BBWAA Complaints About St. Louis Press Box

The temperature is one thing - I have been to many baseball playoff games where I had to sit outside, along with other "overflow" media...

But you simply can't have a fire hazard. Nor can you have an air-quality hazard. It's unacceptable, and both the Cards and MLB are opening themselves up to lawsuits.

 

Of course when you're on the roof at Fenway you're still closer to the field than you are in the upper deck at the Shithole on the Southside.

 

This is the stadium's first year.

 

ok, thanks hank. i knew it was new but it seems like new stadiums open every year nowadays so i wasn't sure.

 

it's not a bad analogy although it's not exactly apples to apples.

aqb, the situations are slightly different but not entirely. sure, the reporters don't work for the cardinals but the cardinals are a member of major league baseball which is obligated to provide working conditions for the media. and insofar as mlb only has so much control over each individual member club, it's the cardinals who are responsible. it's not like you can blame the newspaper for not providing solid working conditions. part of the nature of the sports writing business is that sports writers rely on teams they cover to provide adequate work space.

 

Ironically, the Cel was also done "on the cheap".

Irony of ironies, if two consec Fall Classique winners played in the MLB equivalents
of ramshackle shacks.

 

I can field the questions about radio/TV there.
Awful.
When announcers are doing their stand-ups, the only workable place to put the camera is on the upper level of the booth. You can't see the skyline, all you see is green field. Oh, wait, I forgot, that is blocked by the columns of the window frame that can't be moved, so basically, you either split the difference and have the column in between the 2 announcers so it doesn't look like someone has a rod sticking out of their heads or you have them all looking up like Mini-Me.
Poor design, all they took into account is how little they could spend to do the minimal.

And I can say this about PNC. I was able to go in there about 3 weeks before it opened. My first spot to look at was the bay where the TV truck park. Yep, next to the dumpsters that has a sign stating that it emits ozone and humans should not be anywhere near it (I kid you not).
2nd stop was to the field via the visitor's dugout. I came out of the tunnel and thought "Ok, this is NICE!"
3rd stop...press box...."Wow, did I just take the elevator to the top of Everest?"

I understand their logic, they went with the fans having the best seats, and I applaud that to a degree.
Radio and TV pay rights fees, in a way, we are ticket holders too.
Not to denigrate the fact that you paper folks get parking, meals, giveaways...but i digress ;D ;D ;D

 

The subject of PNC Park's horrible press box and the potential for disaster at the All-Star Game if it rained was broached at the BBWAA meeting at the winter meetings last December. MLB officials said they would talk to the Pirates about it and NOTHING was done. Fortunately, depsite a bad weather forecast, it did not rain.
If the Cardinals have the same attitude that the Pirates have, which if F**K the media and we hope every last one of you would drop dead, then don't expect any changes at the new Busch before the 2009 All-Star Game. And also don't expect MLB to move the game to another venue becuase of this complaint because the protests about Pittsburgh fell on deaf ears.

 

Yeah, but the Sox have spent a ton of money in the past five years to upgrade The Cell. It's certainly not the unsightly beast it was when it opened in 1991. Apart from the moving of the media, I don't think you can complain about The Cell. Not every place has to be a retro ballpark. Plus, look at Cincinnati and Philadelphia ... those retro designs look downright tired.

 

Compared to what was there in the first place... :

 

Of course.

But they're nothing special.

(Give me Detroit and Cleveland any day.)

 

As noted in other threads, virtually all the new HOK cookie-cutter parks look the same, except for seat colors and a little bit of ornamental trim around the edges. We got rid of the 1960s/70s ashtrays and replaced them with a new set of rubber-stamp ballparks.

Back to the issue of press seating, press seating is more and more taking the very last priority in new stadium construction. Two major college football stadium renovation plans I have seen recently both feature replacing the current press boxes with luxury suites, and moving the media to much much smaller boxes, usually in the end zones. In addition, I have heard that most Div. I universities plan very shortly to start charging full-rate seating prices for media acommodations.