News about Bob Feller

Often compared to cathedrals, America's baseball stadiums have many similarities with Europe's holy places: voted followers, ritualized traditions, countless prayers, etc. In fact, ballparks have been used for religious activities, such as the papal masses, Jehovah's Witness assemblies, and Billy Graham sermons that were regular at Yankee Stadium during the twentieth century. However, this well-worn 'cathedral' analogy struggles to reconcile the tenacity of 1,000-year-old shrines like Westminster Abbey with the fading existence of ballparks like Yankee Stadium, a 58,000-seat structure that opened a century ago today but closed its doors just 85 years later. 'It's like every other place in this world,' Cleveland's Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Feller said in 2008. They save all of their old buildings for history in Europe. We just tear them down here.'