This used to be my playground

Another one of the gems Baseball Widow found when cleaning out the attic was a project from her 8th grade American History class. As I recall, we had several options for the assignment, but the project I chose was mapping all of the Major League Baseball parks in the United States.

Baseball Widow, who was quite handy with a jigsaw at the tender age of 13, had no way of knowing that her project would end up being a memorial. It's surprising to see how many of the parks are now gone.

There were 26 teams back then (24 in the U.S.). Out of those, these parks are no more:

Kingdome
Candlestick Park
Jack Murphy Stadium
The Astrodome
Fulton County Stadium
Comisky Park
Tiger Stadium
County Stadium (Milwaukee)
Municipal Stadium (Cleveland)
River Front Stadium
Three River Stadium
Veterans Stadium
Arlington Stadium

That's 13--over half in about 11 years. The newest park listed on my project was Camden Yards, which kicked off the current trend toward smaller, baseball-only stadiums that heralded the end of the municipal stadium.

Although it's always sad to see an old friend go, certainly the newer stadiums can be great ballgame experiences (see post "Not Exactly Disneyland, or What I did on My Husband's Summer Vacation").

Baseball Widow is looking for a lesson in all of this, but I think the real story here is that Baseball Widow has mad wood-working skills.