The stunning face lift that transformed Cheney Stadium from a 50-year-old relic into a Tacoma treasure is gaining national recognition.
Ballpark Digest on Wednesday named it as the 2011 Ballpark Renovation of the Year, from nominations submitted by readers.
“In Tacoma, the Rainiers and their partners overcame opposition to the ballpark renovation and delivered a project that was on time and on budget – an incredible achievement, considering the $30 million renovation took only 210 days,” the magazine noted. “To say that the ballpark renovation saved Pacific Coast League baseball in the city is not an overstatement.”
Elaborating on the selection, Ballpark Digest publisher Kevin Reichard wrote that “Cheney Stadium was an iconic ballpark of its time, closely tied to the community. But a renovation was needed: the economics of pro baseball are much different from a decade ago, and fans expect a lot more when it comes to comfort and services. The old Cheney Stadium was unable to fulfill a lot of these expectations; the new one does so with style.”
Three weeks ago, Mortensen Construction’s work on Cheney Stadium won an award from the Design-Build Institute of America. (“Design-build” refers to the integration of design and construction services with a single point of responsibility.)
• The signature achievement in the Cheney Stadium project was preserving the charm of the original ballpark: For all the amenities, you’re still savoring the same experience a PCL ballgame offered 20 or 30, even 50 years ago. From what I can tell of the artist’s conceptions of the new Husky Stadium, Washington football fans will enjoy the same “been-there” feel of the old Husky Stadium.
My hope is that future schedules for home dates at UW aren’t cluttered with made-for-TV kickoff times set at 7:30 p.m. Montlake’s unique ambience – the sun-splashed lake and panoramic convergence of mountains and blue sky – is lost when you can’t see the lake or the mountains.
• Penn State takes the field Saturday for its home finale against Nebraska, and it will mark the first time since 1889 that a college-football coaching staff won’t include either Amos Alonzo Stagg or Joe Paterno.
Stagg began his career at Springfield (Mass.) College in 1890 before moving on to the University of Chicago (1892-1932), the University of the Pacific (1933-46) and Susquehanna University in Pennsylvania, where he served as an assistant to head coach Amos Alonzo Stagg, Jr. between 1947 and 1952.
Paterno, an assistant at Penn State from 1950 through 1965, succeeded head coach Rip Engle in 1966.
• While Albert Pujols and Prince Fielder are the headliners of baseball’s 2011-12 free-agent class, no name is more intriguing than Cuban defector Yoennis Cespedes. A right-handed hitting center fielder with speed and power, Cespedes escaped to the Dominican Republic this past summer, and has been auditioning his skills for several big-league scouts.
The 26-year old Cespedes hit .332, with 32 home runs and 99 RBI, over a 90-game schedule last year in the Cuban National Series. During the 2009 World Baseball Classic – a smaller but more pertinent sample size of his major-league potential – Cespades went 11-for-24, with two home runs.
Baseball Prospectus writer Kevin Goldstein describes Cespedes as “arguably the best all-around player to come out of Cuba in a generation.”
Another distinguished alum of the 2009 World Baseball Classic, Japanese right-handed pitcher Yu Darvish, also could be a free agent, although the process of acquiring him is more complicated. Because Darvish, 24, is under contract with the Nippon-Ham Fighters until 2014, his availability hinges on a posting system – translation: bidding war – that would have to be arranged through Ham Fighters management. (The Mariners are familiar with the drill. After the 2000 season, they posted the highest bid – $13 million – for Orix Blue Wave star Ichiro Suzuki, who then signed a three-year contract for $14 million with Seattle.)
In other words, the right to merely negotiate a deal with Darvish figures to cost something in the neighborhood of $25 million. That’s jaw-dropping, but so is his string of five consecutive Japanese League seasons with an ERA below 2.00.
• Searching for something different to write while covering an uneventful prelude to a forgotten Super Bowl – this was during the early 1990s – I stumbled upon a story angle posed in the form of a question: Why are NFL offenses so reluctant to try an option attack?
“That college stuff will never work at this level,” was a typical answer. “Defenses are too quick. Can you imagine trying to pull an option play off on somebody like Lawrence Taylor?”
Uh, yes, actually, I could imagine it. That’s why I was asking.
With a notebook full of quotes that did nothing to support my point, I put together some lame opinion piece. The stupidity of wondering about the success of an option attack in the NFL, I realized, was trumped by the stupidity of writing about it anyway.
I recalled my silly idea to surprise defenses with option plays Sunday when Denver quarterback Tim Tebow threw for 124 yards and two touchdowns, and ran for 118 yards, and created enough indecision among the Raiders that running back Willis McGahee – Tebow’s third option – was able gain 163 yards and score two other touchdowns in a 38-24 Broncos victory.
The jury remains out on Tebow, of course, and I doubt the college-style option ever will be seen as conventional in the NFL. But thank you, Tim Tebow. Thank you for stepping out of the pocket, thinking out of the box, and having the good timing to be born 28 years after Lawrence Taylor was.
• A tape of Ron Washington’s speech to the Rangers before Game 7 of the World Series began circulating around the Internet the other day. Texas general manager Jon Daniels is understandably troubled that a private talk has gone public, but it’s difficult to listen to Washington’s words – many of them profane – without wanting to grab a glove and a bat.
The excitement of playing a game destined to determine a World Series champion is palpable. So is the excitement of playing for a team managed by Ron Washington.
• In the aftermath of a week that found all of us repulsed by the most disturbing accusations of lawlessness ever printed on a sports page, I must admire the NFL’s refusal to tolerate miscreants. The league Wednesday fined Chicago Bears receiver Earl Bennett $5,000.
For wearing orange shoes.
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