3 Chords & the Truth: A home run of a show

In the frozen north, you have Hockey Night in Canada.

Here on the somewhat-less-frozen Plains, we have Baseball Month in Omaha.

In honor of the advent of yet another College World Series -- this one at the brand-new TD Ameritrade Park, we'll be highlighting . . .

BAH! BAAAH! BAAAAAAAAH!

. . . on this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth.

IN FACT, we'll start out the whole ballgame with . . .

SO GOOD!

SO GOOD!

SO GOOD!

. . . which I think you will find to be a real treat this time around on the Big Show.

And those hipsters down there about three rows -- the ones who are obviously here to be seen being here, even though baseball is usually so uncool -- would enjoy this week's 3 Chords & the Truth excursion into . . .

BAH! BAAAH! BAAAAAAAAH!

It's really going to be cool, even if it was put together by a balding guy well old enough to be their father. Especially when . . .

SO GOOD!

SO GOOD!

SO GOOD!

Aw, screw it. Ima watch the game now.

IT'S 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there . . .

BAH! BAAAH! BAAAAAAAAH!

Aloha.

Do not pass 'Go'. . . .

Breaking news from the world of major-league baseball: Los Angeles police arrested Seattle Mariners outfielder Milton Bradley today on criminal-threat counts.

Officers reported that the troubled Mariner did not pass "Go" and went directly to jail. Bradley apparently did not have a "Get Out of Jail Free" card on his person, and thus was released on $50,000 bail.

Film at 11.

A vortex of suck in Sarpy County

The Omaha Royals -- which, by the way, are no longer actually in Omaha -- are changing the minor-league team's name to the Omaha Storm Chasers?

Really?

YEAH, really, says the Omaha World-Herald:

Alan Stein, president of the Omaha Royals, unveiled the club's new name Monday night at the Embassy Suites Convention Center. The switch was made as Omaha's Triple-A baseball team makes the move to Werner Park in Sarpy County next spring.

Since 1969, the team has been named the Royals, the team's major-league affiliate, for all but three years, when it was named the Golden Spikes (1999-2001).

Martie Cordaro, general manager of the Storm Chasers, said the process of changing the name began in May 2009. The club hired Plan B Branding, a branding and logo company from Las Vegas, to research the Omaha area and hold focus groups on whether a name change should be made. The Royals polled the public on its website for name suggestions and then had the public vote on the top three choices.

Cordaro said the fans named the team, while Stein and the staff approved it.

"I'm very pleased," Stein said. "It's an extremely perfect name for Omaha. It will be a lot of fun. What I like about it is being able to get into the area schools and talk about science and weather safety with kids."

I DON'T KNOW about you, but the first thing I think about when it comes to Triple-A baseball is creating opportunities to tell kids about weather safety.

What's to tell about weather safety? "Hey, kids! When the siren goes off, run to the basement. And don't drive Mommy and Daddy's car into swiftly moving water during a flash flood!"

For God's sake.

Why not use the team's new identity to do some real "safety education"? Why not the Omaha Crack Hos? Or maybe -- and this one is a real hummer -- the Sarpy Syphilis.

No, really. I think the Sarpy Syphilis has a certain ring to it -- on so many levels, it just works, don't you think?

Call the new mascot Clappy (and, if you think about it, the same mascot could work for either the Sarpy Syphilis or the Omaha Crack Hos), and tell kids to "avoid the clap." And he/she/it could go to schools and pass out those condoms that look like candy coins.

You couldn't buy enough advertising to get that kind of publicity.

The last out

That's it.

The Omaha Royals played their last home game of the season Thursday night, and that means those of us who were at Rosenblatt Stadium saw the last baseball game played at the beloved old ballyard.

Ever.

After 62 years and thousands and thousands of games, Rosenblatt will be torn down, and the baseball legacy of Omaha will shift to the new downtown T.D. Ameritrade Park.

But we Omahans have spent a lot of the big moments of our lives in that old stadium on the hill, and there a piece of our heart will remain.

And as longtime groundskeeper Jesse Cuevas told the crowd Thursday -- in ceremonies after the last out had been made -- they can tear down Rosenblatt, but it will stand forever in our memories.




Goodbye, old friend.

Dear Royals, sign this guy

Pay him what it takes.

But you won't, because perennially losing major-league teams are made, not born.

Take me out to the . . . rain delay?

Take me out to the ball game,


Take me out with the crowd,


Let's buy some tickets -- we'll pass the hat,


'Cause after this year there's no more Rosenblatt,


And it's root, root, root for the strange birds,


If the weather don't break, it's a shame,


For it's one . . .


Two . . .


Three strikes he's out (infrontofthewrongrestroom) . . .




At the old (lastCollegeWorldSeriesatRosenblattStadiumever) . . .


Ball (Ithinkitgotlostinthemudsomewhereonthewarningtrack) . . .


GAME!

(Which, by the way, ended up with Oklahoma beating South Carolina 4-3 after 6 hours and 16 minutes of rain delays and just under three hours of actually playing ball.)

Meet BP's new CEO

Or the federal government's new "oil-spill czar."

Soon-to-be-former American League umpire Jim Joyce is still mulling his future career plans after screwing the Detroit Tigers' Armando Galarraga out of a perfect game after 8 2/3 innings.

HIS CHOICE apparently has come down to the two jobs that perfectly match his skill set -- he can be the new Barney Fife of BP, where he can continue the royal screwing of the people of Louisiana and the Gulf coast . . . or he can become the new Gomer Pyle of the federal response, where he can perpetuate the royal screwing of the people of Louisiana and the Gulf coast.

Decisions, decisions. . . .

Don't let the sun go down on me

In about three weeks, Omaha's Rosenblatt Stadium will play host to its final College World Series, an event that has made its home there since 1950.

Next year, the CWS will move to the brand-new downtown TD Ameritrade Park, and the sun will set on South Omaha's old ballyard on the hill, which will give way to expansion of the Henry Doorly Zoo next door.

For now, though, the Memorial Day sun sets on the new stadium being built in NoDo -- Omaha speak for North Downtown.

Give me some peanuts and Cracker Jack

Old Rosenblatt Stadium ain't dead yet, but the family's thinking about the wake.

The wake, of course, will be the 2010 College World Series -- an oddity, being that the wake will precede the old baseball stadium's actual demise sometime in September, with the end of the Omaha Royals season.

MEANTIME, Omaha already can see the flashy downtown slickster that's going to replace the old girl in South O, starting with the 2011 CWS. At left is the view from 13th and Cuming streets of the new TD Ameritrade Park.

What's amazing -- at least to me -- is how quickly the site has gone from a Qwest Center Omaha parking lot to an excavation site . . . to this. "This thing really is gonna happen" quickly has gone from an intellectual exercise to a concrete-and-steel reality.


AND HERE'S the view from beyond what will be the right-field seats, while below is a close up of the work on the grandstands and luxury suites.

YOU KNOW, it's starting to look like a real city around these parts. Play ball!

From an obscure British newspaper

Now, before all you folks in St. Louis go nuts and cause an international incident, remember that the writers at this little-known British newspaper probably eat Marmite, call lines "queues" and stand in them for hours for no discernible reason.

IN OTHER WORDS, they know not what they do (or say) -- they're English:

Twitter has decided to act after Tony La Russa, the coach of an obscure American baseball team, [emphasis mine -- R21] launched a legal action over a fake account. He claimed that postings in which he appeared to make light of the death of two of his players had been ‘hurtful’.

Twitter, which has six million users who can send instant blogs on their activities to anyone who chooses to follow them, denies it has any legal case to answer.

But it is now testing a new system to ensure that users can identify genuine celebrity accounts. In future, a tick alongside a name will guarantee it is genuine.

Until recently, Twitter has had a liberal attitude towards celebrity impostors as long as it was clear that the postings were not genuine.

Tigers hook the 'Horns

The Alamo, the College World Series . . . when you're from Coahuila y Tejas, one ass-kicking is as good as another.

This time, the Louisiana State Tigers finished what Santa Anna started, administering an 11-4 beatdown to take the national championship of college baseball. As for Augie Garrido's Texas Longhorns . . . well, they came to Omaha, and all they got was another lousy doorstop.

But at least they showed up for the runner-up trophy presentation this time. That's something, I guess.

YOU MAY THINK this LSU alum sounds like a sore winner. Usually I'm not. But then again, we usually don't get an opportunity to pound Tejas into the dirt when a national title is on the line.

And as a native Louisianian, an LSU grad, an Omahan and a Nebraska fan -- not to mention having had seats in the middle of a bunch of Texas fans for Tuesday night's 5-1 Tiger loss in Game 2 of the final series -- Wednesday night's victory was sweet indeed.

Let me put it this way: The College World Series is personal to me, and not just because my alma mater has won the thing six times, with me there to see every championship. No, I fell in love with the CWS in 1983, when Roger Clemens, Calvin Schiraldi and Texas held off Alabama to win it all.

I had box seats for the championship, having driven in from North Platte, Neb., for the big game. A certain young female colleague at the North Platte Telegraph procured those tickets for a buddy and me -- her father, as it happens, had been the Series' PR man since it moved to the Big O in 1950.

When you come across a pretty young thing with connections like that, there's only one thing to do. We were married Aug. 20, 1983, and she since has become a rabid LSU fan.

My Nebraska fandom already was well established when we tied the knot -- we were engaged at Husker football picture day, right outside Memorial Stadium.

THIS IS ALL TO SAY that I'm not just an LSU baseball fan who can't stand Tejas. I'm an LSU baseball fan who can't stand Tejas who also happened to marry into the CWS. And when you have a team who can't bother -- as happened in 2004 -- to show up to get its second-place trophy, you have a team (and a coach) who just disrespected family.

And when you have too-obnoxious, too-indulgent, too-tanned, too-bejeweled, too-enhanced, too too Tejas chiquitas who get too offended -- she and her buddies -- that not everybody in Rosenblatt Stadium is pulling for the Longhorns and that some who aren't are too close to her . . . well, podna, Texas has messed with what the College World Series (and my town) is all about.

Don't mess with Omaha.

Or with dem Tigahs.

O! Suck it up and git 'er done

They're talking about us down on the bayou. Most of what folks are saying is pretty good.

Interesting that, sometimes, visitors in Omaha for the College World Series look at our city and end up having more faith in us than we do. Says Gary Laney of The Advocate in my old hometown, Baton Rouge:

Baseball is about Little Leaguers in Williamsport, Pa., summer leaguers playing around the clock in Wichita, Kan., and collegians spending a couple of weeks at Rosenblatt Stadium — with the lucky few getting to feel the Ivy at Wrigley Field or hear the thud of a line drive off the Green Monster at Fenway Park.

When the Red Sox play the Yankees, the sport does fine. It’s when it goes into these misadventures with the new — overpriced Yankee Stadium seats, shortened college seasons — that it always seems to trip over its own spikes.

It’s within that context that folks here are a little nervous. Rosenblatt Stadium’s days are numbered, to be replaced for the 2011 CWS by a brand-spanking-new downtown stadium, to be called TD Ameritrade Park Omaha, named for one of the city’s Fortune 500 companies. Rosenblatt will become a parking lot for the Henry Doorly Zoo, and the stadium’s other tenant, the Omaha Royals, will move to suburban Papillion, Neb.

The new stadium promises, or threatens, to be everything Rosenblatt is not. Where Rosenblatt has the dome from the zoo as a right-field backdrop, TD Ameritrade Park will have the city’s skyline, and yes, Omaha has a skyline. Where Rosenblatt is in a working-class neighborhood with Zesto’s ice cream stand (where one can spend a couple of dollars for what is supposedly the best ice cream in the Midwest) across the street, the new place will be on the edge of trendy, touristy Old Market with the state-of-the-art Qwest Center across the street.

And, one is named after a corporate giant while the other is named after the mayor who brought professional baseball and the College World Series to Omaha.

All of those thoughts are downright scary for baseball purists. But folks in Omaha are the perfect hosts for the College World Series for a reason, and that’s what gives hope for their new stadium. If any place is going to do a new stadium right, it’s Omaha.

THERE'S A LOT RIGHT about Omaha. And, yes, if any town can make a major change to a beloved baseball tradition -- and, more importantly, make it work -- it's the Big O.

But we're facing tough times. City revenues are tighter than one of Sasha Baron Cohen's "Bruno" getups, and ordinary folk are yelling and screaming for city fathers to take a budget ax and cut right through the bone.

That's because Omaha, unfortunately, is not immune to America's generation-long affliction with taxorexia. It's kind of like anorexia and bulimia combined, except that while you're not taking any nourishment in, you're still purging cops, libraries, yard-waste pickup and street repair.

Funny thing is, it only applies to civic affairs. Show us skyrocketing cable-TV bills and we'll still pay up. We'll bitch, but we'll pay. Upgrade to digital, even.

And we'll sell Junior on Craigslist to fill up the SUV with premium unleaded.

But show us a city that's cut the budget to the point of "You don't want to go there," and we'll say "Go there . . . we ain't paying no stinkin' taxes." Of course, no one has any useful suggestions about where to cut, but that's not important now -- there must be some more fat somewhere.

Sadly, it's often between the ears of the armchair budget director.

AS I SAID, Omaha's in a tough spot right now, what with anemic tax collections and all. But we've been in tough spots before, and Nebraskans usually suck it up and do what needs to be done.

So maybe we just need to shut the hell up and do it again -- in this case, that would be protecting the city's quality of life, basic services and economic viability just as zealously as we've guarded the CWS all these decades.

What, do you think we got to the point where far-off newspapers run glowing accounts of life in Omaha by sitting on our butts muttering "No, no, never, no"? I think not.

Suck it up. It's important.

Jesus is straight outta Compton

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

I turned on the network news tonight and found Jesus.

All my churchy friends will think this odd, but it's true nevertheless. It seems Christ hit a rough patch for a while and got messed up with blow, but he's clean now and still hanging in there in Compton, that hardest scrabble of Los Angeles suburbs.

HE'S COACHING Little League baseball in the 'hood, Jesus is. Resurrected an abandoned ball field, too, so the kids would have a place to play.

And, by extension, Christ is the father a bunch of these Little Leaguers never had. He knows the value of a good stepfather.

What up? Jesus is. Jesus is straight outta Compton . . . living in his car -- never was much on real estate, don't cha know? -- and watching the Dodgers on a little bitty TV. Watch more here.

Quo vadis, Domine?

The Omaha Cubs

I think we've just found a new baseball team for the new downtown Omaha Baseball Stadium TD Ameritrade Park.

And it's major league.

ACCORDING to The Chicago Tribune:

After nearly two years of intrigue, the billionaire Ricketts family has emerged as the winning bidder to purchase the Chicago Cubs from Tribune Co. for about $900 million, a source close to the winning bid said Thursday evening.

The family will now complete negotiations with Tribune Co.

The family edged out Chicago real-estate investor Hersch Klaff and New York private-equity investor Marc Utay, a Chicago native, for the chance to follow Tribune Co., the Chicago-based media conglomerate, as owners of the storied yet hard-luck franchise.

The Ricketts family effort, led by Tom Ricketts, who lives in the Chicago area, still has a number of hurdles to cross before taking ownership of the Cubs, including receiving approval from 23 of the league's 30 owners.

Cubs officials have said they hope to have sale completed by the start of the new season in April.

The deal would represent a return to family ownership for the Cubs. Before Tribune took control of the team in 1981, the Wrigley family, founders of the chewing-gum company, owned the Cubs for 65 years. The clan sold the team and Wrigley Field to the media company, which owns the Chicago Tribune, for $20.5 million.

In Chicago, the Ricketts family is hardly as well known as the Wrigleys, or any of the current owners of the city's major professional sports franchises, but certainly that would change quickly for the new custodians of one of the country's best-known teams, as well as one of its most storied stadiums. Along with the Cubs, the Ricketts are buying Wrigley Field, and a 25 percent stake in a regional cable sports network.

The family patriarch, J. Joe Ricketts, grew up in Omaha and started a discount stock brokerage. In the 1990s he transformed the company into an Internet trading powerhouse now known as TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. He is ranked among the world's billionaires, according to Forbes magazine, with an estimated net worth of $1.2 billion. Shares of the company are also owned by his wife and four children.

I THINK THE CUBS will be a perfect fit for Omaha. After all, the ol' cowtown has long experience with crappy baseball teams, most notably the Omaha Royals, Triple-A farm club of the sub-woeful Kansas City Royals.

Compared to that, it's going to look like we landed the World Series champs.

And people thought the new ball yard might sit vacant for much of the year. Heck, just to show the Windy City there's no hard feelings, we'll let the Cubs play in old Wrigley Field when our shiny new stadium is playing host to the College World Series.

After all . . . it's the World Series! Gotta hold on to that.

I mean, it's not like the Cubs will bring one home to Omaha any time soon.

It's not a stadium. It's an opportunity.

Omaha's powers that be -- after long musing about the prospect -- this year finally decided to carpe diem, build a new downtown ballpark and lock in the College World Series for a long, long time.

But now that the ink is dry on the contract and construction is almost ready to begin, it looks like city fathers have just had a "What in the world have we done?" moment and, according to the Omaha World-Herald, decided maybe they've carpe'd more diem than they can chew.

OOPS.

One thing that’s likely to be missing from the final stadium plan is a major commercial area. Though initial concept drawings included shops and a restaurant in the stadium structure, Jensen said concerns about the project’s cost and how often the public would frequent the businesses nixed the idea for now.

That change is a disappointment to Jason Kulbel, one of the developers of the Saddle Creek Records complex near 14th and Webster Streets. He said he is still holding out for a retail area near the stadium along Webster.

He said that’s essential to generating foot traffic, which is what Saddle Creek developers envisioned when they invested $10 million in the area.

“We’re hoping,” Kulbel said, adding, “I feel like we’re fighting the battle of our lives.”
Kulbel said he plans to make that case before Omaha’s urban design review board, which will review the plans at a public meeting at 3 p.m. Dec. 18. The meeting will be held in room 702 of the City-County Building, 1819 Farnam St.

The board was created in 2007 with the help of Omaha By Design to review and approve major city construction projects, thus ensuring uniform design standards. The board, which includes an architect, an engineer, a planner and a citizen representative, could ask for changes in the plans. It must sign off on the design before the city can issue building permits.

Jensen said a small amount of retail space is included in the stadium design. A store at the ballpark could sell team memorabilia, for instance.

However, in developing the final ballpark plans, Jensen said those involved determined that a stadium would be unlikely to draw retailers and feared that large commercial spaces would sit empty.

Condos and loft apartments, on the other hand, draw retailers, Jensen said.

The Metropolitan Entertainment and Convention Authority, which runs the Qwest Center, is overseeing the stadium’s design and operation.

Roger Dixon, MECA president, said the stadium plans most likely will be further tweaked before the Jan. 21 stadium groundbreaking.

“What has been filed with the city is the design at this point in time,” Dixon said.

OMAHA, I KNOW times are tough and getting tougher. And that's exactly why now is the wrong time to go all wobbly on us.

You can't have a big stadium sitting in the middle of North Downtown (NoDo), eating up real estate but generating no economic activity for most of the year. That's insane -- but with no retail and no Omaha Royals, that's what you're going to have.

The folks from Saddle Creek Records stuck their necks out to jumpstart NoDo's development and -- to mix my metaphors -- the city is about to kneecap them. This is a game where you're either all in . . . or you fold.

OK, so a full-bore retail development might not be the smartest thing at this time. But the stadium site needs some retail -- and a relocated Zesto's. Seriously . . . Zesto's. The mom and pop hamburger stand is as much a part of the CWS as cheesy organ music and overpriced bratwurst.

But what else might draw foot traffic -- and car traffic, too -- to the new ballpark year round? What might keep the NoDo momentum going in tough times?

How about this? Pick one retailer and make it a larger one. Choose a niche market that's underserved downtown, but one that's wholly compatible with the College World Series. See whether the store could be part of a comprehensive naming-rights package for the stadium.

RIGHT NOW, I'm envisioning Cabela's Stadium with a scaled-down retail store focusing on product lines not featured at the retailer's big-box stores but which could be part of its online catalog -- say one part American Eagle clone and two parts athletic and team apparel. And I'm seeing "Official merchant of the NCAA Men's College World Series."

If the deal is sweet enough, they just might put up the scratch to build it.

The other thing I'm envisioning is even more important to the economic viability of NoDo and all its retail establishments. And, on a grander scale, Omaha itself.

It's all about synergy and joint ventures. Bear with me here, this will take some explaining.

IN THIS NEW MILLENNIUM, we find all our traditional media in a state of upheaval amid a digital onslaught. This isn't necessarily a crisis. Except. . . .

There's this rather large question hanging over the Internet's conquest of all media: What happens to the Fourth Estate as the digital revolution overruns the positions of local television and radio . . . and especially the hometown newspaper? What's the economic model for local media in an Internet world?

How do local media -- particularly news media -- transition to the 'Net and still make enough money to keep the doors open and the public informed? What would become of a city, its civic culture and democracy itself if local news media became shells of their former selves or, God forbid, shriveled up and died?

How could that be good for anybody?

Who, in a coordinated way, is trying to work the problem? Is the working media effectively partnering with academia to, for one, develop new ways of doing journalism and, for another, effectively prepare tomorrow's reporters, producers and editors?

Obviously, the task is overwhelming. There's nothing but bad news on the doorsteps of newspapers today. Ditto for radio and TV stations.

And in a looming age of budget cuts to academia, what school or think tank is in a position to comprehensively tackle the problem?

THE OBVIOUS ANSWER is it's time to put heads together. We need joint efforts. We need cooperation. We need coalitions. We desperately need public-private partnerships.

And if the partnering is done right, there's something in it for everybody.

So . . . what if (for example) the Omaha World-Herald were to join with the University of Nebraska at Omaha, Creighton University, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Nebraska Educational Telecommunications to form a Midwestern journalism think tank and media laboratory?

What if it became an integral part of the journalism curricula of the three participating universities? What if it became a focus of innovation and invention for an entire industry?

What if it became an unmatched resource for each participating entity, one that would be completely out of reach for any of the partners acting unilaterally? What if it became a source of valuable year-round interns for the World-Herald and NET . . . and precious year-round internships (and practical experience) for mass-communications students from the three universities?

What if that kind of synergy between media outlets and academic institutions became a magnet for the best minds in media and academia? Right here in Omaha.

Fine, now what in the hell does this have to do with a downtown baseball stadium and NoDo development?

I'm glad you asked.

WHY NOT MAKE such a joint-venture institute -- complete with a state-of-the-art digital newsroom, audio/video production facilities and classroom/office space -- an integral part of the stadium site plan? Put the studios where some of the canceled retail space would have gone. Add a satellite-uplink facility, too.

ESPN would love it.

The visiting media would love it.

The NCAA would love it.

Mass-communications students and their professors would love a learning experience as big as the CWS every year . . . on their campus.

Wouldn't the Omaha Convention and Visitors Bureau love it if, say, not only were there two weeks' worth of televised CWS games live from downtown Omaha, but perhaps two weeks' worth of SportsCenters as well? If you build the facilities, at the stadium, with a built-in labor pool, just maybe they'll come with half the network.

How many millions in advertising do you think that would be worth every year?

And what economic impact, do you think, would a college campus -- and maybe hundreds of students and professionals -- have on NoDo and downtown year round?

I mean, as long as we're building a big, new stadium, why not make it a field of dreams? And new realities.

R O S E N B L A T T

All things must pass . . . one more once

One of the beauties of baseball is the tempo of the game. It's relaxed enough for even the casual observer to realize that, at the ballpark, the game is only, say, one-tenth of the action.

Or something like that.

Here we continue our photo essays from the College World Series at Omaha's old Rosenblatt Stadium, where we're counting down the seasons until the old landmark gives way, in 2011, to a brand-new ballpark downtown.

It's the long goodbye. And here are some snapshots of Year One of that process.

The game: Fresno State vs. North Carolina.

The date: June 22, 2008.

She loves the game. It's in her eyes.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association wants there to be no doubt about what sport is involved in the College World Series. The NCAA is College World Serious about that particular point. It's BASEBALL.

The old park didn't look like this, exactly, when the CWS first came to town in 1950.

Upstairs, downstairs.

All things must pass (the sequel)

Alone . . . all alone. Do I have odor that offends?

Now, you do have
the tickets, right?

Right? Honey?

I asked whether you
have the tickets.

Not gonna make it.
Not at this juncture.

Well, yeah, it is kinda hot out here in right field. . . .
But remember, we get the ESPN discount at Pauli's.
Dah duh DAH! Dah duh DAH!

Heeeeey, batterbatterbatterbatter! Swing, batter!

Heeeeey, batterbatterbatterbatter! Swing, batter!

He can't hit he can't hit he can't hit he can't hit
. . . swinnng, batter!

(The original Rosenblatt Stadium-College World Series post is here.)

All things must pass

A long, long time ago, when my wife was helping her dad put up College World Series posters in Omaha storefronts, those humble advertisements pointed baseball fans and the civic-minded to a city's premier event.

A June rite out here on the Great Plains.

To a spot somewhere over the rainbow where, every year, some college boys of summer would see their dreams come true. Those signs pointed Omahans to Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium, where baseball dreams had come true (and where some others died) every June since 1950.

MY FATHER-IN-LAW had been part of the Omaha team that brought the NCAA championship to a cowtown on the Plains when Harry S. Truman was president. And there it stayed, with Dad at the PR helm for almost 40 years. And here it remains, almost 60 years on . . . long after Omaha traded in market bulls for bull markets and Tech High for high-tech.

In 1950, Municipal Stadium consisted of an average grandstand and a modest press box. Johnny Rosenblatt was on the city council.

In 2008, that same stadium seats more than 23,000 and features a stadium club and an impressive press box. The late Johnny Rosenblatt's name shines upon it in neon lights.

My wife's father has been dead for more than 15 years, but his legacy lives on every June. Right here in Omaha, Neb., where every year, eight colleges' boys of summer come to play.

THE COLLEGE WORLD SERIES ain't what it used to be. Used to be, it was small-town, homespun, hiya neighbor and apple pie. Now, it's still a lot of that . . . but it's also corporate-slick, big-time and big money.

And come the opening pitch of the 2011 series, the CWS will forge a new tradition at a brand-new stadium in downtown Omaha.

So last month's CWS began our city's long goodbye to old Rosenblatt Stadium, where so many memories lie. Where a buddy and I, coworkers at the North Platte Telegraph, sat in our free box seats watching Roger Clemens and Calvin Schiraldi pitch Texas past Alabama for the 1983 national championship.

A nice gal, the Telegraph's copy-desk chief, scored those seats for us. Her dad had connections. He did the PR for the Series.

If a girl has that kind of juice, there's only one thing you can do. Fall in love with her, then marry her. So I did.

That was 25 years ago -- probably the last smart thing I ever did.

Probably not the smartest thing she ever did.

TIME, ALAS, marches on. So does progress.

Our memories will live in our hearts forever, but in three years, Rosenblatt Stadium will be toast, and some cute girl will score great seats in a shiny new stadium for some unworthy lout . . . and who knows what that will lead to.

Apart from a whole new batch of precious memories.

So, as part of a city's long goodbye to an old friend, I lugged my old camera -- and a bunch of rolls of film -- to the old ball yard. What you see here, and undoubtedly will see in coming days on the Blog for the People, is a day in the life of the College World Series . . . and Omaha's Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium.

Sunday, June 22, 2008. Fresno State vs. North Carolina.

Memories were made that day. Some of them, I caught in the viewfinder of an old Canon TX.