Blue Jays to play 2 preseason games in Montreal next spring

[mikecubs]

^^^That's false. They play baseball in places like Chicago(check out the wind at Wrigley in April, burr....), Minnesota!!!, Detroit, Cleveland etc.. without roofs. The climates aren't that much different. People always claimed it would be 100% impossible to play baseball outdoors in Minnesota and a retractable roof was needed. It wasn't. It would have been a waste of money.

Labatt Park if it was built wouldn't have had a roof. Yes Fenway has some odd angled seats down the right field line that suck royally but the vast majority of the seats are close to the action unlike Rogers. And Fenway has a ton of character like the green monster, the triangle, the brickwork outside the park. Every new retro park was modeled after Fenway and Wrigley. Wrigley and Fenway are the 2 greatest sports stadiums in North American history, the flaws they have and all. You can make a great argument Fenway is America's most popular park. It produces great revenue and almost any baseball fan will list it as one of their favorites. The Rogers Centre is a cold mostly outdated doughnut. It's too bad the Jays were 3 years too soon in building it. If they would have waited a few years they would have followed the Camden Yards model just like EVERY single other team since 92 has!!!

Other than this year the Blue Jays haven't drawn that great the last 14 or so years. The reason is the Dome is 100% soulless. Forbes usually ranks the blue jays in the 20's despite playing in the 4th biggest city in either the US or Canada. Toronto is one of the very few teams that doesn't match their demographic rank in baseball(though they are still viable). The entire reason is the Dome. Yes it's a ton better than the old doughnuts of the past because it does have modern amenities like restaurants, luxury boxes but it still sucks.

Field Turf??? You can't be serious. The only teams with field turf are Tampa and Toronto. Even if Toronto stays in the dome they will replace the field turf with grass in a few years. MLB wouldn't even allow a new field turf stadium. They want a certain style. They like retro non circular grass stadiums with charming features like balls flying in the water(san Francisco), views of the ST. Louis arch, the building down the line in left in San Diego, Minnesota etc.... MLB will NEVER EVER allow a non retro park to be build anywhere. Selig has said MANY times we lost our way in the 60's when we built all those circular multipurpose stadiums.

A dome will make a new Montreal stadium much more unlikely. It will add 200M to the cost. It would be hard enough to get providence help for a 500M plus stadium. The only way to have even a slight shot of public help is a cheap as possible retro park with the pitch it will bring in tourist(ie Red Sox fans from New England) who will spend all this money and help the Montreal economy. As far as building a park without a team yes you are right that will never happen nor should it. If Montreal does build a park it would follow the Seattle model where the stadium is passed but the park CAN'T be build without securing the team. Stadiums/Parks aren't like arenas. They don't get the amount of concerts/shows etc... In modern times other than Tampa building Tropicana Field no one has ever built a stadium HOPING to get a team without a guarantee.

[wolfmannick]

I've been saying montreals going to get a team again. Give it 5-10 years and I think Vancouver will get large enough to be in the conversation as well. Nba might be interested in Vancouver again soon as we'll, but not until Seattle gets a team.

[JETStender]

Sept 21, 2013 20:53:00 GMT -6 Bruinsfan said:

Mike...no canadian city will ever get a baseball team without a roof, sorry to burst that bubble. Needs a roof. And the rogers center is not the same as the old concrete donuts of the past....


Cant play baseball in canada without a roof. Its almost too cold in boston to play in the world series.....montreal? forget about it.

no roof no team. No multi purpose no stadium...no way that city builds a ball park for an imaginary team..they will build it for the team they currently have and to host super events like the grey cup, like wrestlemania.


make it baseball first so the sightlines are correct and the new innovations in field turf allow a favorable config for canadian football.


btw, the worst baseball park in america is fenway park. think watching a game in toronto is bad, fenway right field seats face center field...you have to watch looking sideways and they are the size of a depression era starved child.

If Minnesota can do open air for baseball and football, then it would work in Montreal.

[mikecubs]

Sept 22, 2013 11:18:58 GMT -6 wolfmannick said:

I've been saying montreals going to get a team again. Give it 5-10 years and I think Vancouver will get large enough to be in the conversation as well. Nba might be interested in Vancouver again soon as we'll, but not until Seattle gets a team.

Vancouver is NOT going to be in the MLB conversation anytime soon. Cities around that size are a dime a dozen in the US and they aren’t getting MLB anytime soon either(see San Antonio, Charlotte, Portland, Salt Lake City, Orlando, Columbus, Sacramento) Vancouver has too many strikes against it. The conference board of Canada said by 2031 it wouldn’t happen. There’s a TON of reasons why.

1. There is no stadium. MLB would NEVER accept BC Place. A retractable roof retro park would cost at least 600 some million. Vancouver spent around that on the roof for BC Place.

2. MLB would have to compete with the great outdoors in summer. All the other MLB small markets like Milwaukee, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Kansas City, Pittsburgh, St. Louis are crap holes with very little to do during summer(quick off the top of your head make a list of cool things to see and do in these cities, other than the arch in St. Louis I can’t think of much). The ballpark is probably the most beautiful thing in those towns so you can draw a decent audience. That wouldn’t be the case in Vancouver. Vancouver is the most beautiful/cool million plus city on earth. It wins the best city awards for a reason.

3. Baseball is much more popular in America so we can get away with a smaller population for a small market. It works the reverse in hockey. We need more people to support it since it’s not as popular. (think a city in American with 730,000 some people like Winnipeg could every support an NHL team?)

4. All the small markets(other than Tampa and Miami) have a LONG baseball history. Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Cleveland have been around for well over a 100+ years. MLB is part of the culture. Milwaukee and KC have been around a long time too if you count the Milwaukee Braves and Kansas City A’s erras. Vancouver is basically hockey land with some history of minor league ball.

5. It’s small and foreign(MLB would lose a market share for MLB telecasts, they will make an exception for great big Toronto and maybe Montreal if forced to but that’s it)

6. Only 2 MLB teams are in trouble.(Oakland, Tampa) Montreal has a better shot at funding a downtown park than Vancouver given that Vancouver blew a ton on BC Place.

7. It takes around at least 4M today to support 3 fulltime teams. Vancouver if they get another sport will get NBA because they have a ready-made building that would cost tax payers $0 and NBA is popular with ALL Asians. Chinese don’t like baseball(google baseball in china). That’s like a 4th of Vancouver’s population. Baseball is just very slowly starting out in China. It’s kind of like hockey in Mexico.

8. MLB has 0 plans of expanding. To even out the leagues MLB helped the new Astros owner with his purchase of the team(they gave him money) so he would move from the NL Central to the AL west. If there were expansion plans they would have left the Astros in the NL and added 2 AL expansion teams. There’s no reason to expand. Any market(US or Canada) they add would be a huge revenue sharing receiver which would offset any expansion fees. Plus it would split the national TV down since there would be 2 more teams taking $$$ from the TV pool. It makes 0 sense to add 2 god awful/weak(at best) teams

9. If MLB wanted a small oversaturated 2M some city today(they don’t) they’d probably go with San Antonio. It’s not big enough today but in decades it would be. If MLB made the offer the politicians down there probably wouldn’t mind funding a new park. San Antonio is very pro business.

[Bruinsfan]

lol mike...sorry you are just wrong. WHat i am saying is montreal builds a stadium first that would have a tenant (CFL) and then gets a baseball team...it cant happen any other way because there is no way olympic stadium can take an 80 game season...the building is literally falling apart and one of the worst designed stadiums in modern memory. And yea montreal is colder, gets colder quicker, and no worries about the twins playing in late october for quite awhile





funny thing is target field was horribly unnecessary. The new Vikings stadium is multi purpose and is built to support baseball.


and no amount of character can improve fenways horrible baseball experience. Seats are the size of an anorexic depression era child. Your knees touch the person in front of you's neck and you have to watch a game turned backwards...Horrid. Im FROM boston..i hate it and would rather watch on TV.


And Trust me Fenway isnt camden yards..which is amazing. Best baseball park in america. Its retro but its modern. Fenway needs a serious gutting and to be partially torn and built back into Yawkey and landsdown. it will need to be replaced some day.

[mikecubs]

^^^ Yikes. You sure like your multipurpose NFL/MLB stadiums. LOL. I understand what you are saying. You are wrong. The Big O can work at a temp home. Yes we all joke about it and it sucks royally but it hasn't been condemned. If it was as unsafe as you say there would be no preseason games this spring. It could make it 2-3 seasons. It's good enough and safe enough to host the 2 preseason games and it still hosts a couple other things. The Alluletes(sp) don't need a new home anyway so that won't work. They signed a 20 year lease at their current stadium. It was renovated for 29.3 million bucks.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McGill_Stadium

IF Montreal ever gets a team it will be in a PNC Park type retro park. Once Oakland Coliseum is gone which will be within 10 years the erra of multipurpose stadiums is over other than Rogers Centre(Rogers Centre is about to get grass and the Argos are being kicked out so even that will be less multipurpose). The multipurpose stadium has gone the way of the typewriter. Multipurpose only works for NHL/NBA(if you build them big enough like Air Canada Centre, TD garden etc... and not the Barclays Center)because the site lines are similar, it's just that a hockey rink is 100+ feet longer.

Target Field was necessary. The new Vikings stadium is only going to be 280ft to right. It's going to be indoors too with artificial turf. That's only good enough for low level college ball not MLB. MLB wouldn't not have allowed an indoor multipurpose stadium. They want RETRO PARKS. No retro park no team. Every single park built since 1992(Camden Yards) has been a retro park. They are not going to go back or allow a failed model of the past in a small/marginal market to top it off. It would be a total disaster.

Usually I like the new stadiums/arenas(other than a few exceptions). The reason why is I've been to Boston Garden before it shut down. What a horrible experience. The seats were way too small, the place was a fire trap. It didn't have character like people said it did. All it had was an uneven parquet floor. The place didn't even have a regulation size NHL rink and no air conditioning. Most of the old arenas/stadiums absolutely needed to be torn down. Wrigley is ok though it needs a renovation. The seats were comfortable. The concourses are way too small but that will be fixed. I agree with you about the small seats at Fenway but they did expand the concourses, added more concessions and bathrooms. Though Fenway still doesn't have quite as much modern stuff as a new park the history and uniqueness more than make up for it. The renovation is good enough. If they wouldn't have been able to do the stuff they done then I would have been in favor of a replacement. I was skeptical of the Henry groups plan to renovate it, at one time I thought it should have been torn down but I changed my mind. Fenway is irreplaceable. The current groups says it will last another 50 years. From everything I've heard other than a small minority of fans the majority like it and the renovations that were done. The tear down Fenway Park group lost and the save Fenway Park group won.

In the modern sports erra Camden Yards being built was the most important thing that ever happened. Those circular multipurpose stadiums were killing the game. Ballparks need to be cool and have features because baseball is a pastoral sport. Ugly circular concrete stadiums and a slow 81 game season sport like baseball don't mix. Look at how many years the Red Sox and Cubs sucked but drew great crowds. That's why every retro park tried to copy them.

Camden is NOT the best park though it's one of the best.

The best parks are Wrigley/Fenway, Dodger Stadium(the other historic stadium that they have done a great job modernizing, I love the idea of upper deck mountain views)Of the new parks I'd put AT&T Park as number 1 followed by PNC Park(water way parks are cool) then I'd put Camden Yards. Camden just doesn't have as many features as those other parks and I don't like the 45,971 seating capacity. That's too big for Baltimore.

[Bruinsfan]

camden is the BEST place to watch baseball in america. By far. the old Crap holes in chicago and boston are awful...and im from boston.


trust me the current renovation at fenway was not enough, right field line needs a total renovation, they need to eliminate obstructed views....and im not the only one thinking it...they are buying yawkey way from the city, most likely landsdown will com with it as well...they will renovate that crap whole till its no longer fenway. The save fenway group did a huge disservice to ACTUAl baseball fans not the pink hat morons that treat fenway as disney world.


we are getting retro parks because like any pro sports team, a single use stadium that they dont have to pay for they will do it. They dont need them....they dont better the game. Its just the same corporate welfare because everyone wants their own building.


you do realize i frequent fenway..it sucks. Theres no justifying it. It sucks sucks sucks sucks. Piece of human crap.

[Bruinsfan]

and go ahead have 80 games at the big o good luck when another large piece of concrete kills someone

[mikecubs]

Sept 24, 2013 14:42:47 GMT -6 Bruinsfan said:

camden is the BEST place to watch baseball in america. By far. the old Crap holes in chicago and boston are awful...and im from boston.


trust me the current renovation at fenway was not enough, right field line needs a total renovation, they need to eliminate obstructed views....and im not the only one thinking it...they are buying yawkey way from the city, most likely landsdown will com with it as well...they will renovate that crap whole till its no longer fenway. The save fenway group did a huge disservice to ACTUAl baseball fans not the pink hat morons that treat fenway as disney world.


we are getting retro parks because like any pro sports team, a single use stadium that they dont have to pay for they will do it. They dont need them....they dont better the game. Its just the same corporate welfare because everyone wants their own building.


you do realize i frequent fenway..it sucks. Theres no justifying it. It sucks sucks sucks sucks. Piece of human crap.

Camden trails AT&T and PNC Park for new parks. By most accounts those are the best 2 of the new parks due to their location. How can you beat a waterfront view?

The new owners of the Red Sox spent 285M on renovations. The last of the renovations was done before the 100th anniversary season. Larry Luchino says that they are done with renovations. It would be nice if they fixed the seats down the right field line(I'll admit those are horrible)but most of the rest of the park has good seats(al be it cramped). Fenway just like Wrigley puts you right on top the action. Especially the upper deck.

The Red Sox are not buying the street to expand outward. They are buying the RIGHTS to the street so they can keep using it as a game day concourse. Using Landsdowne street as a concourse produces 5M a year for the Red Sox.
www.fieldofschemes.com/2013/09/23/5933/red-sox-replace-old-sweetheart-deal-on-yawkey-way-with-new-sweetheart-deal/#comments

Polling overwhelming showed the VAST MAJORITY of Red Sox fans wanted Fenway Park to be renovated once the new ownership group took over. It was around 50-50 when John Harrington was owner and people(including me) fell for his propaganda. (I was going to post a link to the polling but the Save Fenway Park web site is no more. The Boston Globe a long time ago did the polling.)

Do you consider the vast majority of Red Sox fans "pink hat morons"?

Wrigley does have nice seats. All of them face home plate. The problem is the concourses are gross/a fire trap. The cubs are about to do a 300M renovation to fix this.

espn.go.com/chicago/photos/gallery/_/id/8870086/image/4/wrigley-renderings-expanded-suite-proposed-wrigley-field-renovations

Something else to consider is both Wrigley and Fenway are in excellent neighborhoods with excellent pubic transportation. It would be dam hard to find a better spot they are in unless you wanted to spend zillions of dollars.

I do agree to an extent with your point on corporate welfare. I'm not anti-arena/anti park public funding. Almost every team but a few elite markets need some help in building a modern facility. But it got out of hand. A good chunk of the teams(hello Washington, Miami, Pittsburgh Cincinnati) put in very little to nothing for their new parks and that isn't right. The cities should have tried actually negotiating with those teams since they had the upper hand. There's very few places to relocate teams since MLB is the toughest sport to support with the 81 game/big TV deals.

However you can't deny the new parks made a huge difference in the popularity of the game. Look at the difference between now and the late 1980's. The league was in terrible shape. MLB only made around a billion a year in revenue. Compare that to today. Look at the overall attendance compare to then and now. Baseball is a boring sport. The parks need features or else people won't come at all unless you have a contending team. Teams regularly averaged under 20,000 a season when things went wrong. Today it's rare for a team in a new park to do it though Houston and Cleveland are going to do it for a 2nd year in a row. I would have never attended a Cubs game if the didn't have Wrigley Field. That was the Cubs entire marketing pitch come see Wrigley Field since forever.

Larry Luchino was the guy who came up with the retro park idea. When he was with Baltimore he saw how well the Cubs and Sox drew despite sucking and figured out the reason why was because they had parks that weren't circular and boring and he figured if you could create modern versions of that with luxury boxes the sport could take off. He was right. Here in Wisconsin pre Miller Park the Brewers could barely draw in the mid 20,000s in a good season. Now the Brewers draw in the 30,000s during losing years. Go team by team and check out the long differences and not just year one when the new park opens. The bottom line is baseball drew 26,000 some overall and was playing to only 50% capacity in 1989 in a bunch of circular ugly stadiums. Last season MLB drew 30,885 and played to 71.35% capacity. Baseball is all about beer, sunshine, a grass field on a nice lazy summer day. Atmosphere is a good chunk of the selling point for baseball. It has to be. The season is endless. It's not about an oversize concrete circular football stadium with concrete everywhere.

I'll say this again. Football and baseball don't mix like NHL/NBA do. Those sports have the exact same amount of games, require about the same amount of people to come to games so they have around the same capacity and have a similar sized playing surface except an rink is a little over 100ft longer.
NFL plays 8 games a year so they require a 60,000 to 70,000 capacity. MLB plays 81 games and requires a low 40,000 capacity to high 30,000 capacity. You play baseball games in a football stadium you get seas of empty seats. You play football in a baseball stadium and you don't have enough capacity. Plus the site lines are wrong either way.

[Bruinsfan]

if you take a red sox survey? you are a pink hat moron.

and please stop praising luchino. The guy is an asshat.


btw, those renovations are barely noticeable. It was lipstick on a very old sickly pig. Going to the park my whole life, still cant see crap. Its a horrible park. Fenways has become disney land for fake fans...this year it is somewhat back to normal but the pink hats will return for the playoffs. Fenways upper deck really isnt that big of an upper deck, they are good seats compared to the rest. Im short, my knees are in the person in front of me's Head. Its just a crappy park.


You talk in such arrogant absolutes, I can guarantee you that in 15 years the park will need another renovation, considering there will never be a new park They will need room to renovate fenway (and not increase attendance but rather better sight lines. The only way to doit is to go back. Worst case scenario with building into yawkey and landsdown which are not even functional btw, would be you place the underneath the stadium. Im not saying it wil go far back but its going to be neccesarry or they decrease total attendance to make it a more comfortable park. Every seat except 1 should be ripped up, there should be no poles obstructing views. I argue with fans all the time about this, to say its a good park is stupid. It sucks.

[Bruinsfan]

BTw, you really shouldnt believe anything Larry "ill trash you secretly to the media as you leave town" Lucchino says. He is the reason the red sox went into disarray and since the GM has pushed back the team has done better. Luchino is a piece of crap.

[mikecubs]

Sept 27, 2013 0:25:15 GMT -6 Bruinsfan said:

if you take a red sox survey? you are a pink hat moron.

and please stop praising luchino. The guy is an asshat.


btw, those renovations are barely noticeable. It was lipstick on a very old sickly pig. Going to the park my whole life, still cant see crap. Its a horrible park. Fenways has become disney land for fake fans...this year it is somewhat back to normal but the pink hats will return for the playoffs. Fenways upper deck really isnt that big of an upper deck, they are good seats compared to the rest. Im short, my knees are in the person in front of me's Head. Its just a crappy park.


You talk in such arrogant absolutes, I can guarantee you that in 15 years the park will need another renovation, considering there will never be a new park They will need room to renovate fenway (and not increase attendance but rather better sight lines. The only way to doit is to go back. Worst case scenario with building into yawkey and landsdown which are not even functional btw, would be you place the underneath the stadium. Im not saying it wil go far back but its going to be neccesarry or they decrease total attendance to make it a more comfortable park. Every seat except 1 should be ripped up, there should be no poles obstructing views. I argue with fans all the time about this, to say its a good park is stupid. It sucks.

LOL so most of the fans are Fenway are pink hat morons? Why did you always give Todd such a hard time about Phoenix fans when you guys have trouble with such awful fans? Overwhelmingly Red Sox fans liked the fenway renovation other than a small group. If you don't like Fenway watch on TV or go to road games. There's plenty of people who will take your seat.

It wasn't a red sox survey. It was a boston globe survey. The Globe was a huge new Fenway/Harrington supporter. They got egg on their face. That "sickly pig" is one of the most popular and best revenue producing parks in the country. The fact is the current ownership group did the right thing. I'm embarrassed to admit I once believe John Harrington.

Those "barely" noticeable renovations added about 5,000 new seats, tons of new concourse space and bathrooms. The renovation was so good even the mayor of Boston had to admit publically that he was wrong in supporting the new Fenway.

I seriously doubt there will be another major renovation. It's not an arrogant absolute to believe the ownership. It don't make sense from a business prospective. If they were going to do something like that they were have done it when the took out all the seats section by section when they were doing the waterproofing a few years ago. What you see is what you get. There's no reason to spend another 300M when those seats will be mostly filled regardless of how cramped they are. The public in Boston doesn't pay for new parks. Those polls that you complain about bring the upper deck super close to the field which is nice for real fans who can't afford the super expensive tickets. The new retro parks 1 flaw is the luxury boxes make the upper decks steep. I do agree with you on the crooked seats down the right field line. Those should be fixed and I hope they are someday.

At least you admit Fenway will be around forever which is good.

If by some miracle they did do a renovation they might add a bigger upper deck and take out/reconfigure the lower bowl and have it with less seats. The original plan was to go with a bigger upper deck(Les Otten one of the former partners had the idea) but Henry and company ruled it out because they thought it would ruin Fenway's character.

I like Larry Luchino. The retro parks saved baseball. The sport was dying. I realize the guy is a snake who can't be trusted and how he treated Terry Francona was awful. Bobby Valentine was one of the worst hires in MLB history. But they did win 2 world series under the current group and love him or hate him Camden Yards(your favorite park) was Luchino's idea. The original architects actually wanted to put ugly circular spiral ramps on the outside of Camden Yards and Luchino went nuts and actually ripped up the draws he was so mad. He had a very deep conviction that the modern Wrigley/Fenway model was the way to go. Every SINGLE team copied his ideas. Since Camden every single park followed that style. Oakland and Tampa will also follow that style regardless of where they wind up.

Baseball this year according to all the articles about Selig's retirement last night said MLB is going to go over 8 billion dollars this year. Stuff like wild cards, interleague play was a great help but the new parks were the biggest factor. What do you think would have happened if for example Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, San Diego etc... were still stuck playing in circular football stadiums? They would have all gone under just like the Expos or be in the type of shape Tampa and Oakland are.

[Bruinsfan]

most of the renovation money was on expensive seats and ascetic improvements. The problem with old parks is they can say they arent going to renovate...then something goes wrong again lol. I agree with you the way to make the lower bowl better would be to add a bigger upper deck..And there is room for that believe it or not. Id like to see them completely renovate the upper deck so it is supported in a way to reduce obstructed views. I guess iv never been one to sit in the expensive seats so im always stuck behind polls. The crooked right field seats are going to be replaced one day when someone takes a liner off the back of the head. I always find sitting in the top deck to be more expensive than when i get stuck in the grandstands.




and theres plenty of people now that they are winning, the attendance did drop and the sellout streak (the fake streak) ended


Heres my issue with sox fans (i am one). There are alot of red sox fans that arent what i would call sports fans. They are alittle nerdier, dont really follow the other teams and tend to trash the other sports. Alot of sox only fans will follow the patriots because its the nfl but were the type of people who trashed the Bruins for so long, trashing the nhl and the sport. Baseball comes with this arrogance that annoys the hell out of me...this whole we are americas past time....yup it is the past time, stuck in the past falling further behind the nfl.

I love the red sox, i LOVE them like they are a member of my family its bizarre. But fenway has changed, the character of the fans has changed...less working class fans more !@%$s. this year was really fun, great to go to the park. The pink hats got turned away the last two seasons and it created a return to the old fenway crowd....(who are similar to the old foxboro crowd...and the current bruins crowd lol) ..and now its going to hopefully be a win and we all go back home and watch TV...and go to bruins games.


Red Sox fans and Celtics Fans are the same. Nerdy stat geeks high fiving at games while making sure their iphones dont fall off their belt clip.

funny fact is i wouldnt come from a family of red sox fans if the braves didnt leave town. My Grandfather followed the braves up until he had kids and they left town...too bad would love national league baseball in boston.

[Bruinsfan]

and ugh...i hate interleague playl. The leagues shouldnt play until the all star game and the world series. And the interleague games arent really enjoyable either. Im a little bit of a purist. I dont like the DH (though it will never go away if anything it will completely take over) i think pitchers should hit.


Id like to see 32 mlb teams 16 a league and maybe 1 or 2 inter league series a year. Id also like to see the rules swap...Pitchers hitting in AL parks, DH in NL parks for one of the series...i think that would be a cool way to spice up interleague play...visiting team brings their rules.

it wont ever go away...and im not sure i completely want it to...but i think ti needs to be trimmed severely. Interleague play has diminishing returns and most people dont really see the difference anymore. The more interleague play does not equal more interest...its a concept that should be treated properly...I like the way the NFL treats interconference play. You play one opposite conference division a year, the rest are in conference. Its a nice way to see how your team stacks up but at the same time takes you out of the weekly conference grind in tiebreakers. But its still the nfl and the games mean something. The MLB doesnt have that.

Instead of interleague games becoming a challenge, something highly important, they become penciled bad nights...nights you start a 6th starter, nights you dont bring in the closer and try to save your bullpen. They become throw aways in the MLB and thats a problem to me.

[mikecubs]

Sept 27, 2013 22:28:36 GMT -6 Bruinsfan said:

most of the renovation money was on expensive seats and ascetic improvements. The problem with old parks is they can say they arent going to renovate...then something goes wrong again lol. I agree with you the way to make the lower bowl better would be to add a bigger upper deck..And there is room for that believe it or not. Id like to see them completely renovate the upper deck so it is supported in a way to reduce obstructed views. I guess iv never been one to sit in the expensive seats so im always stuck behind polls. The crooked right field seats are going to be replaced one day when someone takes a liner off the back of the head. I always find sitting in the top deck to be more expensive than when i get stuck in the grandstands.




and theres plenty of people now that they are winning, the attendance did drop and the sellout streak (the fake streak) ended


Heres my issue with sox fans (i am one). There are alot of red sox fans that arent what i would call sports fans. They are alittle nerdier, dont really follow the other teams and tend to trash the other sports. Alot of sox only fans will follow the patriots because its the nfl but were the type of people who trashed the Bruins for so long, trashing the nhl and the sport. Baseball comes with this arrogance that annoys the hell out of me...this whole we are americas past time....yup it is the past time, stuck in the past falling further behind the nfl.

I love the red sox, i LOVE them like they are a member of my family its bizarre. But fenway has changed, the character of the fans has changed...less working class fans more !@#%s. this year was really fun, great to go to the park. The pink hats got turned away the last two seasons and it created a return to the old fenway crowd....(who are similar to the old foxboro crowd...and the current bruins crowd lol) ..and now its going to hopefully be a win and we all go back home and watch TV...and go to bruins games.


Red Sox fans and Celtics Fans are the same. Nerdy stat geeks high fiving at games while making sure their iphones dont fall off their belt clip.

funny fact is i wouldnt come from a family of red sox fans if the braves didnt leave town. My Grandfather followed the braves up until he had kids and they left town...too bad would love national league baseball in boston.

Here's a pic/article on the proposed Les Otten Fenway plan. This is from around 2000.


espn.go.com/gammons/s/fenway_plan.html

They were going to reduce capacity in the lower bowl to 26,000. Overall capacity would have been 43,000 which was a little too big. The upper deck on this plan was too overwhelming.

But you could make a pretty good argument that if you reduced that proposed upper bowl by 5,500 and kept around the current capacity it could have worked out and wouldn't have overwhelmed the park. Don't be shocked to see this plan resurrected 30-50 years from now if the lower bowl and park in general need a massive overhaul. However it's not happening any time soon. They just spent 285M. At most you will get tiny little improvements the next 30 years.

The biggest chunk of the money went on adding space in the concourses by removing walls etc...

The character at all sporting events have changed. It's not just a Boston thing. It's much more corporate everywhere.

MLB is keeping up with NFL. MLB is up to 8 billion dollars a year in revenue. The national TV deal and some of the huge local TV contracts(rangers, dodgers, Philadelphia) haven't even kicked in yet. The good thing about Bud Selig is that in a lot of ways he got rid of the past. Baseball was way too stuck in it's old traditions and he changed a lot of that for the better. (That still doesn't excuse him for ignoring the steroids issue)