"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.