Sunday, February 08, 2009

An Ode To Grass

The Fan is resisting the temptation to respond to the A-Rod bombshell. First of all, every blogger in the universe is doing so. Secondly, Rob Neyer wrote the perfect piece already over at ESPN.com, so there is no sense in trying to out perfect perfection.

Rather, this post will be about grass. Oh come on! Get your minds out of the substance abuse frame of mind. Not THAT grass. The grass that makes walking into a baseball stadium one of the most beautiful experiences in life.

The last live game the Fan was able to attend was in Atlanta to watch the Braves and the Marlins. There is nothing like the feeling of walking through the turnstiles for a night game, walking through the muted, yet artificial light of the inner bowels of a stadium, walking through a concrete arch and glimpsing the ball field for the first time.

The stadium lighting is so good that everything is bright and the grass is the first thing that is noticed. Always the grass, perfectly manicured, mowed (or landscaped) in patterns of wonder. It doesn't matter if a bunch of grounds people are still watering the dirt that seems so perfect and such a rich counterpoint to the lushness of the green grass. Is there any other experience like that in sports?

The best patterns used to be in Kansas City and Baltimore and close behind was Shea Stadium. Yankee grass patterns seemed like the team in general: business-like with simple patterns. Kansas City and Baltimore always seemed to have intricate and unique geometric designs and were amazing to see.

A real up and comer in the grass department is at Fenway Park in Boston. One of the groundskeepers is from up here in northern Maine. The Fan knows his family and they get to go down occasionally and watch a game with him. Wouldn't that be a cool job!

The thing that is so intense about grass at major league parks is the contrast it brings to the city experience outside the stadiums. Let's face it, most ball parks are urban and surrounded by sprawls of concrete and asphalt. The city is gritty and often dirty and drab in shades of brown, gray and black. Then, in the middle of such man-made ugliness, is the baseball stadium and inside is a little slice of Eden with the most amazing color of green there is.

There aren't too many instances now where baseball teams share a stadium with football teams. And that is a good thing because the Fan always felt cheated when the amazing experience of a live baseball field was tempered by lines left from a football game. Those are ugly and a ripoff of the otherwise fantastic experience.

The other ripoff is AstroTurf, or sports turf or whatever it is they are using now that is artificial. The worst experiences would have to be those stadiums where only the bases had dirt cutouts in the artificial carpets.

No, there is nothing like going to a live baseball game. The Fan has been to Shea, Yankee Stadium, Fenway, Fulton County Stadium, whatever the name is of the Miami stadium where the Marlins play (which is surprisingly pretty in person). Hopefully, the future will hold new stadium experiences. Wherever they may be, they will all inspire the same awe, the same promise of excitement and the same goosebumps of a little boy who experienced them for the first time 40+ years ago.

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