Quote of the Day (Roger Angell, on the Polo Grounds in the ‘20s and ‘30s)

“I liked it best when we came into the place from up top, rather than through the gates down at the foot of the lower-right-field stand. You reached the upper-deck turnstiles by walking down a steep, short ramp from the Speedway, the broad avenue that swept down from Coogan’s Bluff and along the Harlem River, and once you got inside, the long field within the horseshoe of decked stands seemed to stretch away forever below you, toward the bleachers and the clubhouse pavilion in center….Everything about the Polo Grounds was special, right down to the looped iron chains that separated each sector of box seats from its neighbor and could burn your bare arm on a summer afternoon if you weren’t careful. Far along each outfield wall, a sloping mini-roof projected outward, imparting a thin wedge of shadow for the bullpen crews sitting there: they looked like cows sheltering beside a pasture shed in August.”—Roger Angell, Let Me Finish (2007)

(Photo shows the Polo Grounds on opening day, 1923, with newly built Yankee Stadium in the background; image from Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)