Alex Box Memories

• Published: May 8, 2008 - Page: 6C - UPDATED: 12:30 a.m.

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Readers share their memories of LSU’s Alex Box Stadium as they join us in the countdown toward the final games of the 70-year-old ballpark and the transition to the new Box:

GEORGE EDMONSTON JR.
(Class of 1971)
Newberg, Ore.
When I first heard LSU might want to replace Alex Box Stadium with a shiny new version, I fought the idea for a long time. It wasn’t until seeing photos of the palatial new “Box” now taking shape just to the south of the old “Box” that I finally gave in to the inevitable.

But hear me out on this one. When that wrecking ball comes down on this beloved old stadium, with its nesting birds and its shop fans hanging from ancient wooden beams pretending to cool down the masses, its throw-back uniforms and the unmistakable smell of a thousand south Louisiana tailgaters, we’re going to lose something money can’t buy.

Money can buy new seats, new grass, new dugouts, new restrooms, new everything, but money cannot hallow the ground, or buy the history, or replace the very stuff of why old ballparks are so special. The teams, the games, the fans, all combine in the memory to give these green cathedrals their magic and spirit and unique place in the universe. It cannot be transferred.

What will I remember about The Box? Oh, the big games and the big names for sure, and that one time when the Tigers hit back-to-back-to-back-to-back home runs against a team from Arizona, and a mind-boggling comeback against Ole Miss, and this guy we used to call “Red,” who delivered papers for the Advocate and was at every home game with a set of lungs the size of a whale, using them to shout out this never-ending chant of “Tiger Bait,” “Tiger Bait,” “Tiger Bait,” delivered in a special cadence that only he had and that could cut through a crowd of 10,000.

And there’ll be those numbers on a sign down the left field line slowly shrinking to zero. Who could forget?

Mostly, I’ll remember those quiet summer nights 40 years ago when I would go to The Box with my brother Ron, and we would be there with a hundred other fans, especially the girlfriends, parents and fraternity brothers of the players, watching a sport where many folks on campus or around town didn’t even know LSU had a team.

Their names and their games and their seasons are now forgotten, but without their willingness to carry on the tradition of baseball at Louisiana State University, there would be no Skip Bertman, no five national championships, no “Intimidator,” no Coon’s Corner or Left Field Lunatics, no K-Lady. I will remember the passion these athletes had for baseball, and the place that gave them a stage to act it out.

To be sure, the new Alex Box Stadium will produce its own history, its own portfolio of memories, but let this new home of Tiger baseball never forget, it will forever stand on the shoulders of a giant, a spiritual place of purple and gold.

DONALD GHERE
Prairieville
I love the statistical anomalies of baseball. Seeing something that you have never seen before and will likely never see again. I saw one a few years ago at The Box that I surely will not see again.

I witnessed a ground ball struck to third base. The third baseman scooped it up and threw it to second for one out and (the second baseman) spun to throw on to first for a double play. 5-4-3 double play, score it!

But this one was different.

Bryan Harris played a rare game at third that night with Clay Harris at second and Will Harris at first. So that double play, which included three different players, went Harris to Harris to Harris.