Who Am I? & The Dedication & Re-creation of Butterball Field

[Zvon]

You got it.
These are nice and big:

I think we've seen one a these.
Heres the pic of Casey on the bench.

Here he yells at his team to get there asses out onto Butterball Field.

This could be Casey in that corner of the world.




Could this be? The Skanks on the spot?


So go on, name the water fountain.

[Zvon]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Here's Dick Young ('64) sitting by the water fountain. A lot of the shrubbery that was once behind him is now gone. The area behind Young is now a paved parking lot.

This is outta left field and probably wrong, but I just saw something at FAFIF about the old Odd Couple movie. I don't know why he'd be down in Florida, but could that other guy be Walter Matthau?


Could this be Butterballs mound?



I could put Dallas Green anywhere in the wide wide world of sports and I choose to have him at the Sadecki Spot on his 67 card. That's significant.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Here's a photo for your site. Oh, and Who is he, checking out the Mets new digs?

[batmagadanleadoff]

Zvon wrote:

How come there aren't any other pictures of that water tower in this thread?

[stevejrogers]

Looks like one of the last Met related photos from that area.

[Zvon]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Here's a photo for your site. Oh, and Who is he, checking out the Mets new digs?

Thats Eddie Kranepool and when I first saw that photo I thought how kool that Kranepool would go out there and check out the scene. Thnx.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Zvon wrote: How come there aren't any other pictures of that water tower in this thread?

No idea.



But if my theory is correct that is Clendenon Field behind him and that tower is always directly behind the photographers of the now much documented Sadecki Spot at Butterball field.

[Zvon]

Oh, almost forgot this.

The Sadecki Spot at Butterball Field, 1967.
An unobstructed view.

[Zvon]

Well, maybe a little obstructed. Casey was in the way. Lil bit.

I had a dream the other night and in it Casey came to me and asked why am I looking at so many pictures of him. I told him I was a fan and wanted to know more about him. He said "What do ya mean kid, I've been dead a hundred years." I said "No Casey, you will live on forever through pictures like these and through footage and articles and quotes. You are like the grandfather of the Mets." He said,"Really..."

"Lemme tell you something about those Mets. I loved em. They were my Amazin' Metsies. Amazin,amazin,amazin. I say that four times cause I managed them four years. Three and a half years, actually, and I never had a bench. Mr.Weiss had a bench, ya know, down in the spring camp. I wanted a bench and I told him and Weissy says " No, they will always think of you as a Yankee manager Casey. Not a Met manager. You don't want them to remember you for that. This team is going to be a losing team until we get up some steam. You just get them out of the starting gate. The fans will come out to see you, the great Yankee skipper Casey Stengel."

I waited for Casey to take a breath. He didn't.
"So I says I don't want anything to do with them bum Yankees. They put me out to pasture. Said I'm too old to be on the field! I'll show 'em. Gimme a bench." And George says "No. Years from now people will forget all about these lowly Met years. You'll be remembered for the Yankees. Your name will be on a Hall Of Fame plaque that says Yankee." and I says "George, thats all well and good, and I hope that comes to be, I'm proud of those years, but right now I'm here and I'm not too old to give these people what they want, and that is National League baseball! They don't want me. I'm a side show. So I'm gonna put on a great show and make this team mine. I still have some good years left.Gimme that bench over there." and Wiessy says "You don't need a bench Casey. You got an office." and I says " Mr. Wiess, without a bench I can't manage a team." And I was right. I had a team full of bench players and no bench."


Casey peruses the deed to his bench.

[Edgy MD]

That's some amazin' dream transcription.

[batmagadanleadoff]

[seawolf17]

I want to take this thread out behind the middle school bleachers and get it pregnant. An all-time classic.

[Zvon]

batmagadanleadoff wrote:

Wow. I'm gonna give it ten minutes again on Google Map and see if I can find it.

[Zvon]

I'll tell you one thing, from what I see at Wiki that field has had more history that almost every MLB stadium standing today.

[batmagadanleadoff]

And here's Ron Swoboda (1967) at the renovated Butterball Field, cage included. The water fountain ties the old and new versions of the field. Who am I extra credit. This question is worth two 2 two clapping gifs. Who's giving Ron batting tips? More from the Swoboda batting tips session. A better shot of the cage.

Hint: He was a Rookie of the Year and a four-time all star.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Zvon wrote: Could this be? The Skanks on the spot?

That could be Butterball Field. The back fence, though, is lower than the fence that was there when the Mets first moved in.

[batmagadanleadoff]

This is Miller-Huggins Field, according to the accompanying text --- but where?

[Zvon]

Kool and pretty damn amazin'! I found the field and I'm now on ground level walking and looking around the area. There is only one field there now. The clubhouse is there. Water tower is still there. The water and trees in their right positions. No cage and Butterball Field is the one that didn't make the cut

I'll take some screen shots and try to post them before I crash tonight.

[Zvon]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: This is Miller-Huggins Field, according to the accompanying text --- but where?

I'm an idiot. I was looking around the area by eye, and its hard cause you have to get down low to see if there are baseball fields. So tonight I went to google map and asked for directions from where I live to Stengel-Huggins Field. It took me right there.

[batmagadanleadoff]

This could be Butterball Field.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Seaver in a cage. But which cage? And where cage?

[Zvon]

Those trees in rows are a good sign. I've seen them in many photos from the area and I wasn't sure in which direction they were running.

Gah, I can't walk out on the field. I don't think I can. I'll have to walk around the block. This is crazy kool that we have the technology to do this. Even tho according to the NY Worlds Fair we should have been be doing this shit by 1985.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Larry Bearnarth and Jay Hook eyeballing each other at the clubhouse.

[Zvon]

I've been doing some research and I have to say:


I think the cage might be back there behind the Hick. Look below at the GreyGrote photo. That small fence is up a bit from where the cage starts.



So the cage very well could be there at that time. Inconclusive.


Now these photos look like they were taken a few minutes apart and in the

fake one you can see a worker putting the finishing touches on The Cage.

I move the cage be known forever more as L. Miller Cage.

*BANGS GAVEL

[batmagadanleadoff]

I've looked at this Mets photo of Jay Hook and catchers Landrith, Cannizzaro and Ginsberg many times. I even posted it to this forum a few years ago in a pitchers/catchers countdown to Spring training thread. And now, thanks to this thread, with just a sliver of background detail -- the fence with the diagonal beam and the cement water fountain base, I know exactly where in the Mets sprawling Spring training complex this picture was taken.

[Zvon]

Wow,kool. Whats the name of the freakin fountain already?

[Zvon]

This might be the light pole beyond the fence at Butterball Field, known for the Sadecki Spot ,L.Millers Cage, and site of Stengels bench. I can only look in from the road and there are no others directly around the area. I can see the water tower beyond to the left, out of frame. I'll post more pics tomorrow.

[batmagadanleadoff]

seawolf17 wrote: I want to take this thread out behind the middle school bleachers and get it pregnant. An all-time classic.

Are you kidding me? All week long, I've The B-52's Love Shack song stuck in my head.

[Vic Sage]

who am I?
I'm Jean Valjean... 24601!

[Zvon]

Hey guys! Lets take a road trip! A google road trip! Come on, come with me! I'm gonna go find the Sadecki Spot!!

Oooo, I got lost a few times. I keep getting sidetracked. There's so much of the world I want to see,... through google map. So come on, lets go! I won't get lost anymore. Lets follow the line to the green bubble looking thing.

Well, here it is. And here I am. I don't see any baseball field. This is not the Sadecki Spot I don't think. Awww, am I lost again? OW! I stepped in a hump. That spots gotta be around here somewhere.

Hey, theres a baseball field over there! Lets go! Wow. Maybe this is the light pole that I believe is still un-named and I call dibbs on. This must have been the clubhouse. Neat! Casey!? Aw, its locked. Oh, there's the watertower! Lets go!

My plan was to climb the watertower. But before I could, I saw her.

She was a breath of blue through green and I knew that it was recognition at first sight. I had found her, my google girl.
My google girl.

I was here for now and she was stuck in time forever, my google girl.
My google girl.

I wanted to call out to her because she stood so near me
But the walls of time are thick, I knew she couldn't hear me.
Suddenly she walked away but left her hatch back open.
I knew she would return or at least that's what I was hopin.
But stuck in time now, that was we.
If I moved backwards, so did she.
She was a blur like Jackie O
When caught by lens (telephoto).
She wasn't nude but she was fine.
Google girl will you be mine?

My

google

girl

I want to run right up to her and not be so sublime.
But first I had to find a way to break the bonds of time.
To leave her frozen here for all eternity is cruel.
I'll break on through and join her, for love, I am a fool.


Okay guys! Looks like I'm getting sidetracked again. Gotta go. Hope you enjoyed your google road trip! I did. Oh yea, the Sadecki Spot....
here's the field today.


I'm working on recreating the field as it must have looked back in the late 70s, with the two fields facing each other.

Sorry about getting sidetracked again but you can't really see anything interesting from the street, which is all google gives you. And thats good, I guess, or else we'd have google photographers running through our back yards and shit.

Whenever I use google map and go ground level I always end up looking at the google people, caught in digital amber forever (or however long before they re-shoot). And I always end up finding my google girl.

She never really looks the same, but stuck in time, it's such a shame. My google girl.

(Thats not a song parody. That's my new hit single. I'll eventually get to writing the music to it. But feel free to parodize My Google Girl all you want. I'm not too attached to her.)

[dinosaur jesus]

Google voyeurism. I love it.

Is that Joe Ginsberg or Jesse Orosco?