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