Roy Waters: Baseball parks - old and new

For someone who first played baseball in a cow pasture, baseball parks have always been special places to me.
The first one I played in was the old Morganton High field. The remnants can still be seen across the street from the CoMMA.
Not long after that, a cousin took me to Shelby to see the defending American Legion national champion team play and I saw an even better ballpark.
It was on my senior trip to Washington that I got to see my first major-league park, the old Griffin Stadium. That day I had an even greater thrill as the visiting team was the New York Yankees with my favorite player, Joe DiMaggio, in centerfield.
On a trip to the New York World's Fair in 1965, I made it to the "park of all parks" — Yankee Stadium. What a thrill it was to come up and out of the subway and cast my eyes on "The House That Ruth Built," as it was known in that day.
It was built in 1923 during Babe Ruth's heyday and was the most grandiose ballpark in the country. Nothing else even came close.
Football's first great stadium, the Los Angeles Coliseum, followed in 1932, just in time for the Summer Olympics.
This is the last year for Yankee Stadium as the new one is being built across the street. When I first heard the news a couple of years ago, it was like the shock you feel when someone passes away, like it just seems that the world couldn't do without.
Baseball players old and new referred to in a popular book as "The Boys of Summer" all have a special place in their hearts for ballparks and seeing them is about as special as seeing their games. This is why I made a trip last week to Forest City and Shelby.
You may think it's quite a stretch to go from Yankee Stadium to these two neighboring towns. In some ways it is, but all ballparks are unique.
What I saw in Forest City blew me away. The city has a new $3.5 million stadium that has the most beautiful playing field I have ever seen. The grass was mowed a little higher now that the season is over and that, along with all of the rain, gave it a uniform green color that was absolutely beautiful.
The park has a steel-covered grandstand with a large section of folding box seats. It has a concrete area on the first base side for future expansion.On both sides of the field there is a large grassed area for fans to sit in folding chairs. There are over 2,000 permanent seats.
As you enter the stadium there is a very impressive brick column and a wrought-iron fence down the right and left field sides. Just across the street is a huge parking lot.
A modern, enclosed press box sits behind the grandstand seating area.
This past season, Forest City fielded a team in the Coastal Plain League. The team was made up of college boys who play with wooden bats instead of the aluminum ones most schools now use.
They call their team the R.C. Owls, which like our Morganton Aggies, is the name of the town's pro team used in the 1950s. They drew an incredible 65,000 fans for the season, an average of almost 2,000 per game.
Steve Holland, a city councilman, got the fundraising started with a $285,000 gift from the Robert McNair Foundation. McNair, a Forest City native, now owns the NFL's Houston Texans. The field will also be used for high school and American Legion games.
Whereas Forest City started over on its former field, Shelby improved its existing complex to the tune of $1 million. The upgrade was needed to host the American Legion Junior Baseball World Series, just completed last month. The city won the World Series in 1945.
The seating at Shelby is very much like it is at Forest City. The covered, steel grandstand area may be a little larger and there is another seating area just beyond first base.
The stadium's front entrance at Shelby was impressive as it was all brick to the top of the grandstand and continued toward first and third base.
I give Forest City the nod because of the playing field and all-new construction. Both of these towns over the years have been into baseball a little more than we have in Morganton and now it really shows.
If we get the Southeastern Little League Headquarters, we'll have to build an even nicer facility than these but if we don't, look for something close at Catawba Meadows Park in the near future.

Roy Waters is a sports columnist for The News Herald. Waters was baseball and basketball coach at Salem High School from 1955-1966, where his teams won 18 championships. In 2007, he was inducted into the Burke County Sports Hall of Fame.