In the current issue of SI, Josh Levin has an article about new corporate parks (STBNGNP specifically) and their inherent lameness. It's called Shake Me Down at the Ball Game and is right up our alley:
Yes, the freshly poured Nationals Park has wider concourses, better food, fancier souvenir shops and, for the corporate-lawyer types, opulent club sections with leather chairs. But the 21st-century ballpark peddles a different brand of friendliness. If RFK Stadium was an old acquaintance who'd seen better days, then Nationals Park is the pal who's always asking you for money.
Well done Mr. Levin.
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About Me
- Joe Webster
- Early forties father of 2 girls in DC metro. My wife's the one who taught me to cook so she's the smart one and the beneficiary of my efforts. This really is a blog for dudes with kids and jobs. If you are a stay at home dad, you probably won't dig it. Frankly, I'm guessing you were one of those cats who wore the prosthetic boob thingys filled with your wife's breast milk so you could be closer to your kid. If that's the case I'm sure you are an effing vegan so this ain't the place for you.
4 comments:
Nice. I should re-up my subscription.
Leave the Build a Bear and the Red Loft alone you baseball purists! The problem is not the new stadium, although I agree $611 million does not buy what it use to, the problem is Nationals ownership. The sad fact is the Nationals are nothing more than a cash cow in the Lerner's business portfolio. The Nats will be used to finance the Lerner's other business interests. Don’t expect any serious attempts to build a winning team. The new stadium will just generate more cash flow for the Lerners; that's all. Your angst should be directed at the Lerners and not the new stadium. RFK is a relic of the past. To do any type of serious renovation would be ridiculously expensive and an engineering nightmare. Even Joe Gibbs realized he was a has been and resigned as the coach of the Redskins. This does not diminish the fact that in his day, he was a great coach. In its day, RFK was a great stadium. It is time to move on. Like it or not, we have a new, albeit prosaic stadium, a lousy baseball team that doesn’t deserve to wear the MLB logo, and an uncaring owner. Makes me want to flock to the Red Loft to drown my sorrows. Afterwards, I can go to batting catches next to the Build A Bear and get beaned in the head by a fast ball! It's better than watching a coach roach run across my path at RFK.
One of the comments here nailed it for me:
there's a "totalitarian undercurrent" to the ballpark, and the organization.
I miss RFK.
This article nicely sums up most of my disappointment with the new park on 2 points. In delving away from old-fashioned retro-brick architecture, HOK constructed a stadium using modern cast concrete, glass, and granite that looks just like all the other non-descrept "lookalike" concrete and glass office buildings being built all around it. Simply put, there is is little buzz surrounding the new park, because it in no way, shape. or form says "Hey, look at me!". Even El Rey concedes "we have a new, albeit prosaic stadium". It is not a compelling structure that draws people in just to see it. People from across the country went to Camden Yard for years just to see the place. I'm afraid the Nats are stuck with their principal attractor being the quality of the team. They'd better double down on the customer service, which they do not seem to have mastered. Refer to my previouos posts concerning the propensity to be out of sauerkraut. I'm flogging this dead horse until I make it the stadium and succeed in obtaining a dog avec 'kraut.
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