Rites of Spring
New York City’s brand new stadiums open today and are extensively covered in the New York Times. The Times’ architecture critic, Nicolai Ouroussoff provides an overview:
each stadium subtly reflects the character of the franchises that built them. Yankee Stadium is the kind of stoic, self-conscious monument to history that befits the most successful franchise in American sports. The new home of the Mets, meanwhile, is scrappier and more lighthearted. It plays with history fast and loose, as if it were just another form of entertainment.
One of their top sports writers, George Vecsey, weighs in with this:
Were these new places really necessary? Yankee Stadium was cramped and outmoded but quite awesome. Shea Stadium was a horror, but it was the Mets fans’ beloved horror. Knowing what we know now about the economy, we surely could have lived with them indefinitely.
The main goal became turning ballparks into resorts, land cruises designed for A.I.G.-bonus-recipient wallets, the games lasting long enough to wring more twenties and hundreds out of the faithful.
Bread and circuses. Shrimp and pennant races. Luxury boxes and follies. Laugh and cry.
And yet, like salmon swimming upstream or birds migrating on ancient flyways, real fans will find a way to the ballparks, pulled by the life-affirming force of baseball coming around again in the spring.
Despite my Bronx-loyalties and Mantle-era Yankee nostalgia, on paper I like the looks of (pardon the expression) “Citi Field” better.
Now will it be President Obama or Archbishop Dolan tossing out the first ball?
And yet, like salmon swimming upstream or birds migrating on ancient flyways, real fans will find a way to the ballparks, pulled by the life-affirming force of baseball coming around again in the spring.
“Fan” after all is short for “fanatic”.
I agree, CitiField is superior, vastly so. The Yanks had a chance to build something new and interesting, and instead they erected a facsimile of the old monstrosity. (But of course, I hate the Yankees so I’m not to be trusted on this score.) But Obama can’t throw out the first pitch at Citi or the new Stadium. Months ago he was invited to throw out the first pitch at U.S. Cellular Field, home of my beloved Chicago White Sox (and his). Of course, given the religious affiliation of most of the Southside faithful, the Cardinal Newman Society may move to block that. I joke, I joke…
Goven Obama’s AL and Chicago allegiances, I would launch a petition against him throwing out the first pitch at CitiField…Though the Mets like to fashion themselves as somehow heirs to the Jackie Robinson Dodgers. So maybe I’d relent. I will attend my first game there in May, so hold your breath and wait for the reviews. But I do share with Chicagoans a Cubs’ mentality of inevtiable doom about the Mets.
“Rumors in the Loggia” is reporting that to balance the President’s first pitch at that White Stocking event, Mary Ann Glendon will be invited to sing the national anthem.
Though I’m a Yankees fan (and a Mets fan, too), I was shocked (shocked, I say) to hear on NPR this morning that the best seat in the house at the the new Yankee Stadium will cost $2,600…That’s per game.
Of course, you get to pitch the ninth inning if Mariano Rivera is having a (rare) off day.
As long as we are talking about sports, I thought I would mention that just yesterday I and five of my friends had our photo taken with Jed York President of the San Francisco 49ers. He was visiting Supervisor David Campos of San Francisco. I do volunteer work in David’s office. I told Jed that I had heard that there are some buildings named DeBartolo (His mother is a DeBartolo.) on the Notre Dame campus. He told that there were and he told me about these buildings. I wanted to ask him what he thought about Notre Dame’s invitation to Obama to speak at their commencement but I didn’t. Young Mr. York is a very nice and personable young man.
Obama can throw out the first ball so long as he avers in writing that the ball in play had nothing to do with ESCR, aborted fetuses or his invitation to UND.
Otherwise, insult him at will as good Catholics all are wont to do.
I think talking about sports under cover of an arts report on architecture is just plain dirty pool and not in keeping with the high-brow tone of the blog.
If this doesn’t stop, I may have to retaliate by posting at random hamburger recipes and household hints like how to get spray paint off a cat.