Did you know there's a tornado watch covering the entire area, from Hartford to Providence to Boston? It makes sense, as it was almost 70 today, and now the cold's gonna meet the hot like a McDLT.

Update: I said the temp "was" almost 70, but now, at 8 PM, it's going up again. 68 here, 70 in Boston. At night in mid-November. Nice. Now we're off to dinner--no jacket!

I'm lookin' for some structure around here. No, this blog won't join the Army with Harold Ramis, but I almost feel like now that I have several project-type things going at once, I should have their installments occur on a specific day of the week. Remember when I discovered Lileks? And I was inspired by his weird pieces of Americana he'd post on a specific day each week? Well, yeah, something like that.

I've got the Smiths of Baseball project which will take decades to complete at the rate I'm going. Then I've got the ballpark footprints that I started out of nowhere. Then--oh my lord, Kim must've made some kind of bubblegum bath powder because suddenly the room smells like a stick of Bazooka gum. Ah, Little League concession stand memories. Anyway, so I've got those, plus stuff like the '80 WS program, like, galleries of pics I take of old publications. Plus my usual photo galleries and retro-galleries. And movies.....

Look, I better think about this. If I don't end up doing anything different, just forget I said anything.

Still looking for an answer to the fifth Kwiz. All it takes is a random guess of any baseball player who was ever in a World Series. Give it a shot.

2004 is the gift that keeps on giving. Last night I was searching my own archives for something, and came across a link I'd put up in June 2004 to another blog. I went to that blog, and the article the blogger had written was gone, but I did see her original post about it, which came with a comment from a Yankee fan. It was the usual bullcrap: "You'll finish in second again, it'll be another heartbreak." He followed this with a list of year in which bad things happened for the Red Sox.

So I went to that guy's blog. What a treat I was in for.

I've spent probably...two hours reading Yankee fan blogs. In the last five years. Total. You know I've kept tabs on that team my whole life, and I feel I probably know more about them and their history than most casual Yankee fans do. While they'd all become Mets fans in the mid-80s, I was faithfully watching and rooting against their team every night at 8 PM on channel 11, with my own team going on the radio, save for the rare nights when WVIT-30 would throw us a Red Sox bone. But even then it was: switch to channel 11, later SportsChannel and then MSG, during the commercials. So the point is, I'm sure I'd get the same thing as I saw last night on any Yankee blog--but rather than search them out, I'll happily just wait until I accidentally come across them. I have very little interest in what some random person in Hoboken has to say about Robinson Cano.

So...I won't even give the name of the blog in question, but let's get right down to the fun parts:

September 8th, 2004: He talks about the Sox' winning streaks, and ends with

the Red Sox will not go away. Well, not until October. When the Yankees beat them. Again. It's only a matter of time.

September 15th, 2004--bonus wrong-ness! I noticed he wrote:

Alex Rodriguez is about to become the first Yankee since 1975 to hit 30 homers and steal 30 bases in the same season.

I looked it up. Didn't happen. (Then again, the Yankee record book consists mainly of opinions.)

Now back to the really good stuff:

October 4th, 2004: The playoffs are about to start, and he gives us this prediction about the Red Sox-Angels series, which the Sox would sweep:

A suddenly healthy and scary Anaheim team will chew them up and spit them out.

October 7th--bonus political stuff: He outs himself as a Republican! Perfect...

October 16th, 2004, writing just after the Yanks go up three games to none against us in the ALCS:

[...] they put yet another nail in yet another Red Sox coffin, burying thir World Series hopes for one more year.

It's just a matter of time now.

Oh god, I love it! I love hearing how sure they all were! The Yankees will win because they're the Yankees and the Red Sox will lose because they're the Red Sox...

October 19th, 2004:

So the Yanks are now clinging to a 3-2 lead in the series. Assuming that they don't get rained out again, I expect the Yankees to wrap it up tonight. Here's why:

1) Jon Lieber is pitching for New York. Including the postseason, he's 12-3 with a 3.55 ERA at Yankee Stadium this year, compared to 3-5, 5.19 on the road. I don't understand it, but heck, it seems to work.

B) Curt Schilling is pitching for the Red Sox. Schilling's ankle, as you may recall, apparently consists of a lot of bailing twine and chewing gum, not unlike Curtis Leskanic's shoulder or Manny Ramirez' hair. I don't care if he wears the damn Ruby Slippers on the mound tonight, he won't be able to pitch well.

[...]

d) No one has ever, in the history of professional baseball, come back from a 3-0 deficit to win a 7-game series. Ever. And it's not gonna start now.

V) The Curse. No, not the stupid Curse of the Bambino. That's just an excuse for poor performance and/or bad luck. I'm talking about the Curtis Curse. No team with two pitchers named Curtis has EVER gotten to the World Series. Curt Schilling and Curtis Leskanic can wrap their bodies in as much duct tape and super glue as they want, it won't erase 100+ years of baseball history!

Yeah! Tell it like you want it to be, brother! Bring on Game 6! I'm on the edge of my seat, ya dope!

October 21st, 2004: He just posts a pic of the celebrating Sox, with the caption:

Maybe not.

October 27th, 2004: After a long summary of the ALCS, complete with such gems as "the Yanks weren't themselves," and a summary of the first three World Series games, of which three Boston wins "could've been expected" because odds are against the team with the best record (whatever you say, guy), he adds my favorite piece of all:

[...] if this pattern holds up, the Red Sox will be due to win another World Series 86 years from now. We'll both have reason to celebrate: the Red Sox their sixth World Championship, and me, my impending 116th birthday!

See you in 2090.

The arrogance. The assholiness. The scumbaginess. All hiding the desperation. The suicidal thoughts. The knowledge that their world has been flipped upside-down. Every time you hear someone say "oh I don't hate the Yanks that much" or "the rivalry's not that important these days," remind them of this stuff. There is one evil in baseball, and it's the Yanks.

I looooove the 2090 thing. 1918 was real. Granted, it had no relevance on any game played between 1919 and 2004, but at least it was the truth. We hadn't won since then. Fact. They had every right to point that out. But the nerve of those fucking scumbag motherfuckers, to ASSUME that the Red Sox wouldn't win for 86 years, SIMPLY BECAUSE THEY WANTED IT TO BE THAT WAY....you have to have a serious mental deficiency of some kind of self-esteem issues or something. They even printed up hats and T-shirts--a few of which I saw being worn AFTER 2007! Some of them are not only pricks, they're shit-for-brains pricks.

And I love how it's because of "the pattern." Okay, start in 1918 and count up, sure. But who starts a pattern at an arbitrary point and acts like it refers to all of history? The Red Sox won five titles between 1903 and 1918, then again in 2004. I'd say the pattern (again, this is completely irrelevant, but just to disprove their fake theory) would have us winning six more titles in the following 102 seasons! Or, hey, want me to choose a random point like you did? How about a pattern starting atthe beginning of 2004. We won, so therefore, we should win in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, and so on. Put all that shit on a t-shirt, dickwad.

But all this is based on an assumption. One they treated as if it were fact. In other words, something only a pompous-ass Yankee fan would do. 1918 was real; 2090 would only require one lousy championship in the following 85 years to shit all over. It took us three. Ha! Fuck you, fucksticks! It's as if they thought they had predicted it would take us 86 years to win the first time, and having been proven correct, went out and predicted it again! No! You can't make fun of someone for the fact that YOU THINK they won't succeed for a long time! It doesn't work. If you try it, people see you as CRA-ZY. Imagine if I thought my neighbor wouldn't get that job promotion until the year 3000. (You know, like the one he JUST GOT last year.) And I mocked him every time I saw him, "3000, motherfucker! Haha!" Do you see how I would be considered the insane one, and he would be, well, the guy who just accomplished what you're making fun of him for....um...not accomplishing....again...for the next however many years...which haven't happened yet?

So I'd say that 2007 is truly the gift that keeps on giving, but screw that--that would be admitting that we somehow needed to win AGAIN to make Yankee fans....what is it they're supposed to be doing? Kissing our asses? Look, I said it before we won in 2004--if we win a World Series, they'll just say something like, "Oh, well sure, let's see you do it again." Nope--"1918" was you telling us, over and over, that we hadn't won for oh so long. In 2004, we did win. For real. No backsies. You're done. You lose. We did it in a way where I really thought they'd keep they're mouths shut, but the fact that they didn't means they never will no matter what happens. And about that, I don't give a rat's butt. As I've said before, I used to think our drought made them arrogant. Turns out they were arrogant regardless.

His next post would be November 6th. No mention of the outcome of the '04 World Series, just a post about his pick for AL MVP (Vlad Guerrero, because "all he did was win." Yeah, except for when he lost. To the Red Sox. After you guaranteed they wouldn't.)

A search of his posts from October 2007 make no mention of or apology regarding "2090."

However, a search on "Obama" turned this up:

[his spouse/partner] and I have decided that we both like VP nominee Sarah Palin, for a number of reasons, not the least of which are her Christian background and strong Pro-Life stance. As Christians ourselves and hopeful parents-to-be, this makes us happy.

Blllaaaaaaaaaaaaeaeaergrrhhgh!

In the 1980 World Series program, TV and movie stars revealed their World Series heroes. Gerald Ford's was Al Kaline, Cheryl Tiegs liked Kent Tekulve, and Tenille from Captain & Tenille loved it when Bob Welch struck out Reggie Jackson. Who was White Shadow star Ken Howard's choice?

Pedroia wins the Silver Slugger for second basemen. Can you imagine? A Red Sox 2B winning a fielding and hitting award? In the same season?

In an earlier post, I asked what "that thing" was along the third base line in a picture of Forbes Field. Longtime reader heybluu tells me it was an automatic tarp-roller, the same kind that kept Vince Coleman out of the '85 World Series. Now, I remember that incident like it was yest., but I guess I always thought he was run over by the guys rolling the tarp--or just kind of got his leg stuck under the tarp going for a ball or something. So, thanks. (I'm still trying to imagine how these things work, though.)

Before last season, I looked at the Yanks' starters and said: 1 fairly solid dude (Wang), two oldies, (Moose and Bad Andy), and two completely unproven youngsters (Hughes and Kennedy). I thought it spelled disaster. It kinda did, as Hughes and Kennedy went 0-8 with a combined ERA over 7. Wang got injured--it's at the point where you can't trust him makng it through a season. And the oldies, well, I have to hand it to them, they turned out to be the Big Two in '08 for them.

So what will they have in '09? The only two guys they could trust may be gone. Mysteriously Quick Recovery Pettitte may or may not be back, and Moose wants to hang it up now that he's reached his selfish goal, realizing he's never gonna get a ring.

So now you're down to Detachable Wang, and the two kids, plus Joba, I guess. The point is, even if they add C.C., that's only replacing one spot. Joba replaces the other one (if he's a starter), and then what have you got? Still just three starters, and pick your two favorite unexperienced, winless rookies or Ponson-type bums. Of course, they could get another starter like Lowe or somebody, but the point is, they need a lot of help in this department. Which is kinda like the key department of departments. Bonus: Mo be old.

Cy Young update: Dice gets robbed! Of third, that is. Lee won, of course, and Halladay got second, but freakin' K-Rod gets 3rd?? The guy wasn't even the best closer in the league. If they're gonna look at just total number of saves, why not look solely at winning percentage for starters and give second to Dice?

Got this on ebay a while ago. Here are some highlights, click to enlarge:

Sorry, the cover kind of got mauled by the cats. I don't usually leave this stuff lyin' around, but it was on top of a box I hadn't unpacked yet, and I guess they jumped in there at some point.

What kind of a boat ride is this?

Clearly Yankee Stadium in this Kent III ad, but they've airbrushed out the billboards, scoreboard, and skyline. Brut, a staple of Yankee Stadium in left field back then, has its own ad later in this program anyway.

George Brett taking a shower.

Above the other Brett picture is this crazy shot of him sliding and making a face. But notice on the next page, the ad for Sport Magazine also shows George Brett sliding and making a face. What are the odds? Granted, they're greater than they would be if this was Cosmopolitan, but still.

What's that thing laid out along the third base line in this picture from the 1960 World Series at Forbes Field?

The Brut ad.

I like the colors and font in this one.

They had a series of Hollywood stars pictured next to their favorite players. Did you know Cheryl Tiegs liked Kent Tekulve?

I was mystified by this one. I don't remember this from any baseball cards or anything. There's a better look at the Creamer site, which claims it was the Phils' main logo from '70-'83.

Fred Lynn.

Is that Bradshaw's real hair?

Remember that running track around the field at Olympic Stadium?

Who's dating who in this ad for the 1981 Monte Carlo? (And did they roll up the front of the bottom of her dress to show more leg? I don't think that's the wind.)

Okay, this is a weird one. I don't know about you, but on first glance, and for several glances after, I thought I saw Drooper from Banana Splits (below) in this ad. Turns out it's just some person walking toward a hot air balloon.

I showed Kim the ad and asked her what she saw and she said "a bear." So at least I'm not crazy, it does like like a creature facing you. Moving on:

Look at Cerone's NY compared to Reggie's. (There are pages dedicated to the four division champs of '80.)

Ooh, top-loader.

I saw there was a picture of the two All-Star teams and thought, I wonder if George Hendrick is there so I can see how far his pant legs are pulled down. (He's credited with starting that trend.) He'd have to be in the front row to see his ankles, and when I saw no Cards unis up front, I knew I wouldn't be finding out. Until! After perusing the picture, there was ol' George, hiding way at the left--standing up, with no one in front of him! Sure enough, low pants. Not all the way down, but definitely way different than everyone else in those days.

Yet another cigs ad on the back cover to close it out.

I also have an '81 All-Star Game program--with even better ads, I think. Watch for that gallery someday.

Look at this 2 through 7: Pedroia, Papi, Youk, Bay, Drew, Lowell. Those guys can hit. Now look at the "black hole": Ellsbury/Coco, Lowrie/Lugo, and Varitek/Cash. Jacoby's gonna be better in '09 than he was in '08. Lowrie also has to improve, beginning his first full season. So that's a pretty damn good 8 everyday hitters, with Coco as the 4th outfielder. (And who knows what will happen with the shortstop position since Lugo will be healthy.) That brings us to the bat of Jason Varitek.

That's what this post is really about. Tek. Guy forgot how to hit. People are pissed about that. At the same time, there's all the talk of how great he is with the pitching staff, which some people swear by and some people pass off like it's completely meaningless. Plus he's "the captain" and sentimentality and all that.

But he's an anchor. Tossing him aside and putting someone new in there could turn the catcher position into what we've seen from the shortstop position lately.

If you've got a team that was a win away from the World Series, and one guy has a lousy offensive year, but plays a key defensive position and never gets hurt, do you get rid of him?

I think we're jaded.

Remember the days when you didn't even care what your catcher (or shortstop or second baseman) did offensively? I feel like if this were '83, and we were looking at each guy, we'd get to Varitek and say, "Solid behind the plate, doesn't hit but so what..." and then move on to the next guy.

Today I heard the Sox could be interested in Chris Iannetta. The guy gets on base a lot, and he has power. And he's from Providence! So I started getting all excited, but then I thought, Is it worth it to trade prospects for anybody when you're in a situation where that position is completely solid defensively, and is basically your one true liability on offense? Besides, Tek went through a divorce last season, and his hitting can't get much worse. Can it? I remember ripping the shit out of Posada saying how fun it was to watch his numbers steadily decline, as they were--until he upped his average by 60 points. So Varitek may not be through at the plate yet.

But if he goes, I'm prepared. It's not like he's in the prime of his career. If they wanna try someone new right now, I'll support that. Though it would be much easier if there was a proven, young, star catcher who also can hit out there ready to be signed. Which there isn't. I feel like we need to have a better plan in place. We don't NEED a new catcher in 2009. But we will very soon after that.

Great news! No Fenway tickets will go up in price from last season. My main concern is the bleacher seats, and after watching them go* from $18 to 20 to 23 before jumping to 26 last year when most of the other sections stayed the same, I was expecting them to hold steady for '09. But all sections? That's a nice bonus.

That article also ends by saying Christmas at Fenway will be on December 13th. Which means the April/May/September games will be on sale that day. Hey, you with ski boots and the football, I'm talking to you--Red Sox tickets will be on sale December 13th. Don't come to me in April asking how to get tickets! Or I'll have to tell you to go back in time to December 13th!

(This is also a kick in the teeth to the Yanks, who have to charge like 4,000 dollars for bleacher seats to cover their costs for the new shady stadium deal.)

*I jut mean since '04 when I started my 10-game plan. They were $20 in '04, 23 in '05-'07, and 26 in '08 and now '09. The first year, we got a 2-dollar discount, but ever since we've paid full price. Come on RSN Governors, let's get back to letting 10-game plan holders pay season ticket prices, like all the partial- and full-season ticket holders do.

I love how Bill Lee just happens to be in the news as I'm reviewing the new documentary about him, "High & Outside." (Judging by the links Joy of Sox posted Tuesday, I guess the national sites finally discovered what I wrote about here four days ago. I love it when I beat those guys to the punch!) Here we go:

"It wasn't the catch, it was the pitch," quips Bill Lee in "High & Outside." This after telling an audience about a behind-the-back play he made on the mound, which an opponent had called the greatest play he'd ever seen--especially considering Bill had called it ahead of time. Like everything that comes out of Bill's mouth, it was the perfect line, and a left-handed metaphor for life: It's not the destination, it's the journey...even if you juggle knives at the end. The Spaceman had already gotten his man by the time the crowd was marveling at his theatrics.

High & Outside is a thorough and entertaining look at the baseball life of Bill Lee. It's packed with great old photos, clippings, and footage. Bill talks to you from various settings--the woods, a bar, a boat, his car--and they even let him into Fenway to tell a few stories from there.

Lee is also there for many of the interviews with others, giving the project a "This is Your Life" feel. His late aunt, Annabelle Lee, whose uniform hangs in Cooperstown, and his late college coach, Rod Dedeaux, come back to life for this one. We also hear from Bill's old mates and various reporters and fans. I especially liked hearing both Dewey Evans and Yaz (and Bill himself) note how Lee was the ultimate competitor, a fact that I'm sure is lost on people who are only mildly familiar with the Spaceman. One only needs to see him traveling the world on gimpy knees today to know he loves the game.

But before the film takes us to his 21st-century barnstorming, we're taken through the Red Sox and Expos days. They've got television footage from his first game in '69. Ned Martin's call with a mention of his color man, "John" (Johnny Pesky), is heard, and then Bill takes us through his amazing first inning in the bigs while we watch it unfold.

The '75 World Series portion focuses on Bill's parts, and really gets into the heartbreak of that seventh game. The sixth game is always talked about the most, as it should be, but it's usually followed by, "then we lost game seven." This movie takes you inside game seven--complete with the classic narration of Joe Garagiola from the old "Super Series" highlight reel I remember seeing at 2 AM on ESPN as a kid. Bill says if he'd won that game, we'd currently have world peace.

Then we go through the famous fight with the Yanks, the Buffalo Heads, the '78 season, and getting traded for Stan Papi. In Montreal, it was the pot pancakes, the big beard, and protesting the trade of Rodney "Cool Breeze" Scott, leading to the blackballing of Bill. All this is interspersed with some of my favorite Bill Lee stories. The casual Lee observer will be given a history lesson, while Bill buffs like myself will be all too happy to hear these versions of classic tales.

The issue of free agency is touched on, with Marvin Miller providing some commentary. We see Bill come full circle, going from player rep to thinking free agents are too free.

One person I'd never heard speak publicly on Bill Lee was his ex-wife, Mary Lou McCoy. She gives her side--almost in a "okay, I'll talk about my past, but just this once" kind of way." She doesn't seem to happy with the later days of their marriage, but does seem to have fond memories of the early days. We also hear briefly from Bill's two sons.

While the great "Space Odyssey" documentary spends most of its time on Bill's trip to Cuba, "High & Outside" is a more complete timeline of Lee's journey. By the end we're seeing Bill in Canada playing with a bunch of older guys, still wowing the crowd and playing with the passion he'll never lose. His fiance, Diana Donahoe, points out that she's never seen anyone so obsessed--with anything. "He's like a little boy trapped in a man," she adds, "and he always will be, and why would you want to disturb that? It's perfect."

Producer Jim Brown and director Pete Vogt do a great job telling the Bill Lee story, one of the most interesting in both baseball and pop culture history. (Vogt is no lamestain, having co-produced the Seattle music scene documentary "hype!" As a Nirvana-type music fan in the 90s--I've been using Kurt Cobain's birthday as my e-mail address ever since...I've had e-mail--I was psyched to see someone involved with that film directing this one.)

I mentioned Bill was in the news--he was inducted into the Red Sox Hall of Fame this past weekend. In a scene in "High & Outside" filmed before the current Red Sox ownership made the correct call to Embrace the Space, Lee says the only way he'd get into the team's Hall of Fame would be posthumously: "When I go in I wanna be face down so they can kiss my ass." I'm glad he was wrong. Though some people still owe him a smooch.

*******

"High & Outside" may be coming to a town near you. Watch these sites for updates on the schedule and for the eventual DVD release news. Photo courtesy Baseball Reliquary.

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Spent a lot of time going over the new map of Indianapolis, comparing it to this 1876 zoom-able one I found. The key to solving Indy is knowing that the numbered streets today don't match the old ones. Hence "7th Street Park" being at the corner of what's now 16th and Capitol. First Street became 10th, which is weird considering there are only a few segments of numbered streets below 10th today.

I put the two side-by-side (below). We know that Methodist Hospital bought the land the park was on. I tried to find that spot on the old map. Look at the river at left, and the point where the two canals cross at the top. Those are on the current map, too, and remember, 16th Street on the new (right) is the same street as 7th Street on the left. The green vertical street at far right of the old is Meridian St, which I also have at far right of the new. It was fun comparing, and placing the footprint, which is a guess as far as which way it's facing and which corner of the intersection it's on. The plain green rectangle of land with no lines running through it on the old map (below the W in William Street) is what I figure was that land. You can also see remnants of those railroad tracks on the current Google Map.



Anyway, the park was home to the Indianapolis Hoosiers of the National League in the 1880s. Not much info out there, but some is here.

If you're just joining us, meaning me, the book I co-wrote is Dirty Water: A Red Sox Mystery, and it's currently available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and your local bookstore. Makes a great Veteran's Day gift?

We'll be on Colin McEnroe's radio show on WTIC-AM 1080, which you can listen to online if you're not in Connecticut, next Tuesday, November 18th. I'll let you know the time when I know, but his show runs 3-6 PM.

Then we'll be reading and signing books at Broad Street Books in Middletown, CT, Thursday, November 20th, at 7 PM.

Hope to see you there.

What movie has "It's Never Too Late To Mend" written on a wall? (Note: there are movies titled "It's Never Too Late to Mend." I don't mean those.) (Oh, and in the movie in question, there's punctuation in the phrase. You don't get full credit without saying what that punctuation is and where it's placed.)

We had some great leaves this fall, color-wise. I missed getting good pictures of them, but I recently went over to the park and found that all the color had just moved from tree to ground. The grass was completely covered, turning it into a sea of orange. I went around and took some shots in different areas. Enjoy.

So wait, is it not Veteran's Day? It's always on November 11th? How come Memorial Day is observed on a Monday but Veteran's Day is always November 11th or the nearest weekday? Anyway, I waited on my Bill Lee doc review until tomorrow, but I guess now it'll be Wednesday. Whoops.

Congratulations to Kevin Youkilis and his new wife on their marriage. (Because I'm sure they read fan blogs and are going around searching them to see who congratulated them.)

This movie review says "American Wet Hot Summer" instead of "Wet Hot American Summer." (25 seconds left mark) Terrible job!

Does anyone know where I can find a shag rug? I looked online and what carpet stores call shag doesn't look like what I remember from the 70s. Kim and I have determined that what I'm looking for is a rug made of, well, you remember those trolls people used to put on their pencil erasers back in middle school? Those guys' hair! That's what our rug was like in the living room in like '79. And that's what I want. Anybody?

The Bill Lee movie will be reviewed by me tomorrow. It was gonna be today, but it's a holiday, so I'll wait till TUesday morning.

More people in my hometown voted for Obama than for McCain. The only other time a Democratic presidential candidate won there in the last 100 years was 1964--LBJ.

Speaking of the new, non-Bush president, Barrack will supposedly quickly overturn W's crazy executive orders regarding stem cell research and drilling. Nice job.

Wouldn't it be funny if the Yanks, ready to spend for any free agent out there, get turned down by all of them? A week ago it was "Sabathia WILL be a Yankee." Then it was Peavy, then Matt Holliday--now it seems like all those guys are going elsewhere. Whatever happens, I'm sure it'll turn out bad for that cursed team as usual, hahahahahahahahahahaha.

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Also known as State Street Grounds, this is where the Chicago Cubs (then called the White Stockings) played in their first two years in the NL, 1876 and 1877. Wikipedia gives a great description (from Green Cathedrals) of where the park was and how it was laid out. They say it had to look like a home plate, but for all we know, it could have been rounded off in left and right field. But I drew it as home plate-shaped, only having to guess just how far north or south home plate was positioned within the block, leaving room for any kind of grandstand above it.

This page shows a picture of the buildings that stand there today. (I grabbed you a nice street view of that spot.

And here's a crazy-long article about the sad state of the residences that stand all along that section of State Street today.

Labels: old ballpark locations