"Rosenblatt always came through for me"

Miranda McQuillan’s hometown ballpark, Omaha’s Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium, is no more. Demolition crews shoveled up the rubble of the longtime home of the Royals’ AAA farm teams and the College World Series as I made my way through town in mid-September. She took me for a visit to see what was left.

“I’ll cry if the sign is gone,” she said as we headed toward the site.

“It’s still there!”

For now, at least.

Behind what used to be the left-field corner, the sign was one of the few remaining indicators, along with the foul poles and light standards, that a ballpark once stood there.

My trip to Omaha had been delayed for several weeks, and it was important to Miranda that she show me the ballpark, her ballpark, before it was gone. In another couple of weeks, I would have missed out entirely.

“Rosenblatt always came through for me,” she said, and for one last time, it did.

As new facilities continue to generate huge revenue streams for major league teams and their cities, a modern ballpark is a must for any minor league team that can get one. Despite a series of renovations at Rosenblatt in the past 15 years, the Omaha Storm Chasers, formerly the Omaha Royals and Omaha Golden Spikes, did. Werner Park, in southwest suburban Papillon, opened in 2011 and is their new home.

For generations, McQuillan said, if you were from Omaha, Rosenblatt was part of your life. You went to games, then you stopped for ice cream at Zesto’s, a few hundred feet south of the parking lot. It was the place to see Fourth of July fireworks. Before she started going to the ballpark herself, she watched them from her grandparents’ backyard nearby.

Rosenblatt was as responsible for her love of baseball as the game itself. She started working there in high school and continued on for eight seasons, first filling scores of nacho trays a day (don’t just drop them in, she says, turn them sideways and really pack them in there) and moving up the ranks to ice cream and lemonade sales and then beer concessions. She made friends there, both work friends and after-work friends. Her first kiss was there too, underneath the bleachers. She discovered her career path there as well, now establishing her brand organizing and catering special events when she’s not busy being a master of all things cheese. It was home.

And of course, there was the baseball. Until the opening of Werner Park, Rosenblatt had been the home of the Royals’ top farm team since Kansas City’s franchise was granted in the 1969 expansion, and before that, AAA teams affiliated with the Dodgers and Cardinals.

It was a stop on the way up for hundreds of major leaguers. George Brett spent two seasons there. Omaha native Bob Gibson pitched there, near the boulevard that now bears his name. Earl Weaver played second base for the Omaha Cardinals before winning four pennants and a World Series as the fiery manager of the Baltimore Orioles, and his successor, Joe Altobelli, played for the Omaha Dodgers before also winning a World Series managing the Orioles. Frank White, Willie Wilson and the Quiz, and most of the other home-grown stars of Royals history, played there. It was a stop on the way down for Dave Steib, Vince Coleman, Billy Hatcher, Harold Reynolds, Mitch Williams, Terry Pendleton and Tom Browning.

For six decades, it was the home of the College World Series, with an even more impressive roster of players on the cusp of major league stardom making memories in Omaha. Dave Winfield was the MVP of the 1973 College World Series - as a pitcher - for the Minnesota Golden Gophers, allowing one earned run and striking out 29 in 17-1/3 innings over two starts just days before jumping straight to the major leagues and beginning his Hall of Fame career with the San Diego Padres. In 1978, Bob Horner of Arizona State followed up his 1977 tournament MVP performance by again making the all-tournament team, then skipping minor league ball and winning the NL Rookie of the Year in the same year, the only player to do so.

The list goes on. Mike Schmidt played there for Ohio in 1970. Paul Molitor played for Minnesota the year before he joined the Brewers. Barry Bonds was a two-time all-tournament outfielder for Arizona State. Roger Clemens pitched for Texas in 1982 and 1983. Fred Lynn was on three straight champions with USC in 1971-1973 before becoming the first player to win the MVP and Rookie of the Year in the same season in 1975. Robin Ventura of Oklahoma State made the all-tournament team as a freshman, the year before running off a 58-game hitting streak. Deion Sanders played there for Florida State in 1987. Jason Giambi was the all-tournament third-baseman for Long Beach State in 1991. Georgia Tech stars Jason Varitek and Nomar Garciaparra were all-tournament players there in 1994 before starring for the Boston Red Sox.

It's likely that no other ballpark has had more future MLB stars play on its field as amateurs than Rosenblatt Stadium.

And before becoming the Cubs’ double-play combo (and going on to win World Series rings with the Giants and Cardinals, respectively), Mike Fontenot and Ryan Theriot were the all-tournament second-baseman and shortstop for the 2000 College World Series champs. I mentioned the year and McQuillan was quick to say, “Louisiana State”.

LSU had the best fans, she said. The area around Rosenblatt Stadium became a town unto itself during the College World Series. Scores of RVs and media trucks from across the nation packed the parking lots as a festival atmosphere took over the area every June. LSU supporters came out in droves and the scent of grilled gator meat wafted through parking-lot tailgate parties even in years when their team wasn’t there. Stadium staff rooted for the underdogs, the smaller colleges or ones from the north that don’t have the advantage of mild weather early in the year, like the Oregon State Beavers - Omaha’s that kind of town, she says - but if there was a good underdog and LSU was there too, they made it known that they were pulling for both of them.

But Omaha is booming. McQuillan took me to the Douglas County Historical Society, which prominently features a huge aerial photo of downtown Omaha from the 1940s. Few of its landmarks remain. Where prime real estate is in demand, the old gives way to the new. In the case of Rosenblatt Stadium, it means additional parking and a new visitor center for Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium, adjacent to the site beyond where right field used to be.

As of 2011, the College World Series has a new ballpark of its own a few miles up 10^th Street, TD Ameritrade Park Omaha, which it shares with the Omaha Nighthawks of the United Football League. TD Ameritrade’s founder, Joe Ricketts, and his family now own the Cubs.

All things must pass, as George Harrison said, and of course new memories will be forged around their new ballparks, but as long as the current generations of Omahans survive, whenever they bring their kids to the zoo, seven of the saddest words in the English language will be in their thoughts: There used to be a ballpark here.

A new Hall

I've never cared much for the Hall of Fame. Apart from its home in Cooperstown being based solely on a total sham, the Abner Doubleday myth, it makes no attempt to stratify its members. Travis Jackson is as much a Hall of Famer as Babe Ruth, Robin Roberts as much as Walter Johnson.

For the past few years I've been mulling over ways to build a better mousetrap, to acknowledge levels of greatness among the greats as well also to honor significant achievements and to give modern fans an idea of who their predecessors were talking about back in the day. Johnny Vander Meer would never make the Cooperstown hall, but for having the best week any pitcher has ever had, he'd have a place in mine. He wouldn't rank with Bob Feller, but he'd be there.

The most critical aspect would be to recognize players among their peers, and the best way I've found to do that is to sort them by decade of birth. The greats shine brighter when compared with the pretty-darned-goods of their time. You get a better feel for the impact of Babe Ruth’s 714 home runs when you see Ken Williams in third place among players born in the 1890s with 196. Stan Musial stands in front of Duke Snider and Gil Hodges instead of standing behind Hank Aaron and Willie Mays. There’s a spot for Cy Williams for going top-three in his league in home runs 11 times and being a dead-ball hitter who carried over, while he never topped six percent of the voting for Cooperstown. Where’s the love in Cooperstown for George Foster putting up the only 50+ HR season in a span of a quarter century? If you grew up in the 1990s, it's not that big a deal. If you grew up in the '70s and '80s, though, Foster's accomplishment was a pretty big deal.

In that sense, my Hall would be a walking history. You start with the old timers, the ones born before the Civil War. Cap Anson, Bid McPhee, Dan Brouthers, Tim Keefe, Harry Stovey, veterans of the National Association and the opening seasons of the National League. Move on to the 1860s; Ed Delahanty, Jesse Burkett, Hugh Duffy, Sliding Billy Hamilton; with stars of the American Association and Temple Cup players. Then the 1870s; Nap Lajoie and Hans Wagner, Rube Waddell and Amos Rusie, the first group that was making an impact in the 20th century. And so on.

The main obstacle is determining qualifications that would produce approximately equal numbers of players from each era, but some accomplishments are locks. Current and former career and single-season record holders. Landmark achievements. Top 10s of the era in the stats you find on baseball cards. Leaders over any ten-year span in selected statistics. Those are the "easy" ones, but even so, my hall has hit king Pete Rose (no disqualifications for any reason, including active players) and Mark Grace (most hits and doubles in the 1990s) in it. You'll never find them in Cooperstown. 

A few more would be triple crown winners (hitters and pitchers), multiple MVP winners and Cy Young winners, five-time leaders in selected statistics, guys with .400 seasons, 5+ gold gloves, 5+ 200-hit seasons, 10+ All-Star Games, 5+ World Series wins, 10+ years in the postseason, 20+ major league seasons played, 20+ seasons managed, and the first and last full-time roster members from each decade. A lifetime achievement for 50+ years in professional ball as a player, manager, coach, team executive and/or broadcaster. Or 30 years as an umpire or coach on the major league level.

And I'd throw in single-season achievements, like award winners, 50 homers, 150 RBI, 30 wins, 10 shutouts, or 75 stolen bases. And even single-game achievements, like no-hitters, four-homer games, unassisted triple plays, 18+ strikeout games, and postseason walkoff home runs. 

But the real difference-maker is that each of those accomplishments counts for one point. So if you look among the players born in the 1910s, you see Eddie Lopat recognized for playing on 5+ world champs, and that the careers of Van Lingle Mungo and Diomedes Olivo spanned 33 seasons. Fun little trivia, but then there's a whole wall of accomplishments for Ted Williams.

While there's more work to be done and more qualifications to add, particularly for pitchers, the greats among position players are starting to rise above the pretty-darned-goods. Leaders so far are Cap Anson, Ed Delahanty, Nap Lajoie and Hans Wagner, Ty Cobb, Rogers Hornsby and Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Ted Williams, Stan Musial, Willie Mays, Mike Schmidt, Dave Winfield, Barry Bonds, and Alex Rodriguez. The 1980s are a work in progress. I'd challenge anyone to find more than one or two position players that would top anyone from the same era mentioned in the above paragraph.

In any case, as generations pass, numbers can change their meaning. Leaderboards will always be in a continual state of flux and playing styles and conditions will always continue to change. Sooner or later, we will owe it to history to build that better mousetrap.

Just a thought.

Unbreakable records

I've seen some posts around the tubes lately talking about "unbreakable records". Cy Young's 511 wins, Joe Dimaggio's 56-game hitting streak, those sorts of things.

To call a record "unbreakable" is short-sighted. Forever is a mighty long time, as Prince reminded us, and MLB is only 136 years old. Go forward a couple of centuries and most of the so-called unbreakable records will be broken, and if rules, managerial styles or playing conditions change, maybe all of them.

If Vince Coleman was a better hitter, Rickey Henderson's career- and single-season stolen base records could have been surpassed before he retired. We could see a challenger arise as soon as next year in young Billy Hamilton, who swiped a blistering 155 bases this year and led both the California League and the Southern League by wide margins in the same season. Hamilton will turn 22 on Sunday.

If Ichiro Suzuki started his career in the United States instead of Japan, Pete Rose's hits record would already be in his sights after only 25 years. Lou Gehrig's "unbreakable" consecutive-games streak lasted less than 60. Two no-hitters in a row, if you can call two consecutive anythings a record, is just a matter of time - Johnny Vander Meer was a .500 pitcher who had one outstanding week. For all we know, Justin Verlander could match it or top it yet this season, or like Vander Meer, some random pitcher could just happen to have the greatest week of his life.

Here are some hypotheticals:

Some kid comes out of high school with the ability to control a mystifying knuckleball, jumps straight to the majors and pitches, like Phil Niekro or Hoyt Wilhelm, until he's almost 50 and wins 15-22 games a season over a 30-year career.

The next Nolan Ryan doesn't take six years after his debut to become a dominating strikeout artist. Or the next Randy Johnson signs out of high school instead of after college, gets a four-year head start, and maybe another thousand strikeouts.

The next Satchel Paige, Oscar Charleston, Double-Duty Radcliffe or Josh Gibson gets to play a full career in the majors. 

The next Bob Feller, Ted Williams, Hank Greenberg or Joe DiMaggio doesn't go off to war for several years in the prime of his career.

Baseball catches on in China and India, quadrupling the number of young men who want to play baseball. Should they ever share the passion of the Dominican Republic, population 10 million, it would revolutionize the game.

And some hypotheticals involving fundamentals:

A future commissioner drops the five-inning requirement for a starting pitcher to qualify for a win and rules that the pitchers of record at the time of the last lead change get the decisions. Score big early? Pull your starter and run him out there again tomorrow or the next day. A staff ace on a team with a dominating offense could start 50 games in a season and win 40.

A team that can't afford big power hitters has its local governments build them a stadium the size of a dead-ball park (West Side Grounds in Chicago was 560 feet to center). They sign doubles-hitters who become triples-hitters with the added real estate, and somebody wipes out Wahoo Sam Crawford's record of 309 career triples and Owen Wilson's single-season record of 36. Maybe we see a return of the .400 hitter.

Or on the other end of the spectrum, a team builds a ballpark with the smallest field dimensions allowed under the rules, designs it to take advantage of an area with strong winds, and can afford the game's top power hitters by selling 80,000 tickets a game to people who come from far and wide to see the daily slugfests.

Someday 64 teams dilute the talent pool, all with retractable domes that allow MLB to expand the season to 220 games, starting right after the Super Bowl and playing through Thanksgiving. Most cumulative records fall within a generation or two.

Youth leagues teach pitchers to develop endurance from an early age, just like long-distance runners, instead of babying them with pitch-counts that encourage them to throw as hard as they can instead of learning how to pace themselves and become pitchers instead of throwers.

So instead of comparing past and present stars with an unknown future, recognize them as the greatest among their peers, or the best among a span of generations. The fact that Babe Ruth's home run records have fallen doesn't make him less of a legend than Joe DiMaggio just because DiMaggio's defining record still stands.