March 11, 2016 [LINK / comment]
Just to make sure I get all three* St. Louis stadiums done, while preparing to finish Sportsman's Park (!), I went ahead and made a few corrections and enhancement to the Busch Stadium III diagrams. The most notable change is the greater detail in the lower-deck lateral walkways, showing the barrier on the back side and the small stairs leading up to each respective section-dividing aisle. In addition, the grandstand along the first and third base lines is now a few feet closer to the diamond than before, while the sharp bend in the grandstand beyond third base is about ten feet farther away than it was before. Those two changes partly offset each other in terms of the total amount of foul territory, which I now estimate to be 25,200 square feet rather than 25,400 square feet.
* Not counting Robison Field, where the Cardinals played until 1919, and which will take me at least several more months to get to...
One looming issue in baseball this year is the negotiation betweens owners and players. On Monday the Washington Post had an article profiling the new Major League Baseball Players Assocation chief, Tony Clark. In it, Barry Svrluga compared Clark's style to that of his predecessor Donald Fehr, who left that position after 2009 after serving for 24 years. Clark is not only the first MLBPA executive director to have been an MLB player, he was a pretty good one, being second in the draft pick order right behind Chipper Jones in 1990. He's tall (6' 7") and has a direct, matter-of-fact way of speaking that may yield more effective bargaining results. The owners also have a new front man, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, who replaced Bud Selig just over a year ago. The Collective Bargaining Agreement expires in December, so the two sides need to reach a compromise before then to avoid another catstrophic strike.
I forgot to mention that I added a few more photos to the Wrigley Field page when I made the diagram updates yesterday. Here is an interesting view you don't often see:
Top of the upper deck at Wrigley Field, after the game on July 19, 2012.