I'm Not Into Baseball, But...

…it’s too bad they can’t keep Yankee Stadium just as it is. The All-Star Game is on as I write this and every so often there is a shot of the famous façade that kept a player, years ago, from knocking one out of the park. Nobody’s ever done it and, possibly, nobody ever will – and there are only thirty-some game left at the field for someone to try.

The new stadium will be bigger and, probably, better in some ways. But B&B doesn’t take the place of stories, history, bad spots and atmosphere. Saints preserve us from the perfect ball field. Saints and angels preserve us from a league of identical ball fields. May it never happen.

Across the Brooklyn Bridge, the Dodgers Sym-Phony showed up in the New York Times last year. I just ran across the article this week.

“The first year, Dodgers management did not want us in the ballpark,” 85-year-old Danny Wilson said. He is one of two original surviving members of the Sym-Phony. “They felt we were a nuisance, but the players and the fans loved us, so we had to sneak into the ballpark. One guy paid the admission fee and lowered a rope over the side of the stadium, and we tied our instruments to the top and had them hoisted up. Then we ran into the stands and started playing.”

They serenaded the umpire with “Three Blind Mice,” for instance. “The Sym-phony was one of the things people loved about Ebbetts Field,” Jackie Robinson’s widow said.