Dreams and Shea and Stuff

I had a dream last night that I bought a new pack of Topps baseball cards. There were ten cards in the pack, but not a single one of them was a regular player card. There were MVP cards, cards with two players on them, and a card of Anthony Bourdain. The cards themselves were made of thick cardboard, thick like the cards in that game Memory, and the cards had very green borders the color of the We Play Green logo.

I was really disappointed with the pack but then a tornado came and I had to worry about taking cover and forgot about the cards. Fortunately for me, the tornado didn't hit our house, but then I thought about how it hit the neighbors house and felt guilty for hoping it would skip us and hit someone else.

Anyway, I read this article about the last piece of Shea being torn down, and it made me really sad. I remember watching the demolition of Riverfront with a tear in my eye. Even though Shea was a dump, it was home for so many New Yorkers. Mets fans, I feel your pain.

This quote is really sad:

“It’s one last chance to say goodbye and let my son witness history,” McDonnell said. “Maybe someday he’ll bring his son to watch Citi Field being torn down.”

Why? Why do we tear down our stadiums? A couple of seasons ago I took an Austrian friend of mine to a Nationals game at RFK. He couldn't believe it was going to sit empty (at that time, we thought United was going to build a new stadium) or that it might be torn down. You go to Europe, you see stuff that's been around for hundreds of years. In America, we rip it down.

These aren't just buildings. These are parts of us, parts of our history, our heritage, our society. And we just tear them apart.