Baseball’s Flee Market

"This was the place where you had Ty Cobb and Shoeless Joe [Jackson] and Babe Ruth," says Rosenthal. "When you walked around, the pigeons had taken over and there was peeling paint and broken timber and a hole in the concourse. But once you walked out and saw that field, the grass was beautiful; there was still a diamond, still a mound. I stood on the pitcher's mound and could see the faces of fans behind the plate."

Not all fans are so sentimental. Neil deMause, author of "Fields of Schemes" and a frequent critic of public financing of sports facilities, says he doesn't want any piece of New York's stadiums. "It would be like taking something off a corpse," he says. "Besides, I already took a seat from Yankee Stadium in 1976."

Euchner, who teaches writing at Yale, is the author of "The Last Nine Innings."

© 2008