"The Character Will Come As We Play."

One of my favorite sporting events of the year to follow is the NCAA Division I College Baseball tournament which culminates with the College World Series. I grew up watching the CWS in the summers on TV with my dad and we were fortunate enough to be able to attend the first four days of the CWS in 2004.

The College World Series has been held in Omaha, Nebraska, for over 50 years and until this year the legendary home of the CWS was Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium. The event moved into the new TD Ameritrade Park just over 3 miles away in Omaha for the 2011 season and played the first two games in the new home today.

It’s a great new ballpark, but for most people who follow the College World Series, it’s just not the same. That goes for me, too, although most of my familiarity with the stadium comes through the lens of the cameras that televised the games on TV. I can’t imagine how different it is for the couple who sat in front of my dad and I in 2004 who had been in the same seats at every CWS over the last 40-plus years.

There are no more red, yellow and blue seats, no more shots of the planetarium just beyond the right field bleachers, no more shots of the neighborhood surrounding Rosenblatt that took in thousands of fans over the years and welcomed them into their front and back yards.

I haven’t been looking forward to the CWS not being in Rosenblatt and stories like this one from Omaha.com really do hurt to read.

But today a line from ESPN announcer Mike Patrick made something click regarding my thoughts about new parks replacing the old ones.

When Patrick and partner Robin Ventura were talking about old Rosenblatt and some of the features of the new TD Ameritrade, Patrick said, “This has everything you could want in a new park. The character will come as we play.”

He was exactly right and immediately I thought of a couple of other parks that fit in this line of thinking.

Ray Winder Field in Little Rock, Arkansas, was the home of the Class AA Arkansas Travelers when I was growing up. For that matter, Ray Winder was the home of the Travs when my dad was growing up. It’s where my dad took me to see my first professional baseball games. It’s where I started the MLB-replica batting helmet collection that saw action in many neighborhood wiffle ball games and decorated my room for years.

It’s where my Little League teams would go to watch a game for the end-of-the-year party. It’s where I watched the Cardinals play an exhibition game against the Royals and where I got the autograph of my favorite player Ozzie Smith.

But the Travelers moved on to a newer park on the North Little Rock side of the Arkansas River in the early 2000s. I knew it wouldn’t be the same. It didn’t have all of the nuances of Ray Winder. It definitely didn’t have wooden seats and chicken wire serving as the screen to protect the pressbox and those behind the plate. It had no stories. It had no history.

But now it does.

Dickey-Stephens Park is where my dad, my son and I attended our first “big boy” baseball game together. It’s where my son got his first foul balls that came into the stands and where my men’s Sunday School class has a men’s night each summer. It’s the park that my son looks for when we drive near downtown Little Rock, just as I looked for Ray Winder Field as a child every time we drove down I-630.

It took time, but the character came as the games were played.

So, here is to the hope that TD Ameritrade Park will do the same for the College World Series. Many of the details and intricacies of Rosenblatt Stadium are now just memories, but new ones will be made – starting today.

My son and I watched portions of the first two games today as he has reached the age where he’s interested in baseball on TV now. To him, TD Ameritrade Park is the home of the College World Series.

No, new parks aren’t the same as the ones they replace. They aren’t meant to be. The stadiums may be replaced, but that doesn’t mean the memories have to be. They can be added on to. 

And I plan to do that as my son and I sit down over the next week and watch the College World Series when we can. And then, of course, when we attend the CWS sometime in the future.

“The character will come as we play the games.” Thank you for that line. I needed to hear that.