March 11, 2008 [LINK / comment]
Yankee Stadiums: new and old
Based on what I have learned from a variety of sources, I have finished (I hope) corrections and minor enhancements to the Yankee Stadium diagrams. They now include light towers and a more accurate profile of the grandstand.
While I was at it, I came up with a preliminary, very rough sketch diagram of Yankee Stadium II, construction of which is now over half completed. Like all the revised stadium pages, it is now very easy to compare the "before" and "after" ballparks. You can see that the new stadium is drastically altered from the original, most notably in terms of the huge "footprint," i.e., the total area covered by the field and the structure. (Bruce Orser commented that it looks like it ate too many doughnuts. 
) On both that page and the "real" Yankee Stadium page, there is an alternate design I created, using the expanded grandstand of 1976 but with dimensions closer to the classic version (1937-1973), which sadly is gone forever.
Coincidentally, Bruce called my attention to a detailed 3-D digital model (under construction) of the classic Yankee Stadium, as well as a series of photos of baseball stadiums used for football games. Both of those sets of images can be seen at baseball-fever.com. I used the latter to redo the football gridiron of Yankee Stadium, former home of the (NFL) Giants.
Big bird = good luck
Back in the real world of baseball, less than three weeks remain before the Grand Opening of Nationals Park. (Note that I just recalibrated the Opening Day "countdown clock," which now refers to the March 30 Nats vs. Braves game, rather than the first games of most other teams on March 31.) During the first inning of a split-squad practice game on Sunday, a Sandhill crane landed on the field at Space Coast Stadium, and then walked calmly toward the dugout. Some nerve! The tall migratory bird finally got tired of the game and flew away during the fifth inning, and the Nats went on to beat the Indians, 9-0. See MLB.com.