Stadium Club before Stadium Club

I just finished a book called “Ballpark: Baseball in the American City” by Paul Goldberger, which is just wonderful. The pictures alone make me stop for a minute to take in all the magic, but there’s more! There’s backstory on the ballparks – why the locations were chosen, who the architects were and why the parks were built at that particular time, just to name a few aspects of the book. I have been taken on a journey of the evolution of ballparks, and I love it.

This isn’t a book review. I want to talk about ballparks. Maybe I just really want to be AT a ballpark right now, but I can’t. Whatever the reason, let’s discuss 1988 Fleer logo stickers. The fronts feature either:    

1. a team logo inside of a baseball sitting on a trophy stand OR
2. two small logos with team names printed in all caps. The team names printed in all caps are dreadful. It’s not even in a team wordmark.

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When I originally opened packs of 1988 Fleer, I wanted the cards! I’d hang on to the stickers because they come in handy for various projects, but I’d just stash them away in a pile in my closet or somewhere I could forget about them. But lately, going through a box of old cards I found a stash of Fleer stickers and I found myself locked in on the wonderful ballparks featured on the backs of those logo stickers. All of a sudden I was shuffling through wondering if I had a complete 26-ballpark set (no Marlins, Rockies, Diamondbacks or Rays just yet). I did!

Each card has a black & white photo of a ballpark with red stripe across the top & bottom, and a blue stripe right above the bottom red stripe, which noted the capacity, first game & dimensions.

Of the 26 ballparks:

• 6 are still standing and in use as MLB ballparks – Fenway Park. Wrigley Field, Dodger Stadium, Angel Stadium (“Anaheim Stadium”), Oakland-Alameda County Stadium & Kauffman Stadium (“Royals Stadium”)
• 3 others are still standing and NOT in use as MLB ballparks – Astrodome, Olympic Stadium & SDCCU Stadium (“Jack Murphy Stadium”)

I’ve seen a game at 13 of the 26 – the six current parks, Olympic Stadium, Comiskey Park, Metrodome, Yankee Stadium, Busch Stadium, Shea Stadium & Milwaukee County Stadium (which I don’t remember at all, but my parents insist they took me there).

One thing that would definitely stand out to fans today are the names.

• Five are named after the team: Yankee Stadium, Dodger Stadium, Tiger Stadium, Royals Stadium & The Astrodome.
• Three are named after an owner: Busch Stadium, Wrigley Field & Comiskey Park – kind of. Today, Anheuser-Busch pays for naming rights in St. Louis. As a matter of fact, Gussie Busch wanted to name Sportsman’s Park (which was the original Busch Stadium; this card is the second incarnation) Budweiser Stadium, but rules at the time prohibited him from naming a park after an alcoholic beverage, so he named it after himself and then created a beer named Busch. Take that, Major League Baseball!
• Three are named after other people – William A. Shea Municipal Stadium was named after the lawyer who helped bring National League baseball back to New York. Jack Murphy Stadium was named after a popular sportswriter for the San Diego Union. The Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome was named after a former Vice President.
• Two – the two in Canada – are named after a function – Exhibition Stadium in Toronto was on the Canadian National Exhibition Grounds and was a multi-purpose venue used for many different things. Olympic Stadium was built for the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal.
• Three named after the city – Anaheim Stadium, Arlington Stadium & Cleveland Stadium
• Four named after the county – Oakland-Alameda County Stadium, Milwaukee County Stadium, Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium & The Kingdome (King County, Washington).
• Four names inspired by the area – Fenway Park (in an area called The Fens), Riverfront Stadium (self-explanatory), Candlestick Park (built at a location called Candlestick Point) & Three Rivers Stadium (by the confluence of the Allegheny, Monongahela & Ohio rivers).
• The final two ballparks had honorary names – Veterans Stadium & Memorial Stadium.

It’s quite a difference from today, where ballparks names are determined by whoever offers the most money in naming rights.

Each card has the “first game” played at the park – except for one. The Kingdome card says “christened March 1976” and I’ll assume that’s because while the Mariners didn’t play there until April 6, 1977, the actual first event there was a grand opening ceremony which took place on March 27, 1976. And besides, the first sporting event there was a NASL (North American Soccer League) exhibition between Pele and the New York Cosmos and the Seattle Sounders on April 9, 1976. The Seattle Seahawks played there later that season.

HOWEVER, why not just print the date of the first Mariners game at the Kingdome? That’s what they did in the case of Wrigley Field. On the Wrigley Field card, the date of the first game is listed as 4/20/16. That’s the first Cubs game there, however the first game was 4/23/14 for the Chicago Federals. Also, the San Diego Chargers & San Diego State Aztecs both played at Jack Murphy Stadium prior to 4/5/1968. Anyway, the Mariners “christening” seems odd.

Two additional cards don’t have a specific date, but the month of the first game instead. Anaheim Stadium (first game: 4/66) & Oakland-Alameda County Stadium (first game: 4/68). In the case of the Angels, they moved over from Dodger Stadium for 1966 and Fleer could’ve easily just pulled up baseball-reference and found that the first game was 4/19/1966 (I kid). As for the A’s, they had just moved to Oakland from Kansas City for 1968 and their first regular season contest at the Coliseum was 4/17/1968.

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The oldest date printed on these cards is 4/25/01 for Tiger Stadium. And that’s incorrect. While the Tigers played at the same location continuously from their first game in 1901 through 1999, and while Bennett Park opened in 1896 on the same site, Tiger Stadium opened in 1912 and the first game should be listed as 4/20/12 – the same date as Fenway Park’s first contest. The most recently opened park of these cards is the Metrodome, which is already demolished; its first game was 4/6/82.

The capacities range from 33,583 (Fenway Park) to 74,208 (The Mistake by the Lake in Cleveland). The top of Cleveland Stadium looks like a toilet seat, no offense to fans of the Tribe who cherish memories of that building.

Four of the fields are not visible – because they’re domes – the Astrodome, Metrodome, Kingdome & Olympic Stadium (that card is a bit of a disappointment because the tower is cut off in the picture).

On two of the cards, you can see another venue, or at least a part of it – Royals Stadium (Arrowhead Stadium) & Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum (Oracle Arena).

A few more random observations:

• After looking at some of these cards, I feel like rolling out cookie dough and cutting cookies for some reason. Or eating donuts.
• The Shea Stadium picture isn’t close enough to make out the 300 auto part shops lined up next to each other.
• I miss Comiskey Park. I still can’t watch footage or see pictures of the demolition because it makes me cry. I’m serious.
• There appears to be a game going on in 10 of the 26 cards, but it’s tough to tell in some of them.
• Exhibition Stadium looks like an awful place to watch a game.
• The Wrigley Field shot looks like it was taken a really long time ago. The little bits of rooftops visible seem empty.
• Arlington Stadium looks like it’s in the center of a crop circle.

I’m extremely glad I hung onto these. They didn’t mean much to me when I was growing up, but today I feel that the ballparks are every bit as worthy of having their own cards as the players who competed in them.