Finding pictures of old Offermann Stadium, online or anyplace else for that matter, is one tough chore, as we found out when we did the research for our feature article in Artvoice back in August.Frank Offermann III has extended us an invitation to visit with him and see all his stuff, and we are hoping that once we get the time to pay that visit we can get some cool photos of the old yard to scan and post right here and/or on the USRT site.I got the picture above from Jim Hornung, former head groundskeeper at Dunn Tire Park and now Erie County Parks Commissioner. When I saw this photo hanging in his office, I asked if I could scan it and he said fine.So here it is… East Ferry St runs directly behind third base and Michigan St runs behind first base. The buildings directly behind first base were actually part of the stadium property and served as administrative and ticket offices. Behind the center field scoreboard is the corner of Masten Ave and Woodlawn Ave.Enjoy!

Mike Simoncelli is a college student majoring in sports management at Medaille College and has been working for the Buffalo Sabres as a part of the media crew in the pressbox. We ran into Mike during the summer and he told us he was traveling to Indy with the Bills equipment staff for their preseason game, so we asked him if he would take a few shots and give us a report. Here is Mike’s submission for our readers, along with our appreciation…

Lucas Oil Stadium Fulfills The Hype

As the Buffalo Bills team flight descended towards the Indianapolis airport the afternoon before their third preseason game, I looked out my window and spotted the structure everyone had been buzzing about. That structure was Lucas Oil Stadium, and the first word that came to my mind was simply “wow.”

With no objection from me, we went directly from the airport to the stadium to unload all of the equipment, so I did not have to wait long to get an up close look at just how majestic this stadium was. My anticipation was not disappointed. The first thing I noticed was the shape of the stadium was different from most other stadiums I have seen, in that it was more rectangular than round, making it look more like a factory than a stadium. I was also astounded by the fact that nearly the entire exterior was brick, which made even more obvious the amount of time that went into putting this building together.

The inside of the stadium was breath taking as well. There are six levels of seats on the sidelines, two of which are for suites. In each of the end zones there are large windows, and on what I believe is the west side of the stadium, the windows open up whenever the retractable roof is open. Those windows may cause problems for receivers during day games however, because the ball gets lost in the glare on mid-level and high throws.

When the game started the crowd sounded as if they were cheering during a regular season game. This was not surprising to me based on what I found while walking through the city prior to the game, as everyone was decked out in their Colts gear, even the night before the game.

I was pleasantly surprised by the city overall as there appears to be a lot to do downtown as far as restaurants and bars go, and there is even a large mall only minutes away from the stadium. This city is definitely worth taking a road trip to for a game as you’ve got a beautiful venue to watch it in, and an upbeat town to spend your downtime in.

-Mike Simoncelli

Why, you might ask?

For doing what we have done at ballparks and stadia dozens of times in our travels — refusing to acknowledge or pay homage to The Dead Fat Woman’s Song, the anthem of George Bush’s putrid war and his Red State/Blue State culture wars.

The story here revolves around one Bradford Campeau-Laurion, a fan who attempted to head to the can during the 7th inning propagandafest at Yankee Stadium. The police stopped him and ordered him not to move until the song had concluded.

“I then said to him, ‘I don’t care about God Bless America. I just need to use the bathroom.’ As soon as I said that, he immediately pinned my arm behind my back,” Campeau-Laurion told CBS 2.

Natch, the cops have a different version of the event. He was drunk, rude, obnoxious! Or so they say.

This is what is most chilling:

Campeau-Laurion says he didn’t know the Yankees had a rule restricting movement in the stands during the playing of God Bless America. The rule is enforced by ushers, stadium security and the NYPD.

A rule? A RULE?

This is absolutely appalling - forcing political correctness for this asswipe song.

Let it be known that I love this country. I stand proudly and sing our national anthem at sporting events. But I will not, repeat, WILL NOT pay homage to that idiotic song. No way. No how. And no, Mr. NYPD Guy, I have no intention of leaving this country either.

-Andrew Kulyk

In what has become an annual end of baseball season tradition, we are pleased to  announce our awards for the worst Bisons hitter and worst Bisons pitcher for the season.

Each year we team up with superfan Christopher Mach to make the designation, named for former AL Rookie of the Year Pat Listach, whose career unceremoniously ended here in Buffalo in 1998. Jimmy Hamilton was a sad sack of a pitching prospect whose infamy involved blowing up in the 1997 AAA World Series in Las Vegas. 

This year we low keyed the whole selection process, not wanting to rub salt in the wounds of what has been such a disappointing season in Bisonsland. Read all about it in this week’s Play Ball in Artvoice.   

Sorry. This is about the longest drought in posts since we launched USRT here at Western New York Media 18 months ago. But things have been very crazy in my life of late, leaving little time except to compartmentalize a daily “to do” list of things I am in involved in. 

•  To begin with, I own a pest control company, and August is typically my busiest time of year. Except this year. Monsoon season has put a crimp in business, but things have picked up of late and I am on the fly daily.
• I’m up to my eyeballs in Democratic politics this summer season, helping out where I can in races outside of Cheektowaga. And in my home town, we’ve got an all around scrum going for committee seats, of all things, and I am fighting not only to keep my seat, but protect my friends and supporters. It is a time and labor intensive project, which hopefully will yield positive results on Primary Day.
• Speaking of committee races, things have gotten so slimy - court cases and lawsuits over frikkin’ races. Idiots getting up at our last committee meeting and making wild charges of corruption. These macadamias are having a party next Tuesday, calling themselves “The Real Democrats of Cheektowaga”. Sadly, I have lost lifelong friendships over this nonsense. 
• While I’m embroiled in Cheektowaga stuff,  my friend and colleague Matt Pearl is out in Denver covering the convention.Count me as envious! 
• I am working as a part time staffer for the Democratic Majority at the Erie County Legislature. It is an awesome gig and one I enjoy greatly. This past week we revived an old tradition of an annual staff picnic and I was put in charge of putting it all together. It was a lot of work and stress, but the event was a huge success, we had over 80 people show up, including County Executive Chris Collins and his posse. My boss, Chairman Lynn Marinelli, was beaming from ear to ear. When she’s happy, I’m happy.
• Pete and I did a bit of USRT schedule tweaking. It is so hard to plan college football outings, because teams don’t announce start times in many cases until a couple weeks before the game. But we cobbled together an awesome doubleheader on Saturday, September 13. Two great SEC venues - Neyland Stadium and the Tennessee Volunteers in Knoxville at 12:30PM, then onto Commonwealth Stadium in Lexington and the Kentucky Wildcats for the 7PM nightcap.
• We got lots of props on our story on Offermann Stadium (see post below), including a nice email from Bisons GM Mike Buczkowski. Former groundskeeper and now Erie County Parks Commissioner Jim Hornung was all over me at the picnic saying how much he liked the piece. And oh yeah, we got a call from Frank Offermann III thanking us for the article and inviting us to visit with him to see his photos and memorabilia. We’re going to be all over that one as soon as things settle down and we get the time.
• The Bisons close out their season this week, and (drumroll please) we roll out our annual clunker Pat Listach Award and Jimmy Hamilton Award in this week’s Artvoice. we know you will be making a special trip to your local laundromat or Jim’s Steakout to get your copy early.
• Pete’s a Bills season ticket holder now, and we picked out the games we’re going to - Oakland in September and the NY Jets in early November. Oh yeah, we’re also doing the Bills in Toronto.
• Speaking of Bills in Toronto, we did a quick roadie to Rogers Centre this past Sunday (thanks for the tickets Matty K!). They actually have a special “Bills in Toronto” team store in the area on the track side near the hotel.
• I am totally bummed that Mark Byrnes is bummed about Buffalo’s future. All Things Buffalo is one of the cool sites here at WNY Media. And Mark is one of the coolest guys around. If we show him some love maybe we can get him back on track!

For the record, Pete has been working record overtime of late, so his schedule has been strained as well.

Hockey season is almost upon us, and we’ll again be doing Puck Stop for Artvoice, as well as game reporting on their web site and some stuff here at WNY Media. That’s about it for now in the Life O’ Kulyk. We’ll be ramping up USRT again real soon! 

The first 4000 fans walking through the gates at Dunn Tire Park next Wednesday at the Bisons game will receive one special souvenir - a replica statue of old Offermann Stadium, the neighborhood ballpark which served as the home of the Buffalo Bisons from 1924-1960.

This is the third in the series of Bisons’ stadium replicas - they did Dunn Tire Park in 2006, and The Old Rockpile last year. Both replicas were very well received by the fans and this years replica should be an especially coveted item.

So for this week in Artvoice, we did more than just the usual Play Ball. We actually compiled a feature story called “Memories of Offermann Stadium”, a retrospective on some of the great moments and history of that storied venue.

We want to thank associate editor Buck Quigley (who spelled our vacationing editor Geoff Kelly this past week and put up with our endless phone calls) and photographer Rose Mattrey for helping us out with the article.

We’ve been covering the Bisons since 2001, at first for the really awful and unwatchable Sportsblast TV, and since 2004 writing Play Ball for Artvoice. This piece represents our most comprehensive work on the Bisons and one we put a lot of effort into. We hope you enjoy the article!

Kind of lost in shuffle after returning from last week’s trip to New York City and across New England were the completion of two Ultimate Sports Road Trip milestones - we can now claim bragging rights to having visited EVERY ballpark and stadium in the AA Eastern League and the short-A New York Penn League in their current and active venues.

We sort of did a mini celebration and a high five at LeLacheur Park in Lowell last Saturday, as well as Merchantsauto.com Stadium in Manchester later that night. No, it didn’t have the drama and emotion of the official USRT finish line in Detroit back in 2002, but still satisfying nonetheless.

So now we have prepared both those league’s pages on the USRT site. Want to do a rapid fire tour through both leagues, with thumbnailed photos and descriptions of each venue? Then click on for the New York-Penn League as well as the Eastern League and follow us along!

We’ll be kind and refrain from any Professor Dickweed references.

Today’s journey takes us up to see the Blue Jays play the Cleveland Indians in the final game of the three game set. Mike Harrington and David Briggs from the Buffnews are up here as well covering the games, and Mike already pointed out one of his famed useless stats when he indicated the the Tribe is playing their 9th game in a row in an indoor venue (three at Minn, three at TB and now here). But for the record, the roof was open here on Friday night. Unfortunately it’s closed today, which is a shame because it is a crisp almost fall like day outside and an outdoor game would have been nice.

The “Bills in Toronto” thingy is fast coming upon us, and a large banner draped across an overpass when heading into the city just portends the excitement that is to come. Not for this week’s preseason game, which has all the makings of a flop at the turnstiles, but the December conntest, the first regular season NFL game on Canadian soil, promises to be a big deal.

Cliff Lee is on the mound for Cleveland today, and with a 15-2 record is the big spark plug on the team in what has otherwise been a disappointing season. Earlier this week we were checking out the rotation and was hoping Toronto would have Roy Halladay pitching for the Jays, but that alignment of the planets did not happen.

Uh oh… we had a big credentials snafu on the way in today. Our editor Geoff Kelly never faxed in our attendance, and to make a long story short, Pete’s credential was nowhere to be found. Jay Stenhouse, the head PR honcho here came down and was very nice and wrote Pete up, but had no clue who were were, even though we’ve covered a Jays game or two for each of the past five seasons. As for the “uh-oh” we’ve got a big thick black line on the cred covering the word “clubhouse”… looks like our postgame will be yet another media adventure. *Sigh* We weeklies get NO respect!

“Portland Ready To Welcome The Sabres”

This week’s Play Ball Puck Stop comes from Portland, Maine, where we hit their streets looking to find all the buzz about the Sabres.

Check it out!

I’ve had it with the lovefest.

How many freaking times have I had to hear “this is the last time (insert event here) will be played at Yankee Stadium” and “What an historic and wonderful stadium this is”. Enough! Quite frankly I could give two bits about The House That the Overwieght Philandering Former Brooklyn Dodger Coach Built.

If you’re here to read another glowing review of Yankee Stadium, move on. This one definitely isn’t for you.

It’s for the rest of us out there, those who can’t stand the Yankees with a passion, for those who believe that being named Murderer’s Row and the Evil Empire really aren’t good things to be referred to as. And I have a few random thoughts about the passing of this incredibly overrated venue and the unbelievably overhyped club that plays in in it. Basically some of the moments and stories that I’ll remember most from Bronx.

Yankee Stadium….ahhh yes. Where Casey Stengel managed the Yanks to seven World Series titles and ten pennants in twelve seasons. Then he was told to not let the door hit him on the way out.

And you thought the Mets were classless after firing Willie Randolph.

Where Roger Maris was despised in many corners of the Yankees organization for having the gall to make a run at the Babe’s hallowed single season home run record. Heck, even Barry Bonds was revered in San Francisco while doing the same.

A place so enamored by fans in the sixties that the woeful crosstown Mets outdrew them at the box office as the Yanks won pennants.

Where the Yankees had the nerve to have a player called out on a result of too much pine tar on the bat(common sense prevailed)……where slapping a ball out the hand of a fielder as they run to first is acceptable practice.

Where CBS ran a clinic in “how to run an iconic franchise into the ground”. Are they willing to buy in again? Just wonderin’.

Where a team can have a nine digit payroll yet cut dental benefits for the grunts in the office that take the 4 train to get to work in the Bronx.

Where Howie Spira became a national figure resulting in George Steinbrenner being banned from baseball for life….oh, nevermind.

Ditto for Brian McNamee. Still fresh news so I won’t go there.

Where Jason Giambi “apologized”.

Where the Yanks’ dynasty of the nineties was sparked by the most egregious blown call of the post Denkinger era. Thank you Jeff Maier, who in typical arrogant and pompous Yankeefan manner was paraded around like some conquering hero in the following days.

Where the Yankees’ wild spending on players threw the salary structure of baseball out of whack and stifled the competitive balance of the game .

St. Louis had Jack Buck, the Dodgers have Vin Scully, and the Yankees have this.

Where managerial stability reached an all time low, just ask the seventeen managers in seventeen years. Better yet, just look up Billy Martin.

I can just hear it now….” oh but, but, this is where Ruth and Gehrig played!!!”

Yes, they also performed at Dunn Field in Elmira. Take a ride if there if seeing a field where they played ball is that important to you.

“What about all those championships!!!”…money was a big help, don’t you think?

I have to admit, I felt no chills, no feelings of awe, no sense aura or mystique on Sunday as I wandered through the sterile and cramped walkways of Yankee Stadium while meandering through the hordes of fans wearing their crisp, brand new caps and their jerseys with players’ names on the back(a clear sign of a fan on the wagon) as they spent the day cheering on the easiest team in sports to root for.

It was nothing like all the other times I’ve wandered through a ballpark in its final days. There was no twinge of sadness, no feeling of relief that I was able to come here one last time and drink it all in and enjoy the experience. Simply a feeling of “good riddance, I’m outta here” was sufficient on this day.

For me, it’s always been about dollar signs and how the Yankees have always had far more of that than anyone else in the sport and how(surprise, surprise) they’ve been able to use that wide gap in revenue to produce more on field success than any other club in the game.

The sad thing is, the new joint will help the Yankees in that regard even more as you can bet prices for everything from scorecard pencils to luxury suites will set a new standard for revenue generation in baseball. Just like Sunday, next year we’ll go, we’ll cross it off the list and gleefully head off to Citifield to complete the New York doubleheader.

-Peter Farrell

Taking photos of the new Yankee Stadium is a bit challenging in terms of finding good vantage points. We did the best we could. Here are some pics to whet your whistle.

Sunday afternoon, and it was time for the marquee event of this journey – one final USRT visit to the hallowed grounds of Yankee Stadium.

With stadium traffic, construction of the new ballpark and everything else going on, we decided to park the car in one of the neighborhoods north of the stadium on the #4 line, and then simply rode the train into the ballpark. We craned our necks in anticipation, and all of sudden, there it was! The cranes, the construction and the gleaming new Yankee Stadium, rising next door to the venerable old place. It is still one great sight to see.

The streets were bustling with fans on a beautiful warm Sunday afternoon, and really, the neighborhood surrounding Yankee Stadium is really pretty cool. Tucked underneath the elevated train platform are a ton of small merchandise shops, restaurants, taverns and bodegas catering to the baseball fan. The smells in the air and the cacophony of noises is great to just soak in.

We walked around the new ballpark and took pictures and then made our way in for one final time. One final game.

And what a game it was! The West Division leading LA Angels were in town for what could be a playoff preview, and the packed house was disappointed early as the Angels took a quick 5-0 lead and were seemingly in cruise control. But the Yankees chipped away and tied the game at 5, then took an 8-5 lead in the 7th and the place was absolutely going nuts.

Then the crowd got deflated as the Angels Mark Texeira hit a grand slam home run to give his team a 9-8 lead. But the Yankees would storm back in the bottom of the 8th, plating 6 runs to eventually win the game 14-9. Amazing!

We hung out with our friends Gary Herman and Mike “The King” Casiano. These guys are big Mets fans and definitely not Yankees supporters, so their Shea Stadium antics are much more muted and sedate here at The Stadium. These guys have also been doing a lot of road trip planning now that the NHL schedule is out, and like us they await the NBA schedule which should be out in a couple of days. They’ve got a visit to Buffalo the first weekend in November for the Bills/Jets game at The Ralph on their radar, so we will look forward to welcoming them if that comes off.

It was a long game, and we took one long final look at Yankee Stadium before heading back to the subway station. By the time we got back to the car it was 5:20PM and the ride home to B-lo awaited.

Five ballparks in four days in five different states. This summer road trip was yet another awesome one!

We’ve posed this question before, and we will pose it again… What is it about sporting events that seems to attract these douchebags? We caught this piece of shit hanging outside of Yankee Stadium this afternoon.

Take a look at this loser… shouldn’t he be doing something more productive with his time? Like blowing up an OBGYN clinic or beating the crap out of some guy outside a gay nightclub. That’s what people of this ilk seems to know how to do best, isn’t it?

The exterior “back” of the stadium

Part of the Ted Williams Museum

Brightly lit and wide concourse

The seating bowl

We raced, really raced, up Hwy 3 (listening to the Bisons game on a crystal clear KB 1520 signal from Buffalo the whole time) and arrived at Merchantsauto.com Stadium in the 5th inning. Of course, that game was sailing right along, when lots of base runners, pitching changes and a tied score would have suited us much better.

Merchantsauto.com opened just three years ago, and when we last visited Manchester (back in 2005 for the AHL All Star Game at Verizon Wireless Arena) this was just a big hole in the ground. Sandwiched in between I-293 and the downtown core, there is but one way in and one way out of the place and onto Granite Street.But the signature of the venue isn’t even a part of the stadium itself; a six story Hilton Garden Inn dominates the outfield, and the rooms there surely have a great view of the action. The pool area and patio was pretty crowded with fans watching the game on the field, but even though the hotel property literally abuts the outfield wall, they have nothing to do with the fisher Cats. “we really don’t have a good relationship with them” explained Media Assistant Tim Hough.

Part of the stadium includes the just opened the spacious Samuel Adams Bar and Grill out in left field. Plenty of HD televisions, a long mahogany bar, table and bar seating and a great view of the action. This is the hangout at the stadium, but actually, with the monster wide concourses, lots of concession stands, a small but nicely done Ted Williams Museum behind home plate, this is a pretty comfortable place to enjoy a game with plenty to see and do.

We saw no scoring in this one - it was 2-1 Manchester when we arrived, an even though Connecticut mounted a threat in the 7th and 8th, they could not push the tying run across. The game ended, and in the same night we celebrated yet another USRT accomplishment - all 12 Eastern League venues DONE!

This trip has blown by so fast, and one more adventure awaits - tomorrow we get up early and drive down to the Bronx for our farewell visit to old Yankee Stadium. We plan to park up at the northern end of the 4 line and take the train to the stadium.

Check out the outfield at the home of the New Hampshire Fisher Cats