Rainbow Stadium

[damontucker]

A hearing was held recently to discuss the issue of locking Aloha Stadium into football configuration permanently.

Your thoughts?

[kimo55]

Re: Rainbow Stadium

Your thoughts?

I like beer.
Think i'll bite off this hangnail.
does this bird like raisins?
I should eat one o those bananas.
wonder when maddy will post again.
hope it rains tonite.
Is that a mosquito? or my ears getting old.
gotta get to work on editing this sailing vid.
can't lag behind on projects.
Hinano musta changed its recipe. Tasts like Olympia lately...

[scrivener]

Re: Rainbow Stadium

Are you asking about Aloha Stadium or Rainbow Stadium?

[damontucker]

Re: Rainbow Stadium

err...my bad... I mean ALOHA STADIUM

can an admin help me rephrase that to Aloha stadium please...
mahalo

[damontucker]

Re: Rainbow Stadium

Ok I bite Kimo...

what's the words say on your avatar?
no make me bust out one magnifying glass!

[kimo55]

Re: Rainbow Stadium

no make me bust out...

don't tell me what to do!
don't make me open this can of whopp ass.
don't make me pull this car over!

[Miulang]

Re: Rainbow Stadium

A cautionary tale for you: Once upon a time in a city with the nickname of Emerald, there was a mighty concrete edifice called the Kingdome (built in the 60s). At the time of its inception, it welcomed baseball, football and soccer games along with various concerts (like the Stones) and consumer trade fairs (like the Boat Show). Acoustics were horrible but our baseball games were never rained out, and our football players never got grass stains on their pants.

Around 1999, the owners of the baseball and football team convinced the city council that baseball needed its own facilities and football needed its own facilities. So the City asked the voters to approve funding for 2 new single use stadiums. So even before the bonds for the Kingdome were paid off, the taxpayers went into debt to blow up one still useable structure to put up a new moveable roof baseball stadium (Safeco Field) and a new open air football stadium (Qwest Field). So the taxpayers of King Co. have been paying for 3 stadiums for 5 years now. Logistically, we didn't have much of a problem because they blew up the Kingdome (that was a spectacular scene that Sunday morning) and erected the 2 stadiums right next to each other. What got lost was a lot of surface parking (there went all the tailgate parties).

The bottom line is: if they lock Aloha Stadium's configuration for football, where would baseball games be played? You guys certainly don't have the land and don't want to spend money to build another single use stadium in Honolulu, especially since you don't have any major league franchises that can help draw in more patrons! Wonder how they decided that the football configuration was going to get more use than a baseball one? If Hawai'i had a minor league team like the Islanders again, where would those games be played?

Miulang

[kimo55]

Re: Rainbow Stadium

believe they have a place in mind for baseball.
what irks me is they passed off this aloha stadium, aka "da rust bucket" off on us with the promise it can and would be used for baseball and football.
liars.

[damontucker]

Re: Rainbow Stadium

If Hawai'i had a minor league team like the Islanders again, where would those games be played?

Rainbow Stadium on UH's Campus is one of the nicest "College" stadiums in the nation.

I read about that a few years back... I'm sure that stadium is just about the right size for a minor league park.

I know Joe Martin Field which held the Bellingham Mariners a semi-pro team (Where Ken Griffey Jr. Started) is about half the size of Rainbow Stadium.

[helen]

Re: Aloha Stadium

Aloha Stadium was able to handle football and baseball configurations, so no one lied.

I don't have a clue as to why minor league pro baseball sort of faded away.

But a few years ago there was the Winter Baseball League. One team used UH's Rainbow Stadium for their home games and another team on Oahu had someplace in central Oahu for their home games.

[kimo55]

Re: Rainbow Stadium

it's like redevelopment. Or any other big project pushed by the state:
"we must do this and can and it is justified. You all will get a baseball and football stadium."
So... they tear down the much beloved stadium on King St.
a park is in its place, now.
where homeless live.
where it's illegal to feed the birds.
They erect this rustbucket.
many complain is ain't got no soul.
they miss the character of the old stadium.
later we learn many seats don't have a view of some parts of the field.
It is rusting away.
NOW... they are taking away the baseball capacity.
That is lying to us. stealing.

[scrivener]

Re: Rainbow Stadium

I wouldn't call it lying, exactly. I mean, they used it for baseball for quite a long time before they went all-football, and then they used it for baseball again for a bit before deciding this past week to go all-football. It's an old stadium.

[Linkmeister]

Re: Rainbow Stadium

The Winter League is back in business, so they've currently got a rent-paying customer they should have to appease somehow before they can lock it into football. Knowing this bunch, they probably won't, then they'll get sued for breach of contract, and we taxpayers will be out a bunch of unnecessary money.

One of the reasons the Islanders left was that it got too expensive to rent the stadium based on the revenue they brought in. I attended a lot of Islander games at Aloha Stadium the summer of 1978 and later, and it got to a point where it cost me $3 to park and $2.50 to get a General Admission ticket. That made no sense.

[LikaNui]

Re: Rainbow Stadium

Unless I'm mistaken, what they're talking about is locking the grandstands into football configuration at Aloha Stadium. I believe they can still play baseball in that configuration, and I remember (while Chavez Ravine/Dodger Stadium was being built) watching the Dodgers play baseball in the Coliseum, which is a football field. For baseball, set up kinda diagonal and with temporary fences to mark the outfield boundaries. And yes, some of the far grandstand seats don't get used for baseball games.

[scrivener]

Re: Rainbow Stadium

What someone said about Rainbow Stadium is correct. Whenever Baseball America has done a survey of college baseball coaches, Rainbow Stadium finishes first or second, based on lots of things including the audiences, the field, and the visitors' accomodations. It's much, much, much better than almost every college baseball stadium I've seen (that field at Keehi Lagoon that HPU plays at? I've seen lots of college teams' fields that looked just like that).

Rainbow Stadium and Hans L'Orange Park (another good facility) are probably sufficient for this island's needs, including those great Winter-League games. My only problem with Rainbow Stadium is the astroturf. It makes no sense not to have a grass field in Hawaii.