Ballpark

Major league ballpark scoreboards provide all sorts of diversions, from quizzes to videos. At the SkyDome this week, the show was above the scoreboard. Binocular-equipped fans who looked there during the seventh inning of Tuesday's game saw a naked man and towel-clad woman in the window of their room at the SkyDome Hotel in an intimate interlude. The lights were off in the $800 room overlooking the baseball diamond, but the ballpark lights revealed more than the Jays-Seattle Mariners game.

Scott Martelle's article on minor league baseball ["Major Fun at a Minor League Game," Aug. 23] was a good introduction for most fans, but this June, my daughter, twin grandsons and granddaughter had the trip of a lifetime -- seven games, six cities, five days, four states. We started with the Round Rock Express (Austin, Texas) hosting the Albuquerque Isotopes in a Triple A game. The next afternoon, we saw the Texas Rangers and Dodgers play in Arlington, Texas. At 6 p.m., we went a few miles to the lovely new ballpark at Grand Prairie, Texas, to see the AirHogs play the Pensacola Pelicans in an Independent League game.

As the Dodgers prepare their off-season changes for Dodger Stadium, we don't want it said they weren't given any ideas from the ever-helpful media. So here are a few suggestions for those short-term changes to Dodger Stadium that Chief Executive Stan Kasten & Co. are readying to improve that “fan experience” at the ballpark: 1) Turn down the damn music. I am personally preparing a class-action lawsuit against the Dodgers for loss of hearing. Always knew that someday I'd be rich but thought I'd live to hear about it. It's baseball with its own rhythms at a ballpark, not basketball in an arena.

O say can you se say can you se e . . . a rock god plucking away at "The Star-Spangled Banner" on electric guitar? Or, farther down the 5 Freeway, a 12-year-old girl belting out Francis Scott Key's greatest hit? The Major League Baseball championship series is underway, which means that for the Dodgers and Angels it's time to pack your starting rotation with aces. But we're not talking pitchers, we're talking national anthem performers. Taste in how the national anthem is performed, as in hot dogs, tends to vary from ballpark to ballpark.

Fenway Park 100,Dodger Stadium 50 The Boston Red Sox alumni took the field Friday, from Jim Rice to Carl Yastrzemski , from Johnny Pesky to Pedro Martinez , all in a graceful celebration of Fenway Park's 100th birthday. If Frank McCourt had had his way, the party never would have happened. McCourt tried to buy his hometown Red Sox in 2001, with a plan to build a new ballpark on his Boston waterfront parking lots. He had the right idea. Luke Scott of the Tampa Bay Rays took a lot of grief last week for calling Fenway "a dump.

Minnesota Senate leaders on Thursday night scrapped a plan to vote on a bill to build a new ballpark for the Twins, instead unanimously approving a non-binding resolution saying the state wants to keep the team. Sen. Roy Terwilliger was the sponsor of the bill that would have built a riverfront ballpark in Minneapolis using fees derived from the facility such as team rent, a game-day parking tax and a surcharge on player income taxes. "I think we had the votes" to pass it, Terwilliger said.

With all the hype about "Bull Durham," how about a dissenting opinion ("An Outta-the-Ballpark look at Baseball," by Nancy Mills and Patrick Goldstein)? The film purports to be about minor league baseball, but it seems to be as much about sex. A wonderful lesson for young people aspiring to a sports career! As for glitches in the movie, consider these: Susan Sarandon is supposed to be a college English teacher, but you never see her even near a classroom. All she does is spout a few lines of Walt Whitman to show her erudition.

A look at the numbers should convince nearly everyone that Mike Schmidt would have a pretty good love affair going with Wrigley Field in Chicago. After all, the Philadelphia Phillies' veteran by midseason had 75 homers against the Cubs--tops on his list of personal targets--and 47 of those were hit at Wrigley Field. Among opposing players, only Willie Mays (54) and Hank Aaron (50) hit more homers at Wrigley. And both did it during a longer period of time.

The City Council has appropriated $32,000 from the Park and Recreation Facilities Fund to relocate the Torrance National Little League field to a former ballpark near the Southern California Edison Co. substation on 235th Street. from city-owned property at Plaza Del Amo and 223rd Street. The money will be used for a lawn, a sprinkler system and a fence at the new site.

Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig approved the blockbuster trade between the Miami Marlins and Toronto Blue Jays, but not before he sent a warning shot to the owners of the Marlins. That Selig issued a statement to announce his approval was unusual enough. That he put the Marlins on public notice was even more unusual, a reflection of the pressure Selig had received from fans in Miami, and from the local officials who had authorized a new ballpark funded largely with taxpayer dollars.