Parks that should be benched!
Let's keep this simple.
Now that Olympic Stadium in Montreal has been removed from the baseball landscape -- as well as its temporary replacement RFK Stadium -- there are three Major League parks that should be replaced forthwith: the Metrodome in Minneapolis; Chicago's U.S Cellular Field (a.k.a. New Comiskey
Park) and
Dolphin Stadium (formerly Pro Player) in Miami.
The Twins, thankfully, were finally able to work through all of the issues that kept them from starting on the construction of a new ballpark, and they will see the fruits of their labors when they move into a new -- and, yes, open-air (gee, it won't be a little chilly in April there, will it?) -- ballpark in 2010. I'm afraid we're stuck with U.S. Cellular indefinitely, but after massive improvements made in five stages prior to the 2006 season, it's not the eyesore that it used to be. And progress on a baseball-only stadium in Miami has been painfully slow, and even the proposed move to a yet-to-be-built park on the former site of the Orange Bowl isn't a sure thing.
So let's look at the three parks that
should be benched:
 The Hubert H. Humphrey
MetrodomeA hefty bag as the rightfield wall? Pop-ups
bouncing off of speakers? Baseballs that act like Superballs (remember
those when you were a kid? Boy! Could they bounce high!) when
they hit the Astroturf? Does any Major League park have worse acoustics?
Let's make this parallel: as Arena
Football is to the NFL, so is baseball in the Metrodome to baseball anywhere
else.
U.S. Cellular Field
There was no debate over whether the original Comiskey Park (despite its
wonderful sense of history) needed to be demolished. But exactly
why did something so sterile have to be built to replace it? Now, in recent years, the team has stepped up to the plate and made some major renovations to the ridiculously tall and steep upper deck that marred this facility during the 1990s, and the changes (which include significant upgrades to the outfield areas) have caused my opinion of "The Cell" to increase (hey, I did move it out of last place in my
ranking of Parks Opened Since 1990). But it still doesn't rank up there with the other parks that have opened in the last 15 years or so. A number of visitors to BASEBALLPARKS.COM, by the way,
have submitted ideas for new parks, including
some for the White Sox, so check them out.
Dolphin Stadium
This is simply not a facility where baseball was
meant to be played. This is the home stadium of the Miami Dolphins (and an
occasional Super Bowl), and it fits this role very well. However, it seems
like somewhat of an un-natural act to shoehorn a baseball field into this
facility. Unfortunately, Marlins fans -- and it's a shame there aren't more of them --
will have to put up with this situation for the foreseeable future, as every
attempt to construct a baseball-only venue in South Florida has run into numerous roadblocks.
And the folks in St. Pete shouldn't feel too smug about Tropicana Field not
making this list ... as it missed the list by only a whisker!
Of course, I'm sure some of you will take offense at my opinions above -- so write
me and tell me about it!
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