So, amid all the unhappiness about playing dead with the Angels in town, I keep remembering something: Did we just get a new stadium?
Privately financed. $180 million in infrastructure moolah from the city. Next to Shea. Would open in 2009. Gets built even if New York doesn't get the Olympics.
I seriously can't quite believe this — and the reaction has been very, very quiet. Normally that would make me think some horrible thing will derail it, but what? It's built with private money. There won't be any of that typical NYC community-board wackiness, since chop-shop owners and feral dogs are notoriously underrepresented in city affairs.
I mean, holy cow. A new stadium. For us. Us!
I hope it's the Ebbets Fieldy Shea II, immortalized over there with the other linky things on the left — though minus the retractable roof (rain's part of life) and that crazy field that cantilevers out over the parking lot, since we all know it would get stuck or something equally preposterous. True, if the Olympics do arrive (which won't happen) we'd spent 2012 playing in Yankee Stadium II, but that's a small price to pay. Heck, I'd watch a full season in some ancient battered leaky wreck of a stadium filled with busted escalators and squat, hostile vendors if it meant that we got a new park.
Oh yeah. Never mind.
A new stadium? For lil ol' us? Can it really be?
I think the reaction's been quiet because maybe people see it as the equivalent of talking about a no-hitter. We should all just go about our business as if nothing is happening.
I'm with you 100% on the movable field thingy that was supposed to allow for concerts (right?), but I think they'd be pretty silly not to put a retractable roof on. Rain *is* part of the game, and retractable roofs everywhere mean baseball fans could eventually kiss doubleheaders goodbye forever; but the team doesn't want to lose gates. It's just going to be a more profitable place with a roof, and I'll take that if it means a brand new you-know-what. Also, I'm being selfish, because I think I would have hated Opening Day 2003 a fair lot less if I hadn't needed the hot mercury bath when I finally got my frozen keister home.
Whoops…Newsday says that the new design, to be unveiled in about a month, will not feature a retractable roof. I'm not sure how they know that, but I guess I'm out of touch.
I recall reading a while back that the sliding field would never hapen (with no roof, there'd be no reason for it). Back in '98, Wilpon was still thinking in terms of a postmodern/retro SkyDome type of place. Nobody thinks like that anymore. Plus the Jets don't seem to be coming back, unnecessitating any weird multiuse ideas.
It's way too soon to get caught up in the details, especially ones connected to the Olympiad that probably won't be here, but if we did have to relocate for 2012, how about splitting time between Keyspan and Citizens Bank and the Ducks' nest or playing a quarter of our games in Puerto Rico? Anything but that other place.
That's because Newsday reads Faith and Fear, of course. With that taken care of, I now command my Long Island minions to campaign for the Kaz-for-Edgardo swap. [dramatic intonation]I have spoken. So shall it be.[/dramatic intonation] Whizzz! Kerblam!