Stadium Views

Just a few pics from around the shop at Barley’s. Come see us this week at 15th and Cuming!

I had this dream developed over 19 years that Stadium View was something unique. That the friendships my family and I had developed and the generosity I had exhibited in opening my store, my pocketbook ;and my heart to people all over Omaha and all over the country was something special that might not last forever, but at least for a while.
I have now seen about 15-20 customers at the store over the first five days of the series and a few more at my location by the stadium in Barley’s Bar, 1510 Cuming Street.
I guess it was all about the beer.
I didn’t want it to be and I didn’t think it was, but just like every spring when I think that the Pirates can win the pennant, it looks like I was wrong.
I put in more shirts this year thinkiung I would need to service two locations and the multiple people who had promised to come would be there this year and come and see me. I cooked five gallons of Jambalaya on Saturday for all the friends. I couldn’t let them go hungry.
The three that showed up didn’t.
I hate to beg, but the viability of Stadium View is in danger. Later today, Erik will be posting photos of shirts that I have available for sale. If you can help by buying one or two shirts at a discounted $15 price for regular shirts and $20 for women’s I might somehow be able to keep the dream alive. I also am at the store every morning and will be there every Saturday.
Please help if you can.
After all, t was a great dream. Sometimes it just doesn’t work to dream.

I’m going to try and update some stuff periodically from the shop but it’s not easy!

For live updates and colorful commentary check out our Twitter page: http://www.Twitter.com/stadiumviewcws

And if you haven’t heard yet, we’ve been picked up by almost every major publication (including the New York Times who may or may not be conducting an interview as we speak….but we’re shooting for the cover of the Rolling Stone!).

Too many bottles of beer in the fridge.

Sorry I’ve been letting you guys down.  I have a total of five hours sleep since Thursday and I just need to get a lap top at the store so I can blog from there.  But for right now I am writing this at 12:15 Sunday morning.

Ryan McGee of ESPNcom continued his love affair with The View.  In the highest compliment he could have paid to our little island kingdom within the CWS Ryan, in setting out ten must things to do at the CWS said that the number one thing that people had to do was to come to The View and share a beer with yours truly.

He gets it.  He gets what The View is all about.  The View is nothing about money and power and profit motive.  It is pure and it is driven by the genuine feeling of friendship and a desire to make the Championship College Baseball experience as satisfying as possible to as many of the people as we can touch in two weeks.

One wishes that the NCAA had the same goal.

I have advanced during the period of blogging from the mayor of 13th street to the ambassador to the city Of Omaha. I think in an attempt to make one more huge political leap I will make one more push with the help of my bloggers and the Stadium  faithful which is growing daily.

I will sacrifice my ambassadorship and will forsake my CEO status at this point for one thing which I think my readers and CWS visitors will agree is in the best interest of the CWS, the City of Omaha and all college baseball fans.

I will name myself, and with the help of the electronic coup generated by my readership, will ascend to the one job that will save the CWS as we know it.

I will take Dennis Poppe’s job’

Everything ponts to it as the right thing to do.  I have to take the reins of the entire College World Series.

TodayC  of all of the true fans of the College World Series as we know it I am here to declare that the revolution has begun, and soon the despot as we know him, the  NCAA muckety  muck, Dennis Poppe will be deposed and tomorrow I will announce , “What I would do if I were Dennis Poppe.”

But for today, it’s time to go off to work.

Come visit The view at the CWS.  I promise you won’t be disappointed.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=5294822

Drink a cold one with Piv….

I wonder if ESPN would like to sponsor a location for us by the new stadium.

Better go put some more Busch Light on ice…..

Piv and his family put together a FANTASTIC restaurant guide for those of you coming from out of town (hell, I’m from Omaha and some of these places were new to me….).  It has over 70 locations and a dozen different categories (steak, Italian, Mexican, Diners/Drive-ins/Dives, ethnic, and some out of the ordinary places unique to Omaha just to name a few)…..what are you waiting for?!?!  Go check it out!

Inserted below is a link to the Google Maps version and a printable version of the document is available as well…  Happy eating!

One bottle of beer in the fridge.

I was at the store today and everybody that is around the Stadium is up in arms.

And if you think that is bad wait til the out of ‘town people get here.

If good fences make good neighbors, bad fences mak a lot of enemies.

I propose that what ought to be done is a silent protest.  Since they choose to segregate their tournament from the rest of the world, let’s segregate their vendor from the rest of the world.

NO ONE SHOULD BUY A THING FROM THE VENDOR INSIDE THE FENCE!  EVERYONE SHOULD CHOOSE TO BOYCOT THOSE VENDORS BECAUSE OF THE ACTIONS OF WHOEVER IS TO BLAME, AND I AM NOT SURE THAT WE WILL EVER FIND OUT WHO IS TO BLAME. 

BUT LET THEM SUFFER FOR THEIR ACTIONS.

Omaha is not an armed camp.  A fence that has not been needed for 60 years is not necessary today.

If I was the mayor of Omaha, I would not like my legacy to be that I put a fence around Rosenblatt Stadium

As if he will have a legacy.

Just one more step in taking the College World Series away from the people and especially away from the people of the City of Omaha.  Take the tickets away from them now rather than waiting to take them away with your seat licenses.

Can somebody just be up front  here.

Those of us who love the College World Series and love the experience see the fence as a metaphor for the barrier that will be driven between the college baseball fan and the College World Series.  The powers that be care no more for the fan on the street than they care for the student athlete or the little vendor. 

Fences are about control and power and not about  friendship and a feeling of being welcome.

This is not about bitterness.  It is about anger.

We hold these  truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, endowed by the Creator with certain inalienable rights, among them the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…….

The right not to be lied to.  The right not to be shut out  from what we have done for thirty or more years.  The right to come and go as we please.

This is not a safety issue.  If they want to address a safety issue they need to address the 2011 College World Series wherein the Stadium is but 20 feet away from the street and the threat of a Oklahoma City type attack is imminent.  This Stadium has been n safe for over 60 years and to throw a fence up on the eve of the closing of the Stadium is another huge waste of money on the part ;of the city and a slap in the face of all the regular College World Series Goers that have made this event the great event that it is.

I am not that grown up or up to date.  I am a simpler creature, tied to more primitive patterns and cycles.  I need to believe that something lasts forever, that baseball lasts forever……..

Forever ended yesterday

A fence ended it.

Two bottles of beer in the fridge.

Welcome to Stadium View.   Would you like a beer.

Just practicing.

Big day today.  Got the place almost clean, or at least straightened up.  Waco was also cleaning the clubhouse in back.  We’ll see what it looks like tomorrow.

Stadium View T-shirts are in.  The To Hell With Rosenblatt shirts look good.  Also have one that reads on the back, “We’ve put the fun in championship college baseball for 19 years……so long!”   On the front it just says Stadium View, est. 1992.  We also got the Stadium View staff shirts.  There are a lot of them so we may be selling staff shirts to the highest bidder.

Tents are popping up all over the place and I have never seen so many people in town so early.   A vendor named Victor that I haven’t seen in town for about eight years or so was hanging around yesterday.  Victor a cash only if he wants to buy from me.

A guy was in today trying to peddle some Negro league stuff.  Now I am kind of  a Negro League aficionado.  I have read several books and am fascinated by the teams and the stories.  His dad was a pitcher in the Negro Leagues.  We talked for about a half an hour.

I have a bunch of Negro Leagues gear.  Pittsburgh Crawford’s, Homestead Grays, Kansas City Monarchs and the New York Black Yankees are all in my closet.  But the history of Negro League Baseball is what is interesting.   These men absolutely loved the game.  Many could have dominated in the major leagues at that time.  But they worked for little money, as did many of their counterparts in the Major Leagues and played because the loved it between the white lines.

Mr. Biddle and I talked about how despite the fact of the color barrier, none of the former Negro Leaguers are bitter about the fact that they couldn’t play in the major leagues.  They don’t have the sense of entitlement that comes along with todays athlete.  Many of the players that will appear in the College World Series have had that sense of entitlement since little leagues and especially since select ball. 

Wear your hat straight, bend the rim and look like a ball player.  If we wanted clowns at the world series we would put a part-time rodeo out there between innings.

Dude you’re not entitled.  There isn’t a player who played in the Negro Leagues, probably making a couple of dollars a day, whose bags you deserve to carry.  They respected the game and part of respecting the game is to dress and act like a ball player.

Management reserves the right to bend your hat if you look like a dork at Stadium View.

By the way, if you need to kill a day and a half while you’re at the CWS, jump on the interstate and head down to the Negro League Museum in Kansas city.  It’s really cool.

Baseball is all about its history and the Negro Leagues is a great part, but also somewhat a shameful part of that history. 

College baseball is all about its history.   It may have begun in Kalamazoo Michigan, but all but a small portion of its history has been forged in a Stadium on a hill in Omaha Nebraska.

And for fourteen more days that Stadium on a hill will be the most important place in College baseball history. 

And then we tear it down!

Sometimes we don’t know what we’ve got til it’s gone.

Just like Mr. Biddle’s Negro Leagues, the move to a downtown stadium may be a shameful part of College World Series and College Baseball History.

Three bottles of beer in the fridge.

As I write this it appears that the field is set.  Clemson won earlier today and Oklahoma is winning 8-0.  Here they come.

I was at the store for about three hours today, at two different times.  Saw maybe fifteen or twenty people. 

Last year when I had cancer and I ran the St.Bernadette basketball tournament I had a list of things that I sent to all the coaches, forbidding them from asking certain questions about how my family was taking it and saying that they were praying for me because they were Catholic and of course they were praying for me.  That’s what Catholics do.  Not that I at all discount those prayers or there good wishes and I totally appreciate them, I just didn’t want them to tell me about it and get me all emotional.

Get to the point Piv you are probably saying.

I digress.

How the hell could I digress more than I already have.

The series is four days away and if one more person asks me what I am going to do next year I am going to reach down their throat and perform a colonoscopy by pulling their colon out through their throat.

The, “You mean after the fire?” line works and is extremely witty, and you know I like witty.  But even I have a limit to the amount of times I can tell a joke. At least some jokes.

Grasshopper walks into a bar.  The bartender looks at him and says we have a drink named after you.  The Grasshopper looks him in the eye and says, “Really.  Really, you have a drink named Steve.”

Now that joke never gets old and I have probably told it about a thousand times.

If everyone that asked me what I was going to do next year just gave me ten dollars each, we wouldn’t have to worry about what I was going to do next year.  I think I could probably take the next two College World Series’ off .

It is a little like asking Abraham Lincoln how he liked the play that night at Ford’s Theater.

What will I do next year? Here’s some ideas.

I will sit on the front stoop, cause nobody will be coming in and it will be cooler out there than it is in the store and I won’t be able to afford to run the air conditioner.

I will sort a lot of cards because nobody will interrupt the limited concentration that it takes.

I will get drunk.  Somebody’s got to drink all that beer I bought in case somebody showed up.

I will take some times to write my kids some notes..  They won’t be there for the first time lin a long time.

I will take Fathers day off for the first time in nineteen years.

I will be plotting revenge, whether it be against the Zoo, the real culprit in the move or Mayor Fahey and his girlfriend across the street.  Paybacks are hell.

I will read the South Omaha Sun from cover to cover seeing if they have decided to rewrite history and mention that I was once a big part of the College World History.

I’ll call Kris and Moosey because I won’t see them for the first time in a long time.

I’ll talk to the Nazi, because he’ll come down there  and make fun of me for buying some t-shirts and putting in some beer in case anybody shows up.  And then he’ll go downtown and join the festivities.

I’ll go dance in the middle of 13th Street cause the cops on the horse can’t touch me.

I’ll go right up to Starsky’s ad buy myself a beer and I’ll be able to walk right in.

Then I’ll walk across the street and get a burger and fries at Zesto’s at the real price and not the inflated price and maybe throw a malt in at the regular price.

I’ll go out to the back lot and wait an hour or so for a car to pull up and then I’ll park them, for free.

I’ll eat a roaster full of jambalaya, rather than let it spoil.

And then I’ll turn on the TV and watch the College World Series on TV, just like I have for twenty previous years.

See it won’t be very different, will it?

At least the cops won’t be there with a search warrant!

Four bottles of beer int the fridge.

Well the field is somewhat set.  Arizona State disposed of Arkansas in two games.  South Carolina dashed the dreams of Coastal Carolina and there will be no teal on this years shirts.  Florida took care of Miami.  TCU upset Texas to earn there first ever trip to the CWS.  That flat billed crooked hat guy beware.  Ucla held serve and beat Cal State.  Finally Florida State was sable to stave off Vanderbilt to return to the series.

I’d like to say goodbye to two longtime sets of fans of The View.  Some of the Cal State boys will most assuredly come.  They have rented a house down the street for several years and make The View one of their first and last stops in Omaha.  They are a hearty band.  They do not come in the numbers that the other schools do but what they lack in numbers they have always made up for in enthusiasm.

As you know I tend to wear my emotions on my sleeve.  There was an incident a few years ago when Cal State was eliminated and their whole team came over to the fans house across the street, in their uniforms. To the thundering applause and cheers of their fans.  It was the most touching fan-player interaction I have seen in my nineteen years.  Sure I have seen some great fan enthusiasm for the championship teams.  But this reaction, in the throes of losing showed what true fans the Cal State faithful are.

I will miss you and I hope you join us this year anyway.

I have to say goodbye t o t he Texas fans.  The first fans that walked in the store 19 years ago were from Texas.  A kid from Texas named Boatwright.  He came for a few years and then kind of disappeared.

I have to say that the Texas fans are a different group than the above referenced Titan fans.  They are supremely confident, some may say arrogant.  They are free spending, free drinking and brash, but they too love their team with all their hearts.  I will truly miss them as they were, as a child, my favorite team in the College World Series. 

Maybe they just couldn’t come without LSU.  It just wouldn’t have been the same.  What group of fans would they have battled their cuisine against?  Texas barbeque versus LSU cajun food has been a good rivalry for years and I don’t know that there will be the tailgates that there have been in  the past.  The air around Rosenblatt will be absent of some of the fine aromas that have emanated during the nineties and 2000’s.

There is a chance that Purple will be a dominant color this year. Right now., TCU and that crooked headed flat billed pitcher of theirs, brings the color to town.  Today Clemson can bring the second purple by defeating Alabama and Virginia could make it three by defeating Oklahoma.

Of course Oklahoma and Alabama could make it four burgundy/crimson colored teams with wins as they would join Florida State and South Carolina with that dominant color.

Well I get the ATM today.  Time to start counting the number of hits.  I predict a record year.  Waiting to get your money at the series ain’t free.

I know that I have cheered the entire year for Texas and LSU t o make it to the series.  I have been let down, perhaps fittingly.  In a year where they are taking my Stadium and my College World Series away from me why would they make it easy on me. 

But we built this little hobby house of ours from not only the Texas’ and LSU’s but the Tulanes,  San Jose States, Missouri State’s and Rajun Cajuns from Louisiana Lafayette.  We built it by being fans of College Baseball and we built it………………..

One beer at a time.

So for the one new team and the seven old teams that are going to make it we give you the Stadium View welcome…………

“Wanna Beer?”