5 Quotes by Neil deMause

If you're wondering what's wrong with Fenway Park in the first place, you're not the only one. Fenway is special precisely because it has what modern stadiums lack: seats that, while often cramped, offer the best views in baseball; and the sense that, if you squint, that could be Smoky Joe Wood pitching to Ty Cobb out there instead of Jeff Fassero and Bobby Higginson.

The more I talk to people, the more they confirm that both inside and outside of sports journalism there's a fair amount of awareness that it's not journalism as it's supposed to be.

That's why you didn't see, for example, the use of amphetamines discussed by sports journalists for decades - because it was something that wasn't in the public awareness. If somebody had started writing about the fact that athletes were popping amphetamines left and right, they would have been in serious trouble, and no one would have talked to them. That would have put their ability to do the rest of their job at risk.

A stupendous amount of money goes into public stadiums and arenas - probably somewhere upwards of $2 billion a year, when you count all the local, state and federal money that goes into it. And the public does not get back any sort of benefit close to what it's putting into it.

It's an inequitable deal, but teams continue to use the leverage of, if you want a team, well, you've got to play by our rules to extract money from the public.