I did not like Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Like it? How could anyone like it? The wind whipped in off the lake and made summer evenings in July feel like that fruits and vegetables room at Costco; and winter afternoons in December feel like a Stalingrad. The view from every seat, every single seat, was blocked by a metal beam -- it was an architectural marvel in that way, the ballpark equivalent of that pool table where no matter where you aim the cue ball it ends up in the same place. The floor was covered in some kind of remarkable and ambiguous tacky substance that I’m entirely sure was later patented and used for the Sticky Buddy. Asbestos seemed to be leaking out of the walls, there were exposed wires everywhere, the place smelled of the kind of gasoline beer that could get you drunk if you were within a 500-foot radius. My father, of course, would buy the cheapest tickets available which meant that even though there were countless empty seats in front of us in that cavernous place, we would sit far back because to move up would be cheating*, so it would feel like we were a half mile away from the game. The place was so big and, except on the Fourth of July, so empty and so filled with ghosts that to go in there was like walking into instant sadness machine; it felt like the place was crawling with dementors from Harry Potter.
