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By BRUCE LOWITT, Times wires
© St. Petersburg Times, published May 5, 2000
Baltimore's Memorial Stadium. Gone. Cleveland's Municipal Stadium. Gone. Tiger Stadium. Gone. Riverfront Stadium, Milwaukee County Stadium, Candlestick Park ... going, going, gone.
Fenway Park.
Not so fast.
Before you consign Boston's venerable Red Sox ballpark to the memory bin housing those other stadiums (not to mention the Kingdome, the Astrodome and the launching pad that was Atlanta Fulton County Stadium), consider that it's 10 days short of a year since the Red Sox unveiled plans for a new ballpark, and still there has been no news on:
A financing plan, including how much the taxpayers will be asked to contribute.
A deal with the landowners on whose property the next Fenway is supposed to sit.
To quote former Red Sox first baseman Mo Vaughn: "The price goes up every day."
Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, who has been lobbying to keep the Red Sox in the city (New England Red Sox?) and proposing that the club take some of the landowners as partners, is leaning toward a plan in which the city would invest $200-million in revenue bonds to buy the proposed site and help with construction, according to the Boston Globe.
The ballclub created a false sense of urgency when it unveiled the New Fenway model May 15. Casual fans saw the story and assumed ground had been broken for the new park.
With the opening this season of Detroit's Comerica Park (where home runs go to die), Fenway is major-league baseball's oldest ballpark. It opened April 20, 1912. Detroit's Hall of Fame broadcaster, Ernie Harwell, a veteran of seven decades of big-league ball, watched 39 seasons in Tiger Stadium and offered this message for Bostonians who hope to save the Green Monster and all that surrounds it:
"Fenway is a great place with great lore, great tradition, great history. Treasure it in your heart and soul, but don't worry about the physical part. Build a new ballpark. Start a new adventure. Keep the old alive in your heart and soul. Treasure it that way. Nobody likes the old parks more than me, but in Detroit the pain of moving has been alleviated by the fact that we have such a good new facility."
AND THE WINNER (OBVIOUSLY) IS: Cy Young Award winner Pedro Martinez was named American League's April pitcher of the month for the second year in a row. Martinez, who won four of six monthly pitching awards last year, was 5-0 with a 1.27 ERA, 50 strikeouts and 351/3 innings pitched. He allowed 22 hits and eight walks.
HALL OF FAMERS: Former outfielder Reggie Smith has been elected to the Red Sox Hall of Fame. The enshrinement ceremony will be May 18. Also going in is Dave Henderson's two-run, ninth-inning home run in Game 5 of the 1986 American League Championship Series. It helped the Red Sox (and Bill Buckner) to rally from a 3-1 deficit to win the pennant and advance to the World Series against the New York Mets.
Through 1973 Smith was a fixture in Boston's power-hitting outfield. He batted .300 in three of his eight Red Sox seasons, won a Gold Glove in 1968 after leading AL outfielders with 390 putouts and led the league in doubles twice, with 37 in 1968 and 33 in 1971.
He played in two All-Star Games for Boston (1969, '72) before being traded to St. Louis for outfielder Bernie Carbo (he of the 1975 World Series home run and spectacular catch in rightfield that preceded Carlton Fisk's classic blast) and right-handed pitcher Rick Wise. His 314 home runs in 17 seasons is third among switch-hitters, behind Mickey Mantle (536) and Eddie Murray (506).