Speaker 1: It's Nightside with Dan Ray.
Speaker 2: I'm telling you fleasy Boston Radio.
Speaker 3: All right, welcome back. Before we get to my guest,
Speaker 3: and we're going to talk about stadia or stadiums in
Speaker 3: the Latin night the plural of a stadium venue for
Speaker 3: a sporting event. We think about stadiums in this country
Speaker 3: as baseball parks and football fields and all of that.
Speaker 3: We're going to talk to my guest in just a moment.
Speaker 3: Had him on a couple of weeks ago. He's written
Speaker 3: a book called The Last Kamiski. I thought it'd be
Speaker 3: a great guest to talk to and give you an
Speaker 3: opportunity to check in. Before we get to Ken Smaller.
Speaker 3: Let me just take a moment here to remind all
Speaker 3: of you we have a couple of very important programs
Speaker 3: coming up here on Nightside. Every night is an important
Speaker 3: show as far as we're concerned. But next Monday night,
Speaker 3: we'll be doing what we call our annual College Admissions Panel.
Speaker 3: We've done this program for eighteen years. Every one of
Speaker 3: those years we've been joined by Bill Fitzsimmons, the dean
Speaker 3: of Admissions at Harvard. Grant Goslin is filling in. I
Speaker 3: shouldn't say, filling in. He succeeded a great representative of
Speaker 3: Boston College, Paul Mahoney who was there for many, many years.
Speaker 3: And so Grant Goslin and Bill Fitzsimmons who join us
Speaker 3: at eight pm on Monday night, December the ninth. Uh
Speaker 3: they start at eight o'clock. And if you have John,
Speaker 3: when I said Paul Mahoney, I meant this John Mahoney,
Speaker 3: how can I say, Paul Mooney, John Mahoney of Boston
Speaker 3: College who succeeded to become the provo of Boston College.
Speaker 3: And now Grant Goslin is he's not pinch hitting, he's
Speaker 3: now he's now a regular on the panel. We've done
Speaker 3: this every year for every year of Nightside, and it's
Speaker 3: great for individuals who are facing the college admissions process
Speaker 3: for the first time, families who have never had. You know,
Speaker 3: if you've been through this grind, if you will for
Speaker 3: many times or several times with older students, you kind
Speaker 3: of know the roopes. But if you have a high
Speaker 3: school freshman, sophomore, junior who are approaching the selection of
Speaker 3: a college, there's some great information and be available free
Speaker 3: of charge right here on Nightside. Next Monday Night, at
Speaker 3: eight o'clock with Bill Fitzimmons of Harvard and Grant Goslin
Speaker 3: of Boston College. And then on Friday night the twelfth,
Speaker 3: the twentieth of December, we do our fourteenth annual night
Speaker 3: Side Charity Combine. And that is excuse me, not the fourteenth,
Speaker 3: my mistake. It's the twelfth annual Nightside Charity Combine. And
Speaker 3: if you have, if you're involved in a charity, I'd
Speaker 3: like to get some free publicity. We will into view
Speaker 3: upwards of twenty charities that night, the last couple of
Speaker 3: hours of my broadcast year. It's all done remotely. You
Speaker 3: don't have to drive to the studio, will set you
Speaker 3: up as a time. We run this like clockwork, and
Speaker 3: we'll give you an opportunity to talk about the charity
Speaker 3: doesn't It can be big, it can be small. Just
Speaker 3: has to be legitimate. We'd like them to be five
Speaker 3: o' one c threes, but they don't have to be.
Speaker 3: We don't want Uncle Harry's Beer Fund. Nope, that's not
Speaker 3: something like that. These are charities that are helping other people.
Speaker 3: And you tell us what you need. Do you need volunteers,
Speaker 3: do you need money? Do you need financial support? Many
Speaker 3: of the charities have been very pleased with the benefits
Speaker 3: that they received from being on for three or four minutes.
Speaker 3: We talked with a wide there were so many great charities,
Speaker 3: big and small, that are serving the needs of our
Speaker 3: fellow New Englanders. And it's anywhere in New England. To
Speaker 3: be honest, we do. We've actually had a couple of
Speaker 3: charities on from other parts of the country which were
Speaker 3: they were kind of exceptions. But all I gotta do
Speaker 3: is send me an email at Dan Ray at iHeartMedia
Speaker 3: dot com, or you can call our producer Marita aka
Speaker 3: Lady Lightning during the day. Her office number is seven
Speaker 3: eight one three five zero one seven two six. That's
Speaker 3: seven eight one three five zero one seven two six.
Speaker 3: And it is really a great opportunity to tell the
Speaker 3: world what you do, what you're involved in. And we've
Speaker 3: had some very interesting charities. You think of some of
Speaker 3: the bigger ones that we've had on, you know, Big Brothers,
Speaker 3: Peak Sisters and Great Charity and all of that United
Speaker 3: Way and things like that, but there are some great
Speaker 3: small charities out there that do specific work in one
Speaker 3: community or on one particular topics. So email me with
Speaker 3: a daytime phone number of the person who would represent
Speaker 3: the charity. We will call that person and then we
Speaker 3: will give them a half an hour window and they
Speaker 3: will be interviewed during that half an hour window. Trust me,
Speaker 3: Dan ray d A n R e A at iHeartMedia
Speaker 3: dot com or Marita. You can just call Marita on
Speaker 3: her phone seven eight one three five zer zero one
Speaker 3: seven six. Now I'm delighted to welcome back to Night's
Speaker 3: Side the author of the last Kamiski my guest who's
Speaker 3: a boss well Brookline resident, Ken Smaller, Ken, welcome back
Speaker 3: to Nightside. How are you?
Speaker 2: I'm doing great, Thanks so much for having me back.
Speaker 2: It's great to be here.
Speaker 3: So you've written, you've you've visited somewhere around twenty five
Speaker 3: hundred stadiums in operas of twenty four countries worldwide. I
Speaker 3: think you're Your Twitter handle is is it stadium vagabond.
Speaker 2: Correct stadium vagabonds, the Twitter and all social media, as
Speaker 2: well as my website stadium vagabond dot com, where I
Speaker 2: write about sports, travels and show my photographs and offer
Speaker 2: them as prints in framed form as well, which is
Speaker 2: a great gift of course for holidays. But yeah, I've
Speaker 2: been to I checked my numbers. Twenty four to sixty
Speaker 2: five in my current tally of stadiums around the world
Speaker 2: in looks like forty eight states in twenty four countries.
Speaker 2: Is my current tally.
Speaker 3: When did you start this travel? How do you know
Speaker 3: all of us remember the first sports stadium that we
Speaker 3: walked into. I remember as I was probably six or
Speaker 3: seven or eight years old and walked into with my
Speaker 3: dad Fenway Park and walked up one of those ramps.
Speaker 3: It was an off day for the Red Sox. This
Speaker 3: goes back into the nineteen fifties when people could just
Speaker 3: just walk into Fenway Park. There was no one's going
Speaker 3: to stop you. And I remember walking up the same
Speaker 3: walkway that I've walked up. It was just to the
Speaker 3: right of home plate and looking out at the green
Speaker 3: grass and it wasn't even called the green Monster then,
Speaker 3: I don't think the left field wall and the pitching
Speaker 3: mound and realizing the pitching mound was elevated and I
Speaker 3: I cannot erase and Noel would I want to erase
Speaker 3: that image in my mind? What was the first stadium?
Speaker 3: Did you have one?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, I had a very similar experience back in
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy seven at Kimiski Park in Chicago, which of
Speaker 2: course is the subject of the book. But I was
Speaker 2: probably about six or seven years old at the time,
Speaker 2: and my dad brought my sister and me to Komiskey
Speaker 2: to see the Orioles play against the White Sox. It
Speaker 2: was a summer day. I remember vividly doing something similar
Speaker 2: to what you described, walking up the steep stairs behind
Speaker 2: home plate. The structure of the stadium was pretty similar
Speaker 2: to Fenway, where you had the concourse below the stands,
Speaker 2: so you had that dramatic walk up and then the
Speaker 2: green grass would unfold before your eyes, and it looked
Speaker 2: so much different than what you had seen on TV
Speaker 2: for all those years. And I was hooked from day
Speaker 2: one this theater that was unlike anywhere else. And then
Speaker 2: I continued on, you know, through the eighties in Chicago,
Speaker 2: going to Chicago Stadium and Soldier Field, and eventually getting
Speaker 2: to Wrigley Field despite the fact that we were big
Speaker 2: White Sox fans in my family, and then venturing up
Speaker 2: north to County Stadium where the Brewers used to play,
Speaker 2: which was only about ninety minutes north of Chicago. But
Speaker 2: it really blossomed for me in college. I was a
Speaker 2: photo editor at the student run Michigan Daily in the
Speaker 2: early nineties at the University of Michigan.
Speaker 3: And Wolverine then correct, I am.
Speaker 2: A happy Wolverine this week. A successful season has been
Speaker 2: had after last week as well as.
Speaker 3: If I'm not mistaken, at Ohio State.
Speaker 2: You know, some some teams just don't know how to
Speaker 2: behave after games, and those those guys down south of
Speaker 2: the border of uh Michigan, Ohio just you know, couldn't
Speaker 2: really deal with the adverse. But I was really lucky
Speaker 2: when I was in college. I got to trail Desmond Howard,
Speaker 2: who went on to become the Heisman Trophy winner that year,
Speaker 2: and I got to watch and photograph every one of
Speaker 2: his games throughout the Big Ten. And actually he played
Speaker 2: over at BC and the Heights that year and scored
Speaker 2: four touchdowns against Boston College. And I also got to
Speaker 2: cover a year later the Fab Five, which, for those
Speaker 2: folks who don't remember, was a rarity at the time.
Speaker 2: There were five freshman basketball players who came to Michigan
Speaker 2: and ended up getting all the way to the NCAA
Speaker 2: Championship game, only to lose to Duke Chris Webber being
Speaker 2: the biggest star in Jalen Rose and Juwan Howard, and
Speaker 2: I got to watch and photograph from the court when
Speaker 2: I should have been studying for my econ midterm. In
Speaker 2: the Metrodome, I got to cover the final four in
Speaker 2: the NCAA Championship game. And after college, I decided to
Speaker 2: go to law school and find myself a sort of
Speaker 2: a straight career, but always wanted to continue to photograph
Speaker 2: sports and stadiums on the side, and everywhere I've gone
Speaker 2: since then, I've done something to either go to a game,
Speaker 2: or go on a tour, or see the stadium or
Speaker 2: arena or a ballpark in a particular city, and it's
Speaker 2: just become kind of an obsessive hobby that really will
Speaker 2: never end as long as I can keep walking and
Speaker 2: keep taking photographs. And now you know, I bring my
Speaker 2: wife along, and now that I have two teenage boys,
Speaker 2: they come along with me to these various adventures and
Speaker 2: it's like a worldwide scavenger hunt. I always look for
Speaker 2: the unusual stadiums in a new city that I'm going to,
Speaker 2: and it takes me to parts of the stadium the
Speaker 2: city that I probably wouldn't otherwise, never visit that wouldn't
Speaker 2: necessarily make the dour guides, but it really provides an
Speaker 2: interesting foray into a.
Speaker 3: Do you work as a full time lawyer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm a full time real commercial real estate lawyer.
Speaker 2: So this is a business for me.
Speaker 3: This neck of the woods out in Michigan.
Speaker 2: I went to law school down in Philadelphia at Penn
Speaker 2: and got to see some terrific stadiums down there. One
Speaker 2: of the best is the Plaster in Philadelphia. Uh, the
Speaker 2: old Basketball Arena which is home to Penn but also
Speaker 2: the Big Five Basketball tournaments.
Speaker 3: When you when when you say stadiums to me, I
Speaker 3: think about the outdoor venues. Okay, maybe they're a covered
Speaker 3: venue like the old Houston Astrodome or the the Dome
Speaker 3: down in Louisiana and New Orleans or Tampa Bay. So
Speaker 3: you include you would include on the under the term
Speaker 3: stadium hockey arenas or or oh yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 2: Any I kind of kind of mentally have made this decision.
Speaker 2: At any place where they built a structure to house
Speaker 2: sporting events constitutes the stadium. And sometimes it's something unusual
Speaker 2: like the symphony orchestra here Boston Symphony for brief period
Speaker 2: in two thousand and two was the home of the
Speaker 2: US Squash Open and turned into a stadium for about
Speaker 2: ten days back in two thousand and two when they
Speaker 2: held the squash Championships.
Speaker 3: There in your calculation, that counts, Okay.
Speaker 2: I'm going to count that. I'll count that one. They're
Speaker 2: not many like that, but a few.
Speaker 3: As I say, we have the love of sports arenas
Speaker 3: and stadiums in common as well as I'm a Boston
Speaker 3: University law school guy, so we have the legal background
Speaker 3: and the love of sports. We take a break. I'm
Speaker 3: going to invite callers to join the conversation and see
Speaker 3: if we can stump Ken. Maybe there's a stadium that
Speaker 3: you've seen that Ken hasn't seen. I suspect probably not.
Speaker 3: But we'll talk about some of the stadiums that Ken
Speaker 3: has seen around the world. Twenty four countries. I mean
Speaker 3: most people never travel. I mean the vast majority of
Speaker 3: people never travel to five countries in their life, never
Speaker 3: mind twenty four, and they never see sports stadiums. They
Speaker 3: may pass through an airport or two. But we'll we'll
Speaker 3: enjoy our conversation, and this is just sort of a
Speaker 3: as we get into December, we we do we do
Speaker 3: our politics and our serious subjects, but we're also going
Speaker 3: to find subjects that everybody can relate to, and you
Speaker 3: don't have to be a sports officionado or an expert.
Speaker 3: Join the conversation six one, seven, two, five, four ten
Speaker 3: thirty six one seven, nine, three, one ten thirty. My
Speaker 3: name is Dan Ray. We're talking about stadiums that people
Speaker 3: have visited. I can I've never done account of. It's
Speaker 3: not gonna be anywhere close to what Can has, that's
Speaker 3: for sure. But I've been to a few interesting facilities
Speaker 3: over the years, including Kimiski Park. So Gaylord Perry and
Speaker 3: Wilbur Wood hook up in a pictures duel back in
Speaker 3: I think nineteen seventy three at that old Ballyard. We'll
Speaker 3: take a quick break, coming back on Nightside talking about
Speaker 3: sports stadiums, which include arenas. We'll be back on Nightside
Speaker 3: after this.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World,
Speaker 1: Nice Sight Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 3: We'll gome back. Everybody's talking with Ken Smallum. Ken is
Speaker 3: from the Boston area written a book called The Last Kimiski.
Speaker 3: I want to talk about the book for a couple
Speaker 3: of minutes, then get back to the stadiums and your travels. Obviously,
Speaker 3: since Kimiski Park was the first stadium that you have
Speaker 3: visited as a child, I'm sure that that is why
Speaker 3: that's the subject of your book. How's that book doing
Speaker 3: at this point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're doing pretty well. It started based on a
Speaker 2: documentary by a first time documentarian named Matt Flesh, and
Speaker 2: he put together in crowdsourced a bunch of photos and videos,
Speaker 2: including my photos, to do a documentary during COVID, and
Speaker 2: we decided to turn it into a book given the
Speaker 2: great feedback we got for the documentary and so many
Speaker 2: my photos didn't make the final cut of the film,
Speaker 2: and I had over four hundred photos that I wanted
Speaker 2: to share with baseball and sports fans, not just white
Speaker 2: Sox fans, but really people who love sports history. And
Speaker 2: it really kind of guides us through the last seasons
Speaker 2: of old Chimiskey Park and some real special times that
Speaker 2: took place during those last few years. I was really
Speaker 2: lucky to have my childhood hero, Azzige and the manager
Speaker 2: that helped them win the World Series and five and
Speaker 2: was Rookie of the Year in nineteen eighty five for
Speaker 2: the team provide the forward to the book, which was
Speaker 2: a real thrill to have him give his thoughts and
Speaker 2: memories of old Chimisky Park, which was just as special
Speaker 2: to him as it was to baseball fans from throughout
Speaker 2: the country, if not world, whoever visited it. It was
Speaker 2: a real special place, and it's just wonderful to provide
Speaker 2: fans who both have memories of it, but even younger
Speaker 2: fans who never got to visit it time travel back
Speaker 2: into those days to a ballpark that was a real
Speaker 2: unique ballpark unlike anything else that ever was built before
Speaker 2: or since, and it lasted for eighty years, was home
Speaker 2: to the White Sox, the Negro League American Giants, the
Speaker 2: Chicago Stings soccer team, and a lot of people forget
Speaker 2: the Chicago Cardinals played there for decades, played more games
Speaker 2: there and any other stadium, even than their current stadium
Speaker 2: in Glendale, Arizona, which I think they'll soon surpass Miski
Speaker 2: Park in a few years. And it's just a real
Speaker 2: special place, you know. We put together both the photos
Speaker 2: and the content from the documentary, it's something that people
Speaker 2: can really look at and have as a keepsake.
Speaker 3: And how's the how's the book doing? I assume it's
Speaker 3: a big hit in Chicago.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's doing well and actually was just nominated for
Speaker 2: the Chicago Writers Association non Fiction Award for Book of
Speaker 2: the Year for twenty twenty four. We're going to find
Speaker 2: out any day whether or not the book was the winner.
Speaker 2: It's up against some stiff competition, but it's really exciting
Speaker 2: to know that other folks, including people in the literary community,
Speaker 2: really appreciate this this window back in time through this book.
Speaker 3: So you visited, as you said, I think it was
Speaker 3: twenty four hundred and sixty five stadium stadiums is the
Speaker 3: plurals in Latin, it would be stadia and that includes
Speaker 3: not only you know, fields that we think of baseball
Speaker 3: parks and all of that, but you've mentioned some others
Speaker 3: and arenas and all of that. When we get back,
Speaker 3: I want to talk about some of the countries that
Speaker 3: you have gone to and visited. And I also want
Speaker 3: to talk You mentioned that there was a handball tournament
Speaker 3: held at Boston Symphony Hall, and so that's one of
Speaker 3: the twenty four hundred and sixty five that you count
Speaker 3: as having visited. How many of the Major League baseball
Speaker 3: parks have you have you Have you done every Major
Speaker 3: League ballpark baseball park?
Speaker 2: Yeah, done, recurrent one, and I think about thirty three
Speaker 2: former ones, either that were in existence for long periods
Speaker 2: or some for very short periods, such as San Juan,
Speaker 2: Puerto Rico was the home ballpark for the Expos for
Speaker 2: about forty games before they moved to Washington.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I forgot that. Oh sure, Okay, what are some
Speaker 3: I mean the ballparks that I can remember going to.
Speaker 3: I remember going to the Vet in Philadelphia, going to
Speaker 3: the old Memorial Stadium for the Baltimore Orioles get down
Speaker 3: in Maryland. I'm trying to think of some of the
Speaker 3: other Arlington There was the Rangers for wild played in
Speaker 3: an old park down in Arlington, Texas. Did you get
Speaker 3: any of those along the way or.
Speaker 2: It's funny you mentioned that, because one of the ones
Speaker 2: that I'm really lament never getting to is the Arlington one.
Speaker 2: I got to all those old old doughnut sort of stadiums,
Speaker 2: Veterans stadiums in Philly Three Rivers and in Pittsburgh, Oakland
Speaker 2: Alameda Calism which had just closed down recently, with another
Speaker 2: one of them in Atlanta, Fulton County Stadium, river Front
Speaker 2: Stadium in Cincinnati and Bush Stadium in Saint Louis. All
Speaker 2: those stadiums met either the wrecking ball or the implosion
Speaker 2: dynamite in the nineties or early aughts, and we had
Speaker 2: a real influx of new stadiums hitting really throughout the
Speaker 2: world in the late nineteen nineties and early two thousands.
Speaker 3: As It's funny, all of those stadiums that were built
Speaker 3: in the early seventies sort of you know, Forbes Field
Speaker 3: passed on and it became Three Rivers in Pittsburgh. That
Speaker 3: and the vet which came along after Shy Park. They
Speaker 3: didn't have much life expectancy. I mean, as you mentioned
Speaker 3: Kimiski at eighty four years, Fenway still going strong now
Speaker 3: in what next year will be the one hundred and
Speaker 3: thirteenth year of Fenway Park. I think Fenway Park is
Speaker 3: the second oldest ballpark. There's a ballpark, and I think
Speaker 3: it's Birmingham, Alabama.
Speaker 2: That correct, That.
Speaker 3: Is that is still the oldest ballpark. I'm not sure
Speaker 3: that it's still in continuous use, by the way, Oh
Speaker 3: it is.
Speaker 2: It actually recently became a major League ballpark.
Speaker 3: Well it was one it was, yeah, it was one
Speaker 3: night only, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, one night June.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I know that. Okay, Well, take a break.
Speaker 3: My guest is Ken Smaller. Love to hear from you
Speaker 3: as to what was maybe the first stadium he went to,
Speaker 3: or what was the stadium that you fell in love with.
Speaker 3: Maybe some of you have been up on the kiss
Speaker 3: cam or the engagement camp in some of these ballparks. Look,
Speaker 3: there are some ballplayers who have been married at at
Speaker 3: at stadium at stadiums. Don Zimmer, the Red Sox manager,
Speaker 3: was married i think at the Dodgers Triple A Stadium
Speaker 3: back in the nineteen fifties. So feel free to join
Speaker 3: the conversation. I'm enjoying it. I hope you will as well.
Speaker 3: We'll be back on Nightside right after the News at
Speaker 3: the bottom of the hour.
Speaker 1: It's Night Side with Dan Ray on Boston's news radio.
Speaker 3: My guest is Ken Smaller. He has visited two and
Speaker 3: sixty five stadiums, which again includes baseball parks, football fields,
Speaker 3: but also arenas twenty four countries. Some of the countries
Speaker 3: that you've been to were these were these countries that
Speaker 3: you were going to and you just found stadiums along
Speaker 3: the way over these countries you went to knowing you
Speaker 3: wanted to see a specific stadium a.
Speaker 2: Little bit of both. I was in Japan to go
Speaker 2: see baseball, but naturally, when I was there, I wanted
Speaker 2: to see sumo as well, and got to see the
Speaker 2: Grand Championship in two thousand and five of the culmination
Speaker 2: of a fifteen days sumo tournament in Tokyo, which was
Speaker 2: one of the most amazing experiences of my life seeing that.
Speaker 2: Another example was being in Dublin. I was there for
Speaker 2: a brief trip and got to see hurling at Croke Park,
Speaker 2: which was something that I knew nothing about and became
Speaker 2: hooked on it after seeing it live in person. You know,
Speaker 2: all kinds of different things. I went to try to
Speaker 2: see the Leeds soccer stadium without realizing that a Jehovah's
Speaker 2: Witness rally was occurring right there and then, and that
Speaker 2: was the only way I was going to gain entry
Speaker 2: if I grabbed a prayer book and went in and
Speaker 2: quietly was reverent while I took my pictures, and my
Speaker 2: wife sat there quietly looking at a prayer book while
Speaker 2: while I roamed around taking some photos of this legendary
Speaker 2: soccer ground.
Speaker 3: And you almost got arrested in one.
Speaker 2: You told me yeah, I almost got arrested in Barcelona.
Speaker 2: It was the week of the Real Madrid Barcelona match
Speaker 2: and I snuck in trying to take photos of the stadium,
Speaker 2: not realizing they were practicing at the time. I got
Speaker 2: grabbed by a guard I'm not quite sure whether he
Speaker 2: was a police or a guard, and he dragged me
Speaker 2: to their office and ripped the film out of my
Speaker 2: cameraposing it dedriving me of some great photos because he
Speaker 2: thought I was a spy trying to get the plays
Speaker 2: on behalf of Real Madrid's team.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well that must have. That would have been like
Speaker 3: photographing a Patriots practice before a Super Bowl when Belichick
Speaker 3: was coach.
Speaker 2: Exactly exactly By the way you mentioned weddings, My kids
Speaker 2: have only seen one wedding in person. It was during
Speaker 2: the halftime a few years ago in Buffalo of the
Speaker 2: Bills Pats game. A lucky contest winner a couple of
Speaker 2: Big Bills fans got married by one of the former players.
Speaker 2: Jim Kelly was the best man. The mascot was there
Speaker 2: as the ring bear. There was a wedding in front
Speaker 2: of seventy five eighty thousand people during halftime of the game.
Speaker 2: I think it was two thousand and twenty two.
Speaker 3: I can't think of a more appropriate way for a
Speaker 3: Buffalo Builds fan to get married. That was it snowing?
Speaker 3: I hope at the time.
Speaker 2: It was early in the season.
Speaker 3: It was September, doesn't matter, it still could have been snowing.
Speaker 2: You know. Afterwards I classed through a table in the
Speaker 2: parking lot. That would have been been the the whole scene.
Speaker 3: Let's let's get a couple of phone calls in here.
Speaker 3: My guest is Ken Smaller. He is a photographer and
Speaker 3: a lawyer, but most importantly for our show, the author
Speaker 3: of book The Last Kamiski. He has visited twenty four
Speaker 3: hundred and sixty five stadiums around the world. The most
Speaker 3: exotic country that you I mean, obviously Ireland is a
Speaker 3: wonderful country, but I wouldn't call it exotic Spain. What's
Speaker 3: the most exotic country you photographed? Have visited?
Speaker 2: My honeymoon in Thailand. We were in Chiang Mai seeing
Speaker 2: a bunch of ancient temples that are around for hundreds
Speaker 2: of years, thousands of years, and I told my tour guide,
Speaker 2: you know, there's a there's a soccer stadium up the road,
Speaker 2: can we just take a little bit of a detour
Speaker 2: and go check that out? And it wasn't in season,
Speaker 2: but I got a nice photograph of the stadium on
Speaker 2: the outside that was in northern Thailand called uh Soccer
Speaker 2: games in Israel of A. Recently went to a demolition
Speaker 2: derby at a bullfight ring in Tijuana, Mexico, which is
Speaker 2: not that far away, but with a pretty unusual event
Speaker 2: right right to the.
Speaker 3: Border, and it's it's it's not a great tourist down
Speaker 3: from my recollection, but believe.
Speaker 2: That a lot better. It's gotten a lot better.
Speaker 3: But I'll bet, I'll bet, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: I was taking my son to a baseball game there
Speaker 2: and our guide I wanted to see that bullfighting ring
Speaker 2: and lo and behold there was a demolition derby taking place,
Speaker 2: and it was one of the most unusual fun events
Speaker 2: that I've ever seen live.
Speaker 3: Bulls weren't driving the automobiles.
Speaker 2: Assume no, no, I think I think they've they've banned
Speaker 2: bullfighting in a lot of Mexico, including Dijuanna.
Speaker 3: Okay, let's let's go to Tony and wo Tony, start
Speaker 3: us off, Tony ken small and go right ahead, Tony,
Speaker 3: how are you.
Speaker 4: Dan, how are you. I've been listening the whole time
Speaker 4: I've been. I haven't talked to you a while. This
Speaker 4: is my.
Speaker 3: Puerto Rican hockey player from Worcester Ken by the way,
Speaker 3: he's a goaltender, right.
Speaker 4: Tony, No, No, I was a right winger. You keep
Speaker 4: saying I was a goaltender.
Speaker 3: You were for some reason. Yeah, okay, right winger, fair,
Speaker 3: fair enough, Okay, you were my enemy then because I
Speaker 3: was a goaltender.
Speaker 4: How good you were? I would have I would have
Speaker 4: liked to test you other time.
Speaker 3: You wouldn't pretty good I had. I had a very
Speaker 3: quick glove hand and uh, nothing was going over my
Speaker 3: right shoulder and on the stick side. Trust me on
Speaker 3: that go ahead And I'm only getting go ahead. You
Speaker 3: probably was going to listen.
Speaker 4: I had a I want to talk about a stadium, right, Yeah.
Speaker 4: I've been to Nicaralla for about thirty years, working, you know,
Speaker 4: through a mission mission, working churches and schools down there,
Speaker 4: and I, uh, about fifteen years ago. You remember the
Speaker 4: Roberto Clemente story.
Speaker 3: Right, yes, sure, yeah, fifteen years ago. That was Yeah,
Speaker 3: you're talking you said fifteen years ago. It's nineteen seventy two.
Speaker 4: Seventy two yeah, yeah, yep, so yeah, that was nineteen
Speaker 4: seventy two. Anyway, so I think it was.
Speaker 3: New Year's Eve if i'm if I'm not correct, If I'm.
Speaker 4: Correct, that's right, that's right. So anyway, I always carry
Speaker 4: that in my heart because you know, at that time
Speaker 4: it was one of our heroes. You know, it was
Speaker 4: a very good baseball player. He was very very well
Speaker 4: loved in an island.
Speaker 3: You know, there's Umanitarian mission to help people. Just unbelievable,
Speaker 3: that's right. Sacrifice.
Speaker 4: So anyway, uh, I was down there and I had
Speaker 4: a console. One of the music the women from one
Speaker 4: of my churches broke and I found out a person
Speaker 4: in this city of Massiah. They had some pots for it.
Speaker 4: You know, they don't they don't. They don't buy anything
Speaker 4: new down there. They repair everything. You know. It's like
Speaker 4: the nineteen fifty cars in Cuba.
Speaker 3: The socialist country. That's what happens in all these socialists.
Speaker 3: Guts you go ahead, that's.
Speaker 4: Right, that's right. So anyway, I went to Massiah with
Speaker 4: this other kid looking for pots, and I get up
Speaker 4: to this hill and I noticed this big rusty metal
Speaker 4: doors and they had and they had all this green
Speaker 4: and all these vegetation growing on them. But one of
Speaker 4: them was cracked open. I said, gee, you well, what
Speaker 4: kind of big doors are there? So as I got
Speaker 4: close to it, I can see in memory of Roberto
Speaker 4: Clementing so I in Spanish, you know, So I cracked
Speaker 4: it all open. I walked in and I was shocked
Speaker 4: as I walked into the dinner. It used to be
Speaker 4: a stadium one time. All I found was goats and
Speaker 4: cows and horses, and the whole field was like one
Speaker 4: big forest. So, anyway, my cousin in Puerto Rico does baseball.
Speaker 4: You know, he's an announcer over there. He's been doing
Speaker 4: that like for forty years. And so I went over
Speaker 4: there and I talked to him, and I said, listen,
Speaker 4: I went to Nicaragua and I found the stadium out
Speaker 4: there in the wild, in the woods, and it was
Speaker 4: all taken over by by trees, and it was Roberto
Speaker 4: Comente Stadium. There was named after him, you know, after
Speaker 4: what he did tried to do in that country to
Speaker 4: help those people. So he said, really, So, anyway, one
Speaker 4: thing led to another and he talked to some people.
Speaker 4: The next thing, you know, about three years ago, major
Speaker 4: League Baseball and Puerto Rico got together and they went
Speaker 4: down there. And I've been going to visit the stadium
Speaker 4: and the last three years down there, and it was
Speaker 4: almost finished. I was there in January fifth and I
Speaker 4: was visiting and it was nearly finished, and they let
Speaker 4: me walk into the you know, the snow ground still
Speaker 4: nothing like that, and they made me walk in the
Speaker 4: field and take pictures of it. It's really amazing. All
Speaker 4: because I talked to my cousin and he talked to
Speaker 4: some people. Eventually he got the May Major League Baseball
Speaker 4: and they sponsored the money on Puerto Rico sponsor money
Speaker 4: and they went down there and built on a stadium.
Speaker 4: Then I also went to Manawa, like back in May,
Speaker 4: and I went to the city of Manawa, and all
Speaker 4: of a sudden, I see this big song a new stadium,
Speaker 4: Roberto Clemente Stadium. So they had an old stadium in
Speaker 4: Manawa which they are rehabilitating to name it after ROBERTA. Clemente.
Speaker 4: So it's amazing to me that just a few words
Speaker 4: with people, you know, that you get these things to happen.
Speaker 3: You know, there are about eighteen Major League Baseball players
Speaker 3: who were born in Nicaragua. I remember there was a pitcher,
Speaker 3: Albert Williams who pitched in the nineteen eighties. Also Dennis
Speaker 3: my Tinas who pitched for the Orioles. Yeah, Jonathan uh
Speaker 3: Lusiga who's a reliever for the Yankees for a while,
Speaker 3: he's still active technically, Devern Handsack pitch for the Red Sox.
Speaker 3: A bunch of these guys whose names I recommended, who
Speaker 3: I recognize. So there's Nicaragua has produced some Major League
Speaker 3: Baseball players. Tony, I'm past my break, so I gotta
Speaker 3: let you run. But you're a great caller always, and uh,
Speaker 3: remember keep your head up, okay, never when you're carrying
Speaker 3: a part, and keep your head up.
Speaker 4: Well okay, yeah, just make show you keep that stick
Speaker 4: on the ground. Don't let it be your leg.
Speaker 3: You got it, You got it. Thanks, Tony talks talk soon, Okay,
Speaker 3: thank you. Tony is a great friend and and a
Speaker 3: great and a great guy. Ken. Uh. And so you've
Speaker 3: never been in Nicaragua, but there's a couple of stadiums
Speaker 3: you could.
Speaker 2: No, I got it yet there. Roberta. Clemente is honored
Speaker 2: with both a ballpark and an arena in Puerto Rico
Speaker 2: that I visited.
Speaker 3: I'm not mistaken meant he ended up exactly with three
Speaker 3: thousand hits.
Speaker 2: I think you're exactly right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, ironically, and and died in that plane crash trying
Speaker 3: to bring help to people in Nicaragua. Six one seven
Speaker 3: thirty six one seven. My name is Dan ray Uh.
Speaker 3: I would love to hear your baseball or your arena story.
Speaker 3: My guest is Ken Smaller. He has visited two thousand,
Speaker 3: four hundred and sixty five stadiums, uh at arenas around
Speaker 3: the world, twenty four countries, forty eight states, has photographed
Speaker 3: stadiums in every state except Montana and Alaska. And this
Speaker 3: is this is this is a an avocation, but what
Speaker 3: a great avocation, particularly if you're a sports fan. Movie
Speaker 3: right back on night Side, Ohm, I go to Daryl
Speaker 3: new Brunswick, Darryl, you're my guest, Ken Smaller talking sports stadiums,
Speaker 3: go right ahead, stadiums.
Speaker 1: Stay Ken, Hey, Dan, I would like to actually go
Speaker 1: back to the old Tiger Stadium and Uh. When we
Speaker 1: were younger, me and my twin brother were invited through
Speaker 1: a family friend, invited by Bill Lee from Texas, UH
Speaker 1: to see him pitch at Tiger Stadium.
Speaker 3: Bill Lee, the Red Sox pitcher you've been talking about.
Speaker 1: Uh he he pitchs for Texas Rangers.
Speaker 3: So it's a different Bill Lee, not the Billy of
Speaker 3: Red Sox fame. Uh.
Speaker 1: He could have played for Red Sox prior.
Speaker 3: Bill He never played, never played for the U, for
Speaker 3: for the for the Tigers, that I can assure you. Oh.
Speaker 1: No, he played for Texas.
Speaker 3: No, I know that. But the Bill Lee that we
Speaker 3: know here in Boston is it's interesting.
Speaker 1: It could be, it could be, it could be the
Speaker 1: same person. But it was nice to have that invite
Speaker 1: through a family friend.
Speaker 3: And for the were you watching the Red Sox playing?
Speaker 1: I mean, was it I was like ten years old?
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, well maybe he was catching for the Red
Speaker 3: Sox against the Tigers, so you might have seen the
Speaker 3: Red Sox play.
Speaker 1: No, definitely pitching against Tigers for sure.
Speaker 3: Oh that was Billy. Okay, that that was Billy for
Speaker 3: the Red Sox. Okay, that's pretty good. Here was that?
Speaker 1: Here was that? That was like mid seventies.
Speaker 3: That would have been That would have been the time
Speaker 3: Bill Lee was in the starting rotation of the Red Sox.
Speaker 3: You got any baseball stadiums in New Brunswick, Daryl.
Speaker 1: Not that I know of. They're still trying to get
Speaker 1: Canadian football out here.
Speaker 3: Okay, but let me ask my guest Ken Smaller Canada.
Speaker 3: Have you gone to Canada to photograph? I assume you
Speaker 3: probably follow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah, I've got a game in Montreal. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I got a few CF falcon I've seen Jarry Park
Speaker 2: before they converted it to a tennis stadium. I've seen
Speaker 2: the win Peg Blue Bombers before they tore down their
Speaker 2: old stadium, which started as a ballpark. Montreal. The Loettes
Speaker 2: have a terrific stadium, Moulson Stadium, right on the campus
Speaker 2: of McGill University. We used to have a great view
Speaker 2: of the skyline, but they built an upper deck to
Speaker 2: block the skyline. But that's a great place to see
Speaker 2: see CFL. They had terrific crowds. It's just enough of
Speaker 2: a different game than the NFL or college football in
Speaker 2: the States to make it really interesting and at a
Speaker 2: different environment.
Speaker 3: Longer. I think the field's one hundred and it's one
Speaker 3: hundred and twenty yards, right, yeah, they.
Speaker 2: Have it's fifty five yards. They have a fifty five
Speaker 2: yard line and then their end zones are twenty yards
Speaker 2: long with the field goalpost being in the end zone,
Speaker 2: like the way that the NFL was back before the seventies.
Speaker 3: Back in the old days. Yeah, all right, all right,
Speaker 3: you must have some arenas up there, Daryl in New Brunswick.
Speaker 1: Right, well, we we just got rid of the old
Speaker 1: coliseum in Edmonton and then they had the new facility
Speaker 1: belt and here's the old maple leaf gardens when you'd
Speaker 1: actually walk up into the nosebleeds and it was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it felt like you were falling over right, But I'm.
Speaker 3: Talking about the New Brunswick where you live. You had
Speaker 3: is Monkton in New Brunswick, if I.
Speaker 1: Mom mistaken, Moncton is but I haven't been there yet.
Speaker 3: Right, But they for many years they had an American
Speaker 3: Hockey League team.
Speaker 1: I know that, Yes, And we go back to WILLI.
Speaker 3: O're right, sure, yeah, absolutely, Will o re and uh
Speaker 3: who made his debut first black com player in the NHL.
Speaker 3: We're flat out of time, Darryl, So I got to
Speaker 3: let you run as always. Thanks for joining the conversation
Speaker 3: and adding to the program. Great to hear you, and
Speaker 3: we will talk to you before Christmas.
Speaker 1: Okay, stay warm.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's pretty cool down here, right, That's that's for sure,
Speaker 3: ken I enjoyed this as always. Uh, tonight, you told
Speaker 3: me that you ran into trouble at a stadium in Antwerp,
Speaker 3: if I'm not mistaken. Wasn't that one that you ran
Speaker 3: into a little bit of a trouble?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, recently an Antwerp I Uh, I hustled up
Speaker 2: five flights of stairs to try to take a photograph
Speaker 2: of a stadium that I knew was not really open,
Speaker 2: and I got caught and escorted out before I can
Speaker 2: snap my photo. So I was huffing and puffing, pleading
Speaker 2: my case and to no avail, I did not get
Speaker 2: my picture. It happens now.
Speaker 3: And then these stadium guards that you would.
Speaker 2: Think they can be tough, they can be tough.
Speaker 3: They really can. So so folks want to get the
Speaker 3: book The Last Kimiski, Do you have a website or yeah?
Speaker 2: If at Last Yeah, no, it's not at Amazon, it's
Speaker 2: at last comiskeybook dot com. That's last comisky book dot com.
Speaker 2: Comisky spelled co m I s k e y. Or
Speaker 2: you can always go to my website stadium vagabond dot
Speaker 2: com and there's a link there well, and then on
Speaker 2: social media at Stadium vagabond. I post three to five
Speaker 2: stadiums every day and try to vary it and take
Speaker 2: requests as well. I love when my followers give me
Speaker 2: requests for stadiums and try to stump me, and also
Speaker 2: give me good average ideas of new places to go to.
Speaker 3: Thanks so much, Ken, I really enjoyed it. Hope you
Speaker 3: have a great holiday season, whatever holiday you happen to
Speaker 3: associate yourself with. And remember, once we get to the
Speaker 3: holiday season, we'll be in the new year, and the
Speaker 3: truck will be leaving for Fort Myers sometime in the
Speaker 3: first week in February, so baseball will return. See where
Speaker 3: the Red Sox signed Chapman, the left handed relief pitcher
Speaker 3: who can still get the ball up to the plate
Speaker 3: one hundred miles an hour. Not a bad signing, a
Speaker 3: little expensive.
Speaker 2: Neither of my socks had a very good season last year,
Speaker 2: so hoping Red and White are on the improving incline now.
Speaker 3: Well, the White Sox had a particularly horrific Yeah, there's
Speaker 3: only they can only get better.
Speaker 2: Well, you know what, White Sox fans worry it could
Speaker 2: get worse.
Speaker 3: I doubt it. I doubt it. Thanks so much.
Speaker 2: We'll talk great to talk to you that Happy holidays,
Speaker 2: same to you, Thanks Ken.
Speaker 3: All Right we get back. We have the fourth and
Speaker 3: final hour coming up here on a cold Tuesday night
Speaker 3: here in New England. It's December third, and winter has
Speaker 3: arrived and it's only going to get worse for the
Speaker 3: balance of the week. Back on night Side right after
Speaker 3: this