THE GAME STARTS, OK?
The NFL announced that my hero John Mellencamp will perform during the pre-game show at Opening Night next month in Indianapolis, along with Kelly Clarkson and Faith Hill.  Yes, I know there's the Indiana connection there and all, but jeez Louise, couldn't they come up with someone better than this simple-minded hillbilly?  I'd sooner listen to the vocal stylings of David Letterman.  Even Bobby Knight crooning "It's Hard To Be Humble" would be a step in the right direction...

EDITOR'S NOTEIf you're looking for the "Tony's Kansas City" blog link formerly featured on this here blog, I deleted it.  I used to think this guy was just a harmless crackpot with far too much time on his hands, but his insulting remarks about Elton John fans (I'm a lifelong fan—if you have problem with that, fuck you, Tony!) and gay people (I'm not one of them, but I have no quarrel with them) revealed him to be just another ignorant bigot, and I refuse to associate my blog with that crap.

CLASSIC MISHEARD LYRIC #45
"Miss America"--STYX (1977)  Not a lyric here, but it took me about 20 years to catch on that Dennis DeYoung was "borrowing" the "There she is..." bit on the synthesizer throughout the song.  I'm a little slow, sometimes...

THIS IS REFRESHING...Not just the photo, but the fact that the girl in it has actually made something of her life after being a child star and hasn't wound up dead, on skid row or reality TV (same thing), or worse—tabloid fodder like Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, et al.  Seems that our little Winnie "Super" Cooper from "The Wonder Years" has grown up with her head on straight, and just as I predicted when I first laid eyes on her on that show back in the late '80s, Danica McKellar is an absolute hottie now.  Pretty AND smart—what a concept!  At the risk of sounding like Tyra Banks—you go, girl!!