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Arenas/Stadiums/Venues of Your Past

Discussion in 'Anything goes' started by Machine Head, Jul 23, 2010.

  1. micropolitan guy

    micropolitan guy Well-Known Member

    Baseball: War Memorial Stadium, Buffalo, as a kid; Cleveland Municipal Stadium, as a kid visiting my uncle every summer; Parker Field watching the Braves in Richmond as a collegian, and even the original Pitt Field on my college campus. All gone.

    War Memorial Auditorium, where I watched the AHL Bisons and expansion Sabres, and the Buffalo Braves and Saturday night Canisius/Niagara/St. Bonaventure college basketball doubleheaders, now demolished.

    Football: War Memorial Stadium, where I watched the Bills, demolished.

    The Eugene Emeralds left Civic Stadium this season, and that great place will soon be demolished, and PGE Park in Portland will cease to be used as a baseball venue after this year.
     
  2. JackReacher

    JackReacher Well-Known Member

    Love the old pictures on this thread. Love it.
     
  3. Armchair_QB

    Armchair_QB Well-Known Member

    The ballpark of my childhood is the ballpark of my adulthood but Wrigley Field has changed a lot since I started watching games there in the mid-70s.

    The big change is lights of course but there are a lot of others - and this is just the stuff you can see from your seats. The most recent being the added seats behind home plate and down the lines past both dugouts; the center field restaurant; the Toyota sign and the electronic messageboards & billboards on the bottom of the scoreboard.

    The old dugouts were about a third of the size of the ones they have now and the Cubs had hoof it down the left field line to get to their clubhouse up until the early 80s when they put in the current dugouts.

    There were no seats in the left and right field "wells."

    The "Budweiser" building on Waveland was the "WGN" building for years and the big billboard on top of the building on Sheffield was a "Torco" sign.

    No bleachers on the rooftops across the street. Just a few guys with a keg, a grill and some chairs. And you didn't have to pay to get up there. Still remember the day Tom Browning left the ballpark in uniform during a game and was caught on camera sitting on one of the rooftops. The Reds & MLB fined the shit out of him for that. That's the only time I remember a player doing that.

    One other thing I remember - and miss - is parking at the convent on Seminary Street, which is about two blocks down Kenmore from the ballpark. When we first started parking there one of the nuns would stand out front in full habit and wearing one of those plastic Cubs batting helmets and wave cars in.

    Cost of parking was whatever you felt like donating. First time we parked there my dad reached in to his wallet and the smallest bill he had was a $10. The nun asked if he wanted change and he couldn't bring himself to ask for any.

    Every year we came back it seemed like they were in the process of adding or renovating another building on the property. I like to think they were able to do that because of the parking money they raked in.

    Eventually they leased the space to the team and it became season ticket holder parking.
     
  4. 21

    21 Well-Known Member

    Not too far up the road from the paradise of Armchair's memories, I grew up around this little jewel. No idea if it's still there, but if you were ever a North Sider, you know this place:

    [​IMG]

    Girls couldn't play there when I was a kid, but if it's still there, I bet they play there now.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 15, 2014
  5. MileHigh

    MileHigh Moderator Staff Member

    I grew up going to the Big (and Bigger) A, Dodger Stadium, the Coliseum, the dreaded Sports Arena and Pauley Pavilion. My all-time favorite venue still to this day is the Rose Bowl. But I miss the Fabulous Forum, though UCLA will be playing there in 2011-12 as Pauley gets a much-needed makeover.
     
  6. Armchair_QB

    Armchair_QB Well-Known Member

    I thought the Forum was a church now.
     
  7. MileHigh

    MileHigh Moderator Staff Member

    It is. But the Bruins are moving in for a season. The collection baskets must have been filled up quite nicely.
     
  8. Corky Ramirez up on 94th St.

    Corky Ramirez up on 94th St. Well-Known Member

    If you've ever wondered what the NFL looked like at Tiger Stadium, I thought I would upload this clip. It's a 1970 game between the Cardinals and Lions. Only this part of the second quarter and all of the second half exists.



    There's also the 1975 NFC Divisional between the Cowboys and Vikings ... although I was 6 when the Vikings moved out, the intro here really reminds me of my childhood - probably because of the CBS voiceover.

     
  9. Boomer7

    Boomer7 Active Member

    The neighborhood's not that bad. Granted, two weeks after we moved out of it, 46 cars were burglarized in our apartment complex ... in one night.
     
  10. buckweaver

    buckweaver Active Member

    Sound of my childhood that I'll never ever forget:

    Thank yoooooooou.

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 15, 2014
  11. Bubbler

    Bubbler Well-Known Member

    [​IMG]

    I lived about a mile-and-a-half from County Stadium, and when I was old enough, I'd ride my bike down to games. I knew every inch of it. I once successfully snuck into the press box there.

    It was great for baseball and uniformly awful for football.

    It was sad in the late 90s when they stopped maintaining it and it became real old, real fast. It had been a perfectly fine and functional stadium to that point. It was painful when the Brewers switched to the NL and the NL broadcasters would come in and say what a dump County Stadium was, particularly that asshole Chip Caray on the Cubs games.

    My last game there in 2000, the row of seating we were sitting in was missing a bolt, so the seats sagged. County Stadium was the reservoir of what I am today professionally, not to mention all of the memories I had there as a fan. I gave it a goodbye kiss as I walked out of my last game there.

    [​IMG]

    Thankfully, the Milwaukee Arena is still with us. All but one Bucks home game I attended were in the MECCA. Harkened to a time when the NBA buildings and the fans in them had as much character as the players themselves.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 15, 2014
  12. crimsonace

    crimsonace Well-Known Member

    [​IMG]

    Bush Stadium in Indianapolis. I spent half of my summer vacations there. It was the inspiration for the ivy at Wrigley Field, had light towers that predated the stadium (first installed at a nearby park in 1928) and was just a great place to watch a game. Had a hand-operated scoreboard in left, brick-and-ivy on the walls. I loved -- and still miss -- the sensation of walking up the ramp and seeing this beautiful, perfectly-manicured green grass pop out in front of me. Parking was a bit of a pain, as it was a few miles out of downtown, but it was pretty cool.

    I knew that place in-and-out. Like Bubbler noted about County Stadium, it was a great minor-league park right up until the local AAA team decided it "needed" a new stadium, and they let it rot for the last 10 years it existed. They've got a great park now that's been there 15 years and has an amazing view of the Indy skyline, but I have had little desire to go to games there. The park still stands, but the city is in no hurry to put a few bucks into renovations and maybe allow the local high schools or colleges to use it for games.

    And, also:
    [​IMG]

    The Indiana State Fairgrounds Coliseum. I was (and still am) a puckhead, and this was (and is) where the local minor-league team played where I fell in love with the sport. Built in 1939, it was second to Hersheypark Arena as the oldest hockey venue still in use by an American pro team. Now that the local team is in the USHL, it's given up that mantel, but it's still a big, spacious, ugly barn with bad acoustics.

    Others:
    Market Square Arena, now a parking lot. A classic throwback to the 1970s. I've seen more hockey games there than Pacers games, but the sightlines there were amazingly good and it got deafening when it got loud.

    St. Louis Arena. Only went there once, but what a neat old barn.

    Wrigley Field. It's changed, but I do enjoy going there every year. It gives me my bricks-and-ivy fix I no longer get from Bush Stadium.

    Memorial Stadium, Indiana University, Yeah, Indiana University isn't known for football, but my family and I spent a lot of days there growing up watching Big Ten football when IU had a string of really good seasons. Not a bad seat in the house, and with renovations, it's even better.

    I've probably seen more events at the RCA Dome in Indy than anywhere. Good riddance. That place was a dump.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 15, 2014
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