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Archive for the ‘baseball’ Category

Though Mayor Jimmy Griffin wasn’t perfect, I agree that Buffalo should name the Buffalo Bisons ballpark after him.

Based on the current 8-year, $2,500,000 deal with Dunn Tire, the naming rights for Buffalo’s minor league baseball park are worth $312,500 a year. Do you suppose it is possible to find a way to name the park after Griffin and still sell the naming rights? For a minor league team, that $312,500 will pay up to about 13 players’ salaries for 7 months. We obviously can’t just give up that income, but the area needs at least one major sports facility with a decent name. As nice as it is for the Dunn Tire people to help pay the bills, Dunn Tire Park sounds like something from a bad cartoon. And “The Ralph” is ridiculous. Want to watch hockey in the Hong-Kong Shanghai Banking Corporation Arena?

Read more in the Buffalo News.

The house that Jimmy Griffin built. That’s how many people think of Dunn Tire Park — and they’d like to see the name of the stadium reflect that.

Griffin, Buffalo’s longest-serving mayor, died Sunday in Father Baker Manor in Orchard Park about a month shy of his 79th birthday.

Local talk-show callers speculated about the cause of Griffin’s death Monday, but longtime Griffin supporter and close friend Ronald J. Anthony said that it had not yet been determined. “There is no confirmed cause of death,” Anthony said.

Anthony said he did not know how long the former mayor had been in the nursing home.

Under Griffin’s leadership, the city ended up with the Buffalo Hilton (now the Adam’s Mark), townhouses, the Hyatt Regency, the General Cinema in the Market Arcade, a restored Shea’s Buffalo and the HSBC Bank Atrium, among other projects.

But the crown jewel of his four terms as mayor was bringing professional baseball back to Buffalo and creating a home for the Buffalo Bisons in 1988 at Pilot Field, now Dunn Tire Park.

“Bringing baseball to Buffalo was no small feat,” Anthony said.

The idea of renaming the stadium for Griffin is something Anthony has wanted to do since long before Griffin’s death, he added.

Also, regardless of whether the baseball park is named for the late mayor, Conehead should start offering a deal on beer: the Jimmy Sixpack.

May 11, 2007, Rochester Redwings beat the Buffalo Bisons 13-2 on 20 hits, but we still had post-game fireworks.

Been there, done that.

Don’t you hate it when you can’t update your web site?

It’s okay now. But the bad news is:

Weather postpones Bisons opener
Updated: 04/05/07 10:33 AM

Slick roads, ice-covered windshields and frozen car windows greeted Western New Yorkers this morning, as a little bit of winter returned in the early spring.

The snow and cold weather also forced the postponement of the Buffalo Bisons home opener today at Dunn Tire Park. The opener is scheduled to be played as part of a doubleheader starting at 4 p.m. Friday.

I have missed a few opening day games, but it used to be an annual ritual for me to take off from work and attend the games. I went a couple times with my kid, and the last time we went, it snowed. We lasted through the first inning, but that was it.

Oh, and while we’re looking at the Buffalo News web site, did you catch this article earlier this week? It’s one of those feel-good stories, like the ones on the Simpsons “Bart’s People” episode.

Here’s an excerpt:

Last spring, Poppy Wright was sitting at the computer in her home in Sacramento, Calif., looking for places to live that would bring her closer to her husband in New York City.

On Flickr.com, a photo-sharing Web site, Wright found a group of Buffalonians who share their photos and ideas.

One picture showed part of Allentown, near Days Park, with a mural and architectural details captured in vivid colors.

The photo caption began: “You should move here.” So she did.

“I love that it looked like the Village. I loved the architecture. Just the creative, photography side of me goes, ‘Wow, it looks like a city,’ ” Wright said.

Wright, who had no previous connection to Buffalo, moved here last summer after receiving advice from local Flickr users on everything from house-hunting to beef on weck.

Now, Wright and her husband are buying an old bar on Niagara Street that they plan to renovate and reopen.

This is a story of how a set of images of Buffalo made enough of an impression on a Californian to pull her across the country to the Queen City.

But it also illustrates how Flickr and other social- networking Web sites are linking people in unconventional ways.

“It’s interesting how the virtual world is translated into the real world. We’re finding new ways of seeing things, new ways of connecting,” said David Torke, who writes about and shares photos of East Side neighborhoods on his Fix Buffalo blog. This all starts with Wright, a native of Monterey, Calif., who has worked as a cocktail waitress, a welfare-to-work employment specialist, a loan processor and a health care clerical employee.

Last year, she was living in Sacramento but wanted to move closer to her husband, Sean, who was manager of the legendary Comedy Cellar club in Manhattan.

Wright was a photography buff who got hooked on Flickr.

The Web site provides a dedicated space for people to host and share photos.

On Flickr, members can “tag” their photos with searchable terms that let users look for, say, photos of sunsets, flowers or buildings in Buffalo.

Some members create and join groups centered on a common photographic subject or other shared interest.

“It gives people a chance to meet and communicate who never would have run across each other if it weren’t for the Internet,” said Jim Lindley, administrator of the Buffalo Flickr group, which has 285 members and about 6,600 photos.

Poppy Wright started writing to the Flickr group last spring, saying she was considering moving to Buffalo and asking for the pros and cons of life here.

Local Flickr members touted the region’s low cost of living and great summers and warned her about the lagging economy.

“I’m a transplant myself, and I say come to Buffalo, you’ll love it. It’s the kind of town where if you have a good idea, there’s room to make it grow,” wrote Thomas Woods, a local college computing services employee, under the Flickr name “doubtingthomas_ blog.”