Blog post

March 27, 2009 [LINK / comment]

Rogers Centre (Skydome) update

After long hours of headscratching and mouse-clicking, the Rogers Centre diagrams have been revised considerably. I had previously thought that the home of the Toronto Blue Jays is oval, but after poring over many photographs, I have concluded that it is actually circular. In contrast, the front edge of the grandstand is oval shaped, or actually a rounded rectangle. I also revised the diagram profile, as usual, but I only put the lights on one of the diagrams because they are directly above the upper deck seating area, and it looks rather messy. I may change my mind on that later. At the suggestion of Matt Ereth, I included an American football version in addition to the Canadian football version. The Buffalo Bills play there on occasion, and a college bowl was played there this past winter. That completes the set of all seven stadiums that were used in the 2009 World Baseball Classic.

New Superdome page

While I was at it, I added a new page for the Superdome, the diagram for which I first released on Feb. 24. This should make Brian Hughes happy! The text on that "under construction" page is only sketchy, however. It does, however, include an intriguing photographic montage that I created from individual photos that were kindly submitted to me by Joe Johnston.

The mail bag

Greg Spira has been tracking down the correct, authoritative backstop distances for many current baseball stadiums, and I was pleased to learn that most of them correspond closely to my estimates. (Phil Lowry's Green Cathedrals does not have complete set of data in that regard, so I sometimes have to "eyeball" it.) Many thanks for sharing that information, Greg!

Bruce Orser got some chuckles out of this thread about funny baseball player names on baseball-fever.com. Some of those embarrassingly unfortunate names remind me of the Johnny Cash song "A Boy Named Sue."