Leave it to the A’s and John Fisher to be three months late on the renderings for a ballpark that still feels like it has a better chance of being built in Narnia than it does in Vegas, and then to have it leak out a day after they meant it to:
Anyway, this is the abortion the A’s want the residents of Vegas to dream of attending, as well as fans of the 29 other teams (maybe 31 by the time whatever this turns into gets built) to dream of justifying a trip to Vegas in the summer for. No, it does not look like a ballpark from the outside, and barely one from the inside. And apparently we’re not done murdering thousands of birds with a giant window on a stadium.
The renderings have no lights on the inside, which is just something of a minor oversight. The giant scoreboard in right is attached to the roof, which will give most everyone a nice crick in their neck looking at over nine innings. The view over the left-field wall wouldn’t look like that either, as the stadium would actually be much closer to the New York New York. In addition, if the park did face that way with the third-base line going directly west, then there would be a portion of the schedule where the sun would be shining directly into the catcher’s and batter’s eye while it’s setting. Which is why almost every MLB stadium has its third-base line face north-south.
The whole thing looks like a ballpark stuffed into a giant zeppelin. And let’s remember that this is still meant to be the smallest park in the Majors, in the smallest market in the Majors, after Fisher turned down more money, a bigger park in a bigger market from the city of Oakland.
While you can get away with building an eyesore in Vegas, where every building is specifically meant to be an eyesore, there’s still little chance this gets built, at least as envisioned here. Another reminder that even though the A’s have finally been able to choose a design firm and got someone to let loose with the colored chalk, they still have not convinced anyone just how they’re going to come up with the cash they need to provide, assuming they even get the money from Nevada that they need.
But remember kids, it’s always important to dream big, especially when you’re playing with someone else’s money. In a city where the New York skyline has a roller coaster and the pyramids of Egypt have a light that’s seen in space, why not stuff the Sydney Opera House with a ballpark? No one likes opera anyway, right?
Mbappe still gonna Mbappe
If Kylian Mbappe is truly leaving PSG this time, and no one will believe it until he has one of those weirdo unveilings in July at the Bernabeu where 80,000 people show up to watch him juggle a ball for three minutes and take some pictures, he at least is attempting to go out in some style.
While manager Luis Enrique has been yanking Mbappe early in their games in Ligue 1 of late, nodding to the press about the future that will not include him as justification, he didn’t do so against Real Sociedad in the second leg of their Champions League Round of 16. And thus he was rewarded with:
Give Sociedad defender Igor Zubeldia credit on the first goal, he didn’t fall down while he was juked five feet out of position. As for the second, that’s far too nonchalant from that angle to have been done by any human.
And yes, the first goal was too powerful for even the net:
PSG aren’t good enough to win the Champions League, but Mbappe might be, if he’s in the mood to leave a parting gift for the club that catered to his every whim and that still wasn’t enough.
