B-Rich

14 hours ago, FiddySicks said:

HHV, if I may ask? 

Hilton Vacation Club The Modern actually, separated from HHV by The Ilikai. 

On 4/26/2024 at 6:11 PM, FiddySicks said:

... and staying on the 15th floor of a Waikiki hotel. I was 14 or 15. Great times, man. 

In a weird coincidence, we also stayed on the 15th floor of a Waikiki hotel on this trip
Had a great view of the ocean, and the Friday Night Fireworks:

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?

7 hours ago, Walk-Off said:

https://le.utah.gov/~2024/bills/static/HB0562.html

 

Line #1674 of the Utah law enabling state funding of an MLB park in Salt Lake City's Power District "require[s] the major league sports team [playing at said venue] to be given a name that includes [']Utah.[']"

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. 

5 hours ago, Sykotyk said:

I know that Utah now apparently has a law that Utah has to be the name and not Salt Lake. 

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.

3 hours ago, TrueYankee26 said:

 

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). 

1 hour ago, The_Admiral said:

I mentioned DC. 

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

35 minutes ago, The_Admiral said:

There are six actual transit cities in America: New York, Chicago, DC, Boston, San Francisco, Philadelphia.  A seventh, Los Angeles, has deceptively high ridership numbers but would never cross anyone's mind as a transit-oriented city. Everything else is just "we actually have a surprisingly good light rail system." That goes for Atlanta, St. Louis, Dallas, Minneapolis, Denver, Miami, Seattle, apparently now Milwaukee for some reason, and yes, Salt Lake City. 

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  

On 3/4/2024 at 2:58 AM, dont care said:

I think those shorts are too short, and looks like his was bread with a gorilla with how long his arms are

"his was bread with a gorilla"
 

Gorilla sandwich? 

Breaking bread/having a meal with a great ape?

On 3/3/2024 at 1:02 PM, TrueYankee26 said:

Caitlin Clark got the all time scoring record!

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.

22 minutes ago, BottomlessPitt said:

 

It's like that with San Jose as well. It's a separate market from San Francisco-Oakland as a MSA but is still lumped in with SF-OAK as a TV Market. Weird stuff. 

38 minutes ago, pmoehrin said:

 

I agree with most of what the Census Bureau does, but I don't know why Raleigh and Durham would be considered two separate metro areas.

They share an airport, it's less than 30 miles between the two cities, and there's no natural or state border diving the two cities. Chatman County is considered part of the Durham metro area, but it's no further to get to Durham than to get to Raleigh from there.

 

They don't separate Tacoma from Seattle on a metro level, and they're just as far apart from each other.

 

Maybe someone from the area can explain because I don't get it.

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. 

3 hours ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

Is San Pedro not a natural harbour?

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.  

On 2/28/2024 at 9:28 AM, tBBP said:

....That may in part explain why the clipper ship may be rendered as if you're looking at it head-on from a perspective point somewhat below the bow.

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.
 

14 hours ago, AstroCree said:

I just noticed, is the bottom of the ship suppose to be a basketball? The NBA still has that (honestly silly) rule about having a basketball somewhere on the logo, right? 

14 hours ago, TaylorMade said:

Yes and yes

Yes, and NO:

(2009-2017)

6 hours ago, Sec19Row53 said:

I'll take it in a different direction -- it shows the pull created by being on WGN all over the country and creating the mystique that is Wrigley Field.

THIS . Exactly.

19 minutes ago, chcarlson23 said:

What do you mean by this? The Twins literally play in one of the nicest and affluent neighborhoods in Minneapolis, at the corner of North Loop. I have no idea what you mean by urban hellscape. I mean sure, there are not great parts of Minneapolis, but geez

I think he was being sarcastic...

5 hours ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

There's also the New Orleans Superdome, which has been renovated recently.  Of a similar size is the Alamodome; both stadiums seat more than 50,000 for baseball...

4 hours ago, McCall said:

Secondly, you can't fit a near-regulation baseball field in the Superdome...

The Superdome WAS originally configured to hold both baseball and football:

It held a lot of baseball games (MLB exhibition, college, etc.-- I saw a lot of them over the years). A three game exhibition series in 1980 averaged 25,000 a game and had 45,000 the first night.  Some Tulane-LSU matchups were well-attended.

However, the recent renovations Ferd noted have precluded any further baseball being played in the Superdome.  The lower sideline sections, which were once movable to create  a square/diamond shape, have  been made permanent, with bunker clubs underneath the stands  and wider concourses at the top.

The rectangle can no longer become a square.  

On 1/23/2024 at 1:58 AM, schlim said:

It worked for Oklahoma City and the Hornets.  The NBA had no problem allowing the Supersonics to relocate there after OKC drew nearly 16000 a game for two years.

23 hours ago, gosioux76 said:

I seriously doubt the people of OKC showed up to support the Hornets to carry out some organized regional strategy to prove they were a major-league market. And they probably didn't need the experience of hosting the Hornets to show they had a good fan base.  But it sure seemed to help the cause.  

19 hours ago, The_Admiral said:

No, but the investors who subsidized the Hornets' layover, Aubrey McClendon and Clay Bennett, did.

Let's not forget that AT THAT TIME, the intent of those in OKC-- elected officials, 'business leaders' like Bennett and McClendon, and the locals/citizens, was to obtain an NBA franchise BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY. 

And they used an opportunity to not simply and graciously TEMPORARILY "host" an NBA team that was affected by probably the worst natural/man-made disaster to ever hit a major league metro area, but to try and KEEP that team for their own and make the temporary move PERMANENT.   The history of that is here on this board, as well as on their own fan boards, and can easily be found on the internet for anyone who wants to look for it.   

And when the (then) Hornets moved back to New Orleans full-time, they successfully used WHATEVER MEANS NECESSARY to acquire another team. 

On 1/17/2024 at 11:32 PM, FiddySicks said:

Ehh. As long as I’ve been here I’ve wanted to see the Sacramento A’s become a reality. But not this way. That would be a real twist of the knife for my sports soul after all the I went through with that doomed Republic MLS bid.

Seriously, I looked to see if we had a "care" hug emoji like on Facebook to put on as a response.

 
I remember following and reading your posts during that time; it was NOT good and very disheartening just to read it.  I feel for what you went through being involved with it. 

13 hours ago, JerseyJimmy said:

forces the Florida team to play a road game in Day After Tomorrow conditions.

LOVE THIS! 

Jayden Daniels becomes the first active, current winner of the Heisman Trophy to forgo/ opt out of/ decline to play in his team's bowl game.

Jayden Daniels has decided whether he will play in LSU's bowl game against Wisconsin.

Take that as you will. I myself decline to comment.

On 12/12/2023 at 8:32 PM, See Red said:

Lamar Jackson won it for a Louisville team that played  lost to LSU in the Citrus Bowl, where he led his team to no touchdowns.   

Just had to put my alumni spin on that. 

On 12/11/2023 at 8:40 PM, the admiral said:

There should be a territorial-draft rule where every team gets a Guy With The Perfect Name. Giants, Tommy DeVito. Bears, Ed Zybikowski. Vikings, Lars Gunderson. 

Saints already had Bobby Hebert, and then later (as a backup), Jake Delhomme. 

And they currently have Tyrann Mathieu, which is perfect in two types of ways of representing the city/area.