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For some perspective let's consider the arenas used fifty years ago in both the National Football League (NFL) and in some cases also by the American and National Leagues. Here are the NFL cities in 1963 and where they played their home games.
Baltimore: Memorial Stadium; Colts and Orioles
Chicago: Wrigley Field; Bears and Cubs; NFL championship game played here in December (Bears beat Giants)
Cleveland: Cleveland Municipal Stadium: Browns and Indians
Dallas: Cotton Bowl; Cowboys; no baseball team yet; Senators moved to Dallas in 1972 and became the Texas Rangers
Detroit: Tiger Stadium; Lions and Tigers
Green Bay: New City Stadium; Packers
Green Bay: Milwaukee County Stadium; Packers and Braves
Green Bay: Milwaukee County Stadium; Packers and Braves
Los Angeles: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum; Rams; Dodgers played there 1958-1961
Minnesota: Metropolitan Stadium; Vikings and Twins
Philadelphia: Franklin Field: Eagles
Pittsburgh: Pitt Stadium; Steelers
San Francisco: Kezar Stadium; 49ers, who later played in Candlestick Park same as the Giants
St. Louis: Busch Stadium (Sportsman's Park); football Cardinals and Cardinals
Washington: District of Columbia Stadium; Redskins and Senators
In 1963 12 of the 14 NFL cities also had a baseball team, plus the Packers played some home games in Milwaukee. Eight of the 12 shared the same arena. Except for Washington, the remaining NFL arenas would not generally be characterized with the common baseball traditionalist pejorative "cookie-cutter".
So what's the point? The point is that for the NFL games the playing areas were uniform. They were just jammed into spaces that were often not suited for football. Wrigley Field had a brick wall right behind one end zone.
Baseball uses the arena as part of it's playing area. How quaint. Our baseball brains have been pummeled since early childhood, in many cases before we have reached the age of reason, to think that this is necessary, logical, fair, charming, etc. In other words all the things that we would otherwise reject but for that brainwashing.
So I put another uncomfortable question to traditionalists. If you had to choose between these two alternatives, which would you choose?
1. Uniform playing areas with different buildings.
2. Non-uniform playing areas with the same buildings.
I've been wondering if the entire issue isn't simply about architecture. We can make the buildings look very different but have the same playing dimensions with the same wall heights. While this does not directly impact having those distances the same in all directions it takes us a lot closer to a rational understanding of why baseball fans insist on defending something that is inherently unfair and at odds with their fundamental beliefs.
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