Baby Fisk
03-07-2005, 09:33 AM
Storied Stadiums: Baseball's History Through Its Ballparks - by Curt Smith (2001, 577pp.)
If yours is a household that maintains a fine assortment of bathroom books, Storied Stadiums by Curt Smith recommends itself to your collection.
From the earliest nineteenth century fields to the latest twenty-first century marvels (as of 2001), Smith tracks the history of major league baseball through the places where it has been played.
Ballpark aficionados will get their fill of stadium facts here (ballpark dimensions, architectural notes, attendance figures, opening day firsts, etc.). Smith does a good job of weaving all of that dense information into brief narratives with historic anecdotes and tales from each park. Team histories, playoff runs, comedic moments, championship seasons and other memories are all distilled into bite-sized mini chapters.
Most parks get more than one mini chapter, spread chronologically through the book. For instance, old Comiskey Park is treated to four entries (covering the 1910s-1940s, the Go-Go 50s, the second Veeck era, and the Winning Ugly era).
Okay, let's get to some of the good bits. From old Comiskey's opening:
Everything was big about Comiskey Park 1910-90 a.k.a. White Sox Park, Charles A. Comiskey's Baseball Palace, or Baseball Palace of the World.
The new park rose in five months for $750,000. "A record-breaking crowd witnessed the opening game, at what may be without hesitation, declared to be the finest ballpark in the United States," [a reporter wrote]. Sox rookie Lena Blackburne singled for Comiskey's first hit. Missing: runs. The Browns' Barney Pelty bested Ed Walsh, 2-0.
Return with us to their South Side of Chicago -- blue collar, working class, Catholic, Irish, and Eastern European. They have an ardor for the underdog, work in stockyards and slaughterhouses, and abide the hardscrabble life. Their steel and concrete home wraps double-decked to the bases from home plate. A single tier trims the left and right-field wall. Comiskey is named the Old Roman. "He wanted an ornate facade," mused writer David Condon, "to fit his moniker." Funds lapse and a brick facing replaces it. Arch windows stud a classical look.
And from old Comiskey's later years:
In 1981, Carlton Fisk joined the White Sox. "This [team] was baseball's Rodney Dangerfield," said owner Jerry Reinsdorf. "No respect. Carlton changed the way people saw us." Rookie Ron Kittle hit 35 dingers in '83. LaMarr Hoyt went 24-10. Manager Tony LaRussa coined "Winning Ugly." Comiskey Park hosted the All-Star Game: AL, 13-3. "Some night," said Chicago native Fred Lynn, smacking the Game's first grand slam. "Fifty years to the day since the series started here, and we break our 11-game losing streak." The Sox clinched the West on September 17, 1983.
Baltimore took a 2-1 game lead in the best-of-five playoff. On October 8, 45,477 South Siders tried to stay execution. Chicago had 10 hits and no runs through nine innings. O's reserve Tito Landrum then homered into the wind. "It hurt," Fisk said of the 3-0 loss. "But we figured we'd get back." Fisk's 37 set a bigs mark for catcher homers in a year. The '86-'89ers fell to fifth and seventh. Comiskey turned eighty July 1, 1990: New York's Andy Hawkins lost a 4-0 no-hitter. Steve Lyons was even stranger. One night he reached first base. Forgetting his place and mind, the Sox infielder began to pull down his pants to remove loose dirt. Thousands gasped. Lyons' face reddened. A nickname -- "Psycho" -- rose.
Plenty more Sox lore is jammed into this phone book-thick volume. Combine that with 500+ pages of entries for every team in every park where they ever played and this is a winner for your loo library, or even just for the baseball bookshelf.
A random dip into any section of the book produces stories from all of MLB's parks, past and current. Bonus eye candy: two full colour sections showcase 36 panoramic lithographs of ballparks from New York's Hilltop Park (the first Polo Grounds), to Old Comiskey during a night game, to San Francisco's Pac Bell Park (as it was called when it opened). Smith's oft-eccentric prose stylings are unique but can get annoying. Throughout: clipped sentences. Like that one.
One more gem:
In 1971, ex-Cardinals voice Harry Caray became the Sox radio/TV announcer. Caray had owned St. Louis. He became a patch of folklore at 35 and Shields.
"There's only one song I know the words to," Caray said. "I've always sung it, but nobody had ever heard me." Let us visit a '76 seventh-inning stretch. Organist Nancy Faust is playing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." Caray starts singing sotto voce. Spying him, Veeck lip-synchs the words. The next night he covertly hides a P.A. mike. "All of a sudden," roared Caray, "my voice comes roaring back at me with everyone else." Later he asked, "Bill, what was that about?" Veeck said, "I've been looking for 40 years -- and as soon as I heard you, I knew you were the guy I was looking for."
Caray was flattered. Caruso never sounded better. Veeck then applied a lance. "As soon as I heard ya' I knew that any fan knew he could sing better and'd join in." Harry's jaw dropped. "If you had a good voice," Bill continued, "you'd intimidate them and they wouldn't take part." Instead, he grabbed the P.A. mike and bellowed, "All right, lemme' hear ya', everybody!" -- never letting interest die, even when the Pale Hose did.
--Baby Fisk
If yours is a household that maintains a fine assortment of bathroom books, Storied Stadiums by Curt Smith recommends itself to your collection.
From the earliest nineteenth century fields to the latest twenty-first century marvels (as of 2001), Smith tracks the history of major league baseball through the places where it has been played.
Ballpark aficionados will get their fill of stadium facts here (ballpark dimensions, architectural notes, attendance figures, opening day firsts, etc.). Smith does a good job of weaving all of that dense information into brief narratives with historic anecdotes and tales from each park. Team histories, playoff runs, comedic moments, championship seasons and other memories are all distilled into bite-sized mini chapters.
Most parks get more than one mini chapter, spread chronologically through the book. For instance, old Comiskey Park is treated to four entries (covering the 1910s-1940s, the Go-Go 50s, the second Veeck era, and the Winning Ugly era).
Okay, let's get to some of the good bits. From old Comiskey's opening:
Everything was big about Comiskey Park 1910-90 a.k.a. White Sox Park, Charles A. Comiskey's Baseball Palace, or Baseball Palace of the World.
The new park rose in five months for $750,000. "A record-breaking crowd witnessed the opening game, at what may be without hesitation, declared to be the finest ballpark in the United States," [a reporter wrote]. Sox rookie Lena Blackburne singled for Comiskey's first hit. Missing: runs. The Browns' Barney Pelty bested Ed Walsh, 2-0.
Return with us to their South Side of Chicago -- blue collar, working class, Catholic, Irish, and Eastern European. They have an ardor for the underdog, work in stockyards and slaughterhouses, and abide the hardscrabble life. Their steel and concrete home wraps double-decked to the bases from home plate. A single tier trims the left and right-field wall. Comiskey is named the Old Roman. "He wanted an ornate facade," mused writer David Condon, "to fit his moniker." Funds lapse and a brick facing replaces it. Arch windows stud a classical look.
And from old Comiskey's later years:
In 1981, Carlton Fisk joined the White Sox. "This [team] was baseball's Rodney Dangerfield," said owner Jerry Reinsdorf. "No respect. Carlton changed the way people saw us." Rookie Ron Kittle hit 35 dingers in '83. LaMarr Hoyt went 24-10. Manager Tony LaRussa coined "Winning Ugly." Comiskey Park hosted the All-Star Game: AL, 13-3. "Some night," said Chicago native Fred Lynn, smacking the Game's first grand slam. "Fifty years to the day since the series started here, and we break our 11-game losing streak." The Sox clinched the West on September 17, 1983.
Baltimore took a 2-1 game lead in the best-of-five playoff. On October 8, 45,477 South Siders tried to stay execution. Chicago had 10 hits and no runs through nine innings. O's reserve Tito Landrum then homered into the wind. "It hurt," Fisk said of the 3-0 loss. "But we figured we'd get back." Fisk's 37 set a bigs mark for catcher homers in a year. The '86-'89ers fell to fifth and seventh. Comiskey turned eighty July 1, 1990: New York's Andy Hawkins lost a 4-0 no-hitter. Steve Lyons was even stranger. One night he reached first base. Forgetting his place and mind, the Sox infielder began to pull down his pants to remove loose dirt. Thousands gasped. Lyons' face reddened. A nickname -- "Psycho" -- rose.
Plenty more Sox lore is jammed into this phone book-thick volume. Combine that with 500+ pages of entries for every team in every park where they ever played and this is a winner for your loo library, or even just for the baseball bookshelf.
A random dip into any section of the book produces stories from all of MLB's parks, past and current. Bonus eye candy: two full colour sections showcase 36 panoramic lithographs of ballparks from New York's Hilltop Park (the first Polo Grounds), to Old Comiskey during a night game, to San Francisco's Pac Bell Park (as it was called when it opened). Smith's oft-eccentric prose stylings are unique but can get annoying. Throughout: clipped sentences. Like that one.
One more gem:
In 1971, ex-Cardinals voice Harry Caray became the Sox radio/TV announcer. Caray had owned St. Louis. He became a patch of folklore at 35 and Shields.
"There's only one song I know the words to," Caray said. "I've always sung it, but nobody had ever heard me." Let us visit a '76 seventh-inning stretch. Organist Nancy Faust is playing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." Caray starts singing sotto voce. Spying him, Veeck lip-synchs the words. The next night he covertly hides a P.A. mike. "All of a sudden," roared Caray, "my voice comes roaring back at me with everyone else." Later he asked, "Bill, what was that about?" Veeck said, "I've been looking for 40 years -- and as soon as I heard you, I knew you were the guy I was looking for."
Caray was flattered. Caruso never sounded better. Veeck then applied a lance. "As soon as I heard ya' I knew that any fan knew he could sing better and'd join in." Harry's jaw dropped. "If you had a good voice," Bill continued, "you'd intimidate them and they wouldn't take part." Instead, he grabbed the P.A. mike and bellowed, "All right, lemme' hear ya', everybody!" -- never letting interest die, even when the Pale Hose did.
--Baby Fisk