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I am not going to tell you that Crosley Field was the greatest. Or that its fans were the best. But I will tell you that person for person they were as good as those in Brooklyn and that Crosley Field was as good a place to watch baseball as Ebbets Field. By the way, isn't it easy to be a great fan when the team is winning? Ebbets in 1955 wasn't any louder than Crosley in 1961 or Forbes Field in 1960. If one doesn't recognize the significance of those years...then he or she doesn't know baseball. No kid in Brooklyn cheered any harder at Ebbets watching Duke Snider hit one out than I did seeing Frank Robinson clear the left field wall at Crosley. Brooklyn loved their Bums. We loved our Reds. Years ago when I worked at ARMCO Steel Corporation in Middletown, Ohio, one of the first things you heard out of a co-worker's mouth on a summer morning was, "How'd the Reds do last night?" Like some other things in life I regret not going to more games at Crosley Field. Remember the hassle of the traffic, the lousy parking, etc. ?? The other day at school I was messing with my computer and went to your site. I was looking at the Peter's photo of Crosley from beyond the left field wall. Chuck....I stared at that picture and the memories came roaring back. I could hear the small crowd noise for batting practice, the cars, an occasional crack of bat on ball, feel the anticipation of getting a ticket and getting inside. Of finding my seat, looking around and seeing the players from both teams, the ushers, the guys selling beer, the foul balls. In the upper deck there was a breeze and I could see someone with a water hose spraying the dirt around third base. That photo rekindled all the smells, sounds, the whole nine yards. Chuck, I haven't been all over the net. I haven't visited that many sites related to baseball. But yours must be the best. Actually.....your work is a shrine. It really is. It is a place to pay homage to the past. I enter your Crosley Field site with respect, I really do. I always enjoy coming back to it. Another thought......I think I am glad that Crosley is gone. Maybe it's like a wife. Sadly, perhaps it is better to have the woman you love die than go off with another man. My Crosley Field was manned by National Leaguers who loved the game and played that game with muscle, spirit and guts, whether they were Reds or Pirates or Phillies. They came to play and to win. They weren't the whiners I see in baseball today. I'm glad that many of today's overpaid complainers aren't playing at Crosley Field. If they could they would be griping about everything we liked about it. Crosley had it's oddballs.....witness the likes of Alex Johnson. But guys like him were anomalies and now they are more like the norm. What a great place it was to watch a ball game. But Crosley is gone with everything else from that era. It is a part of my youth, just like the Beatles, WSAI, the 50-50 Club, Uncle Al, and Paul Dixon. It has joined JFK, LBJ, IKE, Tall 12, Peter Grant, Bob Braun, Coney Island, and Steve McQueen in that personal 'never-never land' called one's youth. Way back when, that little park and the others in the NL were a part of our springs, summers, and falls. Radios were on all over the Tri-State area. The Reds were on the radio in Sohio stations that hugged US Highways in sleepy little towns in southern Ohio. The Reds were on radios in hot, upstairs apartments in dumpy little hamlets along the Ohio river in Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana. West Virginia too. Folks were sitting in front of black and white Zeniths hoping Frank would drive Vada home from second base at a game in Milwaukee's County Stadium or Pittsburgh's Forbes Field. On radio Waite was calling the game and his voice was in liquor stores, at picnics, drive-in restaurants, and cars all over our area. If you were at a drive-in movie, during the intermission, you turned on the car radio to see what the Reds were doing at Crosley, Forbes, the Polo Grounds, Wrigley, Sportsman's Park, et al. That era is gone. But not forgotten. To be remembered is to still live and Chuck......that little brick ball park still lives. If a person has imagination and heart......I would guess that on some still night, perhaps around 3AM when the traffic is at its minimum.....if you stand along Findley and Western and listen real hard, you can hear the roar of a few thousand ghosts cheering a long ago home run. Thomas Pierett 2000
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