The 2023 Running Baseball Thread

A park that opened in 2001 needs $300 million in renos?

Enjoy playing at Olympic Stadium.

 

Two stadiums that are less than a decade older than that have already been abandoned by MLB. Pretty soon we will be at an inflection point where the average new car has a longer service life than the average new sportsball palace.

 

Miller is a very nice place to catch a game. A little sweltery when the roof is closed in the summer, but far from the worst of its kind.

 

Arizona has been trying to replace Chase Field (it'll always be the BOB to me) for years now and it's just now turning 25. I remember getting a tour of the place from Buck Showalter when it was being built. Seems absurd. Meanwhile, 35-year-old Oriole Park remains a gem, even if that area of Baltimore has turned a touch sketch in recent years.

 

Manfred is threatening, not the team per se. What a fucking dick.

 

I was barely alive for Bowie Kuhn, and I couldn't have imagined a worse commissioner than Bud Selig. I was wrong.

 

After Giamatti died and Vincent was neutered, this is what we get. These fucking knuckleheads.

 

Owners no doubt love it. Manfred taking bullets for the team ownership.

Unlike the mid-90s, when this last happened in Milwaukee, the Brewers can't claim declining support, or, that the economic system prevents them from succeeding.

Attendance has consistently been in the top half for one of the smallest, if not the smallest market, one hemmed in by Chicago just 90 miles to the south. It's essentially a one-state team, and yet, the fans show up. A team that's been consistently competitive, if not outright very good, for the better part of a decade. The Brewers demonstrate that small markets can do fine in MLB with solid ownership, which they've had, even if this threat delivered via Manfred is some serious bullshit.

The lease goes to 2030, so this is posturing, but it's also the kind of bullshit that turns fans off and becomes a feedback loop where "support drops" and justifies threats. See the Braves in 1964 when the threats and court cases for a heretofore wildly-successful team that played in a then-relatively new stadium sapped Milwaukee and Wisconsin's interest in the Braves. (And made the early existence of the Brewers problematic as many fans had their love of baseball permanently scarred.)

No one in their right mind who has been to Miller/AmFam Park would think it's some shithole. The level of greed and entitlement is off-the-charts, though not at all surprising.

 

Was just there last Friday. It's still an absolute gem.

 

Baltimore Colts, early 1980s
Los Angeles Rams, early 1990s
St. Louis Rams, 2010s
Oakland A's, last four decades

 

Baseball announcers, please, stop saying seven shutout innings. A shutout is a defined term. Nine innings. Shutout. You cannot throw shutout innings. You can however throw scoreless innings. Thank you, god bless.