I
happened to see in the paper today that Municipal Stadium in Cleveland opened
on this date 84 years ago. In a way, you
can date the advent of the luxury-box mentality in baseball to July 31, 1932.
By
that I mean the stadium was publicly funded, a bad precedent that’s come close
to ruining baseball. Fans pay for the facility,
pay to see a team play, and owners cry poverty on their way to the bank. The one saving grace to Municipal Stadium is
that it was geared to the masses, with an opening-day capacity of 78,000. In other words, the Indians wanted to draw
fans in the same way the Yankees did.
When Yankee Stadium opened in 1923, it had a seating capacity of
58,000. The early success of Municipal
Stadium led the team to increase that figure to just over 71,000 in 1937. Those were the days.
Now,
teams are comfortable operating facilities that can seat 40,000 give or take a
few thousand. And, as I noted recently,
the Cubs have announced plans for an exclusive club in Wrigley Field that
doesn’t allow for viewing the game from your seat, unless you’re watching a
television screen. This is the wave of
the future.
Thank you, Cleveland.
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