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On a beautiful springlike Saturday, and with college baseball running through his veins (and knowing that Texas Tech is on its way to sweeping BYU) this reporter sought some temperorary "baseball jones" relief. I thought of heading down to Haymarket to catch some of the Husker scrimmage, but that didn't seem quite right. There was something different in the air... I felt something bigger, more powerful, trying to lure me to it. Suddenly, a fierce craving for a Hot Fudge Malt from Zestos hit me; I then knew I was being drawn to Rosenblatt Stadium to check out how the new constuction was moving along.

I ran over the scheduled improvements in my mind: Changing the outfield wall to a continious height of 8 feet from foul pole to foul pole (it was 6 ft in the left and right fields and 10 ft in the batters eye). Moving the power alleys back 10 feet to make it 370 in right and left (the distance down the lines will remain 332). Removing the wooden & metal skeleton outfield bleachers and replacing with new, continious ones. And replacing the wooden grandstand seats with new plastic ones.

For this mission, I needed my ace photographer, The Stick (actually my 11-year-old nephew and son of Jarhead). I gave him a call and asked him if he was ready to go do a story. Without knowing the destination he immediately replied "In Omaha? I felt it too." And picking him up we headed 50 miles east on I-80.

Talk was scant, but insightful. The Stick wondered aloud whether Adam Riddle possessed the arm to keep runners at bay like Stern did. I commented that it might be tough for some teams to "solve the Riddle" (thus starting what surely will be a record number of word plays with his name). I wondered how Van Horn was going to replace the lead-off/2 hole combo that had pitchers heads spinning as they tore up the basepaths last year. "Cole was the man," added the Stick. "Yeah, Cole was the man," I replied.

Interstate traffic was light, and we easily made our way to 1202 Bert Murphy Avenue and parked on the stadium's south side. Parking was surprisingly scarce because the Henry Doorly Zoo was doing mid-summer like business in the 60+ degree weather, and this overflowed into most of The Blatt's parking spaces. As we got out and headed toward the pavilion area, I noted to myself how much easier it is to maneuver around this place in January then in June (knowing full well this was useless information). The Stick and I walked by the J Doe sculpture, who looked a little lonely in his home-run swing pose, to the front of The Road To Omaha statue. Gazing at the statue, I imagined red hats with white N's on the players displayed; this brought a slight smile to my face as it's mid-January and here I am standing on Rosenblatt's pavilion daydreaming about Husker baseball (which is probably part of the reason they call me the Freak).

The season is a long way from being over I thought (or even beginning), no need to jump up there and join the dogpile now. After taking a few obligatory pictures in front of the statue, we made our way towards the left field foul pole. With plenty of work trucks parked along the third base (west) side, I was hoping to breach security via an open workers' gate. Walking toward the left field bleachers, the Stick and I saw our chance: an open gate which a truck was using to retrieve metal bleachers that were stored in the parking lot. As the worker was loading another bleacher, my accomplice and I slipped in. After walking 10 steps I heard a question from the Stick, "We're not going to get arrested by coming in here are we?" "Nah", I replied. "We'll just flash our Huskerpedia credentials and talk our way out of it." With an approving nod, I saw I restored my nephew's wavering confidence.

Standing beyond left field, the first construction improvement we noted was the removal of ALL the old, rickety outfield bleachers. The ardent CWS fan knows (as well as the perennial bleacher creature) that these outfield bleachers were about 20 years past their prime. Actually made up of 4 different sets of bleachers, these dinosaurs were barely of high school stadium quality (which is ironic, as I came to find out, one set of them will be relocated to the Omaha Bryan High Bear Baseball Field, near 48th and Giles). All were different shapes, sizes, and capacities from each other, which when empty, made for a truly "minor league" effect. On this particular day the left field bleachers were completely gone, though the ground looked ready for new assembly to begin. But, the new right field bleachers were almost done. And man, those babies look SWEET! I cannot describe the way they enhance the stadium (see Stick's Pics), but I'll try to: The new bleachers are one color, silver metal (I don't know if they'll be painted or not ... probably not as it would've been easier to paint them before assembly). They are made up of two connected sections, upper and lower, with a large aisle running halfway up in between the sections. What is extremely nice is the upper section seats are a solid 5 feet above the walkway, which makes a line of sight at least 7 feet above the walkway, which should be plenty for the first row in the upper section to see over anyone walking below. I mention this as those in some of the grandstand seats aren't as fortunate. The seats located the first couple rows above the median walkway have a line of sight between 5 and 6 feet above the walkway, thus making it impossible to see the action without standing when people are walking in front of you (which during the CWS is darn near the whole game!).

I stared at the new right field bleachers wondering how they'll look packed with crazy baseball fans, and beach balls flying about. They'll look fabulous, I quickly decided. Although the official press release says the overall bleacher capacity will increase 500 with the improvements, but this reporter thinks that is a little low, and I would guess more than 1,000 additional seats will be availiable at general admission prices.

The next improvement was the outfield wall moved back and in its new place. This is a great idea, as this park has become a national laughingstock in some games, most noteworthly the 1998 Championship game in which USC held Arizona State to two touchdowns and won 21-14 (a part of me can't help wonder why a few years ago homeplate was moved out 10-15 feet to begin with ... Then I remembered they needed to add more field level box seats for the corporate sponsors).

As we took a few pics, a couple of stadium workers were watering the new grass that was put down over the old warning track. The new warning track has yet to be dug, and the rest of the outfield and infield grass has a surprising healthy green/yellow mixture to it (Jesse Cuevas is also the man, I mumbled).

Our work done in the outfield, my photographer and I headed into the grandstand to see how work was coming on replacing the wooden seats. We walked up through the stadium concourse and emerged behind home plate undetected. Looking around we noted that all the older, wooden seats had been removed (this was mainly in sections D-O), and the new seats were in varying stages of construction. Some sections had the new seats completely in, some had just the backs up, and other areas were cleared as they had just been painted. A few painters near us, I grabbed one for an interview. "Hey man, how's the painting going?", I asked Eric Peterson, supervisor of stadium painting. "Good. With the great weather we are weeks ahead of schedule." I then probed Eric for any potential problems or missed deadlines. "None, except for the water draining out the floor, but we're drilling holes to relieve that. All crews should be done and out of here before the Royals' (formerly Omaha Golden Spikes) opener in April." Excellent, I thought, plenty of time to tweek any problems that arise between April and June.

Making our way back to left field, I passed one of the new seats and looked at it closely. Wow, that can't be 18 inches, as I roughly measured the width. I then turned and tried to look at my own backside. "I don't think you're gonna fit, Uncle Freak", the Stick said unsolicited. "Yeah ... I may have to buy two seats together this year."

After evoking a laugh at my own expense, we poked around the concourse (which was still annoyingly small, even with only the two of us in it) and made our way outside with my baseball jones curbed for the time being. I said to the Stick, "C'mon, we got our scoop, now I'd like to buy you a malt at Zestos..." "OKAY!!!" interrupted the Stick. I then finished, "But I can't, they don't open until March." As his smile disappeared we started to laugh together, and walking back toward the car we decided March 5th can't arrive soon enough.