Sunday, March 21, 2004
The Vet: R.I.P.
This morning at approximately 7:00 E.S.T., Veteran's Stadium, the first baseball park where I ever saw a major league game, will be demolished. As a lifelong Phillies fan, I have fond memories of the Vet, despite its well acknowledged shortcomings as a baseball park. Yes it was ugly, yes it was too big and had poor sight lines, yes it had too few urinals...but it was the Vet! The only place I got to see Mike Schmidt play, before he retired, and I grew up in a state without a team of its own.
Maybe my memories on the subject are overly tinged with sentimentality. After all, every time I went there it was with my father and/or grandfather, and thanks to the latter's connections, I was given the chance to watch the game from the Superbox once or twice. But I'm still going to miss the Vet and all the things it represented. And when they knock it down tomorrow morning, the part of me that is six years old forever and loves baseball, all its promise and symbolism, will be crying. Because it just won't be the same once they knock down that park. Nothing ever is...
This morning at approximately 7:00 E.S.T., Veteran's Stadium, the first baseball park where I ever saw a major league game, will be demolished. As a lifelong Phillies fan, I have fond memories of the Vet, despite its well acknowledged shortcomings as a baseball park. Yes it was ugly, yes it was too big and had poor sight lines, yes it had too few urinals...but it was the Vet! The only place I got to see Mike Schmidt play, before he retired, and I grew up in a state without a team of its own.
Maybe my memories on the subject are overly tinged with sentimentality. After all, every time I went there it was with my father and/or grandfather, and thanks to the latter's connections, I was given the chance to watch the game from the Superbox once or twice. But I'm still going to miss the Vet and all the things it represented. And when they knock it down tomorrow morning, the part of me that is six years old forever and loves baseball, all its promise and symbolism, will be crying. Because it just won't be the same once they knock down that park. Nothing ever is...
