B-Rich

So, I just got back from a vacation to Hawaii. While there, one of the things that this old sports/sports logo geek had on the list was to visit Aloha Stadium, which has been vacant and unused since January 2021. Aloha will likely be demolished, and may or may not be replaced with a new stadium on the site. The stadium has always held interest for me since I read about it in the late 1970s, and found out about its interesting way of converting from a football to a baseball configuration. Completed in 1975, the stadium was home to University of Hawaii football, was a longtime host of the NFL Pro Bowl, was home to The Hawaiians of the WFL (last 4 games of the 1975 season ), the Hawaii Islanders of the PCL (1976-1987), Team Hawaii of the NASL (1977), and a series of bowl games: the Hula Bowl, the Aloha Bowl, the Oahu Bowl, and the Hawai'i Bowl. (I like the stylized volcano at the main entrance) This logo geek of course wore a NASL "Team Hawaii" shirt for the visit. What a goofball. The daughters were with me on this trip, and found that there was a "swap meet" (basically a huge flea market) held every Saturday in the parking lot, so we went there at that time, ostensibly so they could shop for stuff as girls tend to do. I think that was serendipitous , because the site MAY have had the parking lot closed otherwise, and I was able to actually get close to (and in one area, into) the stadium itself. As I mentioned, it was a convertible multipurpose stadium. This old seating chart on a wall in the stadium shows the football layout: The end zone sections are physically separate from the sideline sections, but are linked by curved skybridges in the corners, one at the lower level and one at the upper level. On that photo above, they are white outlined in black. Here is an interior shot showing the set up: What is interesting is how the stadium would switch to a baseball configuration. The sideline seats would split at the 50 yard line and pivot outward, connecting to the end zone sections and creating two opposite "V" shapes. The baseball diamond home plate would be in the curved south end zone. Here is a mockup I did using the above photo and photoshop showing how it worked: and here is an actual aerial photo of it in that configuration in 2007: I was told by the concierge at our hotel that he had never seen it in that configuration, and that he heard the mechanical means to do so were broken. After looking at it, I can believe it-- the "gap" area where the sideline stands would move looks like it hasn't been used in years : Looking back at the photo above and this one, a question I had before and still couldn't figure out is what happens to the curved bridges when the stands were moved? I wondered if they would slide underneath the curved end zone stands, or were lowered down to ground level and placed under the stands, or if they were removed by a crane or something and placed on the ground behind the lower level (you enter the lower level stands at the top of the section). After looking at it closely, still can't figure it out for sure. Here is a shot of the other side showing an upper bridge: With no obvious hinges, tracks or anything else, I am leaning to the answer of 'removing them by crane and placing them on the ground'. Another thing you notice in looking at the stadium and the shots before and one below is the amount of BROWN in the structure. That is not a style decision to match the WFL Hawaiians jersey color, but instead is the use of a material called "weathering steel". Essentially, rather than being stainless or painted, weathering steel forms a layer of rust on the exterior that acts as a protective patina. You can see examples of its use on pieces of art, certain transportation features (bridges), infrastructure items (catch basins and manhole covers) and in some buildings. Here is an area with notable uses of weathered steel, in the circular ramps, round elevator column, and lower level superstructure: The problem is, weathering steel does not work well in certain environments-- like the salt-laden ocean air of Hawaii. It KEEPS on rusting. A similar thing happened to the Omni Arena in Atlanta, where holes rusted through in the exterior. As such, the entire stadium has been been deemed unsafe and no events have been held since the Hula Bowl in January 2021. As linked at the start of this post, after several years of planning to redevelop the site with a new stadium and surrounding development (in the parking lot area), it looks like that idea may be out, and the U of Hawaii may stay on campus with a new stadium there. If that happens, who know what will become of the Aloha Stadium site?

Watching (sorta, not really interested/ invested in either team) the NCAA championship with my daughter, discussing the venue, which led to a discussion on how, with Final Fours only going to domed stadiums, there are a limited number of (only a dozen) venues available that fit that bill: By our count: 1. Las Vegas 2. Phoenix 3. Dallas 4. San Antonio 5. Houston 6. New Orleans 7. St. Louis 8. Minneapolis 9. Indianapolis 10. Detroit 11. Atlanta 12. (in a few years) Nashville. Now, in the past there was one at Tropicana Field, a domed baseball stadium, but that won't happen again. Due to viewing angles, there were only a little over 40,000 tickets sold (About half those sold to football venues). As SoFi is a roofed, yet open-air facility, I don't see them getting one. And while Syracuse has a domed stadium, their capacity is too small and the city is not a attractive major destination. Am I missing any?

Thanks for posting the reference; I now see how it is tied in to state MLB stadium funding. So if a major league team just built their own stadium on their own dime (unlikely, of course), they could call it whatever they want.

If you know this, please provide some citation or reference of this fact for the rest of us on this board who doubt this is true.

Was waiting for this to come out so daughter and I could make final arrangements-- we already had flights to Paris and a hotel the 1st two nights. Looks like we will be taking the TGV from gay Paree down to Marseille, to see the USWNT take on Germany on the 28th. Daughter just got the tix online.

Literally had no teams of mine -- LSU, Georgia Tech (alum of each), Southern Miss ( where about half my family graduated from)-- to cheer for in the Big Dance. Daughter # 2, who just graduated from LSU in December has been accepted into the College of Charleston for graduate school and will be attending there this fall. So now I'll be pulling for the Cougars (especially since they are up against the hated Crimson Tide in the 1st round).

You sure did, not sure how I missed it. Probably looking for 'Washington' instead of 'DC'. My (old man) bad.

If we're talking heavy rail vs. light rail, Atlanta has VERY little in terms of light rail-- just the 2.7 mile downtown Atlanta Streetcar loop: The entire MARTA transit system is based on an extremely limited heavy rail "hub and spoke" model, with lots of supplemental bus lines: You also forgot to mention Washington DC, with its rather robust heavy rail-based METRO system. As of 2023, it claimed to be the second-busiest rapid transit system in the United States in average daily ridership (after the New York City Subway) : And they really don't have light rail, either; like Atlanta they only have the "DC Streetcar" a 2.2 mile line

"his was bread with a gorilla" Gorilla sandwich? Breaking bread/having a meal with a great ape?

Seriously, anyone comparing this to Pistol Pete Maravich's record and saying "it's the ALL TIME scoring record" is fooling themselves: 1. When Maravich played college ball, freshmen were NOT ALLOWED to play varsity basketball, just freshman basketball matches. His 741 points from that freshman year are not included in his total, thus Clark had one more season than Maravich had... 25% more games (+/-). 2. There was no three point shot in college basketball in Maravich's day. Former LSU coach Dale Brown charted every shot Maravich scored and concluded that, if his shots from three-point range had been counted as three points, Maravich's average would have totaled 57 points per game and 12 three-pointers per game. 3. Not as big, but the shot clock had also not yet been instituted in NCAA play during Maravich's college career. (A time limit on ball possession speeds up play, mandates an additional number of field goal attempts, eliminates stalling, and increases the number of possessions throughout the game, all resulting in higher overall scoring.

This stuff has ALWAYS made absolutely no sense, and today with the growth in areas like the Research Triangle, it makes even less. Salt Lake City's TV market includes basically all of the state, including St. George, which is 302 miles / 4.5 hours away, and where I saw Las Vegas Raiders gear for sale when I was there 4 years ago (they are MUCH closer to Vegas than SLC). Meanwhile , in New Orleans, we have nearby places an hour away, where a considerable amount of people COMMUTE from and go to New Orleans to work (Mississippi Gulf Coast, Baton Rouge, Houma-Thibodaux) but those are considered their own MSAs and TV markets. They and cities a little further away, like Lafayette, Alexandria, Hattiesburg) are also full of Saints fans and now, to some degree Pelicans fans. It's certainly not an apples-to-apples situation.

As per Wikipedia: The south-facing San Pedro Bay was originally a shallow mudflat, too soft to support a wharf. Visiting ships had two choices: stay far out at anchor and have their goods and passengers ferried to shore, or beach themselves. That sticky process is described in Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana Jr., who was a crew member on an 1834 voyage that visited San Pedro Bay. Phineas Banning greatly improved shipping when he dredged the channel to Wilmington in 1871 to a depth of 10 feet. The Southern Pacific Railroad wanted to create "Port Los Angeles" at Santa Monica, and built the Long Wharf there in 1893. However, Los Angeles Times publisher Harrison Gray Otis and U.S. Senator Stephen White pushed for federal support of the Port of Los Angeles at San Pedro Bay. The Free Harbor Fight was settled when San Pedro was endorsed in 1897 by a commission headed by Rear Admiral John C. Walker. With U.S. government support, breakwater construction began in 1899, and the area was annexed to Los Angeles in 1909. In 1912 the Southern Pacific Railroad completed its first major wharf at the port. In the early 1930s, a massive expansion of the port was undertaken with the construction of a breakwater three miles out and over two miles in length. In addition to the construction of this outer breakwater, an inner breakwater was built off Terminal Island with docks for seagoing ships and smaller docks built at Long Beach.

I thought about that as well, but I'm not buying it. If that is supposed to be a ship with sails, the proportions are ALL wrong. The hull is far too large in proportion to the sail area, and has the same dimensions as a more modern propeller driven craft. You could say that it is a matter of perspective, that you are looking at it head-on from low in the water, thus the hull looks so big in proportion to the sails. I'm not buying it. Look at these two pictures, one a print of an old clipper ship and a photo of a cruise clipper ship from head-on, very low, almost UNDER the bowsprit: The sail area will always be SO much larger than the hull size; no matter how you look at it. I like the general idea of going back to the nautical nature, but the new logo's execution is TERRIBLE, and for that I give it a fail. By the way, the three triangles on the old San Diego Clippers logo were not representative of the mainsails, but three jibs attached to the bowsprit: One other thing, although Los Angeles is on the water, Los Angles Clippers is about as appropriate as "Los Angeles LAKERS". Los Angeles has no natural harbor and was not much of a sailing or ship port of call until dredging was undertaken in the late 1800s and breakwaters and major wharf/harbor facilities were built around the turn of the 20th century, well after the age of sail.

Yes, and NO: (2009-2017)

THIS . Exactly.