Comments on: Take Me Out to Olympic Stadium

By: Take Me Out to SkyDome « Faith and Fear in Flushing

Take Me Out to SkyDome « Faith and Fear in Flushing — Fri, 21 May 2010 18:37:00 +0000

[...] thirty minutes! Olympic Stadium supposedly had something similar, but it never seemed to work. Olympic Stadium was yesterday from the get-go. SkyDome was tomorrow, even if tomorrow didn’t last terribly [...]

By: Take Me Out to RFK Stadium « Faith and Fear in Flushing

Take Me Out to RFK Stadium « Faith and Fear in Flushing — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 23:38:34 +0000

[...] currency exchange, it wasn’t necessarily better than the facility it unwittingly succeeded, ol’ No. 34 on the countdown, Olympic Stadium. But the curve is in effect here for a good reason: RFK was taking a long nap when [...]

By: DAK442

DAK442 — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 21:31:06 +0000

Sometimes in winter we’d play baseball in the gym in 6th grade. I had deja vu in Olympic Stadium.

By: CharlieH

CharlieH — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 18:13:19 +0000

3 friends and I went to the World’s Fair (of course, called “Expo”) in Vancouver in 1986.

The first night there, two of us sat in the hotel bar. I ordered up 2 Labatt’s Blues, laid a US $20 on the bar and got $21 plus change Canadian in return.

In my best Yakov Smirnov, I said “I LOVE this country! They’re paying me to drink!”

By: King Ed Ra

King Ed Ra — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 16:41:18 +0000

That roof ruined what little goofy charm Olympic Stadium had! I had attended a game there back in the early to mid eighties on a family vacation (Phillies were in town, IIRC) and felt like I was at a baseball game in the year 2510. Imagine if Space Mountain in Disneyworld was an open air stadium, and you’d have an idea what pre-dome Olympic looked like.

By: Will in Central NJ

Will in Central NJ — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 16:11:43 +0000

For some reason, the Expos had always been my second favorite team (distant 2nd to the Mets). Something about the modernism of their logo, the Courier font of their team name, and the bilingual internationalism appealed to me in my preteen early 1970s youth. There is also a long list of players who’ve worn both Mets and Expos unis. Anyway, it’s a gorgeous city, especially the Vieux (Old) Montreal section, which is a close approximation of Paris. I regret, in some ways, not having Montreal as a destination for seeing Mets baseball anymore. Haven’t been there yet, but I’ll bet Nationals Ballpark in the Anacostia section of DC just ain’t quite the same.

By: Fman99

Fman99 — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 02:46:06 +0000

Nice read(s) Greg.

Having lived in Watertown for four years I attended 3-4 games at the big O, including a Mets/Expos tilt where the Mets won handily.

But this was post-1994 and the Canadian fans had deserted the team by then. Maybe there was 15k fans there and half were up from NYC to root for the Mets. And the other games, maybe 5-7k people.

The running joke was that there were foul balls on the ground in the upper deck, from weeks earlier, unclaimed because no one ever went up there.

By: Dave Murray

Dave Murray — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 00:22:55 +0000

Great story and a wonderful baseball adventure!

I felt a certain kinship with Les Expos since they had spring training in West Palm Beach near my folks. We’d go to see games, and were surprised that everything was announced in English and French.

This tended to rankle the Floridians, at least the ones I attended games with, who noted that French was not only not a second language in Florida, but might not even crack the top 10.

The Expos had a minor league team there, too, the West Palm Beach Expos with a mascot that was a guy — I think — in a monkey suit named Willie P. Bananas. Bad name, even if it did use the city initials.

Back when we lived in Flint, the Canadian border was just an hour away. In the first years we lived there, people would visit and we’d say, “Wanna go to another country?” and we’d either cross the bridge in Port Huron or use the tunnel in Detroit, get something to eat, walk around a little then cross back.

Only got stopped at the border once, when the guard didn’t believe that we didn’t buy anything. He made me pop the trunk and found a bag, holding it up like he just discovered serious contraband.

“What’s THIS?” he said, waving it at me.

“A little snow globe. I assumed you meant did we buy any big, expensive things.”

“Back in the car!” he said, and off we went over the bridge.

Crossing is more of a hassle these days, so we haven’t done it since 2003.

Good times! And a great story, Greg. You should write a book or something. Oh, wait.