Tuesday, June 22, 2010

DIAMOND VISIONS: A visual history of the baseball scoreboard. Oh, the Astrodome...

6 comments:

  1. Joseph J. Finn10:21 AM

    Ah, Comiskey.  Best scoreboard ever. (Though I'll admit a soft spot for the Wrigley and Fenway scoreboards, much as I like a video screen as the next guy for replays.)

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  2. That Astrodome YouTube isn't complete, and doesn't capture the "movement" across the scoreboard that's a big part of the show--you can get a little bit of it from the picture on the Mental Floss page.  It's really spectacularly cheesy.  And of course, Houston is in the midst of pitched debates as to what to do with the 'Dome.  No one wants to spend any money to rehab it, it's not terribly useful for sporting events, and no one wants to destroy it.  (There are some very loud commenters on the Houston Chronicle website who say the right answer is to legalize gambling and turn it into a casino, but the likelihood of that happening seems to me close to nil.)

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  3. Adam C.10:59 AM

    I take it from what's included at the link that the emphasis is purely on scoreboards and not ancillary displays, thus disqualifying the Vet's Philadelphia Phil and Phyllis and the Dancing Waters/Prancing Fluids?  Or Milwaukee County Stadium's Bernie Brewer's beer slide, for that matter?

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  4. Marsha3:26 PM

    Yeah, other display stuff seems not to be within the scope, or the sliding Brewer would have to be there, and the Shea apple (to represent the worst end of the spectrum).

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  5. Marsha3:35 PM

    I feel about scoreboards the same way as I do about ballparks: for me to love it, you need one of three things. (1) old-fashioned or genuinely old charm (Wrigley and Fenway and their scoreboards, Camden Yards); high-tech stuff that gives you value added as a fan of the game (tons of useful info on large complex scoreboards like at Comiskey, great baseball memorabilia around the park and big wide concourses for exploring it all at new Tiger stadium); or (3) a massively awesome cheese factor (Astrodome, Bennie the Brewer and the sausage races in Milwaukee, and many minor league parks, with a special shoutout to the Clinton (IA) LumberKings and the Lansing Lugnuts).

    I love the scoreboard at Wrigley with a passion, but I do wish it were big enough to show scores of all the games at once. And I appreciate the (relative) lack of advertising so much that I don't even complain that they sometimes don't show the pitch speed or pitch count in favor of showing an ad in that space. It's a price I'm willing to pay.

    When are we going to have a post celebrating the near-dead art of baseball stadium organists? Nancy Faust, you're my hero! 2010 is her last season at Comiskey, and I'm sure we'll never see her kind again.

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  6. Joseph J. Finn3:42 PM

    Especially, Marsha, since Wrigley just switched over to recorded at-bat songs.  Ugh.

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