January 30, 2008
MLB recasts role of Yankee Stadium for 2009 season
MLB.com, the web arm of Major League Baseball, may like to tout that its stories are "not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs," but they do hew suspiciously close to baseball's official rhetoric. For the latest example, see yesterday's story on a tour guide at the soon-to-be-demolished Yankee Stadium:
Tony Morante proudly wears his Yankees jacket every day as he patrols the grounds of the place where he grew up and will probably spend the rest of his life.
Morante doesn't have a terminal illness, nor does he plan to go down with the ship, clinging to a girder as the wrecking ball knocks down the grandstand. Rather, in MLB terminology, the new Yankees stadium will still be Yankee Stadium, even though it will be across the street and very different in design from the historic ballpark. Just like New Comiskey Park was still Comiskey Park, at least until the Chicago White Sox gave up the pretense and renamed it after a phone company.
Later in the article it gets even weirder, as it describes how Yankee Stadium "will give way to the new Yankee Stadium in 2009 after the current model is closed down." You know, the kind of "closed down" that involves high explosives.
Sorry, NYC building code does not allow for building implosions. Ebbets Field, the Polo Grounds were taken down by hand, as will Shea and "old" Yankee Stadium. Lots of money in scrap metal.
Posted by 5w30 on February 16, 2008 09:08 PM