February 17, 2006 [LINK]
I've been skeptical about their timetable up until now, but it looks like the Mets are really serious about building a new stadium by the Spring of 2009, just like the Yankees. It would be much smaller than Shea Stadium, with either 42,500 or 44,100 seats, depending on which source you believe. In addition, it would emulate several design features of Ebbets Field, including the overall shape, a large roof, and a rotunda. The Mets will pay for most of the $600 million cost to build the new stadium, and the Empire State Development Corporation will hold a public hearing on Feb. 27. See nydailynews.com and queenstribune.com. (via Mike Zurawski, of course). It sounds pretty good to me; I just hope the Mets have better luck with local politicians than the Nationals did in D.C.! The "life expectancy" of Shea Stadium may drop very soon...
In preparation for another Big Wave of upgrades to this Web site as Opening Day approaches, I have revamped the Baseball Introductory page and the Baseball Site Map. The main change was switching the lists of stadiums from one page to the other, for reasons that should be obvious. The list of stadiums by city on the latter page now indicates the status of each stadium page, in terms of how complete their diagrams are.
The Jarry Park page has a revised diagram (including the swimming pool!) and text, based on recent findings on what's become of the place in recent years. About ten years ago they tore down all of the grandstand except for the original curved portion behind home plate, and added new grandstands for a new tennis stadium. It's very impressive. Pat Schroeder asked me if I was going to add a tennis version diagram, but it's been so many years since the Montreal Expos (now known as the Washington Nationals!) played there, that I don't think it's worth it. That page also has a new interactive thumbnail diagram feature which I plan to add to the rest of the stadium pages, little by little.
Following up on the inquiry from Dave Tucker, Bruce Orser sent me a Google Earth image of Scottsdale Stadium, which has very tight foul territory, much like Jarry Park, and big outfield dimensions: 360 down the foul lines, and 420 to center.